3 Stories

Thursday
7:37 AM

I've written about Steve Jobs before.

In fact I think I sent you the video
of him giving this speech.

Take it to heart.

Listen.

Think about what he's saying.

In memory of Steve Jobs, who passed away yesterday here's
the speech.

Like I said, this was a graduation speech to Stanford University
graduates, delivered by Steve Jobs -- who was, at that time,
the CEO of Apple and of Pixar Animation Studios.

This speech was delivered on June 12, 2005.

-----------------------------------------------------------

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from
one of the finest universities in the world. I never
graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest
I've ever gotten to a college graduation.

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's
it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but
then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so
before I really quit.

So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a
young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to
put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should
be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set
for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife.

Except that when I popped out they decided at the last
minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who
were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the
night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want
him?" They said: "Of course."

My biological mother later found out that my mother had
never graduated from college and that my father had never
graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final
adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when
my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose
a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all
of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my
college tuition.

After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no
idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how
college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was
spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire
life.

So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work
out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it
was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I
dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that
didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that
looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I
slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke
bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would
walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one
good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And
much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and
intuition turned out to be priceless later on.

Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best
calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the
campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was
beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and
didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a
calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about
serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of
space between different letter combinations, about what
makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical,
artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and
I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in
my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the
first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we
designed it all into the Mac.

It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I
had never dropped in on that single course in college, the
Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or
proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied
the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have
them.

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on
this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not
have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was
impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in
college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten
years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can
only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust
that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have
to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma,
whatever.

This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the
difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky -- I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz
and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We
worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the
two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over
4000 employees.

We had just released our finest creation -- the Macintosh -- a
year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got
fired.

How can you get fired from a company you started?

Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very
talented to run the company with me, and for the first year
or so things went well. But then our visions of the future
began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When
we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I
was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of
my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt
that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down
- that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me.


I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to
apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public
failure, and I even thought about running away from the
valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me -- I still
loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not
changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still
in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired
from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened
to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the
lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about
everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative
periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT,
another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an
amazing woman who would become my wife.

Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated
feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful
animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of
events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the
technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's
current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful
family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't
been fired from Apple.

It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient
needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick.
Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that
kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to
find what you love.

And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and
the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe
is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love
what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking.
Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know
when you find it.

And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and
better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find
it.

Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If
you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll
most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and
since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the
mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the
last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to
do today?"

And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a
row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important
tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices
in life. Because almost everything -- all external
expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or
failure - these things just fall away in the face of death,
leaving only what is truly important.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know
to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your
heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan
at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my
pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The
doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer
that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no
longer than three to six months.

My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order,
which is doctor's code for prepare to die.

It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought
you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few
months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so
that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It
means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I
had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat,
through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into
my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor.

I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when
they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started
crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of
pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the
surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope
it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived
through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more
certainty than when death was a useful but purely
intellectual concept:

No one wants to die.

Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to
get there.

And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has
ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death
is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is
Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for
the new.

Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now,
you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry
to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone
else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma -- which is living
with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the
noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.

And most important, have the courage to follow your heart
and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want
to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called
The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my
generation.

It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from
here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his
poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal
computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with
typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of
like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came
along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools
and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole
Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put
out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age.
On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of
an early morning country road, the kind you might find
yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath
it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."

It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay
Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for
myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that
for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

----------------------------------------------------------

that was Steve Jobs...

a real visionary

Don't settle for less.

Life is way to short, and you realize that more and more
the older you get.

Enjoy your day.

Dr. Carney

Are You Sloppy at Your Office or Place of Work?

Tuesday
7:53 PM
Wow.

I'm listening to Def Leppard and enjoying writing my blog today.

See if you like it, and leave me a comment.

If there's one thing I cannot stand it's sloppy
customer service. I mean I hate it when someone, like
a young person treats you like you're navel lint.

I mean you're lucky if they even acknowledge you as a
customer.

So today I'm going to rant about it... by telling you
a story of one of my mentors. He sent me this email and
I'm going to share it with you.

Here's his story.

We spent three nights at a 5 star hotel over
the long weekend, with breakfast included.

On the last day, we were handed a bill for $76
for two full breakfasts.

I spoke with the lady in charge of welcoming
people, except she refused to smile and was
clearly the wrong person for the job.

Rather than calling reception and sorting things
out, she said I had to pay and I could get
refunded at reception.

I refused. And she eventually hand-balled it to
reception (but without calling them).

When we went to reception on check-out it was
a non-issue.

Why couldn't that lady have made a simple call
to reception? Why couldn't she have done
everything possible to ensure she didn't annoy a
customer? Why did she have to inconvenience
us for the problems with their system? Why did
she have to offer such sloppy service?

Because she...

DIDN'T CARE ENOUGH

Which brings me to a point about customer
feedback forms.

I was chatting with a client last year who said:
"We never get any negative feedback on our
customer feedback forms - only 5 stars."

I asked him: "Who do people hand the forms to?"

He said: "The person who did the job"

I said: "Are you crazy. Do you think the customer
is going to hand in negative feedback directly to the
person they are unhappy with? And if they do, what
are the chances they will get thrown away / ripped
up before they reach you?

He said: "Oh, yes. I didn't think of that."

So the rule is: Make sure the feedback form goes
directly to you. And don't make them sign it or
anything like that. People like to be anonymous.

And really that's best.

The second rule is: Make sure you read it. Even
Richard Branson says he reads and responds to all
letters from business class customers to his airline,
saying: "It's not wasting time, it's research."

And it prevents you from unknowingly offering
sloppy service.

Make sure you're getting feedback from your patients
and customers. If you don't, you're going to lose business.

That's just the way it is.

Dr. Carney

Do you like it?

Tell me if you like this.

Okay, it's just the end of winter.

Your car looks like a pig pen, inside and out.

Then you find this AD.

Would you consider having this done.

Pretty simple, but there are a lot of ways to skin
the cat and this is just one of them.

use this example as a template to write your own ad
or contact me and we'll talk.

Enjoy your day.

If you're not marketing like this, you're missing out
on bigger and better money.

Easier too.

Here's the AD.

"What Are People Thinking About You?"

Driving a shiny car is a great way to experience luxurious transportation without the hassle of chartering a yacht or riding a peacock to work. Transform your regular vehicles into ritzy rides with today's Autosmart Mobile Detail Coupon, redeemable throughout Fallbrook, Murrieta, and Temecula. Choose between the following ultimate car detaining options:

* For $39, you get an Imperial detail package for one car (a $185 value).
* For $79, you get an Imperial detail package for two cars (a $370 value).

Autosmart Mobile Detail's trained and detail minded technicians tote powerful equipment and biodegradable cleansing products to cars, purifying paint jobs, expunging interiors, and leaving your ride gleaming like they just came off the show room. Experienced staff, like Zeus and Poseidon showing up at a party, bring their own water and electricity to your chosen location, letting you kick back in comfort without worrying about high utility bills. The imperial package TEAM scours your car inside and out, beginning with a thorough vacuuming of the interior and trunk space before an aromatic shampoo absolves upholstery and floor mats of past fast-food and droppings. Then our techs carefully polish all vinyl panels, pockets, and cup holders, venturing into middle consoles to clean darkened corners, before sanitizing sullied door jambs.

Moving to the exterior, our chassis chasteners purge exterior paint jobs of debris and impurities with a gentle hand wash and "clay" application. Your ride's tires and rims are then cleaned, polished, and dressed while staff members listen sympathetically to cars gossip about how the Mustang down the street never washes behind its tires. Then your windows and chrome are washed to a glossy state, and the detail package culminates with an eye-catching high-gloss glaze. Your car will never 'feel' and 'look' this good again.

If you're interested in creating an eye catching ride, in less than two hours, CALL the office today and schedule an appointment with the Doctors of Detail, Kim and Larry. You'll love the results. In fact, you'll be driving an almost 'new' car for virtually pennies. Call today. (951) 760-0798

Now Featuring the SECRET: Benefits!

1:09 AM
Tuesday morning

As you can tell, I don't have anything else to do, except write this blog and that's what I'm doing right now... for you.

One of the most repeated rules of compelling copy is to stress benefits, not features. In other words, identify the underlying benefit that each feature of a product or service provides to the prospect, because that’s what will prompt the purchase.

Now unless you're an accomplished marketer you don't know what I'm talking about probably.

Okay hold on and you'll find out why this is important to your bottomline.

This is one rule that always applies, except when it doesn’t. We’ll look at the exceptions in a bit.

Fake Benefits

The idea of highlighting benefits over features seems simple. But it’s often tough to do in practice.

Writers often end up with fake benefits instead.

Fake benefits will kill sales copy, so you have to be on the lookout for them in your writing. Here's an example:

Balance Blood Sugar Levels Naturally!

That sounds pretty beneficial, doesn’t it? In reality, there’s not a single real benefit in the headline.

True Benefits

Apply the “forehead slap” test to see if your copy truly contains a benefit to the reader. In other words, have you ever woken up from a deep sleep, slapped yourself in the forehead, and exclaimed “Man… I need to balance my blood sugar levels naturally!”

I don't think so.

So getting someone to pull out their wallet to buy that so-called “benefit” will be difficult at best.

Here’s how to identify the real benefit hidden in that headline:

Nobody really wants to balance their blood sugar levels.

No one.

But anyone in his or her right mind DOES want to avoid the misery of blindness … cold, numb, painful limbs … amputation … and premature death that go along with diabetes.

Are you getting it yet. And this info applies to ANY BUSINESS.

ANY BUSINESS.

A high risk person will want to avoid the terrible effects of diabetes.

That is the true benefit that the example product offers.

How to Extract True Benefits

So, how do you successfully extract true benefits from features?

Here’s a four-step process that works:

* First, make a list of every feature of your product or service.
* Second, ask yourself why each feature is included in the first place.
* Third, take the “why” and ask “how” does this connect with the prospect’s desires?
* Fourth, get to the absolute root of what’s in it for the prospect at an emotional level.

Let’s look at a product feature for a fictional RSS Feed Reader:

Feature:

“Contains an artificial intelligence algorithm.”

Why it’s there:

“Adds greater utility by adapting and customizing the user’s information experience.”

What’s in it for them:

“Keeps the things you read the most at the forefront when you’re in a hurry.”

Emotional Root:

“Stay up to date on the things that add value to your life and career, without getting stressed out from information overload.”

Getting to the emotional root is crucial for effective consumer sales. But what about business prospects?

When Features Work

When selling to business or highly technical people, features alone can sometimes do the trick. Pandering to emotions will only annoy them. Besides, unlike consumers (who mostly “want” things rather than “need” them), business and tech buyers often truly need a solution to a problem or a tool to complete a task. When a feature is fairly well known and expected from your audience, you don’t need to sell it.

However, with innovative features, you still need to move the prospect down the four-step path. While the phrase “contains an artificial intelligence algorithm” may be enough to get the Slashdot reader salivating, he’ll still want to know how it works and what it does for him. The What’s in it for me? aspect remains crucial.

For business buyers, you’re stressing “bottom line” benefits from innovative features. If you can demonstrate that the prospect will be a hero because your product will save her company $120,000 a year compared to the current choice, you’ve got a good shot.

While that may seem like a no-brainer purchase to you, you’ll still need to strongly support the promised benefit with a detailed explanation of how the features actually deliver.

Remember, change scares the business buyer, because it’s their job or small business on the line if the product disappoints.

Sell With Benefits, Support With Features

We’re not as logical as we’d like to think we are.

Most of our decisions are based on deep-rooted emotional motivations, which we then justify with logical processes. So, first help the right brain create desire, then satisfy the left brain with features and hard data so that the wallet actually emerges.

If I were you, I'd read this again and again until it actually makes sense.

When you can relate to your copy like this, you're going to SMASH the competition with your ADS.

Dr. Carney

YOU are a GENIUS... How about just 8 words...

Sunday again

10:54 AM

I'm writing a ton of stuff today.

Why?

I don't know, but hey maybe it's the
new software I've installed on my
computer that gives messages to my
subconscious every 4 seconds.

I'm not sure, but I'm a changed man
and it's happened overnight, so you
decide.

Here's the post for today.

**************************************

How You Can Raise Your Intelligence Level to
Genius...and I mean "Literally" a GENIUS.

I've come across a man who's become infamous for one thing:

Taking everyday people and showing them the "backdoor" to becoming
off-the-charts brilliant. We're talking about increasing the
"average Joe's" I.Q. by 30-50 points!

In other words, this man can show you how easy it is to flip your
hidden "brain power" switch and unlock an incredibly impressive
memory, concentration, and creativity... almost instantly

Seem too good to be true?

Follow the link below and read the success stories. Oh I'm not going
to give you the link, just the video.

You'll see a lot of skeptics who've become evangelists for this man.


**************************************


Will you react to "Life Changing" Information?

If you think about it for a minute
there are only two short questions
you need to ask people to find
out the current state of their lives:

"How are you doing?"

"How are you feeling?"

Ask those two questions of anyone and you will
quickly find out how their lives are going.

With the patients I've seen, I can attest to this.

You ask them those two questions, and you'll
get an ear full.

Funny isn't it, how it only takes 8 words to get
an entire snapshot of a persons current state of affairs.

"How are you doing"

Their response to this question will probably
include information about how their job is going,
their current financial condition, their marriage,
you see it is a very broad question that could generate
responses about relationships, lifestyles, spiritual well
being, and on and on.

"How are you feeling"

Now this question is quite different, it is not a broad
question at all, it is very direct and very specific.

Think about it.

At the moment you ask this question people are usually
feeling good.... or bad.

The responses you want to hear when you ask this question
of someone else, or even yourself is this:

"I am feeling great and doing great."

Are you feeling great and doing great RIGHT NOW?

I hope your answer is "Yes," but if you are not feeling great
right now I have something that will make you very happy
because it has the power to make you feel great... ALL THE TIME!

"Only if you want to."

"Only if you care enough about the way you feel to take a bold
step."

"Only if you value your own body as much as you do your car"

Sound crazy?

It's not.

You would be surprised at how many people
spend more time and money maintaining their cars than they do
maintaining their own bodies.

Yeah I'm a chiropractor, I have some amazing knowledge I only share
with my patients and some close friends, and some amazing machines
that have changed my life.

My job is to fill you with information that can change
your life.

My job is to do the research on success strategies, medical
and nutritional discoveries and other self improvement
information so that you don't have too.

My job is to deliver that information to you for FREE
in this blog.

So, "What is your job?"

Your job is to absorb the information that I provide to you and
make a decision to act or not act on that information.

Ask yourself this simple question:

"Can this information help me or not?"

Sometimes the information only requires you to change your
lifestyle, to create a new habit in your life. Sometimes the
information points you to a book that can change your life.

Guess what.....some of the information will be ideally suited for
YOU, for your current situation and some of it will not be.

That is for you to decide.

But think about this for a moment....if the information that you
just read was potentially "life changing," and you did not act on
that information, how could it change your life?

It could not.

It would not. .

You did not give it a chance to.

So with that said, I'm going to give you the video to watch.

Let me know what you think.

Dr. Carney

http://youtu.be/Tet4mo6Df8w

Are you selling yourself the right way?

How to Sell Yourself (and Why Your Business Depends On It)

To get ahead in life and practice, you need to be in the business of selling. If this statement makes you cringe, it is probably because the word “sales” evokes images of annoying telemarketers and pushy car dealers or someone you don't think you are.

Don't worry.

If you want to make money, you have to sell.

Even if you just sell yourself.

Relax, though, as this is about a product so wonderful and special you should have no qualms in selling it.

So what’s the product?


-
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-
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YOU!


/
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/
/
/
/
/
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/
/

Yeah YOU.

There are endless situations in life where
the key to success is the ability to sell yourself to others.

ALWAYS REMEMBER: They are buying YOU...

In your career, the ability to convince a new patient that you are the best doctor for their problem is critical. When it comes to relationships, your ability to show your best qualities can be the crucial factor in clinching the sale.

When you think about it, if you cannot sell yourself as a doctor to others, you are going to have a difficult time selling them your ideas, your wishes, your needs, your ambitions, your skills, and your experience.

Despite the necessity of being able to sell yourself to others, for many people like myself it does not come naturally.

Introversion, shyness, and lack of self-worth are just a few of the obstacles that can potentially get in the way.

To overcome such obstacles, I suggest focusing on the following:

Be Sold on Yourself
This is the first, and perhaps most important, aspect to successfully selling yourself to others.

Unless it comes naturally, this is probably also the hardest. Being sold on yourself comes down to this: you must be aware of your own self-worth.

This means you believe in yourself, have faith in yourself, and have confidence in yourself.

Being sold on yourself is not something that usually happens overnight. It is possible to change your life and gain a sense of self-worth when there was once none.

If you struggle with your sense of self-worth, here are just 3 ideas that may help:

Live in such a way that you would want to be friends with yourself
Find some time to reflect on what you like about yourself. If this seems hard, start with the smallest of attributes.
Don’t do anything that will give you cause to feel ashamed later.

Have a Saleable Package
This post is predominately about letting others know about the inner contents of your package.

That being said, there is no getting around the fact that people judge others based on their appearance. I know that sounds crazy but it's true.

When you finally realize this, your life will change. Some questions you may consider asking yourself are:

am I looking after my appearance to the best of my ability?

Are my clothes appropriate for the image I wish to project?

Are you the doctor, DOCTOR?

Are you the salesman that you want to be?

Are you the minister?

Are you the nurse you should be?

Be Positive and Enthusiastic
Can you remember the last time you received poor customer service? I do.

Did the person look bored, disinterested, and as if they wanted to be anywhere but that place? Don’t be that person. Positivity and enthusiasm can both be developed, but once again it takes work.

Here are a few tips to help you get there:

Look for the best in people
Associate with positive people
Care deeply about something
See life as an adventure
Smile

Be Real and Authentic
Rather than being about who you appear to be, selling yourself is about letting others know who you are as a person.

For this reason, lies and half-truths are a recipe for disaster later down the line. By telling the truth, you will earn both trust and respect which, in turn, will help you build a great reputation.

Not only that, it will make you feel good about yourself.

The last thing you want to do is sell yourself out by compromising your values and principles.

Now as a BONUS, let me tell you how to KEEP great help without adding more money to their paycheck.

I've already went over 12 of them, so I'm going to revert back to
the last 7.

I've given the others in a previous blogspot, so if you don't know where they're at you're going to have to go back to square one and start reading my entire blog. That should take you awhile, but you'll love the results.

13. Casual Dress Day. This will apply more to the Business-to-Business world based on the difference in normal dress codes from the Business-to-Consumer arena. For those required to "dress business" every day a casual day becomes a popular desire.

Use holidays to create theme color casual days such as red and green before Christmas or red, white and blue before July 4th, or black and orange prior to Halloween.

This will add to the impact you're trying to have by calling a casual day in the first place. Establish pre-vacation casual days for each individual employee to enjoy on the day before his or her vacation.

Major sports events are a perfect opportunity for casual days to support your local or favorite team with appropriate colors, buttons, and logo wear. Spontaneous casual days produce a lot or stimulation based on the element of surprise.

Announce a casual dress day for the following work day "just because." Use individual or team casual dress days as contest prizes or awards for specific accomplishment.

14. Time Off. Implement contests that earn time off. People will compete for 15 minutes or 1/2 hour off just as hard as they will for a cash award.

And in many cases, I have had people pick time off over cash when given the choice. Put goals in place (padded of course) and when these goals are reached by individuals, teams or the entire staff, reward them with time off. Allow early dismissals, late arrivals, and extended lunch periods or additional breaks.

15. Outside Seminars. Outside seminars are a stimulating break. Because outside seminars are not always cost efficient for most people, consider on-site seminars or workshops for your staff.

Use outside seminars as a contest prize for one or two people. Then set up a structured plan for those seminar attendees to briefly recreate the seminar to the rest of your people when they return. Now everyone gets educated for the price of one.

16. Additional Responsibility. There are definitely employees in your organization who are begging for and can handle additional responsibility. Our job as DOCTORS is to identify who they are and if possible match responsibilities to their strengths and desires.

17. Theme Contests. Over the years my contests have produced up to 170% increase in performance. But equally as important, they've helped maintain positive environments that have reduced employee turnover by 400%.

Overall the most successful contests seem to be those affiliated with different themes. Holidays, anniversaries, sports and culture are examples of ideas to base contests on.

Sports, without a doubt, provide the largest opportunity for a wide variety of contests. Even Culture can be used to create theme contest.

My favorite is using the '50s and '60s as a theme for a contest that I run at least once a year.

18. Stress Management. There are many articles and books available on the subject. Make this reference material available to your patients. Make sure they know it is available and encourage them to use it.

If possible, have an in-house seminar on stress management techniques for your patients and staff. So that production time is not lost, you might consider having a brown bag luncheon with a guest speaker on this subject.

Because stress is an ongoing concern, anytime is a good time for a seminar like this to take place.

Be as flexible as you can with breaks during the course of the day.

19. Pizza/Popcorn/Cookie Days. Every now and then pizza, popcorn, or cookie days will help break up that everyday routine and help people stay motivated. Because it is a natural tendency for people to get excited in anticipation of something, structure some of these days in advance.

Then buy some pizzas or different cookies or even whip out some different types of popcorn.

20. Gags and Gimmicks. Use different gimmicks as awards to help inspire performance increases from your staff. The key to awards is establishing the perception of priceless value that is associated with them. They should be recognized as status symbols in your environment.

Here are some of my ideas:

• Plastic/rubber whale for "whale" of a performance.
• Pillsbury dough boy for the person raisin' the most bread.
• Cardboard stars for star-studded performances.
• Plastic phonograph records for setting a new record.
• California raisins for those with the highest percentage of "raisin" their productivity.
• Special parking space for the person who drives the hardest.
• Toy cymbals for those "symbolizing" total effort.
• Special Mountain Dew can for that person who exemplifies the "can do" attitude.
• A figurine of E.T. for out-of-this-world performance.
• The Eveready Bunny for those that keep going, and going, and going.
• Large Tootsie Roll replica for those on a "roll."
• A drum for the person that "drums" up the most business.

Have fun, and THINK how you can make your business even better than it already is.

Stay focused.

IT pays off.

Dr. Carney

The Blame Game

Sunday for Monday Post
8:06 AM

Hey I've got a question I want to ask you.

Do you know what the “blame game” is?

I thought I did.

But you know, I didn't.

It’s blaming circumstances, others, the weather, the economic climate, the market, your prospects and anything else you can think of for your misfortune.

Ever done that?

I have.

I've got some news for you.

The ONLY thing to blame for your misfortune is YOU!!

Get over it. You are to blame for all the misfortune… and also the success in your life.

I started reading a book, David Schwartz’s “The Magic of Thinking Big.” And in this book, David told me that I was to blame for the all the failure and success in my life. He went on to say that I was responsible for my life and no one else was.

I mean if I'm making $1,000 a month or $256,498 a month, it was on ME.

If I was living in a trailer house, paying $200 a month, or a 3,000 square house,with a swimming pool, it was all on me.

If I was living in Oklahoma, enjoying my ONE LIFE, or in California, living a great life, doing what I wanted, it was all on me.

A lot of people, early in life have grabbed this concept and went on to be very successful businessman and millionaires many times over because THEY wanted it and had a burning desire to do it.

You better not make an excuse. There are no excuses. “Man up or woman up” and take responsibility. You are the only one to blame.

So when it comes to the success or failure of your business, YOU and ONLY you are responsible.

Don’t blame the economy.

Don’t blame the work force.

Don’t blame your spouse.

Don’t blame your route drivers for not getting customers.

Don’t blame your tough competitors.

Don’t blame the high prices of rent, labor and utilities.

Don’t blame anyone or anything but yourself.

You are solely responsible for your success. And you are solely responsible for your failure.

You and only you can make it happen.

So what are you going to do right now about this new found or re-found knowledge?

Right this moment–and I don’t care what time it is or what day it is–take some action at this moment on a way to get more business for your business.

START right now!!

Get off your BEHIND as you’re reading this and do something right now!!

If you don’t know what, scan through this blog and figure something out.

And if you really want to take your business into orbit, (forget the next level) give me a call. My coaching is only $497 a month and it makes you responsible for what you're doing and that --- will make you at least an extra $100,000 a year if you're doing what I tell you do.

It's your choice.

I can only tell you about it.

You are responsible for making the call.

Dr. Carney