Thursday, September 30, 2010

Vintage Japanese Antique Postcards

I love old vintage art. There is a site on the Internet that specializes in collecting called Collect At. Collect.at. Collect.at proudly states on their webpage that it is: 

Austria' s oldest and largest online mall for Antique Collectibles
collect.at offers many kinds of unique Antiques and vintage Collectibles such as Oriental Antiquities, Autographs, vintage Postcards, old Graphics, antique Photos, History Documents, Stamps, Philately Collectibles and much more.  


I went to the site and found dozens of beautiful antique Japanese postcards there. I hope you enjoy the tour!

Raphael Kirchner Art Nouveau postcard depicting an older Chinese gentleman accompanied by a Geisha. Sent as postcard from New York to Neuchatel, Switzerland.


Old, tinted, Japanese postcard, depicting pretty young ladies in front of an impressive folding screen. One of the girls is playing a lute.


Japanese vintage postcard with view at a war ship with Emperor Hirohito and his men, inspecting the fleet. The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes. It was the third largest navy in the world by 1920 behind the Royal Navy and United States Navy.


Imperial Japan: Lithographed colour postcard after a painting, depicting Samurai fighting. Attached is a 2 Sen fiscal stamp tied by a postal cancellation.


Japan, Kyoto: Japanese vintage postcard, made from a color woodblock print for the use as advertising postcard. Depicted is the entrance to the Hotel Kyoyamato in Kyoto.


"The Street, of Ueno Tokyo“. View from bird’s eye view at street with streetcar and wheel barrows.


Interesting, decorative Japanese woodblock print ( Kitagawa Utamaro ) as postcard, from 1910. It shows 2 ladies in attractive Kimono and a baby. One lady preparing giving mother's milk to the baby


Decorative, old, Japanese Postcard as advertising for Nagoya Hotel. Lithographed background and photos of hotel and dining room, restaurant.



1906, December 29th: The Japanese Crown Prince sitting in a cart, driving through a street of Tokyo, masses along the street. Mint, fine condition, issued by Hilger in Berlin.



Old postcard from Osaka. Attached are a ½ Sen Earthquake stamp tied by a clear violet Osaka strike and a 10 Sen Chrysenthamum. The postcard has been sent to Vienna. It comes from the Ignaz Winkler philately collection which specialized in Japanese and Chinese postal history.




Japanese cruiser, capturing a Russian merchant ship.




Japan, China: Very decorative, Japanese propaganda postcard for China Revolution Dept - campaign. The postcard shows a Chinese boy and silhouettes of workers and soldiers.




1911: Japanese panorama postcard with view at a place in Tokyo, a Shinto temple for fallen soldiers , an army museum and the statue of a Vice-admiral.
3 parts as one postcard. Text in German ( by a Japanese ), sent in an envelope.



Hibiya Park at Tokyo. A group of charming young ladies in this park. Stamped with a 1/2 Sen Japanese Post in China stamp. Sent to Styria in Austria. CTO cancellation, sent in an envelope.


Old Japanese Photo-Postcard, depicting a Zeppelin-airship over a Japanese village.


Old, tinted, Japanese postcard, depicting pretty young ladies in colorful Kimono, playing. The postcard has been sent to Italy, Naples. Attached is a 4 Sen stamp


Old Japan: b/w vintage postcard with soldiers of the seventh army with guns ready, posted in the streets.


Old color-postcard "The Japanese army crossing the Ihoriver." Artist-signed postcard, used 1904 in Hungary. 


Decorative vintage postcard as advertising: Nagayo Hotel. Lithographed and photographed views of the Hotel. 4 Sen stamp with clear Nagoya and Yokohama cancellations. Sent to Cincinnatti, Ohio.


Cochinchine - Saigon - Artiste Japonaise - Premier Role.
b/w vintage postcard depicting a female Japanese actress in traditional theatre robe.


To see many more vintage postcards from old Japan, go to Collect At.






Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Japanese guys stocking up on cigarettes

As everyone in Japan knows, the price of a pack of cigarettes is about to jump 20% in a few days. That will bring the price of a pack of regular cigarettes to about ¥410 (about $4.80 USD pack). I'm sure glad that I quit smoking a few years ago. 

I smoked from 1998 to May 2009. Yes, I am lame. I didn't smoke at all until I became over 40-years-old. Interestingly enough, I got hooked on cigarettes during a five-week hospital stay in 1998.

How does one get hooked on cigarettes while staying in the hospital? This is Japan, there are still lots of hospitals that have smoking sections inside the hospital. The one where I got hooked on cigarettes had a smoking lounge that seated at least 100 people. While I was staying there, there was not much to do - couldn't really go out (it was winter) so us guys would sit around in the lobby and smoke cigarettes...


That is so Japan...

Back then, a pack of cigarettes cost ¥240 yen (about $2.80). The price of cigarettes has been steadily increasing by about ¥30 a pack every two years or so.

I got fed up with that nonsense and quit when cigarettes hit ¥300 per pack (about $3.60). I wrote about that and how you too can quit easily here.

Now, with the price of cigarettes about to skyrocket, Japanese people are stocking up. I was in my favorite grocery store the other day and over-heard two register clerks saying that they were out of several brands of major cigarettes and that was in the morning just after opening.

Some people are buying hundreds of cartons and storing them like gold. 



Yusuke Sato says a man walked into his tobacco store in Atsugi, southwest of Tokyo, this month and bought 100 cartons of Mild Seven cigarettes. While they may not be good for his health, he may have saved $1,300.
The man is one of thousands of smokers across Japan stocking up before Oct. 1 to beat a record 40 percent tax increase on tobacco. Their hoarding may add as much as 1.4 percentage points to this quarter’s annualized economic growth rate, according to estimates from the Japan Research Institute.

“We were afraid we would run out of stock,” said Sato, who started taking reservations for cartons last month. “Thirty cartons has been the norm.” Next month, customers would pay 110,000 yen ($1,300) more for the same 20,000-cigarette order after the price of a pack of 20 jumps by a third, he said.  

The headline of the Bloomberg article talks about how the Japanese government is benefitting from this "cigarette rush" due to a jump in tax income from sales.

I'm sure the government needs the money too since the economy is so bad...

But how long will this last?

I asked my best friend, Taro Furukawa, about it. Taro is 38-years-old and has been smoking since he was 14. In the last few years, he's been conserving cigarettes and sometimes smoking the same cigarette twice (he takes a puff then puts it out gently and returns it to the pack to smoke later - they taste rancid that way, but at least you get a nicotine rush, I used to do that too!). Taro is a hard core smoker - like many Japanese his age. Taro says he will not quit smoking even if cigarettes hit ¥1,000 (about $11) per pack!


Taro Furukawa


Taro went to the store and bought several hundred dollars of cigarettes at once... The amazing part is that everywhere in Japan is sold out of cigarettes. Taro had to place an order and wait one week. He will get his cigarettes tomorrow he said.

Taro says he will never quit smoking no matter what the price of cigarettes. Why? Because he likes to smoke.

I quit smoking almost 2 years ago and do not want a cigarette anymore... But I can understand why a guy likes to smoke.

If it helps him to relax and enjoy himself, then why not let him do it?

Life can be difficult enough as it is, full of stress, without having a one minute simple pleasure taken away.

But, after some more prodding, Taro admitted that his wife was not happy at all that his weekly cigarette allowance went from $21 to over $600 in one shot.


Taro said, "I might have to quit smoking at this rate..." If Taro thinks this, then there must be millions of other Japanese guys who think the same thing. Maybe this one time burst of spending helps Japan's GDP but it's going to end and, besides a huge decrease in cigarette taxes, we might see a huge increase in irritated Japanese men.


I hope not.   


Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Japan's Trash Problem and Idiots in Government

Here's more proof that the fools we have running the government are just totally clueless and waste our tax money on ridiculous nonsense all the time. Japan has a huge trash problem. I wrote about that here. But this most recent idiocy takes the cake.


From Japan Probe:
A news report embeds itself with a police task force in Shizuoka prefecture that goes after people who illegally dump trash.
When they find an illegal dumping site, they send a stakeout team to watch the spot so that anyone who tries to dump again in the same place will be caught in the act. Because the dumping takes place in wooded mountainous areas, the cops wear camouflage and sneak around like commandos.
Sometimes, the illegal dumpers are a clever bunch. When dumping appliances and other junk in the woods, they cover it with dirt so it looks like it is just a harmless soil-dumping area. Other times, they aren’t so clever, such as the employees of a failed recycle shop who are arrested for starting a big bonfire and burning old appliances.
The police stakeout shown in the video drags on for 88 days until they finally arrest one man who is dumping a small load of trash. The man admits his guilt and is generally cooperative. Although he can face up to 5 years in jail and a 10,000,000 yen fine, the Japanese legal system will probably give him a suspended prison sentence if this is his first arrest. One man has been stopped, but there are many other illegal dumpers who have not been caught, including some who used the same spot. Even if this man is given a hefty fine, it might not equal the cost of paying a team of police officers to hold an 88-day stakeout.
The video is in Japanese but you can understand the madness..

illegaldumping

If this doesn't prove that the government's answer to all our problem's is to spend and spend more money and to expand itself, no matter what, then I don't know what does. 
From Japan Probe

The Worst US Government Made Anti-Japanese Propaganda Film Ever!

I'd like to show you one of the most disgusting Anti-Japanese propaganda films the US government ever made. My purpose here is to show you how the US government demonizes certain groups of people for political gains just like the worst tyrannical dictatorships do.

Most blogs about Japan are written by young people. I think for a blogger, I am one of the older ones. Compared to most bloggers, maybe I am ancient. Most bloggers are in their thirties - I am about to become 53.

Maybe that makes me unusual for a blogger. No?

I was born in 1957. I remember Elvis Presley when he was skinny. I really do. I was a so-called punk rocker in the late 1970's. Punk Rock saved my life. Today, Punk Rock is Top 10. Back then it was a revolution.

People of my generation liked the first Punk movement.

Besides Punk, the educated geeks of my generation were fascinated with World War II.

Why?

Well, because we think, "How in the hell could the world have plunged into war and had 40 ~ 50,000,000 (million) people killed in six years just 12 years before I was born?"

World War II has always had a fascination for people of my generation. That's why Nazi fashions were cool amongst the punks (I think).

Sometimes I get comments and mail from people who really love these old WWII propaganda films made by the US government. Other times, I get people who are really mad about them and protest the racism in the films.


Yes. I totally agree that they are seething with racism.


I put these up for your viewing pleasure for several reasons. First off, as an American, I want people to understand that my country government has been doing this sort of thing for over a century now; I mean, making propaganda - no worse or no better - than the Nazi's, the Soviet's, Mao, whoever did before.

The United States is just as bad as the worst of them... I mean, think about it, we dropped atomic bombs - twice - on innocent women and children, right? I have shown you the propaganda made by these people here.



My countrymen will scream and scowl about my comments above, but they are blinded by mass media propaganda in the USA. Today in the United States, we currently demonize Iran, North Korea and China; this is all as a pretext for war...

All the while we preach peace and brotherhood, we bomb Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, and god knows where else... Now we saber-rattle against the people of Iran.

When will this ever end?



This will never end as long as the military-industrial-complex stays in power in the United States.

This nightmare has got to end.

I am fed up with this military-industrial complex nonsense from the US government and want it to stop immediately. Trust that, today, there are many Americans who, finally, are waking up to what our government is doing in our names...

Hopefully, they won't last too much longer....

--------

Keywords: WWII propaganda films, Mike Rogers, WWII propaganda, WWII, propaganda, United States, Eisenhower, Dwight Eisenhower, military-industrial complex, Marketing Japan, Mike in Tokyo Rogers, 

Monday, September 27, 2010

Very Cool Music Video Technique!

The Daily What has a great video out today!:


Lights Out: Genki Sudo and his World Order entourage perform the retired mixed martial artist’s signature faux-slow-motion “entrance dance” to a mesmerizing song off their self-titled debut, aptly titled “Mind Shift.”
Wikipedia says this about Genki Sudo:


Genki Sudo (須藤 元気 Sudō Genki, born March 8, 1978 in Kōtō, TokyoJapan) is a retired Japanese mixed martial artist and a kickboxer who, up until December 31, 2006 competed in the Japanese based fight organization K-1 HERO'S and before that UFC and Pancrase. He is notable for his elaborate ring entrances and unorthodox fighting style. His philosophy is "We are all one". Signature moves include the flying triangle and spinning backfist. He is also an essayist, amusician, an actor and a dancer.


I'm sure that Genki Sudo isn't too happy that Wikipedia says nothing about his music career which he started after retiring, but he has been trying very hard at it and he was a guest on a TV show I worked on in 2007 or so. He is a really nice guy and this is a very cool video.



Not bad for a guy who gets little respect in the music world... Hopefully this video will help him out in that area.

Roots of Japanese anime? 24 traditional Japanese monsters

One of my favorite blogs on Japan is Pink Tentacle. Pick Tentacle is a blog about Japanese Art, Culture, Science and Technology.


I highly recommend it.


Today, they have an unusual collection of 24 traditional Japanese monsters. Have you ever wondered where the Japanese get their ideas for those silly monsters in the Godzilla movies? I have. Well, the fact of the matter is that Japan has had some very strange (or silly) looking monsters for a long time.


Pick Tentacle has uncovered a collection of 24 of them and made high quality scans for your viewing pleasure! The description reads:     


The Bakemono Zukushi handscroll, painted in the Edo period (18th-19th century) by an unknown artist, depicts 24 traditional monsters that once used to spook the people of Japan.


This is an interesting collection as, usually, the only other places you can see these spooks is at a local festival... And speaking of festivals, it's festival season now in Japan so get your notebooks out and jot down these characters now... They all look the same until you know the names...


Odoroshi (おどろし) is a red-faced monster with big eyes, black teeth, and long hair.

Yume-no-seirei ("dream ghost" - 夢の精霊) appears as a thin old man in a white robe.


Yamamba (山姥) is a mountain hag.

I like this last one. There was a while there, about 5 or 6 years ago, when Shibuya girls wore outrageous makeup on their faces and broad white eyeshadow. That fashion was called, "Yamamba" like the mountain hag above.

Why Can't Politicians Just Say, "Sorry"?

I'll never understand the foolish pride people exhibit. The most recent example is the row between China and Japan over the ship collision and detention of a Chinese ship captain by the Japanese authorities.

I wrote about how this event has escalated and turned into a sour mess and has hurt the pocketbook of both countries here.

Now, the Japanese prime minister has stated that Japan absolutely will not apologize for this incident.

As the Sydney Morning Herald has reported:

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Sunday rejected China's call for an apology and compensation for the detention of a Chinese trawlerman, Jiji Press and Kyodo News reported. "The Senkaku islands are Japan's own territory. From this viewpoint, compensation is unthinkable," Kan told reporters in Tokyo, according to Jiji. Beijing has made repeated calls for an apology and compensation from Tokyo over what it called the "unlawful" detention, demanding "practical steps" to resolve the diplomatic row.

This seems to me that this obstinate attitude by both sides is causing a great deal of misunderstanding. From what this says to me is that China is asking for an apology and compensation for what happened to the ship and the detention of the captain. Possibly a fair claim. Japan insists that the islands are hers. Are they talking about the exact same things? No, it doesn't seem that way.

Excuse me, but it does seem that they might be talking about two different things. I don't see where China is claiming the islands are hers. Maybe she is upset that some fool ship captain went out and caused an incident but they don't feel that he should be made into an example for the whole world to see...

I understand that Japan feels that these islands are hers and there be no need for apology... But isn't this foolish pride business a bit ridiculous at times? I mean, what's wrong with apologizing? Why can't the Japanese prime minister say, "I'm sorry for this regrettable situation and hope that these things never happen again," without admitting any guilt or wrong doing?

Isn't this a regrettable situation? Isn't everyone sorry that this happened? Is there anyone who is happy about all of this?

Hell, I had nothing to do with this situation and I'm sorry it ever happened. Why do the people of each nation have to suffer the consequences of our stubborn political leaders? What would it hurt to say, "I'm sorry that this happened. Let's talk and make sure it doesn't happen again?"

Just flat-out killing the chance for any sort of rapprochement between nations by making idiotic (and seemingly aggressive) statements like "No apology" is foolish. This sort of statement seems antagonistic on the face of it and might not translate well from Japanese to Chinese.

Anyone agree with me?

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Great Advice from Gary North Again!

Gary North's Tip of the Week - September 25, 2010 Best Teenage
Job
=====================================================
  Teenagers ought to use free time to prepare for exams.
This can save their parents a lot of money for college -- far
more than the kids can earn in summer.  But they won't do this.
They want a job.

  The jobs are usually menial.  They are also scarce these days.

  How about a job that develops skills that can put them through
college?

  How about a job that teaches sales skills that can be applied
to any career?

  How about a skill that involves tools that are dirt cheap,
that you have around the house?

  That skill is making a short YouTube video for businesses,
charitable organizations, and special-interest groups.  Everyone
knows his organization needs a YouTube video, but hardly anyone
knows how to make one.

  The software is free if you own a Windows-based computer:
Microsoft's Movie Maker 2.6.  It will do the trick, although Sony
Movie Maker 10 is better, and under $100.  But anyone can get
started on the Microsoft product.  Combine this with a camcorder,
and he or she is in business.  Download it here:

         http://www.garynorth.com/snip/1011.htm

  It has weaknesses.  There are rival free programs that can be
substituted for Movie Maker 2, or else used to supplement it.

         http://www.garynorth.com/snip/1012.htm

  The student can learn the software this month in preparation
for the holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  He can
shoot videos and edit them for practice.  By summertime, he is
ready to go out and sell.

  If a student can set up a local businessman with a complete
package -- promotional video, domain name, simple Website,
YouTube channel, Google search strategy -- one sale a month at $1,
000 will generate as much money as an 8-hour-a-day fast food job -
- if he can get one.

  Some of you are thinking: "Teenager, my foot.  I could do this
as a hobby and pull an a few thousand extra a year!"  You're
right.

Gary "Marketing Pays" North
=============================================
Recent articles posted at www.garynorth.com

Distrust of Romantica by Hitoshi Suenaga

It is called Electronic Theater and is a class of post-expressionism. This particular item is a very Avante-Garde black and white cartoon called, "Distrust of Romantica" by Hitoshi Suenaga in 2001. Don't watch it more than twice, you'll have nightmares.



--------
Keywords:
Distrust of Romantica, Mike in Tokyo Rogers, Hitoshi Suenaga, anime, animation, cartoon, Marketing Japan, Mike Rogers

You Have a Product to Sell... You! How to Win-Win at Work.

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers 
A pawn and a king sit on a chessboard. The pawn looks at the king & thinks,
"I'm going to work hard and become king someday."
The king smiles, and thinks,
"The harder you work, the longer I get to be king."
The New Economy has defined a new set of rules governing success in the market-place. These new rules demand a new way of thinking from all of us. Gone are the days of following orders from corporate bosses and "trying not to make waves" in order to climb the ladder of success. The fact of the matter is that the New Economy demands that you do rock the boat or be brushed aside in the new kill-or-be-killed marketplace. White-collar job are being shipped overseas to people who will work twice as long as you for one-third of what you get paid. There are no jobs with "job security" anymore.

The only job security you can have in the next decade is the job security you make for yourself and, come to think of it, that’s the way it should be.

Communism died a long time ago; why do people think the government or their corporation should care for them in their old age? They can’t anymore. Fact of the matter is that you cannot afford to not become successful anymore. You cannot afford to sit back, like our fathers did, punch a card 9–5 and expect to bring home enough bacon to buy a house, a car, and support a wife with three kids. It’s almost the year 2011; get into the eighties, will you?

The last twelve months of my working life have been a wild roller-coaster ride through the ups-and-downs of The Corporate Life. While I was forced to work with people who were still stuck in the old-school mindset, I made the effort everyday to re-educate them and myself. It was a daunting task, but what other option did I have? What other option do you have today? You will re-educate yourself or you will fall by the wayside.

In a previous article, I wrote about the requirements of success that I was luckily self-taught and taught by others. Those guidelines have served me well.

I initially became Chief Music Director of a major Tokyo FM radio station in July of 2006. I was promoted to General Manager in October of 2006. This was when I became the first ever foreign-born General Manager of a major Japanese broadcasting station in history. I left that job as General Manager in July of 2007.

I’ll let you decide if I succeeded or not.

The station I worked for had lost $140 million dollars in ten years. It had never been in The Black even once. It had never once dug itself out of the last-place spot in the ratings sweepstakes in those entire ten years.

As G.M. my assignment was easy to understand, but quite difficult to do. I was given three targets to achieve in the shortest possible time. They were:
  1. Kill all the Red Ink and make the station profitable.
  2. Make the stations rating competitive (the other Tokyo stations consistently beat our ratings by a 10 to 1 ratio).
  3. Create a "Cool" station image by concentrating on the station’s "Branding."
Between corporate restructuring (firing a bunch of incompetent and corrupt employees) and instituting an American-Style database system, we repaired many of our problems in the first 3 months.

By November of 2006, we had killed all of the Red Ink. Even though I was never able to wrestle the control of the weekend shows from the corrupt Good Old Boy network, I was able to easily take control of the weekday time slots. By April of 2007, the stations ratings among 12–29 year-old men and women were #1 across the board from 7 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. Monday through Friday. In fact, we dominated the ratings; the first time in station history.

By April of 2007, the station actually profited $200,000, also a first.

This probably all sounds rosy, but it wasn’t. This was the most difficult job I have ever had in my life. Every day at that station I faced a massive uphill struggle. The challenges involved being a foreigner in an extremely corrupt, very "good-old-boy," network and, by the mere fact that I am a foreigner, I was handicapped by cultural and language deficiencies. Childish jealousies among the Japanese staff who had worked at that company for all these years – while it was losing money – who wanted to become G.M. themselves – but couldn’t – didn’t help at all as they were constantly and maliciously working to undermine my authority and the authority of the president of the company.

Needless to say, about the only thing these people actually did work on was interfering – I couldn’t get most of them to be conscientious about their jobs. But in many ways, it didn’t matter. I decided that I was going to put myself in a win-win situation as that was the only hope for me. I knew that if I did a spectacular job that some people would notice whether the company succeeded or failed.

By June of 2007, the parent company was extremely pleased with station progress. So pleased with progress were they that they transferred my boss, the president, to another subsidiary that was doing poorly. In his place, they returned the epitome of a Good Old Boy: a 67-year-old man who had never worked in radio in his entire life.

Meet the new boss, definitely not the same as the old boss – but the same as the old-old boss; same as the former old-old boss who worked the station into massive debt and bad ratings. Since the new boss was a Good Old Boy, that meant he brought in his pals to work with him. The incompetence and corruption returned. With sadness in my heart and bitterness in my mind I knew it was time to get out. Even though I was hurt, I politely wished them well and bid them adieu.

Was I a failure? No. I don’t think so. I did over and above what was asked of me. Never in the history of broadcasting was a station in Japan turned around in such a short span of time; we had a cool image, our ratings were #1 where it mattered the most and, we were finally profitable…

But I was out of a job…

Or was I?

No. Like I said, I strived to do a spectacular job everyday. When word came out that a new president was being brought in to the radio station, I was head-hunted by three different companies even before June arrived. After talking to them all, I took what I thought would be the most challenging and fun job; I elected to become Head of Music Programming for Gotcha Media. Gotcha Media paid me more money than the radio station did and the working conditions are better and it’s a much more exciting place to be. I believe the word young folks use today to describe this sort of situation would be, "Sweet!"

How did this come about? Like I said, everyday at the radio station was a massive uphill struggle. Nevertheless, I decided that I was going to succeed, I was going to stand out; I was going to be flamboyant, and I was going to be a star. I put myself – and my frame of mind – in a win-win situation. It didn’t matter if the station succeeded or failed. I was going to win.

If the station failed, I was still going to come out looking good because everyone would know that, "Mike Rogers made that station cool." If the station were a success, and it was, then everyone would say, "Mike Rogers performed miracles."

When the president of Gotcha Media hired me he said, "Everyone knows it was you who turned the radio station around. Everyone knows that the president was never there." It’s true that everyone knew that the president was never there. I found it quite flattering that he felt that everyone knew that the success was due to me. I had often felt that I was the only one who thought that way.

How did I, how do you, put yourself into a win-win situation at work, no matter the circumstances? It is very difficult and few people seem to do it. But the way things are going now how can you afford not to? How can you afford to not re-create yourself into a positive force to be reckoned with? How can you not afford to make yourself into your own boss that stands out among the crowd, someone who everyone notices and thinks about hiring?

How can you not think about these things when the stock market dives, the American dollar loses 40% of its value against a foreign currency, and gold prices climb to ever higher and higher prices? You can’t.
You will make yourself successful or you will not succeed. It’s that simple. No one else is going to help you anymore. And, come to think of it, I can’t think of anything more American than the idea that you are going to be independent (even if you work for a company) and do this by yourself – and you are not going to depend on anyone else to help you do it either.

Whether you are a company employee or self-employed or thinking about joining the work-force, you must understand that today, you are your product. Your product is you. You must sell yourself as being a can-do person; a person who is sincere, truthful, dedicated, focused, driven, obsessive, and will do anything to fill your client’s needs. Your clients must know this to be true and to trust you with their money. My clients love me because they know that they can't find anyone else who will take care of them like I do. My clients know that I always do top-class work and my product is always spectacular. I am my product.

The results? Your clients will follow you whereever you go. Actually, this shouldn’t be any surprise, this has always been true in the past; it will be true in the future.

We all must understand that there's a big difference between doing something and a new product and doing something meticulously planned with a great attitude, an aggressive can-do dedication to be the best; an obsession towards success, and a road map with a great new product.

You don’t have a great new product? Yes, you do. It’s you. You are your product.

The truth of the matter is I believe that you can make much more money than you do now, but first, you have to change your thinking. All of us can make much more money together. It's a win-win for me, win-win for you, and win-win for us.

A win-win situation is not just the best way, it's obviously the only way (but most people haven't figured that out).

Are you ready to make big money? Are you willing to strive to make a fantastic new product? Are you ready for the new you? Great! Let’s get started on your new product. Buy this book and read it immediately: The Brand You 50: Or: Fifty Ways to Transform Yourself from an 'Employee' into a Brand That Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion!

The Brand You 50 will show you why you are your product and why 70% of what you do is un-cool, therefore you should stop doing that 70% and concentrate on the 30% that is cool. Your product is you.

The Big Moo will show you why being "safe" in your career and business is actually a very risky road to take. Everybody is safe, every product’s promotional plan is safe. As the world gets more and more turbulent, people want to eliminate as much risk from their business and their careers as possible, so they play it safe. People mistakenly believe that the way to eliminate risk is by playing it safe… Play it safe like everyone else does, right? Wrong.

Think about it, how can you possibly risk your future by being like everyone else? You can’t. You had better be noticed and you had better be remarkable. And you cannot be remarkable by playing it safe.

These books will show you why you are your product and why your product has to be remarkable in this day and age. They will help you to better your product. They will stop you from being "comfortable" and to start you being remarkable. They’ll teach you to know that you can never compromise yourself because you are all you've got!

I’ll make the effort to write again soon and recommended some other necessary books, but for now, I’ve got a product that needs to be polished everyday and sold: Me! You do too. Let’s get cracking.

-------

Keywords: win-win, work, positive thinking

Top 3 New Video Countdown for May 6, 2023! Floppy Pinkies, Jett Sett, Tetsuko!

   Top 3 New Video Countdown for May 6, 2023!!  Please Follow me at:  https://www.facebook.com/MikeRogersShow Check out my Youtube Channel: ...