8 Days of Profit

There's more to February than Valentine’s Day. Sure, the 14th should be a good day for sales if your bar is a Valentine’s destination.

But then again, all those cooing couples might go for an expensive dinner in a restaurant and leave you high and dry. So, make sure you maximize opportunities in February to capture revenue. Here are a few ideas.

Bartender Auction
Check out the bars around your location for the best looking employees and invite industry professionals to agree to be auctioned off on a night at your bar.

With the money going to charity and a $500 reward for the person who pulls in the highest bid, competition will be encouraged to an all-time high.

For sponsors, think of places that will donate good date packages to be enjoyed by the bidder and their newly owned bartender such as spas, boat rentals, paintball companies or belly dancing lessons.

Charlie’s Angel’s B’day Bash
February 2 is Farrah Fawcett’s birthday. Host a “Charlie’s Angels” theme party and play the old episodes on the big screen on silent. Host a contest for the winner to take home a free consultation with a plastic surgeon.

Red Party
Turn your club, servers, food and cocktails red for the night. The more outrageous you go, the larger the profits and longer the word-of-mouth effect. Tie in sponsorship from the American Heart Association in honor of February being American Heart Month.

Public Proposal
Advertise on the radio that you are searching for a man who is willing to propose to his fiancé inside your club. Call a local media station for coverage of that night and make sure to have the DJ ready at midnight to make a surprise announcement. Balloon drops and confetti raining down are a great bonus.

Wedding Fashion Show
Millions of Americans get married in February, and since most engagements are at least a year, pull in the profits of those excited soon-to-be brides with a wedding fashion show and Champagne toast. Contact your local bridal shops and jewelry stores for sponsorship and cross advertising.

Bob Marley’s Birthday
There is nothing like a mid-winter beach party to get everyone in the mood to drink. Push your Latin brands that are associated with the Caribbean and pump Bob Marley hits out all night long in honor of his birthday, which falls on the 6th of February.

Offer free admission for people in bathing suits. For extra excitement, put a couple of hot tubs in your bar for the night.

Cupid’s Revenge
For all those scorned lovers, host a party with a darker twist. Have people bring in pictures of their worst ex-lovers to be placed on dartboards against the wall. Host a dart tournament and serve signature cocktails such as Broken Heart Martinis or Jilted Juleps.

Mi Pom-amoure
3/4 ounce of Hiram Walker Pomegranate Schnapps
3/4 ounce of Hiram Walker Amaretto
1/4 ounce fresh lime juice
Brut Champagne
2 cherries
Squeeze juice from limes into shaker and drop them in. Add Hiram Walker Pomegranate Schnapps, Amaretto and ice and shake well. Strain into a Champagne flute and fill remaining with Champagne. Spear two cherries and place on the rim as garnish.

The SQ3R Study Method

One of the first and most important skills you must develop on your success journey is the skill of effective study. Without this skill, some otherwise dedicated students who are on the path become discouraged as a result of the difficulty they have in reading, studying and retaining information. One very effective technique to improve your study skills is the SQ3R Study Method.

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Plan to Get Rich

By Chuck Saletta

January 10, 2007

In the real world, people don't just get rich and stay rich. Those who do find money falling into their laps, either through inheritance, lottery winnings, or world-class celebrity, often lose their wealth because they can't manage it.

If you want to get rich and stay that way, you need a plan. A solid plan. One that's time-tested, battle-hardened, and likely to last for decades.

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Seven Formulas For Business Success

from

Enhancing your Financial Success

Visualize Your Goals
There are seven formulas for business success. Number one, set a specific goal and visualize it as a reality. Play the picture of your goal as already realized on the screen of your mind over and over again.

Number two, look for a problem you can solve with a product or service that is high quality and good value. All successful businesses are based on products or services that are high quality and good value.

Number three, start small and learn your business thoroughly. Be patient. Invest time rather than a lot of money.

Bootstrap Your Way To Success
One of the best ways to build a business is to start off on a bootstrap. This means that you start off with very little money and you grow your business with the money that you earn in the business, rather than outside financing, borrowing, loans from friends and so on.

Test, Test, Test
Number four, test every major move before you invest in it. Test, test, test. Don't plunge into a business. Move ahead carefully, one step at a time.

Number five, expand on the basis of your successes, out of your profits, as you move along. In other words, only expand your business on money that you've earned in the business, not on borrowed capital.

Pick Your People Carefully
Number six, carefully select the people to help you expand and grow. The biggest mistakes you'll ever make will be in picking the wrong people to work with, so be very, very careful in picking the people you're going to work with in your business.

Use Financial Leverage
And number seven, use financial leverage. Financial leverage is business borrowing, lines of credit from the back, which are based on the cash flow from your successful business.

The whole aim of starting a business is to develop a consistent, predictable source of cash flow in excess of cost and expenses and then to hold to the money. Banks will lend you all the money that you can service as debt with your cash flow.

Start Off Part Time
One final thing that you can do, and I've recommended that many people do this over the years, is if you're starting off with no money, go to work part-time for a business in a field that interests you. It's a valuable form of on-the-job training.

Work evenings or work weekends. Or work on your holidays if you like.

Sometimes a business that looks tremendous from the outside will look terrible once you start working for it. But sometimes when you start working for a business, you start to get an intimate understanding of how it works and you get insights on how you can improve it.

Learn What You Need To Learn
Remember this, though, most businesses fail because of managerial incompetence. So take the time to learn what you need to know to succeed. Be patient.

The time you invest before you start will pay off over and over again in the months and years ahead.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to implement these formulas for business success:

First, be prepared. The number one reason that people succeed in starting their own businesses is that they have the knowledge and experience, in advance that they need to succeed. Do your homework.

Second, start small. Some people think that they can be successful faster by putting all their savings at risk at the very beginning. The opposite is true. Start small and grow out of your cash flow from successful operations.

FRUITY COCKTAILS, HYBRID MARTINIS GO DOWN WELL WITH THE CLUB CROWD

by William Rice

Despite, or perhaps because of, the unsettled economy and poor performance of Chicago's athletic teams, the passion for faux martinis and exotic fruit drinks is unabated in our trendiest clubs and bars.

The one constant with drinks labeled martini is the glass. Vermouth has given way to flavored liqueours and gin has been replaced by new, high-end vodka brands from abroad or somewhere in the U.S.

For instance, Wave, in the W Chicago Lakeshore hotel, serves a martini featuring Turi, a top-of-the-line vodka from Estonia that was introduced here only in September. Another new vodka from Poland bears the name "Jazz".

Bartenders also have been doing their part to help patrons reach their recommended daily allowance of citrus juice. Lime is a vital ingredient in Swank's mohito and at the new Rumba, the popular La Vida Loca contains both pineapple and orange juice.

Recipes

Wave, W Chicago Lakeshore, 644 N. Lake Shore Dr., 312-255-4460.
Martini magic weaves a spell here nightly. One of the most popular new drinks this season is the Turitini, made with an unusually smooth and subtle vodka, Turi, imported from Estonia.

WAVE'S TURITINI
Makes two martinis Confectioners' sugar
1/3 cup vodka, Turi preferred
1/3 cup moscato d'Asti (Italian sparkling wine)
Ice
2 candied lemon twists, or regular lemon twists

1. Moisten rim of two martini glasses, then roll the rims in confectioner's sugar until rims are coated. Place glasses in the freezer, if space allows.

2. Combine vodka and moscato in a cocktail shaker. Add 8 ice cubes and stir until cold. Strain into chilled glasses, garnish with lemon twist and serve.

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Sugar, 108 W. Kinzie St., 312-822-9999
Chicago's first and foremost dessert bar opened at the end of summer to a flurry of admiring articles and has been on chocoholics' dance cards ever since.

SUGAR'S STARRY NIGHT
Makes two cocktails1/3 cup espresso-strength coffee, at room temperature
1/3 cup Van Gogh Dutch Chocolate Vodka
1/3 cup Kahlua
Ice
2 white chocolate truffles

Pour coffee, vodka and Kahlua into a coctail shaker. Add 8 cubes ice, shake until the liquids are well chilled and strain into two chilled martini glasses. Garnish each cocktail with a truffle.

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Monsoon, 2813 N. Broadway, 773-665-9463.
This enchanting, newly opened restaurant offers elegant Indian fare and lots of creature comforts, including the U-shaped bar just inside the entrance. House cocktails awaken the palate, especially when sipped in the company of Monsoon's appetizers.

MONSOON'S GOLDEN LAKSHMI
Makes two martinis 1/3 cup brandy, Cognac preferred
1/4 cup mango juice
1 tablespoon Midori liqueur
Ice
2 splashes Grenadine

Pour brandy, mango juice, and Midori into a cocktail shaker. Add 8 ice cubes and stir until the liquids are well chilled. Strain into two chilled martini glasses and top each cocktail with a splash of Grenadine.

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Swank, 710 N. Wells St., 312-274-9500
Ask bartender Jaime to make you a Swank mojito, watch carefully as he does, then re-create it at home.

SWANK'S MOJITO
Makes two cocktails8 leaves fresh mint
4 teaspoons sugar
6 lime wedges
1/2 cup Bacardi limon
Rose's lime juice
Ice
Club soda

1. Place mint, sugar and 4 lime wedges into a cocktail shaker. Muddle firmly until sugar dissolves and lime has lost most of its juices. Add Bacardi, 2 splashes of lime juice and 8 ice cubes.

2. Cover, shake vigorously and strain over fresh ice into two highball glasses. Top with soda and garnish with remaining lime wedges.

Mastering The Power of Truth

Master the Twelve Universal Laws of Success to guide you on your journey to your goals, vision, and purpose. Digest and understand these laws as simple, concise statements of truth which you can quickly and automatically articulate in your consciousness.

The following is a concise statement of the Twelve Universal Laws of Success:

1. The Universal Law of Thought

You become what you think about most of the time.

What you recognize, you energize. What you energize, you realize.

2. The Universal Law of Change.

You change your life by changing your thinking.

3. The Universal Law of Vision.

What you see clearly in your thoughts is what you get in your life experience.

4. The Universal Law of Command.

What you say is what you get.

5. The Universal Law of Human Magnetism.

Like attracts Like. Be the person you want to be to attract the people you want to meet, the experiences you wish to have, and the possessions you seek to enjoy.

“What you wear in your heart, comes out in your face.”—Lavinia E. Sneed

6. The Universal Law of Focus and Discipline.

Keep your eye on the prize. All distractions are equal and equally counter-productive. Keep yourself under control at all times.

7. The Universal Law of Action.

How to be most effective in doing what must be done.

8. The Universal Law of Value and Mutual Exchange.

Invest your time, thoughts, energies, and money wisely and effectively. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

“If your outflow exceeds your income, your upkeep becomes your downfall”—Russell Hemphill

9. The Universal Law of Relationships.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

“If you want to have friends, be friendly.”—Elder Linwood Nesbitt

10. The Universal Law of Supply and Opportunity.

There is always enough of just what you need.

11. The Universal Law of Persistence and Results.

A winner never quits, and a quitter never wins. Hang tough and keep rolling.

12. The Law of Truth.

The truth shall make you free.

© 2007 LifeSkill Institute, Inc.

Based on The Twelve Universal Laws of Success, Second Edition, Expanded, ISBN 0-9748362-1-4 a new book by Herbert Harris, available at Amazon.com or through the LifeSkill Institute, Inc.

Call (800) 570-4009 to order books. Visit our website www.lifeskillinstitute.org for weekly success message and download Twelve Affirmations To Live By Poster. E-mail: lifeskill@earthlink.net

Start From Nothing and Become Financially Independent by Developing Four Qualities

from

Enhancing your Financial Success

More than eighty percent of self-made millionaires in America began with nothing or in many cases, less than nothing. I can certainly relate to that because when I was growing up and right into my early 30s, I never had any extra money with which to start a fortune.

It seemed to me that there was always enough, if not more than enough bills, to absorb every penny I earned. I was always in debt.

Be Ready For Your Opportunity
And even if a great business opportunity did come along, I wouldn't have been able to do anything with it. As I began studying financial success and self-made millionaires, I noticed that almost everyone around me was in pretty much the same boat.

The idea of becoming really wealthy was a distant dream with very little possibility of coming true. You may be in the same situation, with more bills than money or assets.

Look at the Numbers
The statistics are a little scary. Of 100 people who reach retirement age, according to insurance industry statistics, only one will be wealthy. Four out of the hundred will be financial independent; fifteen will have some savings put aside.

And the other 80 will be dependent on pensions, still working or broke - this after a lifetime of well-paid work in the most affluent society in human history. Now why does this happen?

Why People Retire Poor
There are two main reasons why people retire poor. First, they never decide to retire rich. They wish and hope and pray, but they never make a firm, unequivocal decision that they're going to do it.

Second, even if they do decide to retire rich, they procrastinate until it's too late. They always have some good reason for putting it off.

Start With Desire and Decision
If you sincerely want to beat the odds, to achieve financial independence and retire wealthy, there are four critical steps that you must take, all starting with the letter D.

The first step is desire. You must want it badly enough to make an unshakable commitment and to be willing to make sacrifices.

The second D is decision. You must make a decision right now to do whatever is necessary, to be willing to pay any price, go any distance, to achieve your goal.

Practice Determination and Discipline
The third D is determination, which is to keep at it until you succeed in spite of all the problems and obstacles you will experience.

And the fourth D is discipline - the discipline to master yourself to develop the habits necessary for achieving financial independence.

Those are the four Ds. Desire, Decision, Determination and Discipline. And you can measure how successful you're going to be in the future by measuring how well you're doing in each of those on a scale of one to ten

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:

First, make a decision, right now, that you are going to be financially independent, no matter what obstacles you face in the short term. Then write it down, make a plan and start to work on it every single day.

Second, resolve in advance that you will persist in the face of every setback or obstacle you face. You will never give up. You will keep on moving forward until you finally achieve your goal.

Pairing is more art than science, but matching taste, weight and intensity makes it easier

By Mary Ewing-Mulligan and Ed McCarthy

Someone recently asked us whether we can pair wine with food by reading a recipe, or whether we need to taste the wine together with the food.

The fact is that most wine professionals make judgments about what wine to serve with a particular dish, or what type of foods might complement a particular wine, without having the opportunity to taste the food and wine together.

It may sound like an inexact science, but in fact we apply various principles to arrive at what are likely to be complementary pairings.

Still, like nearly all aspects of wine, not everyone agrees on the principles to apply. Winemakers often single out certain flavors in a wine to support the idea that a wine will pair nicely with particular types of food.

A wine with lemon-grass aromas and flavors, for example, might be recommended for Thai cuisine, and a wine with the flavors of black pepper might be recommended with steak au poive.

The limitations of this approach are obvious, however, as wine and food each have much more going on than just their aromas and flavors. The experience involves aromas and flavors; the basic tastes, such as sweetness, sourness or acidity; and impressions of weight and texture.

Likewise, any dish has the same considerations plus, sometimes, the additional tastes of saltiness and umami.

A systematic approach that encompasses all of these factors would have the complexity of an advanced mathematical formula, but some wine experts have taken steps to simplify the process with general guidelines.

Evan Goldstein, author of “Perfect Pairings,” points out, for example, that “sweetness [in wine] is a great counterbalance to moderate levels of spicy heat” in food, and “alcohol is accentuated by salt.”

For our part, we keyed in on what we believe are the two most fundamental issues for wine and food pairing while in the process of writing the 2005 book “Wine Style.” Those are the weight of the wine and of the dish as well as the flavor intensity of the wine and of the dish.

Simply put: Heavy dishes need fairly hefty wines, and light dishes call for lighter wines, generally speaking.

In the same way, flavorful dishes require flavorful wines, such as all those fruity New World varietals. Dishes with delicate, low-key flavor intensity generally need wines with subtle flavor expression.

Beyond those two considerations, one can fine-tune the pairing around issues such as the specific flavors of the wine and the food, the texture of the wine and the dish—contrasting a crisp wine with a rich sauce, for example—or the sweetness of the wine and the food, among other options.

One of us had a special opportunity to examine the dynamics of food and wine as a judge at the 2007 Sydney International Wine Competition last autumn. The purpose of this competition is to identify and reward wines that actually taste good with food.

Judges first rated the wines for inherent quality, and the top twenty percent of the entries then proceeded to flights in which they were judged along with a dish. Results are published on www.top100wines.com .

The experience confirmed a few other beliefs as well. First, unoaked or gently-oaked wines pair more easily with food than very oaky wines do, and, second, high acidity renders wines food-friendly.

Add these observations to our fundamental guidelines and to the depth of advice in books like Goldstein’s, and you’ll be well-armed to pair wines with your menu. But never lose sight of the fact that, in the end, it’s the taste of the individual that matters most.

WINE OF THE WEEK

2004 Domaine Willm Pinot Gris, Alsace, France

This white wine is not only very versatile with food, but also a terrific value. It’s dry, full-bodied and rich, with more high-acid depth than you usually find in rich whites, and it has lots of peachy and orangey flavor.

It’s weighty enough to pair even with some beef dishes, and rich enough to handle a slight amount of sweetness or spice in the food it’s paired with.

Wholesale case price: $96

How To Get Money And Become Successful Using A Coach

By Greg Nicholls

Coaches are here to assist people towards their personal best. A Personal, Professional, Life, or Success Coach will assist you in learning about and applying the principles of success to your life.

However, it is not up to them to make you succeed, it is up to you to truly desire success.

So as long as you have the intention of attaining true success, you can succeed.

Success Coaches have many different titles:

Personal Coach, Professional Coach, Life Coach, Mentor, Success Mentor, Career Coach, Personal Development Coach, Self Improvement Coach, Business Coach, Sales Coach

While there are many systems of bringing a person from failure in life, to success, they should all boil down to some basic principles:

What differentiates a success coach from other coaches is how they go about assisting their client in becoming aware of failure and success and knowing the difference between the two.

As this is not a "quick fix" it is important to note that this will usually take a minimum of 90 days to complete and ongoing coaching is strongly recommended.

For the client to be coached to success, the coaches role is to introduce a higher level of understanding regarding the client’s conscious mind, their subconscious mind and assist the client in developing the client's Purpose in life.

This can begin by examining what their client wants to attain, or accomplish in their life. Next the coach will allow their client to differentiate between "what they know, they know" - "what they know they don't know" and "What they don't know they don't know.

Each client will become conscious of their conscious mind and will learn how to begin to live a life filled with intent.

There is a gap between "knowing" something and "doing" something. Understanding the difference and realizing how to take action on knowledge will begin to produce results in life.

From this, the client will have developed Focus in their life towards their Goals; learning how to think BIG and truly Visualize the client's intended future.

This process will consistently utilize Affirmations, simply to remind the client of what they want, as it will keep the clients goals on the surface of the clients mind, allowing them to keep on track.

Next, introducing the client to their subconscious and how it works, demonstrates the "you reap what you sow" principle.

As the mind is affected by both positive and negative energy, understanding how to manage these will empower the client towards controlled thought.

Learning how to utilize the subconscious mind to the client’s advantage, makes the task of bringing about success as effortless as holding a magnet to metal; the subconscious mind can be cultivated to attract success to it and the client will know how this is done within a handful of sessions and a bit of time and practice.

From these progressive exercises, a new self image is created, one that is developed with the least amount of effort, yet the clients mind is stronger, more confident and fuelled by intention.

Finally, the coach will assist the client in solidifying the client’s purpose in life. Defining success and utilizing role models for inspiration, the client will now be able to easily overcome adversity in their life.

Becoming educated on simple necessary components in life, such as Health unveils a cleaner and more complete being.

Leadership qualities will begin to be revealed and regularly practiced and a heightened awareness towards prosperity will be established.

The client will now be moving about their day, able to "recognize" success and abundance and as they have shed their limiting beliefs and desirability issues; receiving all that is available to them will now be part of their normality.

When they ask the question "what is possible?" The answer will simply be, "everything." To become coached to success, utilizing the principles demonstrated above, visit: http://www.coachedtosuccess.net

Copyright 2007: Nicholls Enterprises

Greg Nicholls has coached and mentored many people to their personal best, his Coached To Success program can assist anyone that truly desires success and is willing to learn the principles of success. The 90 day program and ongoing coaching can create a success in the willing student, for more details, visit: http://www.coachedtosuccess.net

How You Can Develop The "Auto-Pilot" For Success Using A Coach

By Greg Nicholls

It seems that everything we do in life seems to come natural; well in fact, what seems natural is what we are comfortable or familiar with AKA: Habits.

Does that always mean that we are doing the right thing?

Well, if you are not experiencing the level of success in your life that you truly desire, then the answer is likely no.

Is there a way to learn new habits?

Yes.

Can you get there by just reading books about success, or attending a weekend seminar on success?

While you will certainly feel invincible and for a moment and maybe evenunderstand the principles of success; if you do not know how to apply these principles to your life, then you will be back where you were before you read the book, or attended the conference in about two weeks, three if you are lucky.

How can you learn to apply these principles to your life?

Find a coach that will include you in a structuredprogram that will allow you the time to develop habits of these principles.

If you are wondering what "Auto-Pilot is like; just think about driving to work, if it seems like sometimes you just got there, but cannot remember everything that happened along the way.

This is because your subconscious mind took over the menial tasks of negotiating your way to work and you just arrived.

Now think about the time(s) that you were driving to a friend's house, or to the movies, but before you knew it, you were on your way to work and are now 15 minutes out of your way.

Why does this happen?

Well, when we do something enough times over and over, they form a habit and we easily fall into the "groove" and allow our "Auto-Pilot" to take over.

The same thing is happening to you if you are not having the level of success that you desire to have in your life. You keep desiring one thing and quite unconsciously repeat habits that produce an undesirable result.

To attain the goals that you want to accomplish, you need to learn how to develop a habit of following your "road to success" by repeating the application of the principles of success over and over again.

If you have ever hired a coach before, but never got the results you wanted, it is likely because the coachdid not have a clear understanding of where you are, where you want to be and how to get you from pointA to point B.

Ifyour coach does notknow, then neither will you.

So in order to develop the "Auto-Pilot" for "Success", find andhire a coach that will present a plan to get you from where you are to where you want to be in the next 3-6 months.

Your Coach,

Greg Nicholls

1-800-388-4563

http://www.coachedtosuccess.net/

Greg Nicholls has contributed many articles to Self Improvement, teaching people that they Deserve Money in their lives, he offers a free weekly newsletter that you can subscribe to at http://www.DeserveMoney.com To learn more about the author and the method of coaching that is discussed in this article, visit http://www.CoachedToSuccess.net and get Coached To Success.

When Credit-Card Debt Is Better Than Home-Equity Debt

REBECCA WALKER AND her husband were anxious to refinance their adjustable rate mortgage. But a $7,000 home-equity loan (HEL) stood in the way.

The Walkers bought their house in 2003 with a 100% mortgage, and now the two debts combined were more than the home was actually worth.

"No lender would touch us," the 28-year-old from Broomfield, Colo., explains. "We were told that if we could pay off the home-equity loan, then we would be in a position to refinance."

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Two Rules For Business Start-ups

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Enhancing your Financial Success

Entrepreneurship is the art of finding profitable solutions to problems. Every successful entrepreneur, every successful businessperson has been a person who has been able to identify a problem and come up with a solution to it before somebody else did.

Here are the five rules for entrepreneurship.

Find A Need And Fill It
First, find a need and fill it. Ross Perot, when he was working for IBM, saw that his customers who were buying IBM computers, needed help in processing their data.

He went to IBM with this idea and they said they weren't interested, so he started his own business.

He eventually sold it out for $2.8 billion dollars. He found a need and he filled it.

Find A Problem And Solve It
The second rule is to find a problem and solve it. A secretary working for a small company began mixing flour with nail varnish in order to white out the mistakes she was making in her typing.

Pretty soon, her friends in the same office asked if she could make some for them. So she began mixing it on her kitchen table.

Then, people in other offices started asking for it, and she eventually quit her business and worked full time creating what is today called Liquid Paper.

A few years ago, she sold her company to Gillette Corporation for 47 million dollars.

Look For Solutions
Find a problem and solve it. Find a problem that everybody's got and see if you can't come up with a solution for it. Find a way to supply a product or a service better, cheaper, faster or easier.

Clemmons Wilson saw that there was a need for hotels that could accommodate families that were traveling, and he started Holiday Inns.

And Holiday Inns has now become one of the most successful hotel chains in the world.

Focus On Your Customer
Here's the key to success in business. Become obsessed with your customer. Fixated on your customer. Think of the customer. Think of what the customer wants, what the customer needs.

What the customer will pay for, what the customer's problems are. Thomas J. Watson, Senior, the founder of IBM, taught his people and built his company on this principle.

See yourself as working for the customer.

Once you've come up with a product or an idea, then start to invest your time, talent and energy instead of your money, to get started.

The Source of Most Great Fortunes
Remember this, most great fortunes in America were started with an idea and with personal efforts. Most great fortunes were started with the sale of personal services. This is called sweat equity.

In other words, instead of cash equity, put in sweat equity. Put in the sweat of your brow to begin your business. You can learn valuable lessons operating on a small scale.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:

First, find a need and fill it. Look around you and search for needs that people have for products or services that are not being met. One small idea is enough to start you on the way to business success.

Second, find a problem and solve it. Look around you for problems that you or other people have that are not yet being solved. Look for solutions that nobody has thought of and give them a try.

One good solution could change the whole direction of your life.

Today Is Tomorrow’s Yesterday!

Today is the actual result of the effectiveness of your plans. If you fully utilized each and every hour available yesterday, then you have done all you can to maximize your possibilities for achievement, reward, and success today.

If you wasted those precious moments of yesterday in frivolous, unproductive endeavors, your rewards will come in like fashion today.

Along with the results of your previous efforts, today also contains the seeds of tomorrow’s possibilities.

Today embraces the opportunity to make tomorrow the way you want it to be. Today is your last chance to influence and change the results that will surely come forth tomorrow.

Each day represents the results and proof of your previous endeavors, together with an opportunity for change in the future.

Seize upon this daily opportunity for change with a positive attitude and a definite plan. Put this plan into immediate action through continuous, effective work.

The results of your efforts today will surely appear as tomorrow’s reality.

Where you are tomorrow depends on how wisely and effectively you use the hours available today.

Start each day with a positive mental attitude. Visualize and focus on your goals. Carefully make your plans.

Write them down in detail. List the things that must be done each day to accomplish your goals.

Use every hour of every day to execute your plans effectively to produce desired results. At the end of each day, ask yourself the daily question:

Did I do everything I could today to make tomorrow the way I want it to be?

When you can answer the daily question in the absolute affirmative:

Yes, I did everything I could, with all I had to do it with!

You are well on your way to the success and achievement you seek and deserve in this lifetime.

Bartending – Not All Beer And Skittles

By Michael Russell

The modern barman or barmaid requires people skills and, legally, they require knowledge of liquor, gaming and responsible service of alcohol legislation.

Most bartenders and indeed, other workers in the hospitality industry, are employed on a casual or a part-time basis and the industry provides many opportunities for people who need a second income to supplement the income from their main occupation.

Consequently many of these employees are young, carefree and with little or no plans to remain in the industry on a long-term basis. Nevertheless, the bartending staff are required to learn a range of skills and apply a fair degree of common sense to the job.

The skill of pouring a glass a draught beer is gained from experience and cannot be learned from a book. The chilled beer glass should be held close to the tap, about 5-10 centimetres (2-4 inches) away and tilted at a 45 degree angle or thereabout.

The initial pour should be directed at the side of the glass and not allowed to splash into the bottom of the glass. The glass can be lowered slightly and gradually straightened as the pour is made and it is at this time that the 'head' of the beer is formed.

When the glass is half full the pour should be stopped. The half-poured beer should be set down on the bar in front of the customer and allowed to rest momentarily as the head and the bubbles in the beer settle.

Allow the thirsty customer to watch the head in his beer as it settles and the bubbles rise from the bottom of a good quality beer glass.

The pour is then finished off, again commencing with the tilted glass, pouring the beer against the side of the glass and as the beer level rises to within 2 cm (3/4 - 1 inch) of the lip, the pour is cut off, allowing the head of the beer to crown over the top, the foam forming a slightly raised 'head'. Beautiful.

The experienced bar person will also have a working knowledge of the cellar operation and can 'tap' new kegs as required and check beer lines and the gas (carbon dioxide) equipment.

The gas needs to be forced into the kegs at a pressure within a certain range to ensure that the beer is forced from the keg and through the beer lines to the tap at a constant rate.

If the gas pressure is wrong, the beer will either pour into the glass too slowly, making it taste flat, with no bubbles and no head, or it will pour into the glass too fast and the foam and head will fill the glass before the barman knows it.

It is then necessary to tip off the excess or allow the head of the beer to flow over the glass as the level of the beer rises. This is excessive wastage of the beer, straight into the drip trays, the sign of an inexperienced bar worker and would give most publicans a heart attack.

Of course, in the old days it was not uncommon for the more ruthless publican to retrieve his drip trays at the end of the night, pouring the spilled beer back into a keg for 'recycling'. In a place with a high turnover, this wastage could quite often fill another keg. Economical, but unhealthy. Mmm.

On some occasions the beer will pour 'heady' and no matter what gas pressure is applied to the keg, the beer remains 'heady' and difficult to pour with a lot of waste.

The beer, when allowed to sit in a keg with carbon dioxide gas for too long, can become 'carbonated' and will never pour correctly. Time for the efficient barman or publican to cut his losses with this particular keg. Disconnect it and get it out of the line. It has gone off and is waste.

The pouring of spirits and mixed drinks doesn't require quite the same amount of finesse, but nevertheless must be done correctly, as the mixed spirit is usually somewhat more expensive than a glass of beer.

The size of a standard nip of spirit in Australia is 30 ml and the measure is obtained with the use of an automatic shut off valve device fitted to the neck of a mounted, upturned bottle. Ice is ladled into a glass with a metal scoop, the spirit is dispensed into the ice and topped with the requested 'mixer', be it coke, squash or other soft drink or orange juice.

The fancier the establishment, the fancier the drinks list, with the bar staff at the upper end of the market requiring skills in mixing cocktails and preparing garnishes for the glass. These drinks are very labour and time intensive and this is usually reflected in the price per drink.

The extra time the customer is required to wait for a drink is offset by the excitement for the customer of feeling spoiled and this is usually reserved for special occasions or celebrations.

A job that involves the service of alcohol inevitably brings about the situation of dealing with an intoxicated, abusive customer.

The experienced bar person will see it coming, will sense the change in the person's demeanour as he/she becomes more intoxicated and indeed, it is law in Australia that the bar staff must recognise this behaviour and take positive action to terminate service to this particular type of customer.

The bar staff can be held legally responsible for the actions of a drunken customer and they can be charged with a criminal offence if they continue to serve a person who has become intoxicated, or serve a person who then supplies the intoxicated person with alcohol.

Gone are the days of the '6 o'clock swill', as it was known, of the 50s and 60s when the working men would crowd into the country's pubs at the end of a day's work and rush to see how many beers and other alcoholic drinks they could throw down their throats before the pubs all closed at 6 o'clock.

Spilling out into the streets, most of them would lurch their way home or to their motor cars and drive home, or as far as the place where they wrapped themselves around a tree or another vehicle.

Over time, with the introduction of far more relaxed and civilised trading hours, came the far more relaxed customers who could purchase and consume their alcohol over a longer period of time.

Over that same time period, gaming has been introduced into the licensed establishments, usually to the detriment of customers, but certainly very beneficial to the publican's and the State Government's bank balance and the modern bar worker must also be fully conversant with the gaming industry.

Important Prostate Cancer Information - Be Proactive - Get the Facts

Discover IMPACT Prostate Cancer and Make a Decision to Learn More

Learning you or someone you love has androgen-independent prostate cancer (AIPC) can be very difficult. But today there's more hope than ever for men with AIPC. In fact, by taking an active role in learning about the disease and the treatment options available, you can do more to fight your disease than you may realize. An important step toward managing your condition is learning how to talk openly and work closely with your healthcare team, and enrolling in IMPACT Prostate Cancer can help you do just that.

To enroll in IMPACT Prostate Cancer

Enroll and receive:
* Doctor Discussion Guide
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IMPACT Prostate Cancer is a program designed to help patients and their loved ones cope with AIPC. It provides access to reliable information that may help you understand the disease, available treatment options, and practical tools so you can work as a partner with your healthcare providers.

By enrolling in IMPACT Prostate Cancer today, and completing the simple questionnaire, you will receive:

*A complimentary, personalized Doctor Discussion; this customized Guide is tailored to your needs based on the responses you provide in your enrollment form, and will give you an overview of your various healthcare team member's roles and responsibilities as well as suggested questions to help you have open, informed conversations with your healthcare team.
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To enroll in IMPACT Prostate Cancer

By taking advantage of all that IMPACT Prostate Cancer has to offer, you'll benefit from your personal Doctor Discussion Guide, a series of personalized, educational E-mails, and other resources to help you manage AIPC, so enroll today!

An Accumulation of Riches

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Enhancing your Financial Success

Little Things Mean A Lot
One of the greatest success principles of all is called the Law of Accumulation. This law says that everything great and worthwhile in human life is an accumulation of hundreds and sometimes thousands of tiny efforts and sacrifices that nobody ever sees or appreciates.

It says that everything accumulates over time. That you have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile.

It's like a snowball. A snowball starts very small, but it grows as it adds millions and millions of tiny snowflakes and continues to grow as it gathers momentum.

Learn What You Need To Learn
There are three areas where the law of accumulation is important. The first is in the area of knowledge. Your body of knowledge is a result of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of small pieces of information.

Any person with a large knowledge base has spent thousands of hours building that knowledge base one piece at a time. And what you see when you meet the individual is an expert in his or her field, with that high level of knowledge that makes him very valuable in the marketplace.

Save Your Money
The second area where the Law of accumulation works is with regard to money. Every large fortune is an accumulation of hundreds and thousands of small amounts of money, and the place to start is to take any amount of money that you can right now and begin to save it.

When you begin to save money, it sets up a force field of energy and it triggers the law of attraction. As a result you begin to attract to you even more bits of money to add to your savings.

Attract Riches Into Your Life
And I've spoken to many, many successful people and they've told me the same story. That as soon as you start to put savings aside, it starts to attract into your life and into your work all the money that you need to achieve your goals. The reason why most people retire poor is they never put the initial savings aside to start with.

Get The Experience You Need
The third area where the law of accumulation applies is in the area of experience. You'll find that successful people in any field are those who have far more experience in that field than the average.

And there is nothing that replaces experience. Whether it's in business or entrepreneurship or management or parenting or selling or anything else. Many people do not take the risks that are necessary to move out of their comfort zone because they're afraid it won't work out.

Everything Counts
But the fact is that until you move out of the comfort zone and get the experience from making the mistakes, it's not possible for you to grow and become capable of earning the kind of money that you desire.

Now here's the key to the law of accumulation. It says that everything counts. Everything that you do counts. The biggest mistake that people make is they think that only what they want to count, counts.

That when you read a book, when you listen to an audio program, when you go to a course, when you go to bed early and you get up early and you work, it all counts. And it's all going on the plus side of your ledger.

Use Your Time Well
But when you watch television, waste time, hang out, fool around and so on, all of that counts, as well, and it's going on the negative side. A person who has a great life, by the law of accumulation, is a person who's accumulated far more credits on the credit side than debits on the debit side.

And here's an important point. If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it's moving you away from your goals. Nothing is neutral.

Everything that you're doing is either moving you toward the things that you want to accomplish in life, the person you want to be, the wealth you want to accumulate, or it's moving you away. Everything counts. The law of accumulation says that everything counts.

Action Exercises
First, begin today to build your knowledge base in the subject that can be most helpful to you in achieving financial independence. Whether it takes a week, a month or a year to become thoroughly knowledgeable, it doesn't matter. Just get started today.

Second, get as much experience as you can in your chosen field. Start a little earlier, work a little harder and stay a little later. Take risks and try every different way you can think of to achieve your goal. This experience is invaluable and it accumulates over time.

Restaurant Latour’s award-winning wine list a labor of love, expertise and high-tech tools

By Mary Ewing-Mulligan and Ed McCarthy

Tucked in the mountains of Sussex County in northwest New Jersey, Restaurant Latour, part of the Crystal Springs Resort in Hardyston, N.J., has established itself as a wine lovers’ destination.

The restaurant—which features a 50,000-bottle cellar—blends the human expertise of its staff and the cutting-edge technology of wine assessment tools to build and refine its collection.

In fact, last year the establishment won the coveted Grand Award from Wine Spectator Magazine, an award based mainly on the quality of a restaurant’s wine list, including its size and depth.

Restaurant Latour is one of only 80 restaurants worldwide that has been awarded this honor from the magazine and one of only three recognized in 2006.

The restaurant, part of the 4,000-acre Crystal Springs golf and spa resort, seats 40, but banquet rooms accommodate up to 300 guests.

The operation features contemporary American cuisine, with locally grown produce from nearby farms and breads, cheeses, meat and fish mainly from artisan purveyors in Sussex County and from the owner’s own organic ranch in Colorado.

John Benjamin, the executive chef, has worked with such masters as Thomas Keller, Michael Mina and Charlie Palmer.

Restaurant Latour’s wine list is particularly strong on Bordeaux, with Château Latour as its centerpiece. Owner Gene Mulvihill, who made his fortune on Wall Street, began acquiring wine more than 40 years ago with a 12-bottle case of 1961 Château Latour for $230.

Today, one bottle of that wine—one of the all-time great vintages of Château Latour—costs $4,000, retail, and is difficult to find. Over 42 vintages of Château Latour, dating back to 1888, are on the restaurant’s 3,000-label list.

Since then, the wine list has grown to include numerous other Bordeaux first growths, including 21 vintages each of Château Lafite-Rothschild and Château Mouton-Rothschild, and 18 vintages of Château Margaux.

The list features an impressive array of elite Burgundies and Rhône wines as well. California is well-represented with an exceptional array of Cabernet Sauvignons and Chardonnays, both modern stars and traditional producers.

For Italian wine lovers, Restaurant Latour offers a number of top Barolos, Angelo Gaja’s wines, and many exceptional Super-Tuscan wines.

The wine cellar has numerous separate rooms, each devoted to a certain wine region. German-born Susanne Lerescu has the enviable job of being the sommelier to this empire of wines. Wine director John Foy is the man in charge of maintaining the list and supplementing the cellar with new finds.

Foy happily follows Gene Mulvihill’s wine acquisition strategy, which Mulvihill sums up in two words: “No budget.”

One of the unique features of Restaurant Latour is its wine scanner, which Mulvihill says is the only one in the world. Developed by scientists at the University of California at Davis, the scanner can measure, with radio Waves, the level of oxidation and acetic acid—the latter commonly known as volatile acidity—of an unopened bottle.

If a wine is in good condition, a green signal flashes, if a wine has some problems, a yellow signal appears, and a wine in poor condition gets a red signal. The Wine Scanner gives a computer printout of each wine it measures, which is read by a technician.

Mulvihill uses the scanner any time he purchases fine older wines. If the wines don’t get the green light, he returns them or disposes of them.

Restaurant Latour is a unique experience, and a special treat for wine aficionados. To view the entire wine list of Restaurant Latour, which is just over an hour’s drive from New York City, go to www.crystalgolfresort.com .

WINE OF THE WEEK

2004 Domaine William Fèvre Grand Cru Chablis, Les Clos (France)

Domaine William Fèvre, under the new ownership of Joseph Henriot of Champagne Henriot and Bouchard Père et Fils Burgundy, has emerged in the past few years as one of the truly great Chablis properties. It shows its finest expression in its Grand Cru, Les Clos. The 2004 vintage, a fairly cool year, was particularly good for Chablis. The ’04 Les Clos, although rich and well-rounded, has the crisp, lively acidity essential in Chablis. Serve it with seafood or any kind of shellfish.

Wholesale price per case of 12, $720.

Leveraging Your Financial Potential

from

Enhancing your Financial Success

Know the Right People
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. 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.

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.

Network at Every Opportunity
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 .

Once, when I was working with the Chamber of Commerce, I came to the attention of a senior executive who hired me away from the company I was working for a year later at triple the salary. Meeting people is very important. Network at every opportunity.

Get Involved in the 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.

Unlock Your Creativity
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.

Create Good Work Habits
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
Now, here are two things you can do to leverage your financial potential:

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.

The other white spirit : New flavorings could make gin the new vodka

By Gary Regan

Gin was my very first distilled spirit. I sampled it in a room-temperature gimlet -- gin and Rose's Lime Juice -- at a party thrown by my parents. Dad made it for me. Why room temperature? This was in England, circa 1963. I was 12 years old.

Dad thought it was time to wean me off the Guinness. I was sold on gin. Never did look back.

I don't remember what brand of gin was in my very first cocktail, but I do know that it was highly perfumed, and it fell into what I now call the "slap me upside the head with juniper and dab a little behind your ears" category. Think Tanqueray.

Think Beefeater. Think Boodles. Think Plymouth. Traditional gins all, these stalwarts are as dry as a bone, and in varying degrees they're all about juniper and perfume. Not all gins follow this path, though, and some of the new bottlings on the market come bearing rather unusual flavor profiles.

I discussed this point recently with a friend of mine who is well versed in these matters.

Ted "Dr. Cocktail" Haigh, curator of the Museum of the American Cocktail, cocktail historian extraordinaire and author of the acclaimed "Vintage Spirits & Forgotten Cocktails" (Quarry Books, 2004), makes his living as a graphic designer in the movie business.

When he's working on a flick, it's nigh on impossible to get his attention, but when he's between gigs he makes his presence known in all corners of the cocktail-geek world.

He surfs deftly from Web site to Web site where his patients, having waited patiently for the wrap party to wrap, bombard him with questions about things such as whether he prefers his Alamagoozlum cocktail to be made with green or yellow Chartreuse (the answer is yellow), and other crucial cocktailian matters.

Doc arrived at my door after spending time in London, where he had attended a gin conference. I watched him struggle with his suitcase. Seemed to be quite heavy for its size. He caught me staring.

"Gin," he said.

"Oh," said I. "I got a new gin for you. Haven't even tried it myself yet." I let him settle in for a minute or so before I reached for an unopened bottle of Aviation, a brand-new gin created by mixologist Ryan Magarian of Liquid Kitchen in Seattle, along with a couple of guys from the House Spirits Distilling in Portland, Ore.

I held it up for Doc to see. Doc had already sampled Aviation. I should have known. He did seem to be interested in my reaction to it, though, so I poured myself an ample sample, nosed the spirit and took a sip.

"Lavender. It's full of lavender," I gushed. "It's beautiful. But wait a minute ..." I paused here, aiming for the kind of drama that I know Doc enjoys. He eyed me carefully. "It's beautiful, Doc, but is it gin?" The Cheshire cat took over Doc's face. He'd had the same reaction.

Gin, according to the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Trade and Taxation Bureau, "shall derive its main characteristic flavor from juniper berries," so if lavender brings up the forefront in a product, can it be called gin?

To be fair, the juniper in Aviation is pretty distinctive. Still, though, is it gin? Doc and I contemplated the question until the wee hours. Gin, after all, is the sort of spirit that makes boys ponder.

Gin is flavored vodka. It's as simple as that. All gin producers either buy or make high-proof vodka, a.k.a. neutral spirits, then add various flavorings to transform it into gin.

Juniper, fennel, calamus root, angelica, cardamom, cassia, orris root, ginger, cinnamon, licorice, caraway seed and various citrus peels are typical of the botanicals used in traditional gins, though juniper is the only one of these that's required by law, and producers are free to use all manner of flavorings to add to the list to differentiate their brand from the rest.

Changing taste of gin

In recent years we've been seeing a new breed of gin emerge -- a kinder, gentler gin that points up fruit flavors, yet still maintains a strong juniper backbone.

Tanqueray No. Ten is a good example of this phenomenon, along with other softer gins such as Damrak and Zuidam, Dutch gins that boast their mild-mannered palates.

Hendrick's, a Scottish gin that's been on the market for a few years now, counts cucumbers and rose petals among its botanicals, though the juniper in Hendrick's remains very evident.

Moving juniper into the background, then, seems like the next logical step, and it's bound to further the cause of the gin producers who are wooing vodka drinkers to their category.

Aviation isn't the only gin that utilizes lavender's flavor, and lavender isn't the only unusual flavoring now being used by what seems to be a new breed of gin producers. Ever had a martini with a hint of saffron?

Cadenhead's Old Raj, a pretty high-end bottling from Campbeltown, Scotland, is a fabulous gin that delivers exactly that, and although the juniper really shines through well in this one, the saffron makes its presence known too.

Why is gin taking off? For a number of reasons. The fact that the craft of the mixologist has finally become recognized as a very legitimate endeavor probably heads the list. Bartenders find vodka easy to use in mixed drinks, but more adventurous cocktailians look to gin as "the other white spirit.

" Gin offers far bolder flavors than vodka, and it also issues a challenge: "What are you going to mix me with, then?"

We are also witnessing a growth in microdistilleries in this country, due in part to new government regulations that make it easier to open mom-and-pop operations.

Contract distilling is also on the rise, so that any entrepreneur with enough cash in hand can approach an existing distillery and work with them to produce something new and innovative.

In short, what happened to craft brewing in the 1980s and '90s is now happening in the world of distilled spirits. Gin can also be sold within days of being produced, whereas if you want to make a new whiskey, you're looking at two, or preferably four years of aging before you see any return on your investment.

Bucking the trend

Some of today's newer bottlings stick with a more conventional approach. Junipero, made by Anchor Steam Distilling Company in San Francisco, is a good example of this. Although it is a traditional gin, it made its debut in the 1990s and was immediately recognized as a classic.

It also happens to be a perfect gin for those choosy souls who like their spirits to be bottled at the same proof as their body temperature -- the hefty 49.3 percent alcohol-by-volume (ABV) content of this bottling handily converts into 98.6 proof.

"Junipero just hammers you with juniper," says Neyah White, bartender at San Francisco's Nopa restaurant. And White knows how to hit the nail on the head.

Anchor Steam isn't the only local distillery in the gin game. The newly opened Distillery 209 is offering a gin that's being very well received by the cocktail crowd, and it's interesting to note the flavors detected by experts in this bottling.

"(Gin No. 209 is) a very smooth gin with hints of fennel and dried herbs," says Peter Greerty, wine and spirits director of Bong Su Restaurant & Lounge in San Francisco.

Arne Hillesland, master distiller at 209, cites juniper, angelica, cardamom, cassia, bergamot from Italy and quite a bit of coriander as his main flavoring agents, adding that there are more "exotic citrus" ingredients in the gin too. "We wanted to do something a little unique," explains Hillesland.

"So we went down the citrus-spice road. We wanted something that would mix well with 21st-century cocktails." Hillesland isn't willing to divulge the rest of 209's ingredients. Distillers love their secrets.

Boosting complexity

Sarticious, a gin from Santa Cruz, is made by another man who likes to keep secrets. "(We use) juniper berries, cinnamon, organic orange, coriander and cilantro," says Jeff Alexander, owner of the brand. Cilantro?

"Yes. Coriander is a traditional ingredient in gin, and coriander is the seed of cilantro," he explains. "It brings depth, complexity and a fresh component into the picture.

" Jimmy Patrick, bartender at the Lion and Compass in Sunnyvale, mixes Sarticious, orange juice, orange bitters and a couple of slices of habanero pepper to make a cocktail he calls the Habanero Orange Blossom.

"The heat from the pepper goes really well with the orange juice and botanicals (in Sarticious)," he says.

Other new, or newish, gins that are readily available here include Broker's, a well-made, no-nonsense traditional bottling from London that's issued at 47 percent ABV, and Q Quintessential, another English gin, this one flavored with lotus leaves and lavender as well as the usual suspects such as juniper.

DH Krahn gin is described by the Beverage Tasting Institute as featuring "subtle citrus, banana custard and mild botanical aromas." The producers, New York-based DH Krahn, say they use a "touch of Thai ginger" in their formula.

Distiller's Gin No. 6 is made in the Chicago area at the North Shore Distillery, a small family-owned affair that offers fine handcrafted spirits. Lavender rears its head again in this gin too.

You might also want to try Bulldog, an English gin, which despite its name, is a fairly mild-mannered spirit that boasts poppy, and an Asian fruit called dragon eye, or longan, in its list of botanicals.

If you want to taste a very unusual, highly recommendable gin, look for G'Vine online, a product distilled in France that calls for neutral grape spirit as a base, and green grape flowers as a very unusual botanical.

Traditional botanicals are employed to make G'Vine, too, but it's the green grape flowers that give it its exceedingly intriguing, incredibly seductive, floral notes. Was that gushy enough? I like this gin.

Gins in the queue

If you're willing to be a little patient you'll soon be able to sample Juniper Green organic gin, a consignment of which was reportedly sent to Britain's Queen Mother -- a woman well known for her love for gin -- for her 100th birthday in 2000.

The producers say that Juniper Green -- "smoother and fresher" than traditional gins -- will soon be available here. And on the West Coast you're going to have to wait until spring at the earliest, though probably no later, for Tanqueray Rangpur gin, too.

But if you want to taste something new and unusual, the wait will prove worthwhile. Rangpur is flavored with "traditional gin botanicals" as well as Rangpur limes, ginger and bay leaves. That's right, bay leaves.

I remain true to the more traditional dry, perfumed gins, but only to a point. You won't catch me, for instance, making myself a dry gin martini with Aviation -- that style of cocktail demands a traditional style of gin.

However, in drinks such as the Aviation cocktail, a mixture of gin, maraschino liqueur and fresh lemon juice that surfaced in the early 1900s and remains a classic today, Aviation gin works incredibly well. So well, in fact, that my wife loved the Aviation Aviation I made for her, and she's a hard sell when it comes to gin.

Products such as Aviation and G'Vine shed a whole new light onto the gin category. I'm guessing that lots of people who think they don't like gin are about to be converted.

Doc and I pondered the gin question late into the night. We decided to issue a joint statement on the matter, and since we were a little tired by the time we reached our conclusion we ended up paraphrasing words uttered by Mr. Bumble in Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist": "If the law states that gin shall derive its main characteristic flavor from juniper berries, then the law is an ass."

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Tasting notes

Gins can be very complex creatures, bringing layer upon layer of flavors to the palate. These snapshot tasting notes point toward the most distinguishing aspects of each bottling. Before buying a bottle, though, it's a good idea to invest in your favorite gin-based cocktail at a bar that carries the brand that piques your interest.

Aviation: Lavender notes come through strongly alongside juniper, cardamom and a faint hint of almond.

Broker's: Traditional and no-nonsense, with up-front juniper, high complexity and intensely dry backbone.

Bulldog: Fresh lemon zest leads the way, and it's followed closely by ginger, but there's very little juniper here, and the spirit is rather soft for a London dry gin.

DH Krahn: Heavy coriander notes dominate this gin. They're balanced with a high-note of ginger and citrus.

Gin No. 209: Highly perfumed with juniper taking the lead and complex floral notes following closely behind.

G'Vine: Floral, grassy, spicy and smooth. There's an unusual sweet/dry earthy thing going on in this one.

Old Raj: Juniper takes the lead here, but it's swiftly followed by a distinct burst of saffron and a nutty, spicy backdrop.

Sarticious: A strange gin, indeed, though it's very well crafted. The herbaceous qualities in Sarticious are reminiscent of, wait for it, Tequila. Probably has something to do with the cilantro in the botanicals. This is a must-try-it-at-least-once gin.

Tanqueray Rangpur: Limes dominate in this bottling, and they play well off spicy ginger and a host of other, more subtle botanicals.

-- Gary Regan

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Gin production

As is the case with any flavored vodka, gin can be made the right way or the easy way. Many lower-end gins are flavored with concentrated oils or essences, whereas the more reputable brands use fresh, or dried, botanical ingredients that have been very carefully selected -- the distiller is looking for various attributes from each ingredient -- and these botanicals are then distilled into the gin.

Some producers allow their botanicals to sit in the neutral spirits for around 24 hours before adding demineralized water to dilute it, then entering it into the still for redistillation.

Others choose to add the botanicals, dilute and redistill immediately, and there are a few producers who hang the botanicals in the neck of the still, allowing the vapors from the diluted spirits to capture their flavors as they rise through the neck of the still. It's all a matter of choice, style and individuality.

When choosing gin, look for key words on the label to avoid buying a brand that has been made with essences rather than fresh botanicals. Phrases such as "distilled gin," "dry gin" and "London dry gin" can be used only on gin that has been flavored by way of redistillation.

Generally speaking, when it comes to gin, you get what you pay for. Cheap brands are usually cheaply made.

"London dry" is a style of gin -- the style that you're most likely to think of when a dry gin martini comes to mind -- and the words aren't intended to imply a country or city of origin. Plymouth gin, however, must be made in Plymouth, England.

There's just one brand of Plymouth gin, and luckily for us it's called Plymouth Gin. This gin has a different flavor profile from other bottlings, but it's still in the style of a gin that you'd use to make a martini.

-- Gary Regan

Gary Regan is the author of "The Joy of Mixology: The Consummate Guide to the Bartender's Craft." E-mail him at wine@sfchronicle.com.

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Six Ways to Find a New Product

from

Enhancing your Financial Success

There are many different sources of new product ideas for your business. Here are six of them.

Read Everything You Can
The first way to find a new product or service is to read newspaper stories, read articles, read advertisements, read the classified ads. Very often when people have new products or services available in a market or they're looking for someone to sell it or distribute it, they advertise in the classifieds under business opportunities.

Read all US publications that are written for businesspeople. Look for potential in new products or services everywhere.

Study Trade Magazines
The second way to find new products or services is to read trade magazines, especially in your field of knowledge or expertise. Libraries usually have them all. Go down to the library, take a look at all the magazines and then subscribe to the very best ones.

Visit Trade Shows
The third way to find a new product or service is to go to trade shows. You need only a business card to get into a trade show and they hold trade shows everywhere all the time. You can have business cards made up for you in 24 hours.

Talk To The Key People
Present yourself as a retail buyer. Sign up at the beginning, pay the entrance fee, and present yourself as a buyer looking to buy the products offered in the trade show. Then go in and talk to the key people there. Find out what they're doing. What they're selling. Where the market is going. What the industry trends are. What is successful and what is unsuccessful and so on.

Tap Into Your Network
The fourth way to find a new product or service is your friends. Tell them that you're looking for new product ideas. Tell them you're looking for something to sell, something to distribute. Have them keep an eye out for you. Sometimes your friends will see things that you won't see, or they'll see things when they're traveling and so on.

Keep Your Eyes Open
The fifth way to find new products or services is to read Entrepreneur Magazine. Read Success Magazine. Read Inc. Magazine. Read magazines where people advertise new products or services or business opportunities. Read The Wall Street Journal. Read Money Magazine. Read Fortune. Read Business Week. Read everything that you possibly can.

Look Overseas For New Products
The sixth source of new products is foreign publications. There are three foreign publications that you can get if you look around for them.

One is called Made In Europe, which has hundreds and hundreds of products that are made by European corporations who are seeking US distributors. Sometimes the distribution rights for those products are available for the asking.

There's also a book called Made In Hong Kong, which has hundreds and hundreds of products made by Hong Kong corporations. And then there's another catalog from the Taiwanese Trade Consulate that's available that lists hundreds of manufacturers of thousands of products who are looking for US distributors.

Remember, 95 percent of all products are never sold outside of the country that they're manufactured in. Sometimes all you have to do is find a product that is selling well somewhere else and bring it into your market area and that can be the start of your successful business.

Action Exercises
First, take action immediately on at least one of these ideas. Buy and read magazines, visit trade shows or subscribe to foreign publications. The more information you have, the better decisions you will be able to make.

Second, ask for what you want. If you see a product or service for sale somewhere, write to the company and ask for the right to distribute it in your market area. You may be surprised.

Bartending - A Career With A Dangerous Twist

By Michael Russell

The hospitality industry throws up many interesting facets. Some seem a lot more glamorous than others. When you think of the industry you automatically picture some sun-kissed tropical island, with white sand, blue seas and some incredible concoction created by a very inventive and overactive bartender.

We tend to think of these folk as a copy of those portrayed in the movie “Cocktail”, juggling bottles, white teeth glistening, as sun-tanned young ladies admire their alcoholic fun and games.

We tend to think of the romantic element involved, much more than the day to day mundane and sometimes hazardous conditions the bartender has to endure. Not all the work is fun and games.

Now in the confines of a night club, the bartender is somewhat protected by the doormen from some drink-crazed moron who just wants to fight and the bartender happens to be the first in line and most convenient to hit.

In many cases however, in a normal bar, it is fair to say that a bartender does not have the luxury of any protection from the drunken imbeciles who do not know when they have consumed the right amount of alcohol to suit their metabolism and not turn into a arrogant thug.

We have to remember that the majority of bartenders in the world today are in fact part-time personnel, making an extra bit of money to enjoy the little luxuries in life that the full-time job falls short in providing.

They sometimes have to act as security staff as well as draw beer, pour wine, clean glasses and generally keep the area in which they work in some degree of tidiness. If they are called up to separate two or more individuals who want to partake in fisticuffs, more often than not it is they who come off second best.

How often do we hear of bartenders suffering horrific injuries as a result of a lunge with a broken glass or beer bottle. It makes one shudder to even think about it. Problem is, more often than not, alcohol induces the need in some people to want to be rowdy, the short step away from being downright violent.

The question here is: how can we help these hard-working men in their quest for safety while doing a job of work? The breweries who employ them on a part-time basis, more than likely will wring their hands, say how sorry they are, but state categorically that they can’t be held responsible for the lunatic fringe who drink too much.

That is where they are desperately wrong. Everyone with an ounce of brains know they when they enter licensed premises as members of the public, they are warned about getting drunk while they are there.

No, you cannot get drunk in a pub, it’s against the law!! So, yes the breweries do have a responsibility, because it is also illegal for them to seel alcohol to anyone who is perceived as having had too much to drink.

We have all had the pleasure of being served by witty, happy and very efficient bartenders, who are simply there to do a job of work. They have every right to feel safe in what they do. It is the duty - it should be the legal duty - of bar owners and breweries to ensure they are just that.

Taking Ownership of Your Health IS Alternative Medicine!

If you're still on the fence about moving away from drugs and medical procedures tailored to empty your pocketbooks at the expense of your health, you might want to review this transcript from a recent talk by author and law professor Butler Shafer.

Shafer argues that state-licensed, state-mandated, and state-standardized medical practices are at war with the concept of self-ownership, putting your body and your health under the control of state interests.

Alternative health allows individuals to exert more influence in communicating symptoms, and seeking out alternative explanations and remedies. Individuals are therefore allowed to play a more active role in their own health.

He notes an increase in both the interest and practice of decentralized, alternative health care, as a result of the rapidly increasing costs of traditional medicine, greater awareness of effective health alternatives, the more individualized treatment afforded by alternative methods, and a growing awareness of the role of self-healing.

He also points toward another, underlying reason -- the dehumanizing and mechanistic tendencies of institutionalized decision-making.

Shafer also describes a personal experience in his family, having to do with the recent loss of a newborn grandson who was stillborn, that led to family members independently investigating umbilical cord accidents (which are more common than you might think), and how they can be managed so young mothers won't lose another child.

LewRockwell.com December 2, 2006

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Dr. Mercola's Comment:

Taking responsibility for your health through a safer, alternative route other than the normal fatally flawed conventional paradigm, as you know, is a simple concept that can often produce dynamic results. The concept comes down to "self-ownership," or, in other words, who owns you. The evil marketing geniuses who run the multi-national pharmaceutical drug cartel believe they do, and it's hard to blame them. They certainly spend enough to buy your attention as well as bend the ear of your physician. The health care field has evolved into a facade for the business of selling drugs. The pharmaceutical industry spends more than $4 billion a year to market drugs to consumers in the United States and another16 billion to market them to U.S. physicians. Moreover, they have come up with some of the most effective and creative marketing schemes in history. Top U.S. drug makers spend 2.5 times as much on marketing and administration as they do on research; at least a third of the drugs marketed by industry leaders were discovered not by the drug makers, but by universities or small biotech companies. Self-health responsibility, more than any other possible option, is the best way to stay healthy and fit. Evidence for the truth of this fact is coming at us from everywhere. Research has shown that diet, exercise and stress management are powerful tools for maintaining health. Coming to this site and reviewing the many thousands of articles posted here clearly means you've taken the first important step: Searching for answers. That's a good thing. And, studies have shown patients who take better ownership for their own health typically have better outcomes too. On Vital Votes, Dr. Christopher Gussa from Benson, Arizona shares a story from the front lines: "As a Clinical Herbalist I get calls every day from people that went the medical systems way with chemo, radiation, etc, and then on there last dying breaths, call me about using Bloodroot and other herbs against their cancer! 'It's probably just too late!' is so sadly what comes to my mind. It breaks my heart! Why do they not try the natural way first? One word! Intimidation! "Just a few days ago I counseled with a lady in her forties that had a breast cancer removed. She was saying she was so strong willed! She would never do chemo as they were suggesting. 'I know I can and will do the natural way only' Yet she went in to the 'system' for a check and the prognoses was, 'well we don't see anything but we better do chemo and radiation just to make sure'. "She did seem strong and she did start to say, 'Well I am just going the natural way' but then there well groomed professional language of sheer intimidation came on and said, 'Herbs won't do a thing, look at your children, do you want leave them now? There is a very good chance you will die in 6 months if you don't do exactly as we say!' "She called me crying! I must admit I was even feeling intimidated 'second hand' as she reviled what they said! She was now totally afraid to not do as they say! I new trying to talk her out of it would only bring so much doubt and worry that she would never heal and I also new that I was facing a very strong legal force that could put me in jail if I tried to talk her out of it! "So sadly we compromised with 'Chemo and Herbal Therapy' This is not healing with herbs, it is doing, once again, all I can for a patient that has been totally sabotaged with fear by the enemy! Remember, they did not even see any cancer!" Pamela from Wilbraham, Massachusetts, however, shares a success story: "I am one of those people who took charge of my own health. After years of blindly following the advice of conventional medical doctors, and taking massive amounts of drugs, which only served to mask the true cause of my illness, having several surgeries, and living with constant pain and suffering, I am now experiencing the joy of a rich, abundant, and pain-free life. "Just three years ago I thought I was not long for this world. I began my own research health quest which led me to Dr. Mercola's website and other natural health sites. In less than one year, after completely changing the way I eat, shop, and live, I feel like I have been re-born and actually have a chance to live into my 90's and beyond! This would never have happened if I had continued the road I was on. "My cardiologist, who had told me that I would never get better and the best I could expect was to stay the same, was amazed at my recovery and 50lb wgt loss. He now shops at Whole Foods after I told him how organic food had changed my life. His last comment to me was "Stay away from doctors and hospitals". It was to be our last visit, as he is retiring as the head of Cardiology at our local hospital. Dr Mercola, thanks is just not good enough. Without your passion for the truth, I seriously doubt I would be here today." Other responses to this article can be viewed at Vital Votes, and you can add your own thoughts or vote on comments by first registering at Vital Votes.

Related Articles:

Modern Medicine: The New World Religion

Natural Medicine Not So Alternative Any More

Majority of Americans Use Alternative Therapies

Trust Your Intuition

from

Enhancing your Personal Success

The Essence of Business Success
The essence of a successful business is really quite simple. It is your ability to offer a product or service that people will pay for at a price sufficiently above your costs, ideally three or four or five times your cost, thereby giving you a profit that enables you to buy and to offer more products and services.

Add Value In Some Way
The key to a successful business is to add value by bringing the product or service from another place to where you're selling it, or by creating the product or service and selling it at a price higher than your total cost of production.

You become wealthy by either selling a few products or services at high prices, or by selling many products or services at lower prices with smaller profits.

The Best Strategy Of All
The best strategy, of course, is to aim to sell a larger volume with a smaller profit on each item. Most great fortunes in America have been made selling large quantities of products over a wide area, thereby broadening the market and reducing your dependency on just a few customers.

Go From The Known to the Unknown
Early in my business career, I learned another key rule for business success and it's simply this. Start off in an established field and only experiment with new products or services out of your profits from your established business.

Success Leaves Tracks: Follow Them
One reason many entrepreneurs fail is that they have grandiose ideas of being the first into the market with a brand new, untried, unproven product. Don't you fall into this trap.

As you begin to magnetize your mind with visual images of wealth and success, as you begin looking everywhere for profitable ideas, you will begin to attract into your life the people and opportunities you need to achieve your goals.

I've learned from long experience that you must learn to trust your intuition, your gut feeling concerning any business decision.

Flood Your Mind With Ideas
Read every publication, explore every opportunity. Remain open to all ideas. But in the final analysis, trust yourself. Trust your inner voice to tell you the right thing to do. All great businesspeople become great by listening to their inner guide. It will never fail to lead you to your highest good and heaven help the person who refuses to listen to it.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to start a successful business by trusting your intuition before you make a final decision:

First, always remember that the key to success in business is your ability to add value to your customers by providing them with something they want and need at a price that enables you to make a profit. Keep your thinking focused on the benefit that your customer will enjoy from what you are offering.

Second, get all the information you possibly can. Speak to as many people as possible. And finally, sit down quietly by yourself and listen to your intuition before you make the final decision. This is the best investment of all.

Innovative Hotel Bar Concepts Revolve Around Spirits

Jean-Pierre Etcheberrigaray, vice president, food and beverage, for The Americas InterContinental Hotel Group, and his team have embarked on a creative sprint to create new and innovative bar concepts for their flagship brand InterContinental Hotels.

In the spring of 2005 they introduced the XO Bar at the new InterContinental Hotel in Atlanta. The bar specializes in ultra-premium cognacs and has been a resounding success.

Innovation
“Tell me who you are, where you are, and how you are, and I will tell you what to eat and where to eat it,” Etcheberrigaray says. “The key to performance in the food and beverage area is knowing your audience and clients and designing a multi-solution concept that meets all needs.”

Etcheberrigaray has served as general manager at Inter-Continental Hotels in Toronto, Mayfair London, Cartagena, Rio de Janeiro and Valencia. He has received numerous industry awards including recognition for creating three 5-diamond restaurants and is the creator of many trend-setting concepts.

With experience on four continents and fluency in four languages. He’s earned his stripes and has now taken on groundbreaking bar and lounge concepts. René van Camp was appointed corporate beverage director in March, 2006 and is responsible for overseeing the Corporate Beverage Projects, to include IHG’s World Class Beverage Program for all owned and managed hotels of the InterContinental Hotels Group.

Two new bar and lounge models are being presented at the grand opening this winter of the InterContinental Hotel Boston. This new hotel will offer an international presentation of cocktails and dining, with the aim of recreating the feel of an old-fashioned European villa.

Open 24/7, the food and beverage offerings are anchored by the hotel’s signature restaurant featuring upscale French brasserie country dining. Alternative cuisine includes a New England raw bar and fresh sushi.

Signature and exotic cocktails will be served in multiple, distinct venues, to include a warm and inviting library lounge, a rum bar to be called RumBa with a double-sided fireplace, a private Champagne bar, and an outdoor café featuring Margarita and tequila cocktails overlooking Boston Harbor.

Mais Oui!

The XO Bar at the Inter-Continental Hotel in Atlanta specializes in ultra-premium cognacs. Buckhead’s hottest and most stunning watering hole is home to an amazing collection of vintage cognacs and armagnacs ranging from $1,000 to $6,000 per bottle, including Louis XIII Hennessy Timeless and the soon to be launched Hennessy Elipse.

“Premium” would be an understatemen. With more than 45 choices, none are designated lower than X.O., the highest rating in the spirit’s three-tier system.

Etcheberrigaray, a one-time professional cognac taster, describes the top designation of his favorite spirit: “X.O. is sexy, it’s fresh. It’s love and kisses. It’s extremely old.”

He is definitively on to something here; sales of the spirit have escalated by more than 10 percent in the United States for each of the past two years, according to Impact, a beverage trade journal.

Americans bought 43 percent of all the cognac sold worldwide in 2005, up from 15 percent in 1995.
When people ask for advice, bartender Cornelious Robinson will steer them to a $26 shot of Hennessy X.O. for their first taste of an ultra-premium cognac. But he also mentions the $375-a-shot Hardy Perfection and pulls down the bottle for emphasis. It is a hand-blown, clear decanter resting on a cumulus of blue crystal.

“See how light the cognac is,” Robinson says, “It’s as if it’s floating on a cloud.” That “lightness” is a characteristic that professional cognac tasters seek. Called “rancio” in the slang of the Charentes region, it is that paradoxically fresh flavor of age.

The burn of the distilled alcohol and the oaky flavor of the cask have given way to an easy roundness on the palate and an explosion of invigorating secondary flavors.

The sad fact of cognac connoisseurship is that once you upgrade you can’t go back. Most customers spending $97 for a shot of Kelt Petra or $175 for Remy Martin Louis XIII will want their drink straight up; however, there has been a small but newsworthy trend of attention-grabbing ultra-premium cocktails.

Donald Trump toasted the winner of “The Apprentice” with a drink called You’re Hired, consisting of L’Espirit de Courvoisier, Chateau d’Yquem sauternes and Dom Perignon. The XO Bar has its own version; this $550 cocktail consists of a shot of Hennessy Timeless blended with Chambord and topped with a splash of Dom Perignon.

Note: Excerpts for this article came from John Kessler’s “Extravagant Sipping” in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Penny Millionaire Game

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Be An Optimist At All Times

from

Enhancing your Personal Success

Everyone wants to be physically healthy. You want to be mentally healthy as well. The true measure of “mental fitness” is how optimistic you are about yourself and your life.

In this newsletter, you learn how to control your thinking in very specific ways so that you feel terrific about yourself and your situation, no matter what happens.

Control Your Reactions and Responses
There are three basic differences in the reactions of optimists and pessimists. The first difference is that the optimist sees a setback as temporary, while the pessimist sees it as permanent.

The optimist sees an unfortunate event, such as an order that falls through or a sales call that fails, as a temporary event, something that is limited in time and that has no real impact on the future.

The pessimist, on the other hand, sees negative events as permanent, as part of life and destiny.

Isolate the Incident
The second difference between the optimist and the pessimist is that the optimist sees difficulties as specific, while the pessimist sees them as pervasive. This means that when things go wrong for the optimist, he looks at the event as an isolated incident largely disconnected from other things that are going on in his life.

See Setbacks as Temporary Events
For example, if something you were counting on failed to materialize and you interpreted it to yourself as being an unfortunate event, but something that happens in the course of life and business, you would be reacting like an optimist.

The pessimist, on the other hand, sees disappointments as being pervasive. That is, to him they are indications of a problem or shortcoming that pervades every area of life.

Don't Take Failure Personally
The third difference between optimists and pessimists is that optimists see events as external, while pessimists interpret events as personal. When things go wrong, the optimist will tend to see the setback as resulting from external factors over which one has little control.

If the optimist is cut off in traffic, for example, instead of getting angry or upset, he will simply downgrade the importance of the event by saying something like, “Oh, well, I guess that person is just having a bad day.”

The pessimist on the other hand, has a tendency to take everything personally. If the pessimist is cut off in traffic, he will react as though the other driver has deliberately acted to upset and frustrate him.

Remain Calm and Objective
The hallmark of the fully mature, fully functioning, self-actualizing personality is the ability to be objective and unemotional when caught up in the inevitable storms of daily life.

The superior person has the ability to continue talking to himself in a positive and optimistic way, keeping his mind calm, clear and completely under control. The mature personality is more relaxed and aware and capable of interpreting events more realistically and less emotionally than is the immature personality.

As a result, the mature person exerts a far greater sense of control and influence over his environment, and is far less likely to be angry, upset, or distracted.

Take The Long View
Look upon the inevitable setbacks that you face as being temporary, specific and external. View the negative situation as a single event that is not connected to other potential events and that is caused largely by external factors over which you can have little control.

Simply refuse to see the event as being in any way permanent, pervasive or indicative of personal incompetence of inability.

Resolve to think like an optimist, no matter what happens. You may not be able to control events but you can control the way you react to them.

Action Exercises
Now, here are three actions you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, remind yourself continually that setbacks are only temporary, they will soon be past and nothing is as serious as you think it is.

Second, look upon each problem as a specific event, not connected to other events and not indicative of a pattern of any kind. Deal with it and get on with your life.

Third, recognize that when things go wrong, they are usually caused by a variety of external events. Say to yourself, “What can’t be cured must be endured,” and then get back to thinking about your goals.

Below Zero Nitro-Bar creates cool special effects with nitrogen-infused cocktails

By Gary Regan

Molecular mixology. The term is relatively new, but the concept of transforming drinks from liquids into other forms is old hat. For example, in his 1862 book, "How to Mix Drinks or The Bon Vivant's Companion," author Jerry Thomas waxed poetic about a potent concoction called Punch Jelly, a drink made with cognac and rum that he gelatinized with a little isinglass.

If Thomas were around today, however, he'd surely be enamored of the drinks at Below Zero Nitro-Bar in Miami Beach, Fla., where proprietor Barton G. Weiss has taken the nonliquid beverages a step further.

The high-tech bar, located at Barton G. The Restaurant, uses liquid nitrogen to freeze liquor. When other ingredients are added to the solid spirits, the alcohol starts to dissolve, creating a fog that rises from the glass, something that was previously achieved only by the addition of dry ice to cocktails.

Weiss, who also is the founder and president of Barton G., an events management company, says Below Zero Nitro-Bar is all about using a natural chemical to manipulate texture and temperature as a means of enhancing flavor and presentation.

Weiss says the goal is to give guests a new experience, "one that is exciting visually and may spark an intellectual connection. Although it may be more accurate that the drinks are more likely to spark intellectual curiosity as in, 'How did they do that?' "

Weiss has been producing extravagant spectacles since the mid-1990s, so the installation of the flashy Below Zero Nitro-Bar is no surprise. For example, when Barton G. The Restaurant debuted some four years ago, it opened in high style.

Singer Gloria Gaynor, perhaps best known for her 1979 hit, "I Will Survive," and Evelyn "Champagne" King, another legendary disco diva, were on hand to kick off the celebrations. They were joined by a troupe of topless showgirls who flew in from The Crazy Horse Saloon in Paris. Of course there were a couple of giraffes there, too, just for good measure.

At Below Zero Nitro-Bar, bartenders can create a show of their own. "This technology provides them with a tool that enables them to treat drink ingredients in the same envelope-pushing ways our chefs do for their culinary creations," Weiss says.

He refers to the restaurant's eye-catching dishes such as popcorn shrimp served in a movie-theater popcorn container, complete with real popcorn dressed with a honey vinaigrette, a purple haze of cotton candy on a stick and some chocolate covered pretzels.

Dishes are often ordered by diners who see them being served to other guests — and the smoking cocktails are receiving a similar response.

Cocktails currently available at Miami's Below Zero Nitro Bar include the Classic Nitro-tini, vodka with a "nitrogenized" vermouth swizzle stick; Cassidy's Apple Nitro-rita, a "nitrogenized" blend of tequila, orange-flavored liqueur, sour mix and apple juice; and the Pink Elephant Nitro-tini, ruby red vodka pop with ruby red grapefruit juice and fresh grapefruit segments

Understand Why The Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get Poorer

By Greg Nicholls

"The rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer."

Yep!

Has it always been this way?

Yep!

Will it always be this way?

Yep!

Why, you ask?

Well, the rich are people (in their current state, either wealthy or poor) who think about where they are going in life, and set goals to get there. They do not waste time focusing on where they are not in life.

Are you stuck in a rut?

Guess what, the choice is yours to either stay there or to move out of it.

The good news my friend is it is totally up to you.

If you are poor and do noting about it, you will stay poor and you will get poorer.

Want to know the interesting thing?

If you are wealthy and you find yourself in a rut; you are on your way to poverty, unless you do something to get yourself going in a direction that you are in control of. If you are not in control, then that is your choice to go in the direction of failure.

Being wealthy is normal when you eliminate all thoughts of poverty from your mind. If you have completely surrounded yourself by wealthy thoughts and focus on wealthy intentions, then guess what, you will be or likely are wealthy.

Being wealthy in mind and spirit has to come first, if you are thinking positively, writing out your goals, and looking in the direction of where you are going to be as opposed to where you are or where you were, you will always get what you focus on.

Want to know how to get to this point?

It is actually easier than what you might think.

Just like you know right from wrong, you can recognize positive from negative. By this I mean positive versus negative thinking.

If you are thinking: "I am wealthy, I love my life, I take on every challenge that comes my way as a lesson in life and learning from these challenges; using them as the contrast to identify what I do not want, from what I do want, then, I will make better decisions as I move about my life."

If you see a circumstance coming and do not do anything to avoid them (yes you can), then it is your fault when it comes along.

For example; if you go out and party one night, come home and sleep in the next morning, miss work and get fired, guess what, if you choose to get a new job and still decide to do the partying again in the future and sleep in the next morning you will lose your job again and so on and so on.

The person to blame is not your boss for not being flexible and understanding that people have to live their lives, maybe you deserve to go out and party. Was it your birthday, your friends birthday? Regardless of the circumstance, it does not matter; it is your fault for not taking personal responsibility for your actions.

If you have a crappy job, well, guess what, you applied for it. If your answer is "it was all that was available to me" and you have been there for 4 days, 4 months or 4 years, hello, you have had days, months and years to find a new and better job, people do it all the time.

This is why the poor get poorer; they do nothing to stop themselves from getting and staying poor.

You see; the wealthy will not settle for mediocrity, they will persist without exception until they have attained their goal for getting wealthy.

The reason the rich get richer is because when the rich have attained their financial goal, they then move on to their next goal and persist, persist, persist, without exception until the goal is attained.

Who can do this?

For starters, you can.

If you are telling yourself why you can't, then that is the story that will create the circumstance that will keep you broke adding another person to the "poor get poorer" category.

Now that you know...what are you going to do about it?

Yep, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; this is the way it is, the way it always has been, and the way it always will be.

Your success is a choice, so choose well!

Copyright 2007 - Nicholls Enterprises - http://www.deservemoney.com/

Getting richer is easy and Greg Nicholls knows how to do this with relative ease. Visit his website and subscribe to his weekly newsletter for free at http://www.DeserveMoney.com and further you knowledge on wealth on your journey to becoming wealthy. Also, if you are looking for a vehicle that will take you down the road to success, visit http://www.AnAwesomeBusiness.com to get informed so you can finally get out of your rut.

Your Belief Becomes Your Reality

from

Enhancing your Financial Success

The Determinant of Your Success
Perhaps the most powerful single factor in your financial success is your beliefs about yourself and money. We call this the Law of Belief. It says simply this: Whatever you believe, with feeling, becomes your reality.

Whatever you intensely believe becomes your reality. That we have a tendency to block out any information coming in to us that is inconsistent with our reality.

What Successful People Believe
What we've discovered is that successful people absolutely believe that they have the ability to succeed. And they will not entertain, think about, or talk about the possibilities that they'll fail. They do not even consider the possibility of failure.

Positive Thinking Versus Positive Knowing
You always act in a matter consistent with your beliefs. The most important belief system you can build is a prosperity consciousness where you absolutely believe that you are going achieve your financial goals.

We call this positive knowing versus positive thinking. Positive thinking can sometimes be wishing or hoping. But positive knowing is when you absolutely know that no matter what, you will be successful.

The Foundation of Willpower
Another principle related to your beliefs is willpower. We know that willpower is essential to any success. Willpower is based on confidence. It's based on conviction. It's based on faith. It's based on your belief in your ability to triumph over all obstacles.

And you can develop willpower by persistence, by working on your goals, by reading the biographies of successful people, by listening to audio programs, by reading books about people who've achieved success.

The more information you take into your mind consistent with success, the more likely it is that you will develop the willpower to push you through the obstacles and difficulties you will experience.

Beat The Odds on Success
Remember that success is rare. Only one person in one hundred becomes wealthy in the course of a lifetime. Only five percent achieve financial independence. That means that the odds against you are 19-to-1.

The only way that you're going to achieve your financial goals is if you get really serious. To succeed, you must get serious. You must get busy. You must get active. You must get going. Remember, everything counts.

Resolve To Achieve Greatly
Self-mastery, self-control, self-discipline are essential for anyone who wants to achieve greatly. And control over your thoughts is the hardest exercise in self-mastery that you will ever engage in.

See if you can talk and think about only what you desire and not talk or think about anything that you don't want for 24 hours.

Then you'll see what you're really made of. It's a hard thing to do but with practice, you can reach the point where you are thinking about your goals and desires most of the time. Then, your whole life will change for the better.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to build a belief system consistent with the financial success you desire:

First, continually repeat to yourself the words, pictures and thoughts consistent with your dreams and goals. Whatever you repeat often enough, over and over, becomes a new belief.

Second, set a goal for yourself to think and talk only about the things that you want for the next 24 hours. This will be one of the hardest things you ever do. But if you can keep your mind on what you want and off of what you don't want for 24 hours, you can begin to change your entire future.

A prickly kind of vodka hits the market

By DBR Staff Writer

Some more unusual flavored drinks have been noted by Productscan last month, ranging from a coffee flavored cider, to cactus flavored vodka.

While such new and innovative flavorings could gain the interest of the consumer, the trend for health products has shown no sign of abating, with a new tea product recently launched that offers some very specific health claims.

'Content Set for launch in Finland is Olvi Oyj's cappuccino flavored pear cider, Fizz Cappuccino, which offers a unique blend of flavors for a cider product, exploiting the current popularity for coffee flavored food and drinks.

Despite its novel flavoring, the beverage goes against the current trend of packaging cider in glass bottles in order to exude a more premium image; instead, the product comes in a plastic container.

The next product covered is recommended for use in coffee, as well as tea. A liqueur called Tatspirtprom Balsam Chistai has been introduced in Russia by Chistopolsky Likyro-Vodochny Zavod, and contains some unusual ingredients, such as pine tree needles, ginger, wormwood and anise, which sound more like they belong in a fragrance product than a liqueur.

Soyuz-Victan is attempting to gain a foothold in the crowded Eastern European vodka market with the release of SV Cactus Vodka in the Ukraine � a vodka made from cactus.

This is a novel flavor for a conventional vodka product and is derived from the sabra cactus, a species that is widely used in the food industry, primarily in Mexico, Egypt and Israel, where plantations exist.

Moving over to the beer category, Arany Aszok beer from Dreher Sorgyarak has been launched in Hungary and is like any other bottled beer apart from one thing � each bottle in the 7-count pack is labeled with a different day of the week to encourage the consumer to drink one a day.

This mimics the packaging of some health-oriented products such as probiotic drinks, which also often displays daily count information. Although this concept has been used for some time in health products, it is a brand new idea for beer.

Meanwhile, two novel tea brands have hit stores in Europe: Pangea Green Tea from Pangea Tea Co & Ruzova Cajovna, and the Ryor Body Form brand of health teas from Ryor. Pangea Green Tea has been launched in Slovakia and consists of green tea compressed into solid bars.

This is an unusual way to package tea, which is traditionally presented either in a loose form or in tea bags. However, it appears to be a cost effective way to brew tea, as each block is said to provide up to 700ml of liquid tea.

The Ryor Body Form teas have recently been released in Finland, and make some unusual health claims. The Modelin variety is said to boost connective tissue, while Lymfodren is described as cleansing the lymphatic system and spleen.

These offer some very specific treatments for the health conscious consumer.

Secrets of Getting Ahead in Life

By Dr. Mercola

This is a bit of an unusual post, in that, this is not a link from an Internet site but an article I wrote.

I have been running since 1968 but have only competed in road races and cross-country, and I've never raced in a 10K event on the track. Lapping is a phenomenon associated with track distance races in which the competitors are mismatched.

Typically, in track, this is the 10,000-meter event. Toward the end of the race, the faster runners have an advantage over the slower runners that is greater than the length of the circular track. They pass those runners at the tail end of the pack.

If a spectator came late to the event, he might conclude that the slower runners are quite fast. After all, they are right behind the leaders. Yet, they are so far behind that they are completely out of the running.

They will go through the motions by staying in the race for sportsmanship's sake, but they might as well save their energy. They have no chance of winning.

Life is like this too. It is a long race. The faster runners who possess the greatest endurance will lap the competition. It may appear that the losers are still in contention, but they aren't.

Having been a runner for nearly 40 years and competing for many of those years, and also being on the Internet, I can assure you there are three keys to lapping the competition or getting ahead in life:

1. Get a fast start.
2. Keep running until you get your second wind.
3. Don't look back.

I have not always paced myself carefully, but I have not looked back. There are times when I should not have sprinted quite so hard (it's a long race). But I have been getting my second wind in the last few years.

There are two times in your life to get into the race: A lot earlier and right now. The earlier you begin, the more likely that you will lap the competition.

The Tortoise And The Hare

For more than 2,500 years, young children have been told the story of the tortoise and the hare. It is one of Aesop's fables. As far as I'm concerned, it's nothing more than a fable. From the beginning, the hare gets a big lead on the tortoise.

He grows overconfident. He takes a nap. The tortoise wins the race because he keeps moving forward.

In real life, hares survive only if they can outrun the animals that eat them, which are also very fast. Sprinting means survival. Naps are suicidal. Hares do not take naps in races.

Why do we tell that story to our children? To comfort slow learners, which most children are. The story misleads children. It assumes the race is between a hare and a tortoise. It isn't. It is a three-way race: Hares that pay attention to the race, hares that don't, and tortoises.

The winners in life are the hares that pay attention to the race. Tortoises lose. They rarely get eaten, but they get played with a lot.

The tortoise is the hero of every bureaucracy, every tax-funded school system. Where there is no free market, i.e., where consumers cannot sort out winners and losers by means of profit and loss, tortoises tend to run the show -- or walk it. The pace of progress is set by those tortoises in the middle of the pack.

Tortoises, in life, play a part. They are there when the hares need backup in tight situations. The tortoises plod along, predictably doing their part. No society could live without tortoises. There are always lots of also-rans in life.

Most people are also-rans. But to build an economy in the name of the tortoise is to guarantee that most members of that society will be lapped. They will be held back by the capacities of tortoises.

Some Hares Do Pay Attention

In college, I learned a trick to keep up with the brightest students. I would work on holidays. I would work when the "Big Game" was on. I took Sunday off. I knew that I had to compensate. So, I always worked on my assignments when others were having the day or evening off.

There are limits to this tactic in college. Semesters are short. They are more like the 1,500-meter race than the 10,000-meter race. I could not beat the best and the brightest, but I stayed close behind them. I was never lapped.

After graduation, this strategy still works very well. At some point, it became part of my approach to time: There are no holidays. There is no free time. There is only recreation, i.e., re-creation. "R and R" means rest and re-creation.

Over time, I started lapping the competition. That's because life is a long race.

I work on Saturdays. I work on holidays. For years, I worked on Christmas afternoon. In recent years, when the children come for Christmas, I don't, because family get-togethers are rare.

Also, I'm old enough so that I am not trying to lap anyone. I am unlikely to be lapped. Anyone fast enough to lap me already has.

Still, I keep running. I pay attention to the race. The fat lady has not yet sung, but I can hear her doing her breathing exercises in the rehearsal room ...

Persistence

President John Calvin Coolidge is the source of this widely quoted insight:

• Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
• Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.
• Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
• Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
• Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

have found that persistence is the key. Just keep hammering away at whatever interests you most. After some period of time, you will become an expert. How much time? If we are talking about an eight-hour day, a little under three years, about 5,000 hours.

This means active study and detailed application. It means running a race, not jogging. It means close attention to detail.

If you devote an extra hour a day to studying your field of interest, that's 250 hours a year (5 days X 50 weeks). Your normal workday will provide the basics. The extra hour spent reading journals and books in your field will make you a master.

Devote that extra hour a day, and in five years, you will stand out in your field. In 10 years, you will be a master. But you must apply what you learn in order to become effective.

If you teach it, you will become a master. This is why teaching others is important. Become a mentor.

Nothing will reveal your weaknesses faster. Nothing will better motivate you to overcome your weaknesses.

Motivation counts. Persistence counts most of all.

Conclusion

The story of the tortoise and the hare is misleading. It leaves out any consideration of steady hares.

In a long race, the hare who can pace himself wins. Most hares do not pace themselves well. They get a fast start, but they become sidetracked.

There is nothing wrong with being a tortoise. If you are a tortoise, you rely on a thick shell. A thick shell slows you down. This is the price of safety. It is a very high price.

The habits of the tortoise are rarely pleasant for young hares. But those hares who learn early on to act like tortoises gain a tremendous advantage. They will lap the competition.

---

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

Here are some of the reader responses to this article that appeared in the Vital Votes section. Benjamin ("Dex") writes: "The race is to the swift and enduring. But one other factor is usually over-rated, misconstrued, and misunderstood -- luck. Many envy achiever's fortune that favored them with success. What seems to be random fates play an important factor in the lives of rabbits who get ahead in life ... I believe we create our own luck, primarily by showing up for the race in life. By running the paces and putting in the bursts of energy, you're there when amazing things happen." Rod, from Melbourne, Australia, adds: "The article is summarised by some advice I received years ago: Life is a marathon not a sprint. Isn't it amazing that we can become experts within 5 years of applied study and learning -- especially outside of formal educational institutions. This reminds me of the idea that if universities taught people how to learn and then let them study whatever they wanted the world would be a very different place. More experts in things they are passionate about!" A registered nurse from Cabool, Missouri also points out the following: "The tortoise did not win because he was slower, but because he kept his eye on the goal. The hare could have won easily but did not see the tortoise as a threat. I agree with your statement not to let things distract you, however, you also have to recognize threats no matter how slow they might be. They just might overtake you if you think they can't." You can see other responses to this article at Vital Votes, and add your own thoughts by registering at Vital Votes.

Related Articles:

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Do What You Love: Time is Too Short to do Anything Else

Sunny Outlook May Extend Life Span

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE

May this year be the most prosperous one that you have ever

from George Courtney