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Kickstart Today
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Wednesday Jan 3rd, 2007: Issue #758
Kickstart Today is published three times each week for
opted-in subscribers only. Publisher: Martin Avis. Your
comments are always welcome – to respond to anything you
read here, please click ‘Reply’
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Greetings!
Welcome to 2007 – the year when all possibilities are
spread out before us.
What did 2006 bring for you? Are you pleased with how the
year turned out or disappointed with yourself for wasting
yet another opportunity to realize your inner-most dreams?
New Year is just a date on a calendar. There is nothing
magical about midnight on December 31st apart from being a
convenient reminder to reassess the way our lives are
going. But traditionally we like to make ourselves
promises for the year ahead and allow dreams to surface
that the rest of the year we suppress.
I’m not a great fan of New Year resolutions. They seem to
me to be more of an excuse for failure than any realistic
spur towards new success. That’s why I’ve written my own
twist on it in today’s Power Thought section.
* * *
The end of 2006 turned out to be somewhat unexpected for
me. On December 31st I woke up in hospital. Luckily I was
home in time to see in the New Year with some friends, but
the episode has left me feeling distinctly below par.
Rather than go into all the details here, I’ve written up
the story of my good and bad New Year’s gifts on the
Kickstart blog at http://www.kickstartdaily.com/blog/
* * *
I used to enjoy the occasional burger and fries from the
world’s most famous fast food restaurant. For my kids, a
visit to maccy-d’s was a treat that they looked forward
to.
Then something changed.
I don’t know what it was, but something about the place
started to creep me out. Maybe it was the food or maybe it
was the type of people you’d find eating there.
Perhaps it was the knowledge that here was a company who
definitely had no intention of saving the world. Or
perhaps it was the dawning realization that each one of
the thousands of outlets was responsible for an almost
inconceivable volume of waste – plastic wrapping, styrene
boxes, card and paper by the container load – and that
wasn’t even accounting for the horrific volume of wasted
food.
Maybe aspects of their corporate heavy-handedness in
dealing with critics and protesters seeped into my
consciousness.
I don’t actually know what it was that began to change a
favorite family food stop into a symbol of all that is bad
in the world in my mind and in any case, my growing
reservations would have meant little in the face of the my
children’s pester power.
Except that, about a year ago, the pestering stopped.
I didn’t notice at first. It was only when we spent three
weeks in America in August 2006 that it dawned on me that
we were, without even discussing it, going to quite
extreme lengths to avoid eating fast food in general and
that particular chain’s produce in particular.
Three weeks in America and not a single fast food burger
passed our lips.
And that was mainly my kid’s choice.
When it dawned on me that their eating pattern had changed
I asked why.
“We’re sick of them,” they said, “the food there tastes
gross.”
Fair enough, but I wonder why they reached that decision -
I certainly hadn’t made my growing disquiet known.
So as far as the Avis family is concerned, the home of
Ronald has been off our list of acceptable eateries for
about a year.
Up to now, though, not in any evangelical way. It’s a
personal choice that for some odd reason we all seem to
have reached at the same time.
But a few weeks ago we heard about something that cast
this symbol of corporate greed in a different light.
One of my daughter’s friends works for them in our local
shopping mall. Shortly before Christmas the mall had a
bomb scare. Someone had left a suspect package and
security was called.
Bomb scares are a part of life these days, but however
frequent or likely they are to be nothing, they should
always be taken seriously.
That part of the mall was evacuated temporarily while the
package was investigated.
But not that burger joint. Oh no. Profits came first as
always and they refused to allow their staff to leave the
store – despite the mall’s policy. There might be a risk
of everyone being blown to bits, but someone might still
want to order a supersized upgrade as their last meal.
To me, that one action sums up the corporate culture of a
company that appears to have grown far beyond any concerns
for its customers or staff.
And it gives me a much better reason to not want to darken
their door again than the nebulous ‘I don’t much like the
taste.’ It’s not so much the food, as the whole corporate
culture that leaves a nasty taste.
* * *
Disappearing memories.
Some years ago I came across a big box of my dad’s old
home movies. Most of them were taken about 45 years ago.
I borrowed an old movie projector and set up a white
screen in a dark room and laboriously copied each 4 minute
film onto video. I ended up with a about a dozen 30-minute
tapes.
Over Christmas I thought it would be nice to take another
look at the movies and maybe try to edit some of them
down.
Except that I no longer own the VHS video camera I used
and can’t find the adapter that allows the small VHS tapes
it used to be played in a full-size machine.
I can still sort it out, but if this had occurred to me in
two years time, would I then have been able to find an
answer?
Will I still even own a VHS player by then – after all, we
haven’t played a ‘tape’ in years.
We live in a world where the media that we use to carry
vital information is becoming obsolete almost as fast as
we start to adopt it.
Take family tree research.
For centuries records of baptisms, marriages and deaths
have been dutifully written in ink on parchment or paper.
The language use can be hard to decipher but the
information is pretty easily accessible.
Now, most records are kept on computers. Will our
children’s computers be able to read information from the
ones we use today?
Come on. If I can’t even access movies that I made just
three years ago, what chance is there if data is stored on
old 8-inch floppy disks? Or the kind of hard drives that
used to take up half a desk. Or, punched cards?
If we’re not careful the digital age will become a vast
black hole where vital memories will be locked up and
rendered indecipherable to future generations.
Are your treasured memories of your children’s childhoods
locked up on betAMAx tapes? Good luck.
* * *
Maybe you are still in the post New Year glow when your
resolutions are firm. Or maybe, like most people the vague
promises you made yourself a couple of days ago have
already gone the same way as the ones made last year and
the year before.
That’s if you made any at all!
Well watch out.
In a few days time I’m going to tell you about something
that I’m launching that will make 2007 different for you.
You see, it isn’t making vague resolutions that will make
2007 better. It is about filling your personal tanks of
three vital attributes that work together to change your
life.
I’m writing a 14-day course that shows you how to max out
each of the three vital measures and how to use them
together to attract more success to your life that you’ve
ever had before.
I really want to help you to achieve all that you can -
and a lot more than you expect – in 2007 and so I’m
pouring everything I know into the 14 daily lessons.
I’ll tell you more about the course on Friday and some
extra news about how the course will be able to keep on
working for you way beyond the first 14 days.
Keep a watch out – it is coming soon!
* * *
Have you put your name down to be kept advised of future
Internet marketer’s London Lunches yet?
If not, and a long, leisurely lunch in London in the
company of Internet marketers of all levels appeals, then
please pop on over to http://www.london-lunch.com
If you have signed up but haven’t yet clicked the link in
the confirmation email, please be aware that you won’t
receive any emails about the next lunch until you do!
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An Inspirational Thought
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The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new
year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose;
new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes.
Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he
would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh
about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.
Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has
never existed before, it is quite certain that he will
never exist afterwards.
- G.K. Chesterton
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Who do you know who would love Kickstart Today?
Don’t keep it to yourself – send them to
http://www.kickstartdaily.com today!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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The Quote of the Day
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Oscar Wilde said,
“Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a
bank where they have no account.”
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Today’s Power Thought
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New Year’s resolutions are a waste of time.
Let’s make up some statistics: 20% of people make vague
resolutions and 99% of those people forget all about them
within 5 minutes.
The rest forget about them within 6 minutes.
Harsh? Maybe, but still largely true.
New Year’s resolutions are excuses for not doing anything.
Somehow, the idea has spread that so long as we start the
new year with some vague good intentions, then all will be
well with the world. No effort required.
Well, if you take on board anything at all of what I
ramble on about in Kickstart, let me tell you that nothing
can be achieved without effort. Effort is what makes
things happen – especially change.
So let’s be honest with ourselves and finally admit that
fuzzily hoping for change is not going to bring it about.
What we all need – me included – is a new term.
Out with the resolution and in with the New Year’s
Revolution.
A New Year’s Revolution.
Take a moment to let the implication of that new phrase
sink in because revolution is what you are going to need
if you really want 2007 to be better than 2006.
The best definition of revolution I’ve found is this:
‘Drastic action or change.’
And, perhaps more tellingly, the listed antonyms
(opposites) are: stagnation, status quo, submission.
Do we really want 2007 to be another year of stagnating
submission to the status quo?
Unless your dreams are of your life carrying on exactly
the same as is has done up to now, I rather doubt it!
Revolution is necessary because it is so easy to give in
to the numbing blanket of inactivity. We all need – and I
am most definitely including myself in this – a damned
good shake up!
I am determined that starting now I will reassess the way
I do everything. And I hope that you will too.
A lot of people have said that I’m revolting. In 2007 I
might just prove it!
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Fascinating Facts
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Some more weird laws from around the world.
In New York, the penalty for jumping off a building is
death.
In Florida, it is considered an offense to shower naked.
In Washington, when two trains come to a crossing, neither
shall go until the other has passed.
In Thailand, it is illegal to leave your house if you are
not wearing underwear.
In England, all males over the age 14 must carry out two
hours of longbow practice a week supervised by the local
clergy. (Damn, I’ve got some catching up to do!)
In South Africa people under the age of 21 wearing bathing
suits must sit more than 12 inches apart.
I love to read weird laws, but I’d love even more to learn
how many of them came into being. Why, for instance, did
someone in the State of Florida feel the need to pass a
law prohibiting a man from having carnal relations with a
porcupine? Surely common sense would have been enough!