What struck me out of the blue, recently, was something from a book that explains perfectly the most important thing in sales – I say most important because I now realise that this is what all the big hitters have taken on board at some point! That is that you have to share something called a world view with your potential clients ( we all have them – it’s just that some people will share yours but some won’t).

The trick is to find the people with this same world view, so that they are sold when you present your story. Perhaps I should have said show rather than present - those of you with the ability to write stories will already appreciate the ability to show and not tell.

Then – Hey Presto! This means no more conniving, convincing and conning – or whatever it is you’ve been doing to get the attention of those who are really not interested in you or your product ( admit  it -really they aren’t., are they ? ). Rather, your customer will find you and warm to your portrayal of precisely who you are and subsequently feel at home with both you and your product.

So, how does this fit in with my site? After all, that’s what it’s about. Well, in my search for this type of Internet business, I have found that one of the most successful marketers shares this world view completely, and you can read her very  light and humorous account of how she applied it to make her the success she is today.

You too, can share in this success and start by downloading the freeebook ( that’s my jargon for free e book ) today.
Follow this link for your copy http://hhughes.the7greatliesofnetworkmarketing.com/

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did and look forward to doing business with you soon.

Hilary.

There were just a few pages of info’ about how the book worked before I first bought it but you can see the video about it now –

For the special one dollar offer,

See the video here

Hilary.

Hilary

Here’s the link – don’t for get to mention Hilary Hughes, post code SK4 when you sign up if you want to share knowledge with me!

Hilary.

She went to sleep in my arms but, Heaven help me, not before licking away my tears!!

I know my nephew will miss terribly having her at his feet while he messes around on my computer but soon, I shall remember her best times.

But for now, goodnight and God bless my little legend, Sandy.

Hilary.

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Having received the attention of all the Vetinary staff as well as being observed by a complete team of nurses ( still ) – having had her  spleen removed as well as receiving a blood transfusion, I think she may actually have turned a corner and things are looking better. She’s even been sitting up on the Vet’s knee!
I’m now praying that things continue in this direction and a good  night’s sleep is now on the way!

I know animal lovers out there will know what it’s like but I cannot say just how relieved I am, despite how ever the ultimate prognosis may turn out.

I’d also like to say how impressed I have been with the amount of treatment and attentions she has received while in doggy hospital. Most of my friends now want go and stay there when they’re poorly, too

Hilary.

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I received this uplifting e mail today. I don’t know who wrote it originally but I hope they won’t mind me using it to spread hope and cheer in this Christmas Season, no matter what problems you may be facing.

A man named Robert L. May, depressed and brokenhearted,
stared out his drafty apartment window into the chilling
December night.

His 4-year-old daughter Barbara sat on his lap quietly
sobbing.

Bobs wife, Evelyn, was dying of cancer.

Little Barbara couldn’t understand why her mommy
could never come home. Barbara looked up into her
dad’s eyes and asked, “Why isn’t Mommy just like
everybody else’s Mommy?”

Bob’s jaw tightened and his eyes welled with tears.

Her question brought waves of grief, but also of anger.
It had been the story of Bob’s life. Life always had to
be different for Bob.

Small when he was a kid, Bob was often bullied by
other boys.

He was too little at the time to compete in sports.
He was often called names he’d rather not remember.
From childhood, Bob was different and never seemed
to fit in.

Bob did complete college, married his loving wife and
was grateful to get his job as a copywriter at Montgomery
Ward during the Great Depression. Then he was blessed
with his little girl. But it was all short-lived. Evelyn’s bout
with cancer stripped them of all their savings and now Bob
and his daughter were forced to live in a two-room
apartment in the Chicago slums. Evelyn died just days
before Christmas in 1938.

Bob struggled to give hope to his child, for whom he
couldn’t even afford to buy a Christmas gift. But if he
couldn’t buy a gift, he was determined a make one – a
storybook!

Bob had created an animal character in his own mind
and told the animal’s story to little Barbara to give her
comfort and hope.

Again and again, Bob told the story, embellishing it
more with each telling.

Who was the character? What was the story all about?

The story Bob May created was his own autobiography
in fable form. The character he created was a misfit
outcast like he was.

The name of the character? A little reindeer named
Rudolph, with a big shiny nose.

Bob finished the book just in time to give it to his little
girl on Christmas Day.

But the story doesn’t end there.

The general manager of Montgomery Ward caught
wind of the little storybook and offered Bob May a
nominal fee to purchase the rights to print the book.
Wards went on to print, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer” and distribute it to children visiting Santa
Claus in their stores.

By 1946, Wards had printed and distributed more than
six million copies of Rudolph.

That same year, a major publisher wanted to purchase
the rights from Wards to print an updated version of
the book.

In an unprecedented gesture of kindness, the CEO of
Wards returned all rights back to Bob May.

The book became a best seller.

Many toy and marketing deals followed and Bob May,
now remarried with a growing family, became wealthy
from the story he created to comfort his grieving daughter.

But the story doesn’t end there either.

Bob’s brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, made a song
adaptation to Rudolph.

Though the song was turned down by such popular
vocalists as Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore , it was
recorded by the singing cowboy, Gene Autry.

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was released in
1949 and became a phenomenal success, selling more
records than any other Christmas song, with the
exception of “White Christmas.”

The gift of love that Bob May created for his daughter
so long ago kept on returning back to bless him again
and again. And Bob May learned the lesson, just like
his dear friend Rudolph, that being different isn’t so
bad. In fact, being different can be a blessing.

Hilary

Some years ago, at my local Church  Carol Service, I was fortunate enough to hear the following reading which is one person’s description of happenings over 50 years ago. I am far from ashamed to admit that no matter how often I resurrect the piece ( at Christmas ) it  still has me in tears by the penultimate paragraph. I have altered the original piece  because it is from a translation ( I think )  – although only in a small way because

1. I am not a translator, and

2. I did not see it as my place to alter such a powerful peice of writing.

I hope it adds to your Christmas wherever you may be.

THE CANDLE
Ahh no, this is not really a Christmas-story. It is not really a story either, it is an account, a plain account of something that happened somewhere. But it is not present day news which is what most reporting is about. This thing happened more than fifty years ago, but what does that matter? After all, the Christmas story, the real Christmas story, was not actually a story as such, and it is now old news too, around about two thousand years old. What, then, are fifty years here or there?

Furthermore, there is even a remarkable similarity, even though you might find it a bit far-fetched. The old Christmas story took place in a stall. The one that happened fifty years ago was also in a stall. Well, not a proper stall, but it looked like one. It was a dark, gloomy shed, inside it was always half-light or darkness, but outside .the light shone bright and glorious by day – and even at night it was still light outside, for the shed was in a tropical region under a glowing burning sun, as well as under a wonderful starry sky, and the moon seemed much bigger than here.

People lived in the shed. “Lived” is expressing it rather strongly. They were housed in it, because a little further off the sun or the moonlight sparkled from the barbed wire where it had not rusted in the course of years. For by now it had lasted years; or was it perhaps centuries? We could not tell anymore. We were too tired and too sick and too weak to think about it, to count up the hours and the days. We had done that in the beginning, but that was long since past. We were much more concerned with eternity than with the day or the hour.

Because so many were dying, beside us, opposite us, from hunger, dysentery and other tropical diseases; or simply because they did not want to live any more, their last spark of hope had been extinguished. We did try a bit to keep going in that concentration camp. We did not really know anymore why. For a long time we no longer believed that the war would end and that we would be liberated. We went on living out of force of habit, numbed and deadened, and with one great desire that now and again leapt at your throat like a wild beast: and that was to eat, eat no matter what. But there was nothing to eat, we were being systematically starved. Once in a while someone would catch a snake or a rat. But just forget it, no one who has survived it wants to talk about it.
There was one man in that camp who still possessed something to eat A candle. A plain wax candle. Of course he had not bought it originally or kept it just to eat it A normal person does not eat candle-fat, although they say that the Cossacks used to be very fond of it. In any case it is fat, and that you must not underestimate, when all you see around you are starved bodies and you know yourself to be one of them.

When the torture of hunger became beyond bearing he would take out the candle which he kept well hidden in a little dented tin box and he would nibble at it, but he did not eat it. He regarded the candle as the last resort. As soon as everyone should go mad with hunger (and that would not be long now) he was going to eat the candle up.! hope you don’t find that insane or gruesome. I, who was his friend, found it quite normal at the time. Besides, he had promised me a bit of the candle. It became my life’s task, my constant care, to watch out that he should not eat the candle ail by himself after all. I kept watch and spied on him and his tin box day and night. Perhaps I remained alive because I had such an important task to carry out.

Now, all of a sudden, we discovered that it was Christmas. Quite by chance someone found out after some lengthy calculations made from little nicks and notches cut in a plank. He told it to everyone and added in a rather fiat and expressionless tone of voice, “Next year, we’ll be home for Christmas.” We nodded or made no comment at all. We had heard that now for several years. But there were a few who held fast to the idea. After all, you never knew.

Then someone spoke, perhaps not with any particular intention, but perhaps on purpose after all – I never really found out: “At Christmas the candles are burning and the bells are ringing.”
That was a strange thing to say. it sounded as a faint sound from a great distance, from long ago, something completely unreal. And I must say that the remark simply went past most of us, it just did not have anything to do with us, it spoke of something quite outside our existence, but it had the strangest and most unexpected consequences. When it had grown late in the evening and everyone more or less lain down on the boards with his own thoughts or actually, quite without thoughts, my friend became restless. He groped for his box and brought the candle out. I could see it very well in the gloom, the white candle. “He’ll eat it up,” I thought, “Will he remember me?” and I looked at him through my eyelashes. He set the candle on his plank bed and f saw him disappear outside to where a little fire was smouldering. He came back with a burning stick. Like a ghost that little flame wandered through the hut till he got back to his place again. Then the strange thing happened; he took the burning stick, that flame, and he lit the candle The candle stood on his bed and was burning.

I do not know how everyone noticed it right away, but it was not long before one shadow after another drifted over, half naked fellows, whose ribs you could count, with hollow cheeks and burning, hungered eyes. In the silence they made a ring around the burning candle. Bit by bit they came forward, those naked men, and the minister and the priest. You could not see that they were minister and priest, they were just pieces of starved skeleton, but we happened to know that they were.

The priest said, In a croaking voice: “It is Christmas. The light shines in the darkness.” Then the minister said: “And the darkness overcame it not.”
That, if I remember rightly, comes from St John’s Gospel. You can find it in the Bible, but that night, round that candle, it was no written word of long ago. it was the living reality, a message for the moment and for us, for each one of us. Because the Light did shine in the darkness. And the darkness did not overwhelm it We could not then reason it out, but it was what we felt, gathered silently around that candle light.
There was something extraordinary about it. The candle was whiter and more slender than I ever saw one later in the world of people. And the flame, it was a candle flame that reached to the sky and in the flame we saw things that were not of this world. I cannot describe it. None of us who are still alive can. It was a mystery. A mystery between Christ and ourselves. For we knew then quite certainly that it was him, that he was living among us and for us. We sang in silence, we prayed without a word, and then I heard the bells beginning to ring and a choir of angels intoning their songs. Yes, I know that for a fact, and I have a good hundred witnesses, of whom the greater part can no longer speak, they are no longer here. Nevertheless they know. Out there, deep in the swamps and the jungle, sublime angelic voices sang Christmas carols to us, and we heard the chimes of a thousand bells. It was a mystery where it came from. The candle burned taller and taller and more elongated, till it reached the highest part of the high dark shed and then right through it, right up to the stars, and everything became incandescent with light. So much light nobody ever saw again. And we felt ourselves uplifted and free and knew hunger no more. The candle had not just fed my friend and me; no, the candle had fed us all and made us stronger. There was no end to the light
And when someone said softly: “Next Christmas we’ll be home,” then we believed it this time. For the light proclaimed it to us, it was written in the candle flame in fiery letters; you can believe me or not, but I saw it myself. The candle burned all night. There is no candle in the world that can burn so high and so long.

When it was morning there were a few who sang. That had never happened in any year before. The candle had saved the lives of many, for now we knew that it was worthwhile going on, wherever it might lead, but somewhere in the end a home was waiting for us all. That’s how it was. Some went home before Christmas the following year. They are back in life now in Holland. But they find the candles on our trees are small, much too small. They have seen a greater light, one that is always burning. Most of the others had also gone home before it was Christmas again; I myself helped to lay them in the earth behind our camp, a dry spot between the swamps. But when they died their eyes were not as dull as before. That was the light from the strange candle. The light that the darkness had not overcome.

Hilary.

One For The Cooks – Or Not

Just noticed this on a forum and couldn’t resist putting it up here

Ingredients:

* 2 cups flour
* 1 stick butter
* 1 cup of water
…* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1 cup of sugar
* 1 tsp salt
* 1 cup of brown sugar
* Lemon juice
* 4 large eggs
* Nuts
* 2 bottles wine
* 2 cups of dried fruit

Sample the wine to check quality. Take a large bowl, check the wine again. To be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink. Repeat. Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add one teaspoon of sugar. Beat again. At this point it’s best to make sure the wine is still OK. Try another cup… Just in case. Turn off the mixerer thingy. Break 2 eggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit. Pick the fruit up off floor. Mix on the turner.. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers just pry it loose with a drewscriver. Sample the wine to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift two cups of salt. Or something.

Check the wine. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Add a spoon of sugar, or something. Whatever you can find. Greash the oven. Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over. Don’t forget to beat off the turner. Finally, throw the bowl through the window. Finish the wine and wipe counter with the cat.

Go to supermarket and buy cake.

Bingle Jells!