Sugary-tasting California Pinot Grigio

Nation's Restaurant News - Beverage Trends: "Sugary-tasting California Pinot Grigio"

Want to be Rich? Then Educate Yourself. Why? Here���s why.

Want to be Rich? Then Educate Yourself. Why? Here���s why.

Saving a Little at a Time

Saving a Little at a Time

Think Before Acting

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Enhance your Personal Success

Develop a New Habit
In a fast changing business world, an important habit that you can develop is the habit of thinking before acting. Often, when we are pressured from all sides with decisions that have to be made, we leap to conclusions and make decisions without carefully considering all the possible ramifications of those decisions. Instead, develop the habit of buying time between the pressure to make a decision, and the actual decision itself.

There is a rule that says, “If the decision does not have to be made now, it has to not be made now.”

Allow Information to Settle
Your mind is incredibly powerful, and never more so than when you give it time to reflect upon a decision before you make the decision in the first place. Make it a habit of asking for a day, or a weekend, or even a week or a month, before you make a final decision. Put it off as long as possible. The very act of allowing the various pieces of information to settle in your brain will enable you to make a much better decision later on than you might have made if you decided too quickly.

Delay Decisions
It is amazing how many people say, “If I had just thought about that for a little while, I would have made a completely different decision.” This is almost always the case. Make it a habit to delay and defer decisions as long as you possibly can. They will invariably be better decisions when you finally come around to making them.

Action Exercises
Think on paper! Sit down and plan out every detail of your business. Leave nothing to chance. Never trust to luck.

Phases of Financial Planning

Phases of Financial Planning: "Phases of Financial Planning"

In Good Spirits: Your Health!

In Good Spirits: Your Health! (Seattle Weekly): "Your Health!"

The Billionaire’s Strategy for Success

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Enhancing your Financial Success.

Leveraging Your Financial Potential
One of the greatest forms of financial leverage is contacts Knowing the right people and being known by them can open doors for you that can save you years of hard work. The quality and quantity of your contacts and your relationships will have more to do with your success than perhaps any other factor.

Meet The Right People
Here are three things you can do to expand your list of contacts. First, make a list of the 25 people you feel it would be most useful for you to get to know. Develop a strategy to get to meet everyone of them over the next 12 months. Then make a list of 25 more.

Make a Plan For Personal Contact
List the people in charge of the major corporations that would be useful for you to know. List the mayor, list the congressmen, list the senator. List the important people that it would be helpful for you to know and then make a plan to meet them. Second is for you to network at every opportunity. Join business and trade associations. Attend meetings. Get involved. Volunteer for service on a key committee. This action alone can cut years off your career.

Get Involved In Your Community
The third way is to get involved in community service organizations. The best people in every community, the people you should know and who should know you, are usually involved in public service in some way. Start with the United Way in your own city, or get involved in any charity that you care about or that you're interested in. You'll be amazed at the quality of people that you'll meet doing voluntary service.

Develop New Ideas
Another form of leverage is creativity. Remember, one new idea is all you need to start a fortune. Everyone has the ability to come up with creative ideas and solutions if they look for them. All great fortunes begin with an idea.

Be An Effective Worker
A powerful form of leverage that can help you is good work habits. Good work habits make an extraordinary difference. In a recent study, 104 chief executive officers all agreed that the ability to set priorities and then to get the job done fast were the two qualities that most readily led to promotion and increases in pay.

Good work habits will bring you to the attention of the important people in your life as fast or faster than anything else you can do. In the final analysis, you always get paid for your results. If you develop a reputation for being the person who gets the job done fast, that alone can put you onto the fast track in your career.

Action Exercises
First, get involved in the business, trade, civic and social organizations in your community. Once you become a member, offer to help and serve on committees. This will bring you to the attention of people who can help you faster than any other way.

Second, develop excellent work habits. Be punctual. Plan your work and work your plan. Always concentrate your energies on high priority tasks and make sure that you are doing things that are important to your boss and to your company.

A Guide For Online Money Making

A Guide For Online Money Making: "A Guide For Online Money Making"

In Good Spirits: A Sad State (Seattle Weekly)

In Good Spirits: A Sad State (Seattle Weekly): "A Sad State"

Earthship Biotecture

Earthship Biotecture

Two Techniques for Turbulent Times

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Enhance your Personal Success.

There are two techniques that can be useful in developing the foresight that is a hallmark of effective leaders.

Practice Crisis Anticipation
The first is called “crisis anticipation” and it involves looking ahead as far as you can and asking, “What could possibly change or go wrong that would threaten our survival?”

Think About The Worst Possible Event
For example, what would you do if interest rates doubled, as they have done in the past? What if your best-selling product, or service, suddenly stopped selling, as often happens in high-tech industries in times of rapid change. What if a key executive died unexpectedly or your offices with all your records were destroyed by fire? What if you lost your key customer or major source of revenues?

These and other questions can only be asked and considered by the leader, the person ultimately charged with the overall responsibility for results. The failure to think through possible crises in advance can open you and others to fear, panic and confusion if something goes wrong.

Plan For A Crisis
The Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “Circumstances do not make the man; they merely reveal him to himself.”
A crisis is the genuine test of courage and effectiveness in a leader. You can greatly improve your abilities to function in a crisis situation by thinking it through in advance and by developing contingency plans — just in case.

Determine What Can Go Wrong
The second technique is called the “master method” of decision making. It involves asking, “What is the worst possible thing that can go wrong in this situation?”

Once you’ve asked the questions, you must decide whether or not you can live with those consequences. For example, in an investment, or new product introduction, or new promotion, the worst possible outcome may be that you will lose every penny. Can you live with that? Can the company survive? There are many different types of decisions and one of them is the decision you cannot afford to make. Most big failures result because someone made a commitment of resources without carefully considering the worst possible outcome.

Do What Billionaire's Do
John Paul Getty, the great oil billionaire said that one of his secrets of success was to always determine the worst thing that could happen in any investment — and then make sure it didn’t happen.

Action Exercises
Here are two ways to apply these techniques to your own situation:

First, make a list of the three worst things that could happen to your business or your department. Then develop a strategy to deal with these situations if they occur.

Second, practice “crisis anticipation” in each key area of your life. Look into the future and imagine a major setback. What would you do if they happened?

Bartending's best offer valuable advice

Nation's Restaurant News - Beverage Trends: "Bartending's best offer valuable advice"

Creating Wealth ��� A Simple Way For Mr Average To Get Rich

Creating Wealth ��� A Simple Way For Mr Average To Get Rich

Cocktailing at Home

Printer friendly version of: In Good Spirits: Cocktailing at Home (Seattle Weekly)

Increase Your Income 1000%!

from

Enhancing your Financial Success.

Here's an exercise for you; imagine that it's possible for you to earn ten times your current annual wage. If you're earning $25,000, imagine for a moment that it's possible for you to earn $250,000, a 1000% increase.

Believe In Yourself
The first reaction of most people to that exercise is to smile briefly and then to begin thinking about why it isn't possible. One man said to me, "If you knew how many years it's taken for me to get to what I'm earning today you wouldn't be suggesting that I could earn ten times as much."

There Are No Excuses
Mark Twain once wrote that there are a thousand excuses for every failure but never a good reason. The tragedy of the average American is that whereas his or her main preoccupation seems to be money, or the lack thereof, the average person has the inherent potential to earn far more than he or she is doing currently.

Can Someone Be 10x Better?
Is the manager earning $250,000 per year ten times as smart as the manager earning $25,000? 10 times as experienced? Does he or she work 10 times harder? Of course not. None of these are physically or mentally possible, but there are people in every business earning many times more than others with the same average age, experience and intelligence.

I.Q. Doesn't Really Matter
In fact, a few years ago in New York, a thousand men and women were selected at random and tested for I.Q. Between the one having the highest I.Q. in this sample and the one with the lowest, there was a difference of only 2 1/2 times. But between the person earning the most, who by the way, was not the one with the highest I.Q. and the one earning the least, who was not the one with the lowest I.Q., there was a difference of 100X in income.

Action Planning
Here are two things you can do to start increasing your income.

First, identify the highest earning, most successful people in your field and find out what it is that they are doing differently from others who aren’t doing as well. Copy them every day.

Second, set a goal to double your income over the next two or three years and then figure out what you’ll have to do to achieve it. Get started!

Champagne provides a celebration of food pairing

Nation's Restaurant News - Beverage Trends

Speak to Attract Life's Riches

Speak to Attract Life's Riches

YOUR TONGUE CAN BE YOUR WORSE ENEMY!

Your words, your dreams, and your thoughts have power to create conditions
In your life. What you speak about, you can bring about.

If you keep saying you can't stand your job, you might lose your job.

If you keep saying you can't stand your body, your body can become sick.

If you keep saying you can't stand your car, your car could be stolen or
just stop operating.

If you keep saying you're broke, guess what? You'll always be broke.

If you keep saying you can't trust a man or trust a woman, you will always
find someone in your life to hurt and betray you.

If you keep saying you can't find a job, you will remain unemployed.

If you keep saying you can't find someone to love you or believe in you,
your very thought will attract more experiences to confirm your beliefs.

If you keep talking about a divorce or break up in a relationship,

then you
might end up with it.

Turn your thoughts and conversations around to be more positive and power
Packed with faith, hope, love and action.

Don't be afraid to believe that you can have what you want and deserve.

Watch your Thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your Habits, they become character.
Watch your Character, for it becomes your Destiny

The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you
Settle for.

Thought I would share this with you. "In the search for me, I discovered
truth. In the search for truth, I discovered love. In the search for love,
I discovered God. And in God, I have found everything."

Theresa Bee

The Three Step Plan To Prosperity

The Three Step Plan To Prosperity

A Sangria blend that's a cut above

By Paul Gregutt

I was getting my hair cut, and Amy, who wields a razor blade like I work a corkscrew, reminded me that I had promised to do some research on sangria.

"What's your favorite sangria recipe?" she inquired. Believe me, when a woman with a razor blade aimed squarely at your head asks a question, you find a quick answer. Sangria, you say? Yes, I do seem to recall a conversation some weeks ago. I was going to try to re-create the excellent sangria I had whipped up one hot summer day two years ago.

Amy had seen something labeled Sangria at the liquor store and assumed it was a type of wine. In fact, it was more like a wine cooler, what a bartending friend calls "wine puttanesca." In other words, you can toss almost anything into the mix, and if it tastes good, go with it.

Bartending guides offer some pretty snazzy recipes, but for a simple summer party punchbowl, I don't think you need to fuss. For me, homemade is infinitely better than store-bought, and more fun.

Figure on a half-bottle of wine per person. Along with that, you will need fruit juice — this time I went with lemonade/mango, but the sky is the limit — and fresh fruit. Sangria is traditionally Spanish, so I used a bottle of a decent, dry Spanish rosé, then doubled it up with a lovely Washington gewürztraminer. You don't want oaky wines in sangria; you want wines that offer fresh fruit, crisp acids and some nice floral notes.

Don't cheap out. Better wine equals better sangria. I find that roughly a 40/60 fruit-juice-to-wine ratio works for me, but you can adjust to your own palate. Chop up fresh fruit; whatever is juicy and in season. I went with plums and nectarines. If your fruit is sweet, you shouldn't need to add sugar or syrup to the mix.

But there is a secret ingredient ... sherry. Go with a sweet Amontillado or Oloroso if possible; another option would be Madeira. It doesn't take much — just enough that you can taste it, but no one else can identify what's in there.

Ta-da! Let everything chill for an hour or so, and serve it in tumblers for a great party starter.

New for summer

Summer is a fine time for exploring new wineries; trying lighter aromatic white wines; and pouring hearty, blended reds with your grilled foods. Here are some outstanding new releases from Washington producers. For those of you keeping score, these are all 90-point wines or higher.

Chinook 2005 Semillon ($17). Clean and crisp, this lightly pear-flavored semillon might easily be mistaken for an elegant Italian pinot grigio. As with all Chinook wines, it shows pure varietal character, cool climate acidity and sophisticated winemaking.

Seems as if everyone is doing viognier these days, but only a few wineries manage consistently to do it right, avoiding both bitterness and alcoholic heat. Bergevin Lane's 2005 Viognier ($25) includes a substantial amount of roussanne. Stone fruits morph into tropical pineapple and bright citrus, the perfect flavors for viognier.

If you really want to pin the aroma meter, here are a couple of incredible gewürztraminers (just say "guh-werts," and your wine seller will know what you're after). Columbia Winery's 2005 Gewürz ($12) may be its best ever; it's beautifully varietal, mixing floral, bath powder, apple and grapefruit components in both the nose and the mouth.

There is an elegant intensity that powers the wine through a long, brilliant finish. Partner it with the Canoe Ridge 2004 "Oak Ridge Vineyard" Gewürz ($13), a lovely mix of candied citrus, spicy resin and tangy pineapple. Chill these wines a bit, and you will find they are just right with all kinds of spicy food, both hot and cold.

Latitude 46{+o} N is a new winery west of Walla Walla. Winemaker Chris Dowsett has a winner with his 2005 Clifton Cuvée Red Wine ($18), a compelling blend of grenache, syrah and a splash of mourvèdre. He calls it "a big jam bomb"; I would compare it to a good California field blend with fresh scents of cherries and black raspberries and plenty of crisp acid.

C.R. Sandidge is one of a growing number of quality boutiques popping up in the Prosser area; its 2003 Minick Vineyard Syrah ($20) is a gem, streaked with smoke, laced with flavors of coffee liqueur and cherry cordial, and teasingly scented with whiffs of cigar. All in all a rather decadent, delightfully dark and sinfully delicious wine.

Finally, here are a couple of special-occasion wines from two of Walla Walla's most important wineries: Eric Dunham's 2005 Lewis Estate Vineyard "Shirley Mays" Chardonnay ($35) might be dessert, it's so decadently soft and buttery. Thickly flavored with caramel, traces of pineapple and loads of rich tropical fruit, it's big, delicious, distinctive and appealing.

The Woodward Canyon 2003 Artist Series #12 Cabernet Sauvignon ($44) is the best in recent memory, showing tight, compact flavors of cassis, black cherry and berry in a wrap of baby fat. This muscular cab shows the influence of winemaker Kevin Mott, who came on board in 2003 and is off to a very good start.

Don't miss these

• The Auction of Washington Wines is just ahead, Aug. 17-19. New this year will be a Napa-style barrel auction offering custom blends from Beresan, Col Solare, DeLille Cellars, Leonetti Cellar, Matthews Estate and Pepper Bridge. The theme of the main auction is "Life is a Cabaret," and surely the most sought-after lot will be Quilceda Creek's "Perfection Collection," a pair of six-liter bottles of cabernets that were awarded perfect scores by Robert Parker's influential Wine Advocate. Also up for grabs are such prizes as a 2006 BMW Z4 3.0i roadster, a Viking Outdoor Cooking Center and a trip to Australia for two. Information can be found at www.auctionofwashingtonwines.org; or phone 206-667-9463.

• There are plenty of opportunities to taste new wines, but very few times can you walk the vineyards with a winemaker, learn how grapes are analyzed and wines are blended, or participate in tastings of older vintages. A new event — "Going Vertical!" — will offer all this and more, as the Yakima Valley vintners host a wide variety of seminars and vineyard tours this Labor Day weekend.

Many Yakima Valley tasting rooms will pour multiple vintages of their wines. The special vineyard tours and seminars are sized for intimate groups and priced separately. For details, check online at www.wineyakimavalley.org/events.

Finding the wines
Unless noted, all Wine Adviser recommendations are currently available, though vintages may sometimes differ. All wine shops and most groceries have a wine specialist on staff. Show them this column, and if they do not have the wine in stock, they can order it for you from the local distributor

Get Smart

from

Enhance your Personal Success.

Creativity is your key to the future. All progress comes about as the result of finding better, faster, cheaper, easier or different ways to do things and this requires the continual honing of your creative thinking skills.

Your Key Job At Work
One of the key functions of the executive is problem solving, which takes up as much as 50 percent of executive time. It can be said with some confidence that your ability to deal with problems creatively and effectively is the key determinant of your success as a manager. It would be hard to imagine an effective executive who could not solve problems and make decisions with a high level of competence.

Step On Your Own Acceleration
I've studied and lectured on creative thinking for years and I've come to the conclusion that there is virtually no problem you cannot solve, no goal you cannot achieve, no obstacle you cannot overcome if you know how to apply the creative powers of your mind, like a laser beam, to cut through every difficulty in your life and your work.

Get Paid More, Faster
The benefits of functioning more creativity can be enormous. Each of us wants to earn more money, be promoted faster, and enjoy greater status, prestige and recognition. In most cases however, we can only earn more by producing more or of better quality or cheaper or faster — and this requires doing things differently, using creativity.

Step On Your Own Acceleration
The good news is that creativity is a skill and a talent that can be learned and developed through practice. With this skill, you can dramatically accelerate your personal and professional growth. By sharpening your thinking skills and exercising your natural creative powers, you can multiply the value of your efforts and rapidly increase the quantity and quality of your rewards.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to be more creative.

First, see yourself as a professional problem-solver and look upon every difficulty or challenge as an opportunity to develop your creative powers.

Second, look for problems you can solve and obstacles you can overcome. The more you seek for answers and ideas, the smarter and more creative you become.

The best among bartenders may have an attitude - but "

Nation's Restaurant News - Beverage Trends: "The best among bartenders may have an attitude - but "

So - You Want to be Rich? 7 Wealth Attraction Tips for Entrepreneurs

So - You Want to be Rich? 7 Wealth Attraction Tips for Entrepreneurs

PROMOTIONS THAT WORK

Truckin' on the Table

By taking a regular pool table, six pool balls and a remote-controlled truck with a six-inch pool cue on the front, Thompson Lanes Ltd. in Thompson, Man., Canada, found a way to breathe life back into its pool tables. In the Truck/Pool Game, contestants get three minutes to zoom their trucks around the pool table, sinking as many balls in numbered order as they can.

"All the teams get around the table, cheering and yelling their teammate on, and the crowd is doing the same," General Manager Frederick Stuart says. Stuart enlists a local car dealership to sponsor the contests and give away shirts and hats to the winner. Additional prizes include coolers and shooters that Stuart plans to promote the next week.

With a remote microphone in hand, Stuart raises the energy level by egging on the contestants and the crowd. "We don't ever announce a specific night for the promo," he says. "We just wait till we have a full house, and then spring it on them. That way, people are always coming in to find out when the contest is, or they make sure to be here every night so they don't miss it."

New Band Talent Search

Big publicity and the warm feeling of helping upstarts get a break are two strong reasons to try this one.

At The Ranch in Midland, Texas, unsigned bands who participated in the Ranch's Songwriter & New Band Talent Search received prime time airplay on a local station for two months. Listeners voted for the top five bands with ballots available at the competition's sponsors. When the top five winners were chosen, The Ranch hosted a battle of the bands contest.

Visit The Ranch online at www.theranchmidland.com
.

Tell Us About Your Promotions Success!

Share your success story with your peers across the nation. We're always looking for interesting, successful promotions to print in the Promotions & Marketing department of Nightclub & Bar magazine and in The Hub, so let us tell our readers about your great events and how you made them a profitable hit!

Contact Jenny Adams at jadams@oxpub.com or (662) 236-5510, ext. 18.

Unlocking Your Creativity

from

Enhance your Personal Success.

Creative thinking can be stimulated by two things; intensely desired goals and pressing problems. Your creative capacities need something to hone in on and your job is to provide it.

A Continual Stimulus For Ideas
Intensely desired goals, clearly defined with detailed plans for their accomplishment act as a continual stimulus for ideas to achieve them.

Visualize Your Goals
To trigger your imagination, write out a clear description of your ideal end result or goal. Be clear about the goal, be flexible about the process. Think about it, visualize it as realized over and over. Project your mind forward to the picture of the realized goal and then look back to the present.

Define Your Goals Clearly
Think on paper. Make a plan and then work on the plan, updating it, changing it, adding to it as you think of new ways to work toward the goal. The more clearly defined and keenly desired your goals, the more of your natural creativity will be released for goal attainment.

The Proper Approach To Problems
The second stimulant to creativity is pressing problems. The key to idea generation when you face a problem is to approach the problem confidently, expectantly, with the attitude that there exists a logical, practical solution just waiting to be found.

The most creative people have a relaxed attitude of confident expectancy that causes their minds to function in original and imaginative ways.

Diagnose Your Problems Accurately
Define your problems clearly in writing. Accurate diagnosis is half the cure. Sometimes you will find that you are dealing with a "cluster problem," one that is made up of several smaller problems. Your job is to sort them out and then go to work on each one separately.

Break Up The Clusters
In many cluster problems, there is a core issue surrounded by a lot of symptoms. Creative thinking requires that you separate the core issue, and then focus on resolving that before worrying about the smaller problems.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to stimulate your creativity.

First, be absolutely clear about your goal. Write it down and make a plan to achieve it. Think of different ways you could accomplish it.

Second, define your problems clearly and then make a list of all the possible solutions to your problem. Take action on at least one idea immediately.

Drive-ins' cool drinks and frozen treats

Nation's Restaurant News: "Drive-ins' cool drinks and frozen treats"

Five Picks Peter Lynch Would Love - Forbes.com

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Article Search Engine: GoArticles.com: "
Bartending School Is Just The Beginning"

Four Ways to Test Your Idea

from

Enhancing your Financial Success.

Be Sure That You Have a Great Business Idea Before You Put Time and Money Into It

How to be sure that you have a great business idea before you put time and money into it. There are four great ways for you to test any product or service idea before you start a business built upon it. Number one, seek out people who are already in the same business and ask their opinions of the product or service.

Many people have saved themselves an enormous amount of time and money by finding that people who are already in the business wish they weren't in the business and who wish they hadn't invested the time or money to get in the business in the first place. So go and talk to them. Ask them what they think about the business.

Ask them if they would recommend that someone else get into the business. Don't be shy or secretive.

Ask for Feedback On Your Idea
Every so often, at seminars, I have people come up to me and ask me if I would give them some advice on their business, and I say, "Well, what is your idea?" And they won't tell me what their idea is because they're afraid somebody will steal their idea. The fact is that ideas are a dime a dozen. So be perfectly open.

Tell people what you're thinking of doing. And get feedback from people who are already in the business. That alone has saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars. It may even have saved my financial life on a couple of occasions.

Ask Your Bank Manager For Advice
Number two is to ask your bank manager for his opinion or advice. A bank manager, who deals with commercial accounts, very often has a tremendously accurate sense for what kind of businesses will succeed and what kind won't. One 5-minute interview with my bank manager a few years ago saved me $200,000 dollars in an investment.

He pointed out to me the weaknesses in the particular business I was looking at getting into, and I had no answer for him. So I didn't go into the business and the people who did lost everything that they put into it. Ask your bank manager. Your bank manager can be one of the very best sources of business advice.

Check With Family and Friends
Number three, ask your friends, ask your family, ask your acquaintances for information. Family members are very good targets for market research. Ask your family and friends if they would buy the product or service that you're thinking of offering. How much would they pay for it? Listen to their questions.

Listen to their criticisms. Listen to their concerns, because if you can't answer their questions and concerns in a logical and believable way, it could be that there's something wrong with your idea.

Talk to a Potential Customer
The fourth way to do market research is to visit prospective customers for the product or service and ask if they would buy it. If you're thinking of selling something to a company, go to the type of company that you would sell it to and ask if they would buy it if you produced it. If you're thinking of selling something through retail, go to the retailer and ask them if they would buy it or sell it.

Ask the customer. Customers are very open and very candid and sometimes they'll give you insights that will be worth their weight in gold. If you're going to sell through a retailer, ask the retailer if he or she could sell the product if they were carrying it. Why or why not?

Action Exercises
First, visit people who are in the same business and ask for their opinions. Call them on the telephone. A person already doing the business is the best source of advice in that business.

Second, ask your bank manager for advice. Lay out your business plan or idea to him or her and ask for his or her candid feedback. This could save you an enormous amount of time and money.