Category Archives: The Best of Life

As a public service, and with deep respect for my British colleagues, I’ve decided to reveal the results of my research on why the British take so long. We know it’s not because they are excessively outgoing, or slap-the-knee humorous. Fortunately, I’ve narrowed it down to two factors:

1. The rhetorical question. The British have a strange habit of asking a non-question, an interrogative cul-de-sac. For example, they will say, “It’s a cloudy day, isn’t it?” Now, is that a request for a comment, or simply for agreement, or is silence expected? Or is it sarcastic, as in a New Yorker’s, “Nice day!”? Do they sincerely want an answer? I don’t know, because the conversation goes like this:

“We’re in a bit of a spot, aren’t we? The traffic seems tied up for miles, doesn’t it? There’s a chance we’ll be late, won’t we? We could take the Standwith Circle Circus Rotary, couldn’t we?”

I just don’t know. Should I respond? (That was a real question.) It’s like talking to someone with hiccups. You just don’t know when to squeeze in a comment. It takes so long.

2. Addresses. Here’s the address of the last package I mailed to GreatBritain: 43 Foulward, The Baskings, Hastings on Tweed, 44 Donnelly (Near Gladstone), Pluxbury Gardens, Level 4, Flat 3, 130 Cobblestone Chuck. This is why it takes so long. Imagine making out Christmas cards, or a spread sheet of contacts. The British seem to want to capture every historical nuance in current names. (In London, there are two Tate Museums. Perhaps they’ve run out of names.)

This follows my research on why the Irish take so long, which is due to only one reason: They begin every sentence or question with: “After 800 years of British oppression….”

© Alan Weiss 2013

(Hail Britannia)

To all of you, a profound day of love, happiness, and family.

We apply for a state permit to stock our pond about every two years. The nearest approved hatchery is in Connecticut. This year we picked up 600, divided among bass, catfish, and sunnies. Added to the existing supply, there should be plenty of fish to multiply as well as feed the herons, egrets, eagle, and snapping turtles.

They travel from large hatcheries to smaller ones, and then in bags 90 minutes to our place. Only three died of the 600. We own the two-acre pond, so there is no fishing allowed.

The law of unintended consequences: We had to build a barrier around our bird feeders, since Buddy Beagle would get sick eating all of the spilled bird food. The barrier, however, served as a pen for the ducks from the pond which fly in to the enclosed space, content until Bentley scares them when he roars out the back door.

Right after coming in from fetch with him and Buddy today, I looked down from my den and saw a relatively rare (on my property) wood duck had already arrived for breakfast.

© Alan Weiss 2013

We’re in the Park Suite of The Pierre in New York City where I’m working over the next week. We have an extraordinary view of Central Park, and you’ll note that’s my favorite, Jean Marc XO vodka, provided with the other amenities.

© Alan Weiss 2013

Courtesy of John Carroll, here is the greatest opening day promotion I’ve ever seen:

http://adage.com/article/media/check-mlb-s-opening-day-marketing-stunt/240656/

While redecorating my library I came across a model kit I must have had for 15 years without realizing it. So over the past two months I put it time now and then on building the Forrestal. This was the lead ship in its class (Saratoga, Ranger, Independence). It was the first carrier built specifically for jet aircraft, the largest in history at her launch. She was active from 1955 to 1993, and was berthed here in Newport for a while prior to heading for Philadelphia and the mothball fleet.

I’ve recently completed the Almost Free Workshop in Toronto to a sold-out crowd. I’m asked why I continue to provide these very low-investment opportunities, when I continually sell-out very high-priced offerings.

The reason is that I believe you give back to your profession and professional community, and that I continue to learn (or I would simply retire, travel, play with the dogs, and drive exotic cars). Here’s an example of what makes my life so fascinating. I have permission from this wonderful woman to share her story:

Hello Alan,

It was great to meet you and your wonderful community at the workshop today in Toronto.

I left an abusive marriage of 21 years with 5 children, one of whom has cerebral palsy. I didn’t have any money, so I went on welfare to support my children.

I have been following your work for 18 months now. I followed your free resources, watched your youtube videos and read your blogs. I started implementing your “marketing gravity ideas” one at a time.

With faith beyond my circumstances, and your amazing ideas, I had a radio station in South Africa find my content online, and they contacted me to be The Friday Motivational Girl for five million listeners. Tomorrow, they want to have a conference call to talk about launching my new book, Secret Strength, and doing workshops for women in Southern Africa

Life has opened up for me, and my future is brightly filled with promise, hope and success.

Thank you Alan for being a part of my journey,

Fatima Omar Khamissa

Editor-in-Chief Spiritual Biz Moms Inbox Magazine

http://SpiritualBizMoms.com

If she is blessed, then so am I.

© Alan Weiss 2013

I’m sitting on our balcony in Naples, geometrically centered in the Ritz-Carlton, listening to the surf of the Gulf of Mexico below. There is no horizon, only a single darkness, as the ink-black of sea and night meet somewhere in the distance. We arrived today, escaping  the wintry northeast, and I’ve cadged a brandy and some chocolate from the club to accompany my cigar.

This is my last full week on Route 66. We fly home on March 2, and the next day I’m scheduled to be 67. I find it’s a destination I’m unable to change, so I’m thankful that I can at least go first class!

We hear that life is short, and compared to the dinosaurs pretty much having their own way for 150 million years, it is. But they were taken out by a meteor six miles in diameter striking not terribly far from where I currently sit. Halfway around the world in Siberia, a small cousin with the force of a hundred nuclear bombs recently exploded without anyone knowing it was there.

I’ve always tried to live life to the fullest. You may ask what alternative we have, but daily I see people throwing their lives away in part and by pieces, which to me is the equivalent of simply taking more time to end it. I don’t believe we’re here to stick our toes in the water. I believe we’re here to make waves.

I have no idea what “retirement” means in today’s world, an artificial construct, based on math and premises that are obsolete and absurd. (The partner in a financial planning firm told my wife that, as far as she could determine, I had retired about 15 years ago.) I do know that so long as I’m on top of my game, I’ll keep doing what pleases me. When that’s no longer the case, then I’ll leave that particular stage. Sandy Koufax knew how to do that. Frank Sinatra did not.

The inexorable and thrilling journey continues. We can’t affect the process but we can certainly create the content. I’m anticipating 67 will be exciting, just as I know that the distant, unseen horizon will be visible in the morning when the sun illuminates this part of the world.

It will be the same horizon as yesterday, but just a tad closer.

© Alan Weiss 2013