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Kickstart Today
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Wednesday February 13th, 2008: Issue #887
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 Martin!
It's time to go wildly off topic - if Kickstart can be
said to have a 'topic'!
Later this year, scientists will switch on a huge
machine that has been built deep underground in
Switzerland. The 'Large Hadron Collider' as it is
called is a vast 27-kilometer circumference racetrack
for subatomic particles. The idea being to whizz these
tiny specs of matter round and round the track at
unimaginably high speed and then watch what happens
when they crash into each other.
Scientist hope that the collisions will release exotic
energies and even smaller particles - the building
blocks of everything.
There are other such colliders around the world, but
this is the biggest, the most powerful and hopes to
find the weirdest new aspects of matter and energy.
All well and good, but a couple of large-brained
Russian scientists have done some math and come up
with the thought that it is possible that one of these
super-energetic collisions could open up a tiny hole
in time. A kind of wormhole through time and space.
Time travel, according to Einstein, is theoretically
possible, but the snag is that you can't go back in
time any earlier than when the first time machine was
built.
So we can't go back in time, but if the Russians are
correct and the Large Hadron Collider does create
wormholes in time/space, then the moment that happens
could become 'Day One'.
Now that's an interesting thought.
There are scientists who doubt that time travel would
ever be possible - Stephen Hawking is one - because of
the potential paradox of being able to go back in time
and killing your own grandfather. If you did that,
you'd cease to exist, making it impossible for you to
have gone back and committed the deed.
Others sidestep this issue by saying that all you'd do
would be to open up an alternative universe, so there
would be no paradox.
Mind bending stuff.
As I was pondering the idea that the switching on of
the LHC could become the earliest moment that future
time travelers could go back to, it struck me that
human nature being what it is, they would all want to
go back as far as they could. And given that we don't
end up destroying the planet in the near future, there
is an infinite future for people to come back from.
Does that mean that this end of the wormhole will
instantly be filled with an infinite number of time
travelers all trying to occupy the same space?
The prospect of an infinite amount of matter appearing
at a single point of space/time is far more alarming
than the idea of visitors from the future holding
grudges against their grandfathers. Wouldn't it create
a black hole under Switzerland that would immediately
eat up the whole planet?
That makes grandfather-slaying seem a bit tame!
Isn't science fun when you know enough to get into a
tangle, but not enough to worry about the facts!
#~#~#
Delia and I went up to London on Monday to formally
part company from our accountant of ten years. I was
dreading it, but the new lady we saw last week seems
to be so much more in tune with the way my business
runs. She even knew what Internet marketing was
without me having to explain it to her.
Maybe I should get her to explain it to me!
And best of all, she is less than five minutes away,
whereas getting to my previous chap is a 90-minute
journey.
Now that I feel a lot more confident about the
accounts and book keeping side of my business, I feel
a big weight has lifted off my shoulders. I hadn't
realized until now just how much of a brake my
concerns about all that had been.
Now it is time to move onwards and upwards!
#~#~#
A couple of weeks ago I bought an ebook. Nothing
unusual there, I buy them all the time.
What was strange, and very unlike me, was that having
bought it, I promptly forgot about it. I didn't even
open it to read the first few pages.
Then weirder stuff started happening.
One of my very good friends online mentioned the book
and asked me if I'd read it. I said no, not yet.
Then she told me how she had already used the
information in the book to get her accountant to do
all her books for her for free! As I know that that is
a couple of thousand dollars in value, my ears started
flapping.
But still I didn't go back and read the book. Other
things took my attention and I forgot about it again.
Then out of the blue, I got a phone call from an old
friend who I haven't heard from in maybe a year.
One of the first things he asked was if I'd read the
book. It seemed he had, and within a week of doing so,
he'd made more than £2000 ($4000) from putting its
advice into action.
Something told me that fate was trying to draw my
attention to this book! I printed it off and took it
to bed with me.
But STILL I didn't get round to reading it. Until last
night. and then I read and read until it was finished.
Then I went back and read parts of it again.
This morning I'm tired out and wishing I'd gone to bed
earlier but my head is buzzing with ideas. That really
is one powerful book!
The book is called 'Offline Gold For Online Marketers'
by Andrew Cavanagh. The subtitle is 'The Simple System
for Selling Your Online Marketing Skills To Local
Businesses'.
My goodness, it is good stuff. Having done some of
what is recommended myself in the past, I know that
this works. And two friends making great money almost
as soon as they'd put the book down is proof enough
for me.
In line with many of the books I've recommended
lately, this one is low cost, but it packs a punch way
above its price point.
'Offline Gold for Online Marketers' is one book that
should be in your library. But don't do what I did -
you need to open it, read it and put it into action
the moment you get your download. Don't waste a
moment.
http://www.kickstartdaily.com/offlinegold/
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An Inspirational Thought
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I received this list of life principles recently and
thought it might make you smile. Needless to say, I
don't agree with ANY of them! (Except perhaps #14.)
1. Rome did not create a great empire by having
meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed
them.
2. If you can stay calm, while all around you is
chaos... then you probably haven't completely
understood the seriousness of the situation.
3. Doing a job RIGHT the first time gets the job done.
Doing the job WRONG fourteen times gives you job
security.
4. Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into
jet engines.
5. Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural
Stupidity
6. A person who smiles in the face of adversity...
probably has a scapegoat.
7. Plagiarism saves time.
8. TEAMWORK...means never having to take all the blame
yourself.
9. The beatings will continue until morale improves.
10. Never underestimate the power of very stupid
people in large groups.
11. We waste time, so you don't have to.
12. Go the extra mile. It makes your boss look like an
incompetent slacker.
13. INDECISION is the key to FLEXIBILITY.
14. Succeed in spite of management.
15. Aim Low, Reach Your Goals, Avoid Disappointment.
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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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Winston Churchill said,
"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity.
The optimist sees the opportunity in every
difficulty."
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Today's Power Thought
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How much time can a twenty-minute meeting waste?
The following scenario is a pretty typical sequence of
events in millions of offices the world over. It
doesn't matter what line of business you are in, human
nature dictates events, not you!
A meeting is set for 11 AM.
You get to your office at around 9:30, knowing that
you have to be in the meeting at 11.
You open your post, read your emails, maybe make a
quick phone call or two and possibly read up a little
background before the meeting. What you don't do is
start any work because in the back of your mind you
know that you won't have time to finish it.
The result is that at least an hour and a half is
frittered away.
Then the meeting takes place. Twenty minutes. Hah!
Who's kidding who?
Let's get real here. How many meetings have you been
in where the real reason for calling it has even been
raised in twenty minutes, let alone dealt with?
I'm going to be generous here and allow an hour - but
we all know that the vast majority of 'quick' meetings
drag on far longer than that.
If you're lucky you'll be back at your desk by 12:15.
Lunch break is in 45 minutes - are you REALLY going to
start any work now? No, I didn't think so.
So that quick twenty-minute meeting has in reality
taken up the entire morning. It has wasted
3-and-a-half hours.
Even subtracting an hour on the assumption that the
meeting had some value, that is still two hours and
thirty minutes of dead time. Time that could have been
fruitfully used for all kinds of other things.
(And be honest, was the meeting really necessary
anyway - in my experience, at least half of all
meetings are held for form's sake rather than from any
real concrete requirement.)
And to make it worse, if ten people are involved, that
is 25 hours of company time down the drain. Work out
the likely cost to your company of that!
What is the solution?
There are a few and they are all simple.
1. Always question whether you need to be in a meeting
(I am assuming that you have the seniority and
authority to do that). Much of the time the meeting
will be perfectly well run without you.
2. Suggest that all meetings be held no earlier than
one hour before lunch. This will ensure that most of
the people there are keen to get away, and will free
up all of the morning for more productive work.
3. If late meetings aren't possible, request an early
time. If your office starts work at 9:30, ask for a
9:00 start. Early meetings invariably overrun, but at
least you will have salvaged most of the morning.
4. If you have been asked to attend a meeting with the
promise that it 'won't take more than half an hour',
schedule something else for 45 minutes after the
planned start time. That way you will have a
legitimate excuse to bow out, and will send a message
to the other attendees that your time is valuable.
5. As far as it is within your power, ensure that the
meeting has ONE critical point to cover - and cover it
first. If you have to leave the meeting early, at
least you will have contributed to the important
matter.
There are lots more things we can discuss about
meetings - both from the point of view of attendee and
organizer - but for now, concentrate on preventing
your meetings from stealing time.
It is good for your work, good for your company and
VERY good for you.
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Fascinating Facts
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Here is one of those facts that when you think about
it you have to wonder at the sanity of the person who
did the calculation:
The Mall of America, located in Bloomington, Minnesota
is so big that it can hold 24,336 school buses.
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