January 19, 2010 2:12am

Attention Senator Scott Brown:

“Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top,
and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs,
they began to seize back the continent of Europe.”

Ronald Reagan – The Boys of Pointe du Hoc

Via American Rhetoric – Top 100 Speeches

[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio. (2)]

We’re here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved and the world prayed for its rescue. Here, in Normandy, the rescue began. Here, the Allies stood and fought against tyranny, in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, two hundred and twenty-five Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.

Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs, shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing.

Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe.

Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.

And behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. And these are the heroes who helped end a war. Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender’s poem. You are men who in your “lives fought for life and left the vivid air signed with your honor.”

I think I know what you may be thinking right now — thinking “we were just part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day.” Well everyone was. Do you remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders? Forty years ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they were dreaming. Well, they weren’t. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of the bullets into the ground around him.

Lord Lovat was with him — Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got to the bridge, “Sorry, I’m a few minutes late,” as if he’d been delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he’d just come from the bloody fighting on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken.

There was the impossible valor of the Poles, who threw themselves between the enemy and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold; and the unsurpassed courage of the Canadians who had already seen the horrors of war on this coast. They knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit Juno Beach, they never looked back.

All of these men were part of a roll call of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore; The Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland’s 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots’ Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England’s armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard’s “Matchbox Fleet,” and you, the American Rangers.

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge — and pray God we have not lost it — that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought — or felt in their hearts, though they couldn’t know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4:00 am. In Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying. And in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day; their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them: “Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we’re about to do.” Also, that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: “I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.

When the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together. There was first a great reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall Plan to help rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall Plan led to the Atlantic alliance — a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for freedom, for prosperity, and for peace.

In spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. The Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They’re still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost forty years after the war. Because of this, allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as forty years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose: to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever.

It’s fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II. Twenty million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.

We will pray forever that someday that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.

We’re bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We’re bound by reality. The strength of America’s allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe’s democracies. We were with you then; we’re with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: “I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”

Strengthened by their courage and heartened by their value [valor] and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.

The $36 Billion Dollar ‘Secret’ Mickey Mouse Loves To Share

Posted By Troy White On January 7, 2010 @ 9:45 am

Happy New Year!

Hope you had a great break and are raring to go in 2010 with your new marketing plans.

Over the holidays, we spent a few days at Disneyland in California.

My twin nine-year-old daughters were bouncing off the walls. It was their first time, and my first time in a few decades.

One of the first things I noticed was the impact the recession had on Disney … or not.

The line-ups began at eight am, just to go through the security tent where they searched people’s bags.  Then the next line-up was to pay to get in the gates.

It took 30 minutes just to get to the point where I could hand over my $600 for the four of us.

That bought us a two-day Park-Hopper pass, so we could go to either Disneyland or California Adventure, located right next to each other.  Hundreds of other people were in the line-ups behind me eager to hand over their money too.

In an average day at Disneyland, well over 125,000 people will cough up their money at the gates as well.  Not a bad way to go, just to get in the park. And they were running at full capacity during the holidays … while we all were immersed in a nasty recession.

Mickey’s Lesson #1: Charge the big bucks, and don’t discount just because everyone else does!

My parents were with us at Disney and they too had to pay full price at the gates.

No senior discounts.

No discounts for just walking the park without going on the rides.

Full price, for everyone.

While in line to pay, I heard one guy trying every possible way in the book to get a deal … from senior’s discounts … to pulling the “investor” angle … to asking if he could buy a “corporate” pass instead of an individual one.  The gal at the window just politely kept telling him no to each of his requests.  He never turned away ranting and raving about this, he just handed over his Amex for his full-price tab (he even looked happy about it … maybe he got the lesson too).

Now we are through the gates!  And my kid’s faces turned to frowns as we started walking.  “This is NOT what I thought Disney was!” Hailey mumbled to me.

She was referring to Downtown Disney that you have to walk through to get to the actual rides.

Dozens of stores line the road, and you have no choice but to walk past all the stores to get anywhere near a ride.  Right out of the gate, you are subtly being trained to buy things.  From the massive Disney Store, to the quaint little shops to get your customized Mickey Mouse ear hats, there was already a great selection of places you can spend more money.

Mickey’s Lesson #2: Once you have charged them the big bucks, offer them more items to purchase right away.

The $30 mouse ears price tag doesn’t nearly seem as high after dropping $600!

Walt Disney, himself, mastered the art of cross-selling (buying the Park Hopper pass instead of a single park pass), down-selling (Downtown Disney was packed with tastefully done stores that had every possible kind of knick-knack you could ever want), and upselling (if you want to stay at THE best hotel possible, their Grand California Hotel and Spa will gladly take your $1,897.04 for two nights accommodation (they throw in the Park Hopper passes with your accommodations though).   $300 more for a room with a view of the park.  $1,400 more for two nights in their One Bedroom Artisan Suite.

The key?

Make it seamless.

One store connects to the next.

One theme feeds into the next.

By the time you make it through the gates, through downtown, you are out of pocket a grand, minimum.

And people lining up for the pleasure to do this …

… Because they aren’t here to buy things.

Mickey’s Lesson #3: The reason Disney has become a 36 Billion Dollar Empire is that they are the absolute MASTERS at selling the experience.  Once you step inside their park, you are in their world now, and they will give you something you won’t find anywhere else in the world.

In the Disney world, fantasy IS reality.  And their fantasy world is incredible.  If you could close your eyes as a kid and step into the most incredible world imaginable, Disney is it.

Seeing Goofy off to the side doing what he does best … goofing around with the kids.

Getting your picture taken with Mickey.

Having Mr. Incredible flex his muscles for you while he signs your autograph book (which is for sale, by the way, for only $8).

Seeing princesses, Muppets, parades, and ohhhhhhhh the rides!

The Disney experience is unmatched.

My dad was walking beside me and asked if I thought they had made chewing gum illegal because there wasn’t a single bit of gum to be seen on the sidewalks.

I saw why, one day, when a piece of gum was spotted by one of their actors (each employee there is a part of the experience).  He had his backpack and trolley at his side while he scraped up what he could of the gum.  Then, after scraping up all that he could, he sprayed some form of liquid on it, then scrubbed it, leaving that spot on the sidewalk immaculate right alongside the rest of them.

Over a piece of gum!

Nothing is left to destroy the illusion of another world.

In the Disney World, everything is perfect.

Except for the line-ups.

Mickey’s Lesson #4: Make it as easy as you can to get people experiencing as much as possible of your world.

They have implemented the FASTPASS® system to help you get in as many rides as possible.

The rides with the greatest wait times have FASTPASS® capability.  You go up to these little machines, insert your day pass, and out spits your FASTPASS®.

Having this little FASTPASS® card lets you skip the main line-up … but you can only use it in certain designated time slots.

So, if you get a FASTPASS® for Pirates of The Caribbean (awesome ride) at 10, you may not be able to use it until the 2-3 pm time slot.

But that means you can go take in a bunch of other rides with shorter wait times, and then know for a fact that at 2:00 you can skip the one hour wait at the Pirates ride and go right up to the near front of line (you still wait … but only for 5-10 minutes, instead of 60 minutes).

Great system … if you know how to use it and are organized enough to know which rides you want to do when … and you plan your day around it.

The point is that it does allow you to get in more rides and experience more of their world.

Why is this important?

Mickey’s Lesson #5: Once you have them in your world, make sure you give them ample ways to remember it after they leave.

This is especially important when selling a service or experience like this.

After every single ride, you exit the ride and are presented with an opportunity to buy a picture ($20) of you on the ride.  They have strategically placed cameras that take a snap shot of you at the best parts (usually when you are screaming or going real fast).

Lots of people now have camera phones so they are opting to take a photo of the TV screen showing your picture, but lots of people were lining up to pay the $20 for a single photo in hard copy.

The key is, though, that you get lots of pictures of your experience at the park. You will show it to friends and family. You will post them on Facebook, or use them in articles )

You will gladly share your experiences at the park, and will do everything in your power to build it up to be the most incredible adventure you have ever taken.

It helps justify what you spent … and it definitely helps sell the Disney world to your friends and family.

The more you help your buyers remember the experience and give good stories they can tell their friends and family, the easier it becomes to sell others on the experience.

Question for you:  There are five critically important points I just made here.  I have about 30 others I learned there that I will also share later.

For now though, how can you use these in YOUR business?

1. How can you charge the big bucks for your products and services, without worrying about competition or price resistance?Are you offering enough high-ticket items or bundles?  If not, who could you partner with that can offer other products and services you could bundle with your own?Yes, you need low-ticket items too – but you MUST have some high-ticket, high-priced, high-value products, services and experiences you could create.Remember the Million Dollar Lobster ^[1] story I have shared here before?

   Those two brothers created a million-dollar empire selling commodity-type products because they realized that the top of the market wanted more than a lobster dinner … they wanted bragging rights and a GREAT story they could share with their dinner guests.

   They sold an experience in an industry that had never seen such a thing … and built a million-dollar empire in a few months.

   They found a way to take a $10 commodity item, and turn it into a $3,000 membership.
   How could you do this?

2. Do you have enough products or services you are offering them right from the beginning? You may already know about offering more than one product or service.But are you letting your brand new buyers know what you have to offer?Soon enough?

   Not months from the date of their first purchase … but right after.  Give them ways to know and understand who you are and what ALL you can offer them.

   NEVER assume that they know … they don’t.

   It is your responsibility to make sure you give them enough education about you, your business, your offerings, and your differences on what makes you the one to buy from.

   Do you have system in place to walk them through your complete product/service portfolio?

   With a new year upon us, NOW is the time to start.

   Create your offer plan and make sure every new and old customer has multiple chances to see it.

3. How can you become an absolute MASTER at selling the experience you offer?This is not something that is natural for entrepreneurs.  If it was, Disney wouldn’t be the biggest and best at it … they would have a ton of competitors all as successful as they are.Selling the experience is something we ALL need to work more diligently at.Most buying experiences are not an experience at all.

   Rather a simple transaction that happens and is done with … for good.

   Or, in the Internet marketing space, you buy a product and get HAMMERED with e-mails once or twice a day offering you the next magic bullet.

   That is NOT an experience!

   That is an insult.

   A real experience leaves them wanting more.

   Leaves them jumping up and down to share their stories with their friends.

   Has them sharing their photos with everyone.

   And is not to be found in your industry … yet.

   How can YOU become the master at selling an experience in your niche, unlike anything anyone has ever done before?

4. Are you giving them enough ways to fast track their experience with you?Are you offering them samples of your other products or services?Are you giving them a free trial of your new membership program?Are you making it easy for first-time buyers to feel like experienced buyers?

   Are you giving them the chance to step inside your world and look around quickly and easily to all you can offer?

   Disney has a park map they give away. It shows you everything you can do … and the exact paths that take you through the experience.

   Are you making it easy enough for people to see in a visual way what you can do for them and what they should be looking forward to?

5. Are you giving them ample ways to remember you after they leave or buy?Not by inundating them with more junk e-mails.Have you found ways to increase the perceived value of what you provide?Disney gives you ample opportunities to take photos with Mickey, Goofy, and 100 other characters.  Those photos will go in photo albums and be remembered for years, decades to come.  And other people who see them wish they had memorabilia like that as well.

   How can you make it easier for your clients to remember you, to tell the stories about their experiences with you, or to give them such an incredible experience that they can’t wait to come back again … credit cards in hand?

I am not saying the answers to these questions are easy.  But they ARE important.

Plus, with a brand new year in front of us, now is the PERFECT time to figure it out.

I will share more of the lessons I learned from the $36 Billion-Dollar Mouse next week.

Till then …

To your success,

Troy White
Editor, Small Business Mastery
Supplement to THE TOTAL PACKAGE

Attribution Statement: This article was first published in The Total Package. To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to The Total Package and claim four FREE money making e-books go to www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.

Essay: The Brain: Time Travel in the Brain

What are you doing when you aren’t doing anything at all? If you said “nothing,” then you have just passed a test in logic and flunked a test in neuroscience. When people perform mental tasks–adding numbers, comparing shapes, identifying faces–different areas of their brains become active, and brain scans show these active areas as brightly colored squares on an otherwise dull gray background. But researchers have recently discovered that when these areas of our brains light up, other areas go dark. This dark network (which comprises regions in the frontal, parietal and medial temporal lobes) is off when we seem to be on, and on when we seem to be off. If you climbed into an MRI machine and lay there quietly, waiting for instructions from a technician, the dark network would be as active as a beehive. But the moment your instructions arrived and your task began, the bees would freeze and the network would fall silent. When we appear to be doing nothing, we are clearly doing something. But what?

The answer, it seems, is time travel.

The human body moves forward in time at the rate of one second per second whether we like it or not. But the human mind can move through time in any direction and at any speed it chooses. Our ability to close our eyes and imagine the pleasures of Super Bowl Sunday or remember the excesses of New Year’s Eve is a fairly recent evolutionary development, and our talent for doing this is unparalleled in the animal kingdom. We are a race of time travelers, unfettered by chronology and capable of visiting the future or revisiting the past whenever we wish. If our neural time machines are damaged by illness, age or accident, we may become trapped in the present. Alzheimer’s disease, for instance, specifically attacks the dark network, stranding many of its victims in an endless now, unable to remember their yesterdays or envision their tomorrows.

Why did evolution design our brains to go wandering in time? Perhaps it’s because an experience is a terrible thing to waste. Moving around in the world exposes organisms to danger, so as a rule they should have as few experiences as possible and learn as much from each as they can. Although some of life’s lessons are learned in the moment (“Don’t touch a hot stove”), others become apparent only after the fact (“Now I see why she was upset. I should have said something about her new dress”). Time travel allows us to pay for an experience once and then have it again and again at no additional charge, learning new lessons with each repetition. When we are busy having experiences–herding children, signing checks, battling traffic–the dark network is silent, but as soon as those experiences are over, the network is awakened, and we begin moving across the landscape of our history to see what we can learn–for free.

Animals learn by trial and error, and the smarter they are, the fewer trials they need. Traveling backward buys us many trials for the price of one, but traveling forward allows us to dispense with trials entirely. Just as pilots practice flying in flight simulators, the rest of us practice living in life simulators, and our ability to simulate future courses of action and preview their consequences enables us to learn from mistakes without making them. We don’t need to bake a liver cupcake to find out that it is a stunningly bad idea; simply imagining it is punishment enough. The same is true for insulting the boss and misplacing the children. We may not heed the warnings that prospection provides, but at least we aren’t surprised when we wake up with a hangover or when our waists and our inseams swap sizes. The dark network allows us to visit the future, but not just any future. When we contemplate futures that don’t include us–Will the NASDAQ be up next week? Will Hillary run in 2008?–the dark network is quiet. Only when we move ourselves through time does it come alive.

Perhaps the most startling fact about the dark network isn’t what it does but how often it does it. Neuroscientists refer to it as the brain’s default mode, which is to say that we spend more of our time away from the present than in it. People typically overestimate how often they are in the moment because they rarely take notice when they take leave. It is only when the environment demands our attention–a dog barks, a child cries, a telephone rings–that our mental time machines switch themselves off and deposit us with a bump in the here and now. We stay just long enough to take a message and then we slip off again to the land of Elsewhen, our dark networks awash in light.

Gilbert and Buckner are professors of psychology at Harvard. Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness was published last May.

1. Author’s Preface

2. Introduction

3. Three Feet From Gold

4. A Fifty-Cent Lesson In Persistence

5. Desire – The First Step toward Riches

6. Desire Outwits Mother Nature

7. Faith – The Second Step toward Riches

8. Self-Confidence Formula

9. The Power of an Idea

10. Auto-Suggestion – The Third Step toward Riches

11. Summary of Instructions

12. Specialized Knowledge – The Fourth Step Toward Riches

13. Lack of Ambition

14. Imagination – The Fifth Step toward Riches

15. How To Make Practical Use Of Imagination

16. What Would I Do If I Had A Million Dollars

17. Organized Planning – The Sixth Step Toward Riches

18. When And How To Apply For A Position

19. The Capital Value Of Your Services

20. Take Inventory Of Yourself

21. The “Miracle” That Has Provided These Blessings

22. Decision – The Seventh Step Toward Riches

23. Power

24. The Sustained Effort Necessary To Induce Faith

25. Symptoms Of Lack Of Persistence

26. How To Develop Persistence

27. Power – The Ninth Step toward Riches

28. Transmutation – The Tenth Step Toward Riches

29. Why Men Seldom Succeed Before Forty

30. The Subconscious Mind – The Eleventh Step Toward Riches

31. Emotion

32. The Brain – The Twelfth Step Toward Riches

33. The Dramatic Story Of The Brain

34. The Sixth Sense - The Thirteenth Step Toward Riches

35. Building Character Through Auto-Suggestion

36. How To Outwit The Six Ghosts Of Fear

37. The Fear Of Criticism

38. Old Man Worry

39. Self-Analysis Test Questions

40. “Fifty-Seven” Famous Alibis

How to Train the Aging Brain

I LOVE reading history, and the shelves in my living room are lined with fat, fact-filled books. There’s “The Hemingses of Monticello,” about the family of Thomas Jefferson’s slave mistress; there’s “House of Cards,” about the fall of Bear Stearns; there’s “Titan,” about John D. Rockefeller Sr.

The problem is, as much as I’ve enjoyed these books, I don’t really remember reading any of them. Certainly I know the main points. But didn’t I, after underlining all those interesting parts, retain anything else? It’s maddening and, sorry to say, not all that unusual for a brain at middle age: I don’t just forget whole books, but movies I just saw, breakfasts I just ate, and the names, oh, the names are awful. Who are you?

Brains in middle age, which, with increased life spans, now stretches from the 40s to late 60s, also get more easily distracted. Start boiling water for pasta, go answer the doorbell and — whoosh — all thoughts of boiling water disappear. Indeed, aging brains, even in the middle years, fall into what’s called the default mode, during which the mind wanders off and begin daydreaming.

Given all this, the question arises, can an old brain learn, and then remember what it learns? Put another way, is this a brain that should be in school?

As it happens, yes. While it’s tempting to focus on the flaws in older brains, that inducement overlooks how capable they’ve become. Over the past several years, scientists have looked deeper into how brains age and confirmed that they continue to develop through and beyond middle age.

Many longheld views, including the one that 40 percent of brain cells are lost, have been overturned. What is stuffed into your head may not have vanished but has simply been squirreled away in the folds of your neurons.

One explanation for how this occurs comes from Deborah M. Burke, a professor of psychology at Pomona College in California. Dr. Burke has done research on “tots,” those tip-of-the-tongue times when you know something but can’t quite call it to mind. Dr. Burke’s research shows that such incidents increase in part because neural connections, which receive, process and transmit information, can weaken with disuse or age.

But she also finds that if you are primed with sounds that are close to those you’re trying to remember — say someone talks about cherry pits as you try to recall Brad Pitt’s name — suddenly the lost name will pop into mind. The similarity in sounds can jump-start a limp brain connection. (It also sometimes works to silently run through the alphabet until landing on the first letter of the wayward word.)

This association often happens automatically, and goes unnoticed. Not long ago I started reading “The Prize,” a history of the oil business. When I got to the part about Rockefeller’s early days as an oil refinery owner, I realized, hey, I already know this from having read “Titan.” The material was still in my head; it just needed a little prodding to emerge.

Recently, researchers have found even more positive news. The brain, as it traverses middle age, gets better at recognizing the central idea, the big picture. If kept in good shape, the brain can continue to build pathways that help its owner recognize patterns and, as a consequence, see significance and even solutions much faster than a young person can.

The trick is finding ways to keep brain connections in good condition and to grow more of them.

“The brain is plastic and continues to change, not in getting bigger but allowing for greater complexity and deeper understanding,” says Kathleen Taylor, a professor at St. Mary’s College of California, who has studied ways to teach adults effectively. “As adults we may not always learn quite as fast, but we are set up for this next developmental step.”

Educators say that, for adults, one way to nudge neurons in the right direction is to challenge the very assumptions they have worked so hard to accumulate while young. With a brain already full of well-connected pathways, adult learners should “jiggle their synapses a bit” by confronting thoughts that are contrary to their own, says Dr. Taylor, who is 66.

Teaching new facts should not be the focus of adult education, she says. Instead, continued brain development and a richer form of learning may require that you “bump up against people and ideas” that are different. In a history class, that might mean reading multiple viewpoints, and then prying open brain networks by reflecting on how what was learned has changed your view of the world.

“There’s a place for information,” Dr. Taylor says. “We need to know stuff. But we need to move beyond that and challenge our perception of the world. If you always hang around with those you agree with and read things that agree with what you already know, you’re not going to wrestle with your established brain connections.”

Such stretching is exactly what scientists say best keeps a brain in tune: get out of the comfort zone to push and nourish your brain. Do anything from learning a foreign language to taking a different route to work.

“As adults we have these well-trodden paths in our synapses,” Dr. Taylor says. “We have to crack the cognitive egg and scramble it up. And if you learn something this way, when you think of it again you’ll have an overlay of complexity you didn’t have before — and help your brain keep developing as well.”

Jack Mezirow, a professor emeritus at Columbia Teachers College, has proposed that adults learn best if presented with what he calls a “disorienting dilemma,” or something that “helps you critically reflect on the assumptions you’ve acquired.”

Dr. Mezirow developed this concept 30 years ago after he studied women who had gone back to school. The women took this bold step only after having many conversations that helped them “challenge their own ingrained perceptions of that time when women could not do what men could do.”

Such new discovery, Dr. Mezirow says, is the “essential thing in adult learning.”

“As adults we have all those brain pathways built up, and we need to look at our insights critically,” he says. “This is the best way for adults to learn. And if we do it, we can remain sharp.”

And so I wonder, was my cognitive egg scrambled by reading that book on Thomas Jefferson? Did I, by exploring the flaws in a man I admire, create a suitably disorienting dilemma? Have I, as a result, shaken up and fed a brain cell or two?

And perhaps it doesn’t matter that I can’t, at times, recall the given name of the slave with whom Jefferson had all those children. After all, I can Google a simple name.

Sally.

Jobs For Motivational Speakers – How to Land Jobs Speaking in Public

By James R. Malinchak

Are you looking for jobs for motivational speakers?

Landing speaking jobs is the main goal of motivational speakers. Speakers are getting paid to speak at events and they can effectively sell their products while they’re at it. In fact, ‘Back of the Room Sales’ is sometimes more profitable than the platform fees.

However, getting to speak at events as a motivational speaker is very challenging as it requires good credentials, excellent reputation, and a prominent public image. To put if briefly, a speaker should market and self-promote effectively if he or she wants to get booked.

Certainly, your ability to speak publicly needs to be well developed and a speaker should have to get on stage and showcase his or her talents in giving a speech. On stage, it is the speaker’s main goal to inform the audience and blow them away with your performance. Having excellent presentation skills helps you maintain credibility.

If you are just beginning your venture in motivational speaking, the primary objective is to build a professional image that will appeal to your target audience. Speakers should know how to make themselves a commodity by offering the public solutions to their biggest problems.

Picking a niche will make speakers’ jobs easier and it is the best way to start a motivational speaking career. It can help speakers focus and eventually, they will become experts in the field. Expertise is everything in the speaking business. Once perceived as an expert, event organizers will just start lining up.

Motivational speakers should know who their trying to impress. They must recognize who are the immediate buyers of their services. Organizers, event planners, and association heads are some of the individuals that speakers should target. If speakers are able impress these people, they will be contacted to become guests in group events.

Writing books will also help build credibility. In spare time, speakers should use their knowledge to make informative materials like videos, CD’s or books. They are a great way to promote yourself and you can usually get a few speaking engagements form interested readers.

Testimonials can help speakers sell their services. Testimonials influence the market greatly especially if they come from prominent and famous people. Speakers can ask for testimonials after every speaking event and encourage people to give reviews. You can put this in writing or just say it at the end of your speech. It is important that you only put truthful testimonials from real people.

Marketing efforts should also be done through the Internet as it is one of the most helpful promotional vehicle nowadays. Websites are not only an advertising unit; they can also be used as a platform to sell speaker products. You can earn passive income from it and with websites and products, you can earn money even when you aren’t giving speeches.

Essentially, to get speaking jobs continuously, speakers should become publicly known especially within the niche. Speaking careers should be treated like businesses and speakers are like salespersons trying to sell their topics, speeches, and products.

**Attention Readers**
Want to Make $100,000 to $1,000,000 Dollars Per Year as a Professional Speaker? Learn to How to Land Jobs Speaking In Public or send a completely blank email to bmsoptin@aweber.com.

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