THE INFORMATION PHILANTHROPIST

So the position I aspire to, and one I created myself (always the best way to give yourself a good chance at getting the job), is that of "information philanthropist."

What does this mean? Well, the dictionary says philanthropy is "the practice of helping people less well-off than oneself." In that context, I suppose an information philanthropist is someone who gives out information to people who haven't had the time, access, or experience to discover it themselves. Right now, I am an information gathering machine, and anyone who has a full time profession or career, along with family obligations, couldn't possible have the time and energy I do to focus on huge amounts of information about all sorts of amazing things.

And what I attempt to do in this blog is share the essential parts of that. Some of it involves my own creative process--my ideas about success, prosperity, life, the meaning of it all. Other parts are the dynamic ideas I discover from others along the way. It all will probably end up in one or more books someday. And it's a two-way street, because I get to use you, my readers, as a laboratory to test this stuff. I am already getting feedback about how this post or that post has impacted a reader's life in very positive ways. I haven't begun yet my efforts to gain a much wider audience, but that will start happening later this year. In the meantime, you are part of a select core group. Another definition of philanthropy is "something intended to promote human welfare."

I also notice that those people whose online activities give away huge amounts of valuable information free are among the most successful people on the planet. They are true information philanthropists, and I consider them major mentors in my life. Two I have mentioned before, but want to share here are Tim Ferriss and my

good friend, Barry Dunlop, whom I mentioned in the post just before this one.

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/ Tim's blog.

http://www.incomediary.com/ Barry and Michael's blog.

The above site was actually created and is run by Barry's his twenty-year-old son, Michael.

though Barry often adds some fantastic interviews he does. A nice Internet guru family operation. Check out how much useful and interesting information there is, and how you are not bombarded with sales pitches. In fact, you would find it difficult to find out what, if anything, either the Dunlops or Tim Ferriss is selling as opposed to giving away.

Look at these blogs in comparison to those from "information misers"--those entrepreneurs who tease you with "secrets" they will share only if you give them your email address, or buy their initial offer. I would venture to say that you can take the information available on both these sites and build a successful Internet business, without ever buying a single thing from either Tim Ferriss or Barry and Michael Dunlop. But one thing is certain, when they do offer me something to buy, I'll be more than willing to give it serious consideration. They have discovered the secret of business success in this new information oriented world we live in--build appreciation, affection, and trust and

you build relationships that last. In other words, tell me something valuable I can use in my life and you have a friend for life.

Jerry

And by the way, one of the reasons I was so attracted to MXI, the company that produces and markets Xocai, the world's healthiest dark chocolate and possibly most powerful superfood, is that they give tremendous amounts of information away free, on websites, videos, telephone conference calls, etc. If interested in checking it out for a fantastic business opportunity, just contact me at jerrygillies@gmail.com

EVERY LITTLE BIT OF IT

This is about savoring. About taking every positive event and piece of information one

is excited about and enjoys and just gobbling up every delicious bite. Like the Eskimos taking every piece and part of that whale they've caught and using it, down to the tiniest bit of bone. I've always liked that as a metaphor, an image of how intensely and how intently I want to experience the joys of life as they come along.

I actually got the idea for this stream-of-consciousness report from my friend Barry Dunlop in England, creator of www.incomediary.com and several other successful and dynamic websites, and a first rate Internet entrepreneur. Barry got in touch with me to tell me how impactful Moneylove had been for him. It is only recently that I realized he had never read the book itself, but was referring to the Nightingale-Conant album of cassette tapes. I produced those tapes by sitting in a studio in Chicago for eight hours with just a few short pages of notes, and did them as if I was talking to an individual. They had suggested I just read directly from the book, but I wanted all new material, as the book was already almost ten years old when I did the tapes. Unfortunately, they have long been out of production, but I will probably take the best material and incorporate it into the revised edition of Moneylove that I will publish later this year.

Back to Barry. I got the sense that he took "every little bit" of information I shared on that tape album and made the most of it in his own entrepreneurial adventures. I have just managed to obtain a few copies of Moneylove in hardcover in mint condition and asked Barry if he would like one. This is when I found out he hadn't read it. He responded that he would love a copy and that I knew he would treasure it. Well, I know he will more than treasure it--he will turn whatever ideas and concepts appeal to him into treasure. Barry is an "every little bit of it" guy. He will embellish my original concepts and thoughts with his own and come up with something completely new and exciting.

I remember my friend and mentor, Ray Bradbury, once saying that in order to innovate you don't have to start from scratch. He even suggested taking one of his fantastic stories and imagining how it would be if it turned out differently, and then writing it with that new direction. Ray said this was as original as anything any writer ever turned out. It's about using every little bit of it in the creative process.

Of course,in this online world, when we're inundated with interesting and valuable and useful information every single day, we have to apply profound editorial skills, to pick out what we want to pay attention to. At the top of this, I said it was about taking every piece of information we enjoy and are excited about and gobbling up every bite.

In other words, savoring every little bit of it. But in today's world, we have to make sure we choose the most exciting and most enjoyable and most profitable meals from a vast and varied menu. I think a life that involves skillful selection and skillful savoring is a life well lived.

Jerry

By the way, I also like to savor every little bit of the email I get. So do let me know your thoughts and ideas about this blog.

jerrygillies@gmail.com

You can also get information, when available, about my upcoming Moneylove projects. And right now, if interested, about my team I'm building to enjoy every little bit of the healthiest and most delicious fine Belgian dark chocolate, including the best business opportunity I've discovered in thirty years.

MORE FROM MY FUNNYBONE

Well, my last post was done and all sorts of stuff I would liked to have added popped into my head. Then I got several responses asking for more. And I am writing this as I take a break from taking a break. My original task is going through literally hundreds of articles and research reports on the health benefits of dark chocolate for my book on that subject. I decided to take a break and write some cartoon gags, which sort of refreshes my brain as well as my sense of humor. And after writing about twelve of the thirty gags I will turn out to send to one of my favorite cartoonists, Roy Delgado, to look over and select anywhere from one to six to draw up and submit to magazines, I decided to come here and turn out this blog posting.

A couple of the Delgado gags I just wrote:

D5501. CHAIRMAN TO BOARD

“What makes you think having you all hate my guts isn’t part of my master plan?”

*************************************************************

D5502. DOCTOR TO PATIENT HE’S EXAMINING

“If you were a car company, the government would have sold you off for parts long ago.”

As I've already mentioned, writing gags while sitting in a cell at Folsom State Prison gave me spending money and kept my sanity and sense of humor alive. One of those turned into this cartoon in PARADE, the magazine distributed in Sunday papers to over 100 million Americans.

It amuses me to think of those hundred million people seeing this cartoon with their Sunday morning cup of coffee, and having no idea that the idea was conceived by a convict sitting in a cell at Folsom. Bunny Hoest, the widow of a very successful cartoonist named Bill Hoest, for whom I did gags way back in the 1960s, has carried on, with her drawing partner, John Reiner, Bill's tradition as well as very accurately duplicating his style. She also does The Lockhorns for King Features and a few other panels and strips.

I can't seem to figure out how to get rid of that large space between the cartoon and my text, so may just leave it in for now until I get some computer advice.

I also wanted to share a couple of more exceptionally (I think--but to each his own--so decide for yourself) funny web links.

This one is for what I laughed my head off watching, a joke that is very current with all the debate on torture, but probably dates back thirty years, when it appeared on the Johnny Carson edition of The Tonight Show:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#1l0Yso/animationbackgrounds.blogspot.com/search/label/SILLY%20SYMPHONY/topic:Animation

When the web page comes up, go to the right and click on Komedy Klassics and the joke, by Charlie Callas, will appear.

And then one of the best comedy sites around, which you may well have

already discovered, is Will Ferrell's FunnyOrDie. I just discovered this

great political parody, which I'm amazed I never encountered during the

election season:

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/6a8b4bc6e0/mccain-and-palin-campaign-bollywood-music-video-style-from-brandon-muller

And one of the great things about online exploration is that both these sites you now have links to provide a wealth of other very funny material you can spend hours, even days laughing at and with. Enjoy exercising those endorphins!

Jerry

And by the way, I still love eating my dark chocolate while

looking at something funny. Do contact me via emal--

jerrygillies@gmail.com to find out more about the hottest

business opportunity I've found in this economy. Also, send

me your e-address if you want to know about future Moneylove

book projects coming up this summer. No huge onslaught of

emails will arrive, I promise...just a very occasional

announcement of something fun and profitable.

LAUGHING OUT LOUD

As I ponder some of the basic foundation of my forthcoming book on the power of single sentences, I certainly want to make sure some of them are laugh-out-loud funny.

When is the last time you laughed out loud when you were absolutely alone?  It's a lot easier, of course, in company. But there are times when having a good giggle or guffaw in complete privacy can be valuable. It stirs the juices, releases those endorphins, and massages your internal organs. Many researchers have attested to its life prolonging properities.

Humor has always been a part of my life. As a kid, I used to print up and distribute little newletter satirical reviews of my parents' cousins' club meetings. And in Jr. High School, I was the humorist on the school paper. Later, while playing the role of serious newsman at NBC Radio in New York, I would try out comedy material at the original Improvisation, the first comedy club in the world, and the only one in the early 1970s. I wrote for several comedians, and had started writing gags for magazine cartoonists even earlier than that, between broadcast stints at the radio and TV station I worked at in Richmond, Virginia. 

It came naturally--my father was very funny. Everyone who knew him as a child say he was much funnier than his neighbor two doors down, Joey Gottlieb, who became the comedy star and Rat Pack member, Joey Bishop. But Joey was more willing to

take risks, to struggle all during the 1930s and 1940s trying to earn a living at show business. It wasn't until the late 1940s when he was discovered in Atlantic City by Frank Sinatra that it all became true for him. My father's unwillingness to go through all that with no guarantee of success taught me a valuable lesson in reverse. I determined never in my life to be in a position where I could look back and say, "I wish I had had the nerve to go for that, to take that risk."

This is all by way of an introduction to the main point of this essay, which is to share with you some recent online discoveries that tickle my own funnybone and have made me laugh out loud.  On April 22 I published a post on this blog about humor, and will continue to do so from time to time. And these could just be the most important and useful posts of all.  

I just found in the past week, one of the funniest sites ever, and I want to share with you the first short cartoon I watched on it, warning you first that it is in extremely bad taste and pretty raunchy--get the children out of the room now!

http://icebox.com/index.php?id=episode&show_id=s8&episode_id=e1

Make sure you click on the play movie pawprint. This icebox.com site is a treasure trove of funny adult cartoons.

Next, a great animation site and funny one minute cartoon:

http://eatpes.com/roofsex.html

and finally, imagine a website that films seven nights a week from the nation's top comedy clubs--talk about an unending source of laughter. This bit is about one of my pet peeves, and I've sent it to a bunch of friends.

http://www.rooftopcomedy.com//watch/EmailPasswordHell

all three of these sites offer many more items to pick from.

And if you think you don't have time for such frivolous activities, I think you're missing the point. Not the point of this blog--the point of life.  Enjoy it all!

                     Jerry

By the way, I improve immensely the impact of this funny stuff by watching it as I have a healthy dark chocolate Xocai Nugget melt in my mouth. To find out more about my prosperity team sharing this fantastic business opportunity, or to request a free sample, just get in touch:

jerrygillies@gmail.com

THE PROFOUND AND POWERFUL SENTENCES KEEPING COMING

Once again I want to focus on some sentences that one can use to change forever their perspective on just about anything. I'll go in the order in which I first got to think about these sentences and how to use them for greater awareness, wisdom, inner peace.

It started this past Saturday night when I got a phone call from a delightful lady named Helga Hiers. She called me after reading this blog, which she was led to when she bought a used copy of Louise Hay's You Can Heal Your Life, in which Louise, an old friend, calls Moneylove the best book she ever read on money. Helga is an award-winning poet and

an entrepreneur. In fact, during the 1970s, when I lived in Miami, she had a candle shop in one of my favorite places to visit, Sanibel Island on the West Coast of Florida. And she is very likely going to become one of my superstars in my healthy dark chocolate business. 

She read me a poem of hers, and one line leapt out at me, so I want to share it, with her permission:

 when you get up and have a mood that is low, you will attract people you don't want to know

Isn't that the truth?  It also fits so well with the quote I've mentioned from Norman Cousins, that the most successful wake up each morning with "robust expectations." I notice that when I have robust expectations, there are a certain type of people who are attracted to me. 

The next morning I  went to Unity in San Francisco, here's their website:

http://www.unitysf.com/

The Rev. Sonya Milton took as her theme for the morning, the story of Joseph in Genesis. She told how his brothers mistreated him, throwing him in a pit and selling him as a slave to passing traders. He was apparently a typical know-it-all 17 year old, and they hated him for relating a dream that showed them submitting to his authority. He ended up in Egypt, and when his master's wife came on to him and was rebuked, she trapped him into ending up in prison. But as he had in slavery, he succeeded in building a positive life in prison. Eventually he interpreted dreams and had a very powerful post under the Pharoah, as the sort of food csar of Egypt. When his brothers traveled from Israel to beg food from him, not knowing who he was, Joseph had evidently forgiven them, saying that famous line to them:

"You meant it for evil, but God meant if for good."

Now, there's a sentence you can build a seminar around! How many times are we confronted by adversity, or apparent adversity, and then it turns out that by transcending the challenge, we reach a higher state than otherwise possible. I certainly feel this is true of my own experience in prison. Yes, the police, prosecutor, judge, and jury meant my 12 year sentence for evil--but God meant it for good.

And then I called Rupa Cousins in Vermont, who is a Sufi and one of my spiritual mentors. She told me that Joseph's master's wife was named Zulieka,

which isn't in the bible, but does appear with an in-depth version of the tale in the Koran, and also in many Sufi writings, including some by the great Persian poet, Rumi. 

And the final sentence I'll share with you in this post is from a remarkable young man with a remarkable story. His name is Sean Stephenson, and he's three feet tall, thirty years old, and has suffered unbelievable physical hardship in his life. Sean was born with "osteogenesis impefecta" or brittle bone disorder. But he considers his life amazing and wonderful, and said in an interview with Barry Dunlop on Neckers Island, Sir Richard Branson's personal resort, a single sentence that reflects his astonishing spirit:

"I go to bed every night wishing I didn't have to, because my life is more exciting than my dreams."

Check out the whole interview:

http://www.incomediary.com/sean-stephenson-interview-getting-rid-of-fears-excuses-and-insecurities/

Not only a great line, it sounds like one of those wonderful traditional Irish toasts, "And may your life be more exciting than your dreams!"  Is yours?                                                  Jerry

And by the way, one way a number of people are making their lives more exciting than their dreams is by joining with me and a group of fun-loving, prosperity-committed, chocolate worshipping entrepreneurs. It's not by far the only such path, but it sure is the best-tasting. For more info, contact me: JerryGillies@gmail.com

MORE ON THE POWER OF A SINGLE SENTENCE

As I promised in the essay two postings back, I'm going to explore more about the impact and potency of single sentences. And this will not be the last time. I already have one e-book in mind that would include 100 sentences that can be used to inspire, enrich, and make life a lot more fun. Part of the reason I am focused on this right now is the phenomenon that greeted me when I emerged from a twelve year prison sentence last year. I had disappeared off the planet, as far as most people knew, and yet was kept alive on the Internet by dozens upon dozens of quotes of mine that popped up when searches were done on Google, Yahoo, MSN, even Amazon.com--it sure surprised me to know I was still alive and well and having an impact on people's lives!

Now, as you know if you've been following this blog, I not only love words, but do tend to go on a bit, sometimes on and on. But conversely, I also developed during my broadcast journalism days, the ability to boil some complex set of facts down into their essence. I'm not talking here about talking points, or sound bites, which often miss the major pieces of information. I'm talking about finding what is really important in a large body of information, and presenting that in a short, impactful way.

For example, Charles Dickens' most famous opening line, possible the most quoted beginning of a book in history, from A TALE OF TWO CITIES:

     "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Doesn't that say it all, tell you the very essence of what was going on in those turbulent days of The French Revolution?  And yet, most people don't know, and this includes even people who have read the book, that this is just the beginning of the opening sentence. In fact these twelve famous words constitute just 10% of the opening sentence, which contains a total of

120 words!  But their rhythm and power make them one of the most quoted phrases in

literature.

Some American songwriters are really good at this, too. In my prosperity seminars, I would often play the great Johnny Mercer-Harold Arlen tune as sung by Bing Crosby:

You've got to accentuate the positive

Eliminate the negative

Latch on to the affirmative

Don't mess with mister in-between.

Isn't that a perfect rendition of the concept of positive thinking?

Or in a statement about changing times, from Cole Porter's Anything Goes:

In olden days a glimpse of stocking

was looked on as something shocking,

But now, God knows,

Anything goes.

How's that for a comment on morals going to hell in a handbasket?

And when it comes to romance, George and Ira Gershwyn created a masterpiece that

talks about two people coming from two completely different places:

You like potato and I like potahto, You like tomato and I like tomahto....

Look at the current hot social media platform, Twitter. By limiting messages to 140 characters, everyone is challenged to boil things down to the essence. Now some people consider this part of the frivolization of the culture (I think I just coined a phrase there), as

MTV was accused of being when it introduced the quick cuts and fast pacing of its music videos. And that is sometimes a valid criticism, but forcing people to put things into a short amount of verbal expression can lead to bursts of brilliance, too. Look at Haiku.

One of my most popular quotes from Moneylove is:

“The strongest single factor in prosperity consciousness is self-esteem: believing you can do it, believing you deserve it, believing you will get it”

And I just heard from a bestselling author on financial matters who says he's planning to use that quote in his next book.

When people ask me what the most amazing thing I noticed after emerging from 12 years of incarceration, I answer that it is The Internet, and particularly my presence on it despite my absence from society. Come up with something that strikes a chord with people and it achieves a sort of immortality, it goes on and on. This is the magic of The Internet, where I just watched a great dance number featuring Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell from nearly seventy years ago! Even pre-Internet parts of the culture have a new, longer-lasting life.

By the way, this is considered the best duo dance routine ever filmed, so I'll include the clip as introduced by Frank Sinatra. These were indisputably the finest tap dancers in the world--ever!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toDl2hXt8BM&feature=PlayList&p=E78FB91CEFE47C1

I'd like to close by leaving you with three sentences I may include in my e-book collection (make sure I have your email address if you want to be notified when it's available later this summer):

"My fondest wish is to keep doing exactly what I'm now doing, but be able to afford it."

"The best unemployment insurance you can have is learning how to make money without a job."

"You should be as picky about the ideas you let into your head as you are about the people you let into your bedroom."

Feel free to bounce these ideas around in your head, or discuss and debate them with friends. There will not be a quiz.

                                                                                                        Jerry

And if you want to find out more about using healthy dark chocolate to become more healthy, wealthy, and wise--just get in touch at jerrygillies@gmail.com.