On croquet, a game of strategy, grace, humiliation and malice. Mere football cannot compare.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. Friend, I suspect you are not up on the all-important words and necessary phrases from the world of croquet. That is scandalous, of course, and you should be ashamed of yourself for the dereliction. Fortunately it can be remedied at once by going to the always helpful Wikipedia, where you'll find an admirable glossary. Go now... and while you're there be sure to find the original score for the quirky film "Heathers." (1989). Why?

Because those ever inventive jeunes femmes fatales invent a game (so clever, don't you know) called "strip croquet". You won't play it in your neighborhood; your crusty neighbors would be scandalized... but I can play it in mine, because I live in Cambridge... where beautiful young people abound, glorious to look at but without the sense they were born with. They'd love the inspired innovation. Play the theme music right away. It will put you in just the right frame of mind for this scrutiny of one of the most conspiratorial and vengeful games on earth and where (on the pretext of helping another player with her grip) you can snuggle up without demur...

Lord Reggie learns the power of croquet...

Lord Reggie Pasworthy was in despair. This 7th impecunious son of the impecunious 17th marquess of Unworthington had heard, always on the very best authority, that Lady Pamela Noacres had cast sheep eyes at...... but that couldn't possibly be... for she was... his... and had once nearly said so. She couldn't...... she wouldn't. But it appears she might.

What could he do?

He applied at once to Basil Uppercrust, who knew all but said nothing, so admirably discrete, so clever Basil. "Freddie, old chum, you need to do only one thing to be right as rain with the gel... " Then he whispered just one word......

"Croquet".... and immediately wrote his cousin the duchess to arrange a week-end where Lord Freddie might shine amongst the wickets, his admirable figure displayed to best advantage.

Though it has been many years now since that week-end at Castle Allworthy not a thing about it has been forgotten. How Lord Freddie confounded Lady Pamela's advance with a ball-in-hand.

How Lady Pamela distracted him by proposing a double-bank with her grace. (He won that, too.)

How it all came down to the final hoop... and that unforgettable moment when Lord Freddie took control, determined, insistent, a gentleman no longer but a beast, my dear, I tell you a beast.... Lady Pamela's temperature rose from tepid to scalding... from polite interest to... riveted... while Freddie ran the hoops until he completed that glorious sextuple peel to roquet her ball spinning down the verdant acres... and when the gallant victor offered his lavendered handkerchief, her fate was sealed...

The engagement was announced in the "Morning Post" just today.

The plight of the World Croquet Association.

Pity the situation and plight of these admirable folks and their invaluable efforts on behalf of croquet. They want us to see croquet in the benign light of demos and beer.... when most of us enjoy the game because of its unabashed elitist, aristocratic nuances played out with insouciance and fine champagne on the most perfect grass we have ever seen, the result of hundreds of years of arrogance and care.

A brief history of croquet.

Ask anyone (anyone, that is, of any intelligence and discernment whatsoever) just where croquet was invented... and, without missing a beat -- they'd tell you "Why, old man, in Jolly Old England, what." And, of course, they'd be wrong... and, such are the ways of croquet, they'd also be right.

Croquet scholars (fastidious and accurate) will tell you the rules of the modern game arrived from Ireland during the 1850s, perhaps coming from Brittany, where a similar game was played on the beaches. A game called "crookey" was played at Castlebellingham in 1834 and, in 1835 was played in the bishop's palace garden; later that year it was played in the genteel Dublin suburb then called Kingstowne (now Dun Laoghaire) where it was first spelled as "croquet." There is, however, no pre-1858 Irish document that describes the way the game was played... but the Irish don't care about such details. They claim croquet and that is that...

...but, of course, that most assuredly is not that, especially if you are of the English ilk, and damn their cheeky assertion.

In the book "Queen of Games: The History of Croquet," author Nicky Smith offers another hypothesis. Smith says that the game was introduced to Britain from France during the reign of Charles II of England, and was played under the name of paille maille or pall mall, derived ultimately from the Latin words for "ball and mallet." This is what the "Encyclopedia Britannica" wrote in 1877. But of course the xenophobic Britannica would say so, wouldn't they?

But at last there is documentary evidence that confirms English inventiveness and croquet paternity. Isaac Spratt is the champion. He created the oldest document known to bear the word "croquet". He wrote a description of the modern game of croquet and the first set of rules and regulations of a game which became ever more esoteric, obscure, arcane. Just the way the players like it!

Spratt's contribution came in November, 1856 when he filed his document with the Stationers' Company in London. It is now in the English Public Records Office. In 1868 the first croquet all-comers' meeting was held at Morton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire and in the same year the All England Croquet Club was formed at Wimbleton, London. There was absolutely nothing democratic about any of it, and one would have drunk beer, instead of a stirrup cup, at one's considerable peril.

This result, however, was unacceptable to Ellery McClatchy, dead at 86, in September, 2011 at his home in Pope Valley, California.

If you live in Northern California and are even remotely with it, you will recognize at once the surname, for there (and amongst the politically sentient) it is a household name because of their substantial newspaper properties, not least the major paper in Sacramento, the Bee. As you may imagine, to have such a property, such a position in the largest state in the Great Republic is to have financial resources... and the time and ability to pursue your particular interests. In this case... croquet.

McClatchy was, and this is crucial to the case, an all-American boy; thus he disdained the exclusivities of old regimes everywhere. He had a "desire to make croquet available to people of all ages and to see croquet lawns in a great variety of places," according to a profile on the US Croquet Association website. He pursued this inclusive objective over the many years he was a ranked croquet player and in 1995 when he was inducted into the US Croquet Hall of Fame.

While we all think highly of his years of effort, democratic (or republican) croquet is not what any of us desires. Which is why our favorite croquet match ever is the one overseen by the Queen of Hearts in Lewis Carroll's immortal book "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The balls are live hedge hogs and the mallets are opinionated flamingoes. It is curious, odd, unconventional, the best way to play this marvelous game which puts dull baseball and interminable football in their places. I say "off with their heads" to any with the reckless temerity to gainsay me.

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

Of polar bears. As the water rises, their prospects fall.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. What music is appropriate for the undoubted decline and possible demise of one of the grandest creatures on earth -- Ursus maritimus -- the polar bear? I have selected Edvard Grieg's 1867 masterpiece "From the hall of the mountain king", for this is the story of a race of kings, sovereigns all, ruling over a land of snow and ice... a land now melting, imperiling these princes of the North... whose prospects for survival wane as the sea waters around them rise, a rise which threatens human kind, too. This is their story... and we must heed it for they are not threatened alone. You'll find Grieg's suite in any search engine. Find it now... and listen to its evocative, enigmatic sound. This sound will endure.... but will the polar bears whose tale I tell this day?

The seas at the top of the world are rising, rising...

While politicians argue about cause and effect, the undeniable fact of global warming and rising seas is beyond cavil and dispute. Sea level has been rising significantly over the past century, according to a newly released study that offers the most detailed look yet at the changes in ocean levels during the past 2,100 years.

Researcher Benjamin Horton, director of the Sea Level Research Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, found that since the late 19th century -- as the world's industrialization intensified -- sea level has risen more than 2 millimeters per year on average. That's a bit less than one-tenth of an inch... a small amount that signals death for polar bears... and chaos for seaside humans, drip by inexorable drip. It's all about rising temperatures.

Rising sea levels are among the hazards that rightly concern environmentalists and progressive governments with increasing global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels like coal and oil over the last century or so.

The heat generated works to steadily melt some of the millions of tons of ice piled up on land in Greenland, Antarctica, and elsewhere. Such melting raises ocean levels and this, in turn, raises the possibility of major flooding in highly populated coastal cities and greater storm damage in oceanfront communities.

Polar bears must swim further and further for food...

Researcher Anthony Pagano, a US Geological Survey biologist, at the International Bear Association Conference, has, in his newly released study, made it clear what happens to polar bears as the snow melts and the seas rise. He identified and studied 50 long- distance swims by adult female polar bears between 2004 and 2009 in the southern Beaufort and Chukchi seas.

"Climate change is pulling the sea ice out from under polar bears' feet, forcing some to swim longer distances to find food and habitat," said Geoff York, a polar bear expert at the World Wildlife Fund who coauthored the study.

And the cubs simply fall off...

York said polar bears, tracked by satellite devices, routinely swim 10 miles or more for food, principally the seals they dote on and devour. But as the seas rise, these distances increase. Twenty bears in the survey swam more than 30 miles at a time. The longest-distance swim was 426 miles; the longest-lasting swim was 12.7 days, with a few brief breaks on drift ice. All this is bad enough, but here's the tragic element: eleven of the bears that swam long distances had young cubs when researchers attached the tracking collars. Five of those mothers lost their cubs while swimming... and thus the breed and its prospects are diminished...

Facts about the threatened polar bears, majestic, now vulnerable.

The polar bear, universally admired, is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak bear, which is approximately the same size. An adult male weighs around 350-680 kg (770-1,500 lb), while an adult female is about half the size. Although it is closely related to the brown bear, it has evolved to occupy a narrower ecological niche, with many body characteristics adapted for cold temperatures, for moving across snow, ice, and open water, and for hunting the seals, which make up most of its diet.

The polar bear is classified as a vulnerable species, with eight of the 19 polar bear subpopulations in decline. Researchers estimate there are 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears worldwide; they are listed as threatened under the US Endangered Species Act.

"Nanook of the North."

Over the course of uncounted centuries, the intricate, necessary symbiosis between the polar elements, the polar bear, and Inuit and other indigenous peoples of the North has slowly, carefully evolved. The Northern people revered the bear whose flesh they enjoyed... they called the polar bear "nanook"... and took the name proudly for themselves.

In 1922, Robert J. Flaherty made one of the most celebrated documentaries of the silent film era, "Nanook of the North", calling it "A Story of Life and Love In the Actual Arctic." In the tradition of what would later be called "salvage ethnography", Flaherty captured (and some critics said staged) the struggles of the Inuk Nanook and his family in the Canadian arctic. In 1989, this film was one of the first 25 films selected for preservation in the United States Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

But the human Nanook, though most assuredly a predator of the ursine Nanook, was never a problem, for he took only what he needed... and was never wanton. He never forgot he needed nanook. No, he is not the problem, though human kind as a whole most assuredly is. For we as a genus are thoughtless, careless always anxious to shift the guilt, the burden, the responsibility to others for what we have done.

And what's terrible about this so sad situation is this: we know what to do and when and how to do it. We don't need more learned studies; for studies about the future of the polar bear and its irrevocably changing environment are frequent, thorough, detailed, and unanswerable. We need action... before this matter becomes, like the histories of so many other species, academic.

But, for now, let us end as we began, with Edvard Grieg, master of unsurpassed, haunting melody. A creature of the North, knowing Winter well, he cherished the fleeting glories of Spring. In this spirit, he composed something so beautiful it is painful to listen to. He called it "Last Spring", and you must go to any search engine now to play it. Let it fill your heart with compassion for the great creatures now completely at the mercy of their greatest predators, us. Let us pray that this song of soul by Grieg remains great music only and that there is no "Last Spring" for Ursus maritimus, beloved of man, dying through the works of man.

For where shall we find your like again; You who thrilled us so?

Where shall we look when you are gone you who have been made by God?

When you are gone who will care for why when your great heart beats no more?

God will know... ... but He will not say for we who were bade to cherish failed you.

So now we lament... too late Now we shall know you not and nevermore.

Never to play again under the great northern lights once your heaven.

Where then have you gone? You whom we loved, and failed...

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

One of the proudest days of my life... the day I give you Internet success through a unique gift you can only get from me!

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. Today is a red-letter day for me... one of the most important days of my life. For such a day nothing short of one of our weary world's greatest masterpieces, Beethoven's "Ode to Joy." (1824), will do . Please play it before you read this article. You cannot but feel the thrill and exultation. If a human being can do this, human beings can do anything. Find it in any search engine and turn up the volume. Then you'll know how I am feeling now as I prepare to give you a gift only I can give and which has taken me a lifetime to perfect.

Deaf... sublime.

When great Beethoven sat down to compose his 9th Symphony, of which the "Ode to Joy" is perhaps the most celebrated part, he was stone deaf. Yet in his capacious, extraordinary brain the music rang out to thrill the world. He could have said, "a deaf person cannot compose," everyone would have understood such a conclusion and offered the usual words of sympathy... but that is not the way of people with a mission to improve the world. They recognize no obstacle! Do not give way to defeatism! And reach deep into themselves to find what they alone can give the world and its people who rely upon such genius for relief! Instruction! And improvement! For you see those who have such a gift must give such a gift... and today I give such a gift, the greatest I have ever given, to each of you.

The struggling world... and the profound promise of the Internet.

I have now been on the Internet over 18 years, about a third of my life. During these years I have witnessed humanity's struggle to make sense of this monumental invention which has the undoubted power and demonstrated potential to connect people everywhere and enable them to say what they want to say without shackle or inhibition.

Now think a moment: for the first time, the very first time, in the long cycles of humanity each person can, with the simple expedient of an Internet connection, present himself, in all his wonderful uniqueness, to others who have the ardent desire to do the same, without the pernicious intrusion of any of the world's Thought Police who have intervened with impunity and malice in all previous epochs.

The Internet brooks no interference... no one telling you what you can do...when you can do it. Yes, for the first time in human history each person has a voice that can be heard... that must be heard.... and so transform the world -- for good and ill.

Is it any wonder then that I have selected "Ode to Joy" and recommended that you play it now... for on our troubled planet we need all the help we can get and the Internet is here to provide it.

Commerce...

From the very first minute far sighted folk saw that such a means of connection could prove to be a superb means of commerce. But how? Most didn't know and so, without guidance, commenced a struggle which left them frustrated, confounded, angry and, too often, embittered. How, they wondered, could this astonishing invention produce a golden outcome for them? It was a question that millions asked -- and continue to ask -- but which only a comparative handful have ever answered successfully. With the almost daily assistance of my cherished partners George Kosch and Sandi Hunter, I have found such success... and been given the opportunity to give it to others. Today we celebrate that opportunity and its ability to uplift! Enrich! And empower people worldwide.

It all started with a blank sheet of paper.

I am not just a writer, but a published writer, which is a very different thing. To write to connect should be every writer's objective... and it has certainly been my objective since my first article appeared in print 59 years ago, when I was 5 years old. You may well imagine what a heady thing it must be for that child, any child to experience such excitement. Once you've had it, you spend the rest of your life wanting more and doing what is necessary to get it. In this regard I have been most fortunate... having written thousands of articles and 18 books, mostly on business themes. My word has been carried -- and frequently, too -- on radio, television and on the lecture circuit. But my connection with the Internet has radically transformed the entire matter of content and given me the means to give you substantial advantage every single day.

How?

As I have often said and frequently written and emphasized, "the list is the business, the business is the list." Thus each person desiring to succeed in business must spend a significant amount of time building a list, and this activity must be a part of each and every day that you desire to remain in business and increase your profit.

But maintaining your list, growing your list cannot, on the Internet, be your sole objective; that would be protecting your list and ensuring that you can use it daily to email ad copy to your subscribers. The problem is, if you only email ads day after day to these subscribers, they will quickly become disenchanted, even disgusted, with you... and manifest their displeasure by unsubscribing your list, thereby depriving them of all benefits you offer and yourself of their golden custom.

This is the exact situation in which most Web marketers find themselves... and why so many of these people are killing their lists, thereby killing their profits.

Here's where I -- and Bill Gates -- enter the scene and why you need to pay attention to our message. Gates has famously and enigmatically said of the Internet, "Content is king." What does he mean? Just that people will not put up with an unceasing avalanche of ad copy; they need more, much more. They need content... and if you create a blog and give them this content you can accompany it -- every day -- with the ad copy that generates the revenue. Problem is, most people cannot write engaging, meaningful copy and cannot afford the cost of hiring the people who could create such copy for them; it's just too expensive.

That's where I come in... I can and will produce such copy -- for free. And today we recognize and celebrate the completion of the first 365 articles, one for every day of the year. These articles, all about 1500 words in length, are timely, intelligent, often provocative, always informative and, my signature and pride, beautifully written. Let me explain the importance of these articles and why you are fortunate to have them: they save your all-important lists from being destroyed by your subscribers, people who want more than a steady diet of ads and as such are invaluable.

Let us be very clear with each other: if you email nothing but ads, you will kill your list and thus obliterate your business. Thus, you have these options. Email the ads anyway and test my thesis (suicidal); try to write such copy every single day yourself (highly unlikely given your writing skills). Or you could hire the necessary talent to do the work, thereby breaking the bank. Or...

You could use the copy I have created for you... and which I give to you, thereby enabling your list and with it your business to grow and flourish while I provide the necessary (and always beautifully written) copy. And that is why we are celebrating today... not just for what I have written... or how well I have written --- but because with these often lyric articles I am keeping your online business on the profit path.

"You millions I embrace you," and give you the best of which I am capable for our mutual joy -- freude! So now finish as we began... with Beethoven and his "Ode to Joy". For we, now working together, have everything to be joyful about! Let the celestial sound soar... as we do -- together! Freude!

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. , providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

Welcome to my house. What you must do -- or say -- and not do -- or say --if you ever want to be invited back. (I'm serious.)

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. It took me the better part of nearly 5 years to suffer through the demolition of my Cambridge condominium and through all the never-ending (and always expensive ) stages to its glorious resurrection as a place fit for -- me. Naively I thought I knew what would happen next, would happen that is when 25 years and more of serious art collecting would be positioned, each item in its appointed place, each contributing its special characteristics to the overall effect, the sum producing the critical "Wow!" factor.

Yes, I thought I knew just what people would do and say upon entering this earthly paradise, brilliantly lit, extravagantly appointed, a thing of beauty and a joy forever. But, as I still cannot quite grasp, I was wrong. And so, as a matter of your domestic comfort and serenity of mind, I am sharing my experiences with you... and you will thank me -- vital if you should ever remodel and rehabilitate. God help you.

Let's get the contractors out of the way.

This is not a story of how to select a contractor, attempt to bind them through contracts which are never to your advantage, much less how to keep them on schedule, within the budget. I am still not calm and judicious enough to write about that. My remarks on the subject of contractors deal with something I knew nothing about before undertaking this signature project; I did not know how many people have brothers-in-law and cousins, too, named Vinnie.... how much did you say you paid; Vinnie's unlicensed but he could have saved you a lot of money... and look how your contractor is gypping you. The conversation always went something like this...

Delivery man brings package to my door... and sees I'm remodeling. "Can I take a look?" What you should say now is "Over my dead body"... and slam the door in his face. But it's too late; the ever quick and curious delivery man is inside, and scrutinizing.

After a couple minutes of intense peeping, he renders his considered opinion: "Dr.," he says, "what you're doing here is amazing... incredible... You paying a lot of dough?" He doesn't wait for an answer; he knows... and he knows I know he knows. I nod. Already I feel his hand in my pocket.

"Yeah, I'm sure. I wish I'd known. I gotta cousin Vinnie, over in Everett, Mass. Let me make a call, Doctor, youse Harvard guys, no offense, are over your head with things like this. And I want to help you, 'cause I think the world of you." When they say that, you're doomed. It goes without saying that it isn't just delivery men, next-door-neighbors, people met casually in the grocery store check-out line who have cousins named Vinnie... no way. Every contractor seems to be amply stocked with the breed... and a cell-phone that instantly connects you, the money guy, with the next character certain to be feeding at the trough. Just writing this makes me break out in hives.

I can remember one dismal, and damned expensive, encounter with a never-ending conga line of unlicensed hooligans named Vinnie. Just telling you about one such encounter will, I trust, produce sufficient enlightenment for you without completely humiliating me. It concerned the recessed lights in my brand-new-in-every-way kitchen. I liked them.

But it is not the way of unlicensed cousins named Vinnie to like any work, any work at all, done by anyone other than themselves. They have made plausible disliking an art form... you've got to hand it to them, you never feel the complete effect of the shiv until they've left...

Electrician Vinnie didn't like the new, expensive, kitchen lighting system. It was too this and not enough that. He might have understood his mumbo-jumbo analysis but I (while always sagely nodding my head) did not. Anyway, next thing I know my brand- spanking-new kitchen lighting is a mass of pulled out wires and smashed glass on the floor. I don't mind telling you I threw myself down on the newly installed marble floor (soon to be re-laid by the flooring Vinnie) as if I were holding the mangled corpse of my beloved and wept bitter tears. Vinnie, of course, was already at work contacting the lighting fixtures Vinnie, who of course made me ashamed that I had ever had the temerity and bad judgement to do anything with anyone but him. Even with all the "special because I love you, man" discounts, the cost was 50% more than I had just paid for those now completely useless original light fixtures. I only knew, of course, after Vinnie gave me his "best offer, man."

Soon, my wallet was being emptied not only by the original Vinnie but by his shiftless son Vinnie, Jr. whose skill at creating and delivering excuses for not showing up as scheduled was astonishing; then his wife Mrs. Vinnie ("she can wash your clothes and clean your house") and of course those cute Vinnie by-blows of the next generation who took every opportunity to visit -- and devour whatever was not nailed down. I knew them all... and suffered accordingly.

But all bad things must come to and end... and so it happened here.

In due course, even the ever resourceful Vinnies of every kind and description ran out of even implausible ways to "help" me. In short, they had battened, waxed, and grown fat off that once happy and self-contented man -- me. One never to be forgotten morning, I woke to find they were gone, like so many gypsies in the night. Their tools were gone, even their half-eaten pizza (from Cousin Vinnie's grease pit in Medford, Mass) was gone... anything with any value, no matter how remote, all gone.

I felt as happy as any prisoner on Death Row getting an irrevocable, eleventh-hour reprieve. It was, in fact, the happiest moment of my life... but, of course, it didn't last. Happy moments in the midst of such projects are few and far between... but the tears are in my eyes now as I fondly recall the moment their removal was certain.

Problem goes, problem comes.

You know you are alive if you have problems. Only dead people don't. By this measure, I must be the most alive cat on the block. Not only do I have problems; I positively seek them out. This was conclusively proved when I went from the frying pan of construction into the fire of arranging and proper presentation of the beloved items from my art and artifact collections. I started collecting as a boy, coins, books, autographs principally political. And if I collected it I know just when and, in theory, just where it is now. It is a herculean task, I can tell you... and the days when the art movers were here drove me close to becoming a Franciscan monk... because they are allowed very few personal possessions. It seemed a good idea....

... especially after the art movers had probed the limits of human endurance by stunts, while hanging, worthy of the flying Walendas. I can assure you you never take your eyes off their lithe movements when what they are hoisting an irreplaceable 17th Century Old Master. But no matter how anxious such moves made me feel, it was worse when the first visitors came to see the results.

The first thing I say is, "Don't touch." Of course that then becomes the first thing they do. They ignore the Biblical injunction from Jesus who told them "Noli me tangere," don't touch!

The second, "no liquids in the drawing room." Moments later they are all but holding a car wash amidst the treasures of the Habsburgs.

And as if this were not enough, when they are poking and prodding, they say, "I have one just like this," they announce about unique, valuable silver from the descendants of Joan of Arc. "Yeah, I got it at a garage sale for 56 cents. How much you pay?"

I want you to know something. If I end up murdering one of my guests, the jury is sure to acquit me. Lawyer Vinnie will see to it...

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

The moans, groans, complaints and pontifications have begun as the Christmas marketing season of 2011 commences. Which side are you on?

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. Every year, it seems, the opening date for Christmas marketing creeps forward, adding days, not just hours, to the already lengthy selling season. This year my cadre of Christmas watchers reported seasonal catalog and store sightings as early as Labor Day, September 8 . But you can count on this: as people worldwide read this article, they will surely report even earlier sightings. This happens every year... and as it does one of the interminable debates of our times reignites: when is this much too much Christmas?

Ask this query in a crowded room and, hey presto, there will be pandemonium, mayhem, and strident calls for the public lynching of the people who so tamper with and wantonly extend the most important and revered holiday of the year. Christmas creep is here... and you have an opinion on this matter; I'm sure of that. Everybody does.

Christmas is the promised land -- for merchants everywhere. That's the problem.

Christmas purists, and their number is legion, never tire of beating up the merchants who are, they aver, at the bottom of Christmas creep. From this moment of the year forward, a large percentage of Americans will get up on any soap box to hand and excoriate, insult, belittle and besmirch people who earlier in the year they knew and attested to be good, hard-working, service-providing, tax-paying citizens. But where Christmas creep is the issue, truth and justice are early casualties.

People will creep... it's as American as apple pie.

Know any folks from California? Or Oklahoma? I do. They are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. They are also the descendants of creepers.

Take California for instance. There a grand gentleman named John Augustus Sutter was peacefully minding his own business when James W. Marshall on January 24, 1848 discovered gold on Sutter's land, at Sutter's Mill, near Sacramento. The nation didn't say, "Good for you, Mr. Sutter." No way. Instead they took to creeping on to old man Sutter's land, a little bit here, a little bit there... until the creepers had everything and Mr. Sutter had nothing but lawsuits and a footnote in history. A little bit of gold in them thar hills and a whole lot of creeping got us the State of California, and that's a fact.

Or consider the folks in Oklahoma. They're not called Sooners for nothing. In 1889, the federal government organized the great land rush, whereby folks who wanted land could get it free by racing for it against other land-hungry folks. Problem is, a good many of the wanters couldn't be bothered to wait... and so they crept out early and grabbed the good stuff. Yup, they were creepers and some of the best families of the state started that way, and that, too, is a fact. Creeping pays, and only a Grinch would disagree.

But Grinches proliferate the closer Christmas comes and its insistent, unrelenting messages.

Although there have been plenty of Grinches in our history, lives, and culture, the actual character debued in the 1957 children's book by Dr. Seuss, who was by all accounts a Grinch himself. It was titled "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and was adopted into a popular television special in 1966. In an instant people with anti-holiday spirit and growly disposition were indelibly tagged as partisans of that scowling hermit with green fur, red eyes, and boots who lives in an isolated cave near Whoville.

Now exuberant Christmas lovers had just what they needed to characterize and lambast the nay sayers, "Don't be a Grinch," causing the justly labeled Grinches to writhe and squirm. Just as they deserve. We all know it's fun -- and de rigueur -- to pick on each and every Grinch we know.

It's a question of dates.

After the fall in 1815 of Napoleon and his gimcrack empire, a peace conference was convened in Vienna to divvy up the spoils. Participants included Russia, England, Prussia, Austria and -- drum roll -- the France now ruled again by its Bourbon dynasty and represented by the Prince de Talleyrand. One day Tsar Alexander I of Russia, who always made such a bad impression as he rattled on about God and morality, was being particularly insufferable on the matter of how to divide the Kingdom of Saxony, which had, in his imperial view, stayed loyal to Napoleon a little too long. Its king, he insisted, should be losing half his country, or more.

Talleyrand, polished, aristocratic to his manicured fingertips, the ultimate cynic and realist, scanned his colleagues, each of whom (but the English) had made deals with Bonaparte, and renigged on them, snapped out that toxic phrase, "That, sire, is a question of dates."

And so it is with our Scrooges, our Grinches.

The person who wants no Christmas festivities at all, just strict, gloomy adherence to what they suppose has been ordained and sanctified.... are Scrooges to the people who want the Christmas season to exist for a day or two, but not more. These, in turn, get dubbed as Grinches by those who want more... and there are always those who do. And so it goes...

... merchants trying (especially nowadays) to make up for one punk month after another, delving deeper into the calendar....

... thereby fueling yelps of outrage and righteousness from folks who raise the cry of too much self-seeking commercialism too early...

... thereby forcing those who might even agree in theory, to push the adamant seasonal marketing forward and forward again, as an act of mercantile preservation and profit.

Each says, "Enough is enough"; each points fingers and mouths frantic imprecations; each postures, preens, pouts, and always acts and speaks as if truth lived in their house and only their house. So there!

Whoa! The baby at the center of Christmas has indeed been thrown out with the bath water, and this will never do. Thus some thoughts of reconciliation, offered humbly and with trepidation.

Christmas has had a significant commercial aspect since the three wise men of the Orient, who came so far and at such inconvenience, approached the manger and offered their expensive presents. Did they just happen to find such offerings -- gold, frankincense, and myrrh -- in their saddlebags? Doubtful. More likely, they had gone shopping at one of the great bazaars along the way; such bazaars, blazing with the riches of the rich lands of the East, were the malls of their times... even unto parking their camels, always malodorous and mean spirited. In such a place, even the most fastidious desires of the most demanding could be met, including those who shopped for the King of Kings, for whom they employed their most discriminating tastes and ample means, never rushed. Thus, commercialism and Christmas go hand in hand... as they always have.

These suggestions will help you cope with and better enjoy this best of all holidays:

1) Let every man set his own acceptable level for just the amount of Christmas he desires. A laissez faire attitude is not just useful, but mandatory. Stop worrying about whether the man next door is asking too much or too little from the holiday and instead concentrate on making yours the best ever.

2) Leave the merchants alone. They have had a bad year; even if we think they are going over board, let them get on with it without our jeremiads, lamentations and snide remarks. Where would we be at Christmas, after all, without them?

3) Remember Henry Ford II's celebrated line, "Never complain, never explain". Since the very inception of Christmas the Thought Police have attempted to coerce uniformity. Mr. Ford was right... you owe it to no one and nobody to adhere; simply believe in your own way and style. As the song says, "Have yourself a merry little Christmas..."

4) Select a few of your favorite Christmas carols and seasonal preferences and load them into your audio player. You'll be a lot happier when you enter some establishment with music you detest, no matter how venerable, if you can hear the tunes you particularly like.

And one more thing, whether the Christmas you celebrate is long or short, the single day itself, or the 12 days with five gold rings and lords a-leaping, or something else altogether, remember this: the gift you should most give and be most fortunate to receive is love... it is the only true and essential element. All else pales beside it.

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses.
Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

'We need a little Christmas.' Why I'm working hard right this minute to makeChristmas 2011 the best ever.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. I was young then, blessed with that overflowing feeling of high animal spirits and joy to the world. It was 1967, I was in New York City for the first time, about to sail to Europe on the SS Aurelia ... The future seemed boundless, was boundless, and I had only good wishes and to spare for everyone, everywhere.

The only snare was that I couldn't get tickets for "Mame" (music and lyrics by Jerry Herman); the hit musical based on one of my mother's favorite books, "Auntie Mame" by Patrick Dennis (1955). Bummer. But not down hearted I somehow managed to get a program and discovered when Angela Lansbury, the star, the toast of Broadway, was likely to leave the Winter Garden Theatre. .. and just where I could stand for the best chance of getting her autograph.

I well recall the moment she came out the stage door, she was smaller than she appeared on stage... and I remember how the collar of her coat brushed against my cheek... and her scent as she bent down to autograph the program, a little crushed in my hand. It was lush, seductive, delicious... And I was happy...

I have that program still, in good condition, too, a reminder when the song I've chosen for today's theme music -- "We need a little Christmas" -- was just a peppy, high-stepping, belt-it-out number, not an absolute need for all of us. Start, however, by going to any search engine... get the tune... then let 'er rip... it's going to get your blood going, your feet tapping, and maybe even bring a tear to your eye, you sentimental softie you...

"For I've grown a little leaner, Grown a little colder, Grown a little sadder, Grown a little older!"

These words pretty much sum up events since that magic moment at the door of the Winter Garden Theatre -- and I don't merely mean for you and me, either. I mean for America and for our deeply troubled world. And that is why I am already at work to ensure this Christmas in this year of general dismay and gloom is the best ever. We need it -- for the good of home, hearth, soul, and, yes, the economy.

I began this week.

It is September 25, 2011 as I write, and my dear and valued helpers, Aime Joseph and his soothing wife Mercedes, have commenced Operation Christmas. We started with a herculean task meant to occur twice each year but often "forgotten" -- polishing the silver. It is arduous, it is wearying, it is dull... and it is a necessary deed in creating the "wow factor" that is such an essential part of Christmas for me and mine.

The question is, why have we started so early... just what are we doing it for?

Over the last few years I have noticed the inception and development of an invidious trend in me and many others: scaling back, pruning, diminishing the high festival of Christmas. This is a very bad thing... and this year I decided to take constructive action before I bear an even closer approximation to Ebenezer Scrooge. This called for drastic action... and my better self answered the call.

Unmarried, no (known) children. Katie Segal made a fortune on "Married with Children"(1987) in which she played the ultimate suburban vulgarian wife, Peg. She thought the holiday was for maxing out her credit cards and causing pain to her hapless bills-paying husband. It was funny... because, of course, we weren't like Peg, no way. But we are... and not, I hasten to add, because we enjoy the consumer aspect of the event.

I have always thought the sanctimonious folks who decry the blatant commercialism of Christmas and seek to revert to prior usages, pure and holy, misread the original text and allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by Puritans. Now, lest you think I am anti-Puritan, be aware I am of Puritan heritage myself. And it pains me to admit, the Puritans got Christmas all wrong and missed its message.

The culprit in the matter was Oliver Cromwell, a man who, saying enough is enough, helped King Charles I to eternity in 1649 through the simple expedient (as Charles told his horrified children) by separating His Majesty's head from His Majesty's body. The Lord Protector, more powerful than most kings, then lead an effort to root out all vestiges of the traditional high-living English Christmas. And so for 10 years (until his successor son Richard got kicked out in 1659) Cromwell and company worked to make everyone just as miserable and gloomy at Christmas as possible. That was the right and proper thing to do.

For instance, zealous Puritans, rigid, unbending, inflexible, muffed the matter of the Three Wise Men, princes of the Orient. Each, if you'll recall, brought the Christ child very expensive gifts. These included gold (imagine if they'd held it), frankincense and myhrr. Unless these royalties just happened to have some extra gifts in their treasure trove (possible, but unlikely) each had to make a trip to the bazaar (which is what people called malls in those days) to scrutinize what was available and mull over their options.

This is exactly what the non-kingly people do nowadays at Christmas, parking their cars (easier to handle than malodorous camels which spit), returning over and over to get just the right gift, the gift that will say loudly and clearly, "I care." So, where's the problem? Christmas, in short, has had a pronounced commercial aspect from the first moment. People should get over it and get on with the real business of the event: love!

Whether you consider the matter from the vantage point of God to man -- "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son" (John 3:16) ---

... or from the vantage point of human relations, the fact is that Christmas is the prime event of every year based on, all about, and dedicated to love. And we humans after this storm-tossed year should embrace the event and enjoy it for what it is: a chance to love one another, be kind to each other, embrace our diversity, and give the embedded rancors of our deeply fissured planet a rest... even if we know, as we do, they'll be back in the new year. Even a little solace helps. We need it, we must have it, and we deserve it.

And because I have been, shall we say, neglectful both about giving and taking love, I have a huge love deficit to make up for... and so Christmas 2011 must be done right in every nuance and detail... and this takes time, care, and thoughtfulness.

Cleaning the silver is just the beginning.

And then like the score says, "Candles in the window/Carols at the spinet."

And gifts for all... and not merely anything grabbed at the eleventh hour Christmas Eve either... for the gift must be as special as the beloved who gets it...

All this takes time... meticulous attention to detail... and, most of all, love...

And it is this love, in short supply in years past, suppressed, which is the most important thing of all... This year will be different, for this year that love will flow without stint... as a resolute declaration to everyone, everywhere that this is a place where humanity is made welcome and where we know the true meaning of Christmas... and mean to have it! Share it! And renew it...

Knowing this, can you wonder why I am starting so early here? The wonder is that you have not commenced early, for your need is pressing, too.

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

Are you an entrepreneur? Check these crucial attributes and see if you reallymeasure up. (You probably don't.)

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. This is an article about bold, visionary, business risk- takers called "entrepreneurs". Such people, by their intelligence, diligence, and shear bravado, overawe movie and sports stars in public awareness and regard and dwarf any renown which may come with mere public office, even the most high.

Entrepreneurs are the heroes of our age; never have they been more discussed, emulated, venerated and even worshipped as they are right now. On campuses around the nation and the world, the giants of entrepreneurial fame draw standing room only crowds while mere authors, statesmen, and musicians take second place, or worse.

Oh, yes, these are the heady days for entrepreneurs. It is no wonder you wish to enroll yourself amongst their ranks. But are you really cut out to be an entrepreneur? This article will make that clear, one way or the other.

To put you in the right frame of mind, I've selected the theme music for the hit television series "Star Trek", which celebrates those who boldly go where no man has gone before. This music was composed by Alexander Courage for the series which debued in 1966. It is highly suitable for those who don't merely move into the future... they create it. You can easily find it in any search engine. Get it now... turn up the volume... and closely follow the points in this article which will make it clear whether you will captain your own Starship Enterprise, or not...

What is an entrepreneur? Let's start with the definition.

Entrepreneur was originally a French word taken over lock, stock and barrel by the English speaking world, much to the dismay of the Academie Francaise, official guardian of the French language. Its definition is "One who undertakes to start and conduct an enterprise or business, assuming full control and risk." Now let's see if you are this person.

1) Entrepreneurs see the world not just as it is... but as it should be. From this fundamental fact about entrepreneurs all other facts derive.

Scratch an entrepreneur and you'll find a person who is not just tinkering with human reality today... but has been tinkering with it right from the get-go, even from the cradle. They never see just what is... in their mind's eye they see each and every situation as it can be... must be; they have only to do their bit.

2) Entrepreneurs say with Harry S. Truman, who proved as president of these United States to have the soul and inclinations of an entrepreneur, that "You can't have anything worth while without difficulties". And, "Mistakes would be made. No one who accomplished things could expect to avoid mistakes. Only those who did nothing made no mistakes."

Those without the blood and fiber of an entrepreneur live their lives in chagrined remembrance for all the mistakes, errors, miscalculations and bonehead decisions they have already made... and are sure, given the chance, they will make again. This paralyzes them... for they are sure that when they decide, that decision will be wrong. On this destructive basis no progress is ever possible.

Entrepreneurs are very different.

Each and every decision made opens the possibility for error. This is the real world in which entrepreneurs live and flourish... accepting whatever transpires as yet another valuable learning step, as they walk the road to improving the human condition.

3) Entrepreneurs are "people-people". They understand their work, all their work, is for people, unlike those without the entrepreneurial wherewithal who, in this withering phrase, "love humanity but hate people."

An entrepreneur looks at a given situation and sees people unable to fulfill their God- given potential because of a condition, an obstacle which can, given the idea, the desire, the resources, and their own time and energy, be changed, improved, or even eradicated, sent to the scrap heap of invidious, enfeebling circumstances that the collectivity of entrepreneurs and their active, can-do ways have removed as obstacles to the perfectibility of mankind.

In short, while others immerse themselves in fallibilities and dismay, the entrepreneur activates Teddy Roosevelt's celebrated recommendation to "do the best you can, with what you've got, where you are."

They know to the depths of their being that there is nothing so wrong that cannot be righted by the sum and substance of their parts, their humanity, their problem-solving capabilities... and that je ne sais quoi that distinguishes them from the run of mankind which sees obstacles as finalities... not challenges which they can meet... with grace, joy, and gratitude that they had the chance to serve.

4) Entrepreneurs crash, burn, hurt... and get up to try it all over again.

In the international best-seller "Zorba the Greek" (published 1964), author Mikis Theodarakis writes of a young English entrepreneur who gets entangled with and wiped out by the bad advice and worse assistance of Zorba, who is at best a con man. He follows Zorba's catastrophic advice... and in a memorable scene watches as the Rube Goldberg machine Zorba has created collapses, costing the entrepreneur every cent he has... and more. For an instant, stunned by the implosion of all his prospects, every dream and expectation, he is stupified, angry, lost. Then he shows the true grit of even the grieving entrepreneur, "Teach me to dance," he asks Zorba, not at all the line we expected... but should have. It is what a real entrepreneur would say... and dance the sirtaki.

This is how entrepreneurs face catastrophe... for as Thomas Alva Edison, revered of American entrepreneurs, said, “I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work”, commenting on what he learned from the exasperation of years of "failure." Sublime.

5) Entrepreneurs uplift, never cast down.

No one knows better than an entrepreneur how difficult the improvement of the human condition can be; certainly those without the entrepreneurial disposition and experience cannot.

Thus, on any opportunity, wherever they happen to be, entrepreneurs lift up, encourage, and ease the way. Thus they administer in friendship and human solidarity essential truths and elements which have benefited them and from which hopeful others may benefit, too.

Entrepreneurs carry with them at all times, truths and insights derived from their unique vantage points, practical advice and admonitions, steady advice, always utilitarian, on what to do... and what not to. They never think, as those without entrepreneurial proclivities do, that to give to others is to diminish yourself. Their point of view is radically different -- and always helpful.

And one more thing...

Entrepreneurs, however much they have managed to achieve alone, know that their success is always predicated upon the dedicated assistance and endeavors of the crucial people who constitute their team. It is their honor, their pride and responsibility to recognize and thank these sinews of their success, and they are glad to do so.

When was the last time you did as much for the good people who have helped you? Isn't it time you did, you who aspire to be an entrepreneur?

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

How to Use Spider Language to Smoke the Competition

The title of this article may leave many looking lost. What is Spider Language? Most people have never heard of it and may think it is the tongue of some little known African Tribe. Yet these are the same people who will use the terms SEO (Search Engine Optimization) at the drop of a hat when talking about how they promote their online businesses.

Spider Language is what SEO is really all about. SEO means making a site relevant to a search term so that Google will find it and place it high on the list of search results. Most people think that this is done by placing as many keywords as possible in the text. This can work to some extent but stuff too many keywords and Google will consider this "keyword stuffing" and kick the webpage off its result list. So there is a limit to how many keywords you can use. And everybody has the same problem, so everyone is at the same level. This is a common assumption, but it is not a fact. There are people who use spam robots that mimics the way the Google Robot works when it searches for results. These spam robots are often able to produce good search engine results for websites. But Google and other search engines are aware of this problem keep coming up with new defenses against this.

Those who know Spider Language are those who come out on top of this contest. Google and other search engines are really nothing more than robots that cannot think, feel or use their discretion. They run strictly according to program. They have various parameters on which they will rate a website in relation to a search term. The way the website fits to what Google is looking for determines how high it is placed on the search results.

Spider Language is Google bait. It is designed to attract the attention of the search robot and because is fits in with how the robot does its search, the results are always great.

Everyone knows the important of SEO – it is the websites that appear on page 1 of the search results that get all the business. People are too lazy to look beyond page 1 if they can find what they are looking for there. It's not the quality or pricing that determines online business success – it is the search engine ranking.

Spider Language is not something that needs technical knowledge or skills. It is something that anyone, even a complete newbie, can pick up. Not only can Spider Language drive more traffic to your site, it allows you to set up streams of traffic from Google that require no updating or additional work on your part. Spider Language can also be used to set up multiple search terms. This is important because if any one term drops in popularity and usage, the other search terms can take up the slack and ensure that the traffic to your website does not fall.

Learning to use Spider Language is easy and very inexpensive. Not learning to use it can cause a lot of problems and lead to expensive losses.

To learn more about Spider Language, check out the free Google Spider report. Feel free to distribute this article in any form as long as you include this resource box. You can also include your affiliate link if you sign up at Clickbank Pirate

What a great idea! Wish I'd thought of it! Cambridge, Massachusetts and MIT inaugurate Entrepreneur Walk of Fame.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. I live and work in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just steps away from Harvard Sq. This compact area along the MBTA's Red Line arguably contains the greatest concentration of brain power and technological innovation on earth. I'm here to tell you about a great new idea hereabouts which you'll want to come and see.

To set the background for this article and get you in the mood, I've selected "You have to admit it's getting better" by the Beatles, 1967, from "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band." It'll certainly get your blood flowing... a feeling every innovator young or old knows well and just cannot get enough of. Go to any search engine, find the tune, then crank up the sound and prepare to do your bit to ensure the future will keep getting better all the time....

Just the other day, September 16, 2011, something new, creative, innovative and long overdue was inaugurated the shortest walk from the Kendall Square MBTA stop in Cambridge. It's the brand spanking new Entrepreneur Walk of Fame... and I say, "Hurrah!" and special thanks to the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a handful of foundations and groups. The walk celebrates the essential importance of entrepreneurs, people who improve the nation and the world through invention and innovation, not least by being engines for the creation of new jobs; a task our nation's capital and its bewildered office holders just cannot seem to do better.

For openers, the founders of the walk have honored 7 grand entrepreneurs, some of whom we know well, others we may not know at all, for all that we have enjoyed in one way or another the fruit of their experience and experiments. They include...

* Inventor Thomas A. Edison.

* Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.

* Apple Inc. cofounder Steve Jobs.

* Lotus Development Corp. founder Mitch Kapor.

* Genentech cofounder Bill Swanson.

* Hewlett Packard Co. founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard.

How they were chosen.

Once the idea of the walk had been approved and financing was arranged, prospective honorees were canvassed... and, ultimately, inclusion criteria determined. These stated that those honored must be respected US entrepreneurs who developed an innovative, technology-based idea into a billion-dollar company, and who are known -- and respected -- as risk takers, thereby embodying the essence of the entrepreneur. They don't need local ties, but must have had a big impact -- creating jobs, or an entire industry. In short, these are the biggest of the big fry.

Why each entrepreneur was chosen.

The selection committee for the first seven honored released its reasons for each entrepreneur selected.

* Bill Gates... for creating the software industry.

* Steve Jobs... who embodies "bouncing back from adversity."

* Bob Swanson... "showed that anything was possible. Created the biotech industry when he was in his 20s."

* Bill Hewlett and David Packard. They "demonstrated the power of the team."

* Mitch Kapor (always a local favorite). "Changed the entrepreneurial culture."

* Thomas Edison, grandaddy of entrepreneurs, "created both inventions and a company."

Inspirational quotes.

Each star in the walk is amplified by an inspirational quote. Here are a few of them...

Mitch Kapor's "Building a workplace which engages a diversity of employees and brings out their best makes a far greater contribution than financial success alone."

Bill Hewlett's "Men and women want to do a good job, and if they are provided the proper environment, they will do so."

Bill Gates' offered this: "Never before in human history has innovation offered the promise of so much to so many in so short a time." (I must say, Gates' line is the best written, owing everything to Winston Churchill's immortal remarks on the RAF pilots in the Battle of Britain. But then Gates had a Harvard education, though he did drop out long before he would have graduated.)

Interactive, innovative.

Innovatively, the walk also offers pedestrians such interactive stories as how Steve Jobs famously started Apple in his garage and how Gates left Harvard to become the richest man in the history of mankind, a tale from which restless undergrads have drawn all the wrong implications, to the chagrin of their worried parents who urge patience and the security of the degree Gates tossed away without a second thought. His parents worried, too....

Thoughts on entrepreneurs.

Let's begin with the dictionary definition of the word, always a good place to start: "One who organizes, manages, and assumes the risk of a business or enterprise." Entrepreneurs are bold, action-oriented, visionary, energetic, energizing. They can see the future and they want to do, will do, whatever it takes to deliver it. They are thrilled by challenges, not oppressed by them... and as a result they shape the lives of the rest of us... and reap unimaginable rewards... kudos, deference, money and -- no matter how nerdy -- the cute boy or girl of their dreams. It is no wonder, then, that the great age of the entrepreneur is here, now! It is a marvelous thing to be the cynosure of every eye with the deepest of pockets.

That's why -- right this minute -- young men and (increasingly) young women throw off the comfortable and predictable to risk everything, knowing that failure is always a possibility, but proceeding anyway...

These folks, crucial to the economy, to the job market, and to the good of all, deserve just as much help as they can get. The Entrepreneur Wall of Fame and its many activities are an excellent start. Bill Aulet, managing director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, and his team should take a bow....

But it is not enough...

1) Every presidential candidate needs to visit the Walk of Fame and the MIT Entrepreneurship Center and see what it takes to make a better future.

2) The president of these United States should especially be invited. He knows nothing about the needs of entrepreneurs... and as a Harvard Law student never went near Kendall Sq. and MIT, and we are all suffering accordingly.

3) We need to establish and enthusiastically develop and promote a cabinet-level Department of Innovation and Entrepreneurship where we do everything possible for the crucial people reshaping the world to general advantage.

And one more thing, we ought to chastise roundly the candidates who lambast Cambridge, Harvard, MIT and, in general, the brainiacs here about. Such attacks are despicable, usually are made by those on the right in an attempt to frighten the uneducated, and get us no where. America needs entrepreneurs and their daring; let's celebrate, not trash, them, for they are coming up with the ideas we need, not you.

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

Autumn comes to New England, September, 2011. And we are glad of it.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. Our first travelers to Massachusetts arrived at Plymouth just in time for Winter, too late for Autumn, specifically trodding on terra firma, December 26, 1620... and were they ever irritated, taking the opportunity to lambast the luckless captain who delivered them so late after a most disagreeable voyage, my dear, anxious for something new and exciting, but not (so they all later agreed) so new and exciting as the standard walloping, punishing New England Winter they came to know so well.

And so the mystique of Autumn, as something worth having and decidedly superior to what follows, was planted at once... and has never waned. And for good reason.

Autumn in New England is not merely a season. It is a mood, evocative, sacerdotal, an essential experience for the sensitive and anyone with the soul of a poet. It is a season that forces us to deal with transition, decay, transient beauty, and history scattered around and through the hamlets, towns, and occasional city. Indeed there is a feeling, never shared with outsiders and casual visitors, that each and every citizen of New England is merely history that hasn't quite happened yet. History in New England is not merely vestiges of things past; it is present reality, no ghost, but events of long ago, our neighbors still, as fresh today as at inception. This view of ancestors puzzles casual travelers who have no ancestors. They come from places without History... and are, of course, of no consequence whatever. They naturally take umbrage and as many pictures of dying foliage as the traffic allows. We are glad to see the back of them.

States that more (or less) make up New England.

It is well known to even the least educated that New England is comprised of six states: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut. The least educated, however, know nothing more than that and are not, therefore, in a position to inform you of sundry facts which if left untold to you will create problems for life and submerge your social standing. Here are the facts:

* Massachusetts is the largest New England state and offers a dizzying array of important events, people, ideas, institutions, etc. I don't have either the time or inclination to share these significant details... for that you must visit any one of our dwindling number of bookstores and buy something. We need the money.

Autumn in Massachusetts is most about students arriving at pluperfect academies and institutions of higher learning graced by Corinthian columns and departments of humanities beset by troubles and the budget axe at every side. Such institutions attract the brightest students of the world. Sadly, even these are less educated than their parents, though they pay substantially more for what no one anymore considers a "good" education. Future students enrolled in such places in what is known as the Bay State will come for only a few weeks or even a few days, the prime objective being to say they "went" to (whatever institution they may claim) and to have their pictures taken in front of those venerable columns. Of course, it goes without saying that tuition and fees will not decline; rather the reverse. You will remember: we need the money.

Rhode Island, minute state, longest name.

Rhode Island, the littlest state, suffers from an indelible inferiority complex which has produced in once nick-named "Little Rhody" the insistent temerity of the "mouse that roared." Rhode Islanders take no guff, and with that chip on the shoulder, defy you to knock it off. Even the boldest think twice before they try...

Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was founded by zealous brethen who grew appalled and aggravated with the sanctimonies and regulations of their former colleagues in Massachusetts and walked to a new destiny, one in which their truth was The Truth. So busy with the business of God, they had no time for the wistful vistas and God-delivered splendors of Autumn.

In due course, after their relationship with God was well and truly cemented and its manifestations -- money -- began to pour in... Rhode Islanders of means (and there were many) had no time for Autumn... they were busily spending their millions on sad copies of European culture and so nicking their fortunes and ensuring the sniggers of more enlightened, less respectful generations.

Later, in recent years, Rhode Islanders still had no time for Autumn. Gambling, lurid sex, and corrupt politics held sway... and to those who indulged the only season that mattered was the season in which their nocturnal activities waxed.

As a result of all these episodes Rhode Island came to know nothing at all of Autumn... something the more enlightened amongst them should regret, but probably do not.

New Hampshire.

There was no "Massachusetts" in the Old Country; there was no "Rhode Island." But there was a peaceful place, a verdant place... called Hampshire. It is no wonder new citizens of the new land wished to memorialize it and pass a nostalgic hour reliving the place they would always remember as "home." Such a place is a good place to see and to reflect upon the verities of Autumn, its beauty, its sadness that such beauty must be fleeting.

Go, then, to New Hampshire where their by-word is "Live free, or die." It is a silly motto and would be better rendered "Live free, or fight," something feisty, bold, gutsy, uplifting. But at least the folks in New Hampshire mean well, though that isn't always enough. After all, at a time of fiscal austerity, they have wasted millions promoting that foolish motto of theirs.

Vermont.

Now we come to the Holy of Autumnal Holies, a place as sanctified and revered as Delphi. It's everything that every Sunday travel supplement says it is... villages rendered and revered by Currier and Ives, places so quaint and tidy you are sure they are imaginary. I confess. I love Vermont in Autumn, and so that is when I scheduled my classes at the University of Vermont. One bows low before such a riot of glorious colors and swiftly dying verdure. Still, I have a pet concern... Vermont is not a name of Old England; rather it is a name of Ancien France, for Vermont ("Green mountain") was an outpost of the Bourbons and reminds us they dreamed imperially, too, if less successfully than England. Perhaps locals kept the name which concerns me because it was tangible evidence that they had pulverized those Frenchies... even to the extent of annexing these words from their language for eternity... an insult to the people most conscious of the outrage of insult. En garde!

Maine... Connecticut.

As far as Autumn in New England is concerned, after the "in your face" exuberance of Vermont, the rest is dross. Maine, after all, was just a hunk of Massachusetts ripped off the Commonwealth in 1820 and established as a "free state," to balance the "slave state" of Missouri then entering the Union. But we canny folk of Massachusetts are glad; Mainers are poor and exigent. They really need the money.

And as for Connecticut, the less said the better. Connecticut looks today as it has looked for eons south to New York and Pennsylvania. The folks in Hartford and environs condescend to the rest of New England. We hate them cordially and have made sure to sell them everything we can at inflated prices. You see, they have the money.

At the end...

Now you know about Autumn in New England. Book your tickets at once. Bring the family; the more the merrier. And, remember, bring all your credit cards and instruments of credit. Keep in mind at all times, we need the money.

Oh, and by the way, should you like a little light music to accompany this article, I recommend Edith Piaf singing "Autumn Leaves", in both Johnny Mercer's English and Jacquec Prevert's French. It is superbe. You'll find it in any search engine. Do it now before the falling leaves have all drifted past your window...

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses.

Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

An appreciation of Holly Hickler, master teacher, poet, her love affair with words, dead at 88.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. This is a story about words and a woman who understood the power of words properly used to motivate adolescents, some of the toughest customers on earth. It is the story of Holly Hickler, proud to be a teacher, exhilarated by the challenges of her profession, a model to the less committed, who are legion.

Words, words, and ocean of words.

If you are a word person (as I confess I am) you will be sad upon reading this article that you never knew Holly Hickler. The minute I read her obituary in The Boston Globe (July 31, 2011), I was so saddened... I wanted to know her... and I wanted the world to know her, too. Words, you see, even words in an obituary, can make you feel so; words can do anything, convey anything, rouse anything, exult anything, change anything, remove anything, love anything, revolt anything...

... but you must know the words, have them not just in your head, but in your fingertips; words must be your constant companions. They must intrigue you, mystify you, bring you to your knees with grief, carry your prayers to God, and then, doubling back, conjure love from indifference... then ask your too late mate when she will be home for dinner.

Holly Hickler loved words, every word; she loved the sound of them, the textures, the complicated words and the simple words which proved upon reflection to be the most complicated of all: heaven, love, death, God, forever.

Mischievous, this mother could with laughter and purpose confound her children by reciting at any time or place a sprig of Frost on an autumn day:

""Summer was past and the day was past. Sombre clouds in the west were massed. Out on the porch's sagging floor Leaves got up in a coil and hissed...."

( from "Bereft" by Robert Frost, 1874-1963)

Or this written by Gerard Manly Hopkins (1844-1889) in 1877, but not published until 1918.

"GLORY be to God for dappled things -- For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow: For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings:..."

( from the poem "Pied Beauty").

Poems like these, even simple seeming Frost, are hard to read... harder to understand... and that would have suited Mrs. Hickler just fine. Such words, in such order, forced the surly, withdrawn, moody, often aggravating adolescents (either school delivered or borne by her) to stop, read the words clearly, sharply, for words must be heard; then look up the definitions... recite them again with greater clarity both of recitation and of meaning... then again and again, transforming brain cells into repositories of words, to be yours forever, shared only when you wish to touch a human heart or uplift, if only for a minute, some weary passerby in need of the comfort of the right word right delivered.

Her life.

Born Helen, in Philadelphia, her mother, Jean Miller Schloss, was fashion coordinator for Gimbels Department Store, and her father Edwin Schloss, a cellist who played chamber music with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. It was a home of culture, the arts, and of sensitivities to music... literature... and, always, to words.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1945 with a major in English, she worked on women's magazines and publishing for a time and interviewed authors on television in New York City. Unfortunately (and tellingly) her greatest achievement in these years was not the stunning prose she wrote and published (for she did neither), but rather the fact she survived the crash of a B-25 aircraft which plunged into the Empire State Building in July, 1945 while she was working. But she survived...

In 1946, she married Courtland Yardley White III, her former writing professor. They had twins, Peter and Kate. Mr. White died of tuberculosis in January, 1950. That September she married Frederick Dunlap Hickler, an architect. They had three children. When their oldest child left for college, Mrs. Hickler started teaching at the progressive Cambridge School of Weston, Massachusetts. Here her vocation for teaching became evident to all.

Sympathetic, loving, strict standards.

Unwary students often misread Mrs. Hickler's educational approach, to their peril. She was kind, empathetic, even loving towards her students, but this did not mean any diminution of the high standards she expected students to meet. As Bonny Musinsky, a fellow teacher at the school for 17 years, said, "when it comes to grading, she was no push-over. If they didn't measure up -- with all her love and caring -- she would give them a C."

The writer's eye.

Writers are a probing, observant, perceptive, invasive kind of people. They never merely glance and are the masters of minute detail and of actually seeing a thing. No one can write effective prose without these skills. Mrs. Hickler made it a point to foster this ability which she used to good effect in her 1981 book co-authored with Cambridge psychiatrist John Mack. It was titled "Vivienne: The Life and Suicide of an Adolescent Girl", and focused on the impersonal attitude of teachers in meeting the needs of teen-agers. No one ever accused Mrs. Hickler of such misunderstanding and dereliction and that is why she was such an effective, impacting, and always memorable instructor.

Writer's block.

I can guess, but cannot confirm, that one of the great sadnesses of this productive life was her own difficulties with writing words and slender published oeuvre. It must have been maddening, discouraging, irritating at the very least. So much so, that at age 75 she took a class to overcome writer's block. In due course, she wrote again. It was prose remembers Deborah Carr of Wellesley, a member of the group, about her "youth in an artsy, intellectual family in Philadelphia which she told in a voice that sounded as young as Holly was at heart." Unfortunately, it was not published... but this article, which will be read by thousands, will help keep green the memory of Holly Hickler, and her message that words matter, good writing matters, and that both are essential in the complicated business of human communication.

Infuriatingly, this is something far too many school districts have not grasped, which is one reason SAT reading scores have sunk to a record low with the class of 2011. In this connection, Wayne Camara, College Board vice president of research, mused, "We're looking and wondering if more efforts in English and reading and writing would benefit students."

Having read this article, just what do you think Holly Hickler's resounding response would have been? Or what yours should be, now that she has gone?

Then go to any search engine to find the recording by the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia of Tshaikovsky's Variations on a Roccoco Theme. Holly would have loved it.... and so will you.

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Jeffrey Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

An urgent message for all those in their first job... what to do to move upfast... even in troubled economic times.

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. Everyone remembers their first job with, perhaps, a bit of nostalgia and a soupcon of fondness, after the fact. But did you really know what you were doing... and, more to the point, leverage that job and rise high -- even in a period of economic dislocations, miseries, and muddles?

Perhaps because of these depressing realities, you had to take a job, any job, just to pay the rent. In such a situation you may have felt chagrined (to say no more) that you didn't have the job of your dreams and were not sky rocketing to fame, fortune, and the cover of Time magazine. Whoa... bad analysis, worse attitude. YOU need this article desperately.

My favorite nephew Kyle is in this boat. He's a bright lad, a newly minted honors graduate from a well-regarded California institution of higher education... marooned by the seemingly unending recession and its never quite better aftermath. He couldn't find a job in his field, and so with prodding and exhortation (and a great deal of it) took the first job that was to hand, working in the vegetable department at Kroger.

Don't laugh. And don't go all arrogant and condescending either.

Is he disappointed? Yes! Irked? Let-down? Oh, yes, but that was before his wily Uncle Jeffrey picked up the phone for some down-home success tips. Now, Kyle is the "maniac on the floor", primed for greatness and the executive suite. And so I selected one of the most exhilarating songs of the 80's to accompany this article; "Maniac on the floor" from the film "Flashdance" (1983), belted out of the park by diva Irene Cara. Whatever despairing depths you are plumbing today, this red-hot dance tune will lift you and lift you higher.

Serendipity.

The gods of corporate Olympus move in mysterious ways... and so it was with Kyle, Kroger, and me, for I made my first stock investment into Kroger when I was 13 or 14 back in the '50's. The reason was one stock maven Peter Lynch of Fidelity Investments would applaud: because we shopped there. I didn't have so many shares to start with, but I visited Kroger as often as the family wished to eat... and I could see how my biggest (my only) investment was faring. Even then I took a very proprietary interest in "my" Kroger. I even recall picking up some soiled lettuce off the floor and properly disposing of it. It was a portent... but of what? It took the better part of a lifetime to discern, but Kyle's launching pad in the lettuce department seems to be the link.

Introduction to The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR)

Kroger, as you may well know, is the country's largest grocery store chain and its second-largest grocery retailer by volume and second-place general retailer, Walmart being the largest. As of 2010, Kroger operated, either directly or through its subsidiaries, 3,619 stores. It reported US$ 82.2 billion in sales during fiscal year 2010, with 338,000 employees, including Nephew Kyle, right there at the bottom, on the first rung of the ladder of success, nowhere to go but up. Lucky boy.

Why so?

Kyle is a business "virgin." He knows as little about business as is possible. This can be either a very good or a very bad thing, depending on what happens next. Kyle, for instance, has no bad business practices to unlearn and overcome; he has no such business practices at all. Thus he starts with a "tabula rasa", a clean slate, in the immortal phrase of monumental 18th century savant John Locke.

Kyle has two options: fill this slate with one bad, progress-destroying habit after another, or knuckle down and learn the crucial things to turn a pedestrian entry-level job into a launching pad for lifetime success.

It ALL starts with attitude.

Kyle, unless your department at Kroger is a little bit of heaven, your supervisor's biggest problem is personnel. They will demonstrate and perfect every sin venal and cardinal. They will specialize in complaining, their moans and groans elevated to stratospheric heights. Rather than get on with the job for which they were hired, they will conspire to cheat, chisel, and connive, liberally biting the hand that feeds them, gratitude and service towards the company inconceivable notions getting lip service and nothing more.

This being the case, an employee, any employee no matter how junior and inexperienced , who actually works up to their full potential, understanding that they work for Kroger, goes on the supervisor's Christmas card list at once, with kudos, compliments, and useful perqs galore.

Now hear this: you have been gifted with every advantage. The one you most need at present is the right attitude. You are now a Kroger man. You are now a part, albeit on the first step, of a large, growing, proud establishment. Act like it!

For openers, let your supervisor know, best by superior work ethics and results, that you are a grateful, loyal and enthusiastic member of the Kroger team, a team which has grown steadily larger and more lucrative since in 1883 Bernard Kroger nailed his colors to the mast, "Be particular. Never sell anything you would not want yourself."

* Look the part. Spruce yourself up, exemplifying everything you learned as an Eagle Scout. Wear the insignia of this achievement. It will show your new colleagues what kind of fellow you are and suggests you have what they want.

* Read everything you can about Kroger, including their annual report and the plethora of useful documents you'll easily find at their website. Print these documents. Study them. Make yourself thoroughly conversant with the facts. You will also find a thorough report at the Wikipedia. Put your copies in a folder and carry them with you; make sure your supervisor sees you studying them at your breaks. Believe me, you'll be the ONLY one showing such initiative.

* Always be on time; that goes without saying. Inform your supervisor that you are willing to take extra hours if others in the department cancel shifts. Let the supervisor know that your first loyalty is to the company, its customers, and what Kroger values: one grocery innovation after another. Kroger people are proud of what they've done to feed America and feed America well.. You must know these achievements and swell their pride.

* Have a good, solid, professional relationship with your supervisor, but never be a brown nosing apple polisher. Your job is to help your supervisor run the complicated store with its thousands of products in which you now work. At all times be polite, respectful, professional. You are not his buddy and pal, you are something far more valuable, a colleague who assists him rise... and whom he values accordingly.

* When you see a good deed, tell the supervisor; also, tell the person you have told the supervisor. One of the most important things you will ever do in business is to recognize employee achievements and, by a timely word in the ear of someone more advanced in the hierarchy, help that person secure the many emoluments which business can and does offer.

Two more things.

I know of your great interest in the ecology "green" movement. That is fine. In this connection I advise you to broaden your understanding of what it is and should be. Remember. the most important animal you can help save and preserve is the human animal, and here what you do could be of the greatest importance. Study Kroger and its ecological endeavors; make it a point, when possible, to seek out the food chemists and others who are helping us all live better lives with more nutritious and safer foods.

And, remember, even if you do not stay at Kroger, every word in this message remains germane since you will require good references to move up... and this is how you get them.

Now..... become the maniac on the floor, your presence and good work everywhere apparent, noticed with approval and approbation by the Kroger executives who see in you themselves and wish to advance you accordingly. And remember...

"You work all your life for that moment in time It can come or pass you by..."

And for you that moment is now.

About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc. providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses.
Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.