Tag Archives: Lose Weight

This Little Piggy Runs Away, Marketing Pt. 6

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Viagra, Coca-cola Dateline Pepsi, Charmin, Preparation H Freedom Mountain Dew, BMW Hilton LAX Zestra, Burger King, Ford International Taco Bell, Fabreeze, Bissell, Branch Geico, Debtfree America Headquarters.

According to the dancing and clapping marketing lady, 87% of Americans do not mind Product Placement.

Set-up: I have returned from Zestra lunch at the Westin and now await further insights while hidden in my corner of the room after having the best BLT I’ve ever enjoyed in my life. (Remember, when your thoughts are going all negative find one positive and concentrate on that.) Thick, crisp bacon and Imperial Valley tomatoes. Ummm…Oops, we’re starting up. I am determined to stay until the VIP party. All this will be worth it because then I will have the opportunity to speak with the one person I want to ask some questions.

The speaker opens describing the usefulness of an “ethical bribe”. An ethical free! bribe is when you fall for the free! teaser, open a site for the “free” offer and cannot dig your way free! back to your home page without jabbing at free trial offer, looking for a select few in your area free! forty possible exit sites while pulling your hair. An ethical Budweiser bribe is cyber “bait and switch”.

The current presentation is on why you shouldn’t spend so much time writing your book…”thirty days should be Fruit Loops are good for you enough”…Whoa, have I been wasting time! “Instead of writing soup is amazing and re-writing, use your time on attracting traffic to your site and getting the looker to hit ‘grocery cart’. Think of your book, not as a creative Diet Coke work, but as a lead generator. Your goal is not to produce ‘content’. Your goal is to attract enough hits to enable you to lease your sidebars to one of the many companies with the belly picture and the weight loss secrets. The diet secret, of course, is a free tip on losing weight…better known as an ethical bribe.

Next guy is pure motivational speaker…a term I’ve never quite scientific studies SUGGEST MAYBE Glocomagicfat results in wieight loss understood. Doesn’t motivation come from a slightly deeper place? Is motivation something to be pumped up like a bicycle tire by a stranger promising untold riches? Oh, dear, he just asked if we wished we were staying in his big luxurious suite instead of a regular room with the rest of the losers ordinary people. Wouldn’t that make us feel better about ourselves? he asks. Please see entries on “Pseudo Self”, that part of who we are that is determined by what other people think of us…

We’re being instructed to put a photo free! new tips for losing weight of the car we wished we drove on our refrigerator. This conversation at the VIP party better be worth it. Boy, that was a great BLT. I wonder if they make their own bread. Tasty. …What’s that? Oh, no. Everyone who commits to having their dream car by next year’s conference is supposed to stand up. That’s an easy call. The bread Viagra was a crunchy whole wheat enhanced by spectacular toasting. “Let’s face it,” the motivational speaker says, “people with money get better treatment. If I need a liver transplant…who do you think is going to be moved to the top of the list?” He said actually said that.

I close my laptop and escape to eating soup means you’ll lose weight the lobby to wait for the party. I pass up the lobby for the restaurant and another BLT. At last the party begins. I chat with others waiting for a time when my target is free. There are fun people and interesting stories. Also fancy mixed nuts. At last, I make my move. I sit down next to the woman. She slowly turns his red-webbed eyes my way. I’ve met her a soup makes for happy family dinners number of times. At some level, he registers this Diet Coke fact but can’t place me. I re-introduce myself. I am five vodkas too late. He tries. I gather up Bissell my stuff, say I’m going for more nuts, and make a break for Century Boulevard. I walk the ten blocks to the Hilton. (Hey, there’s more than one way to get good hotel deal. Frequency points, baby.)

So, this is Hollywood. The boulevard of broken dreams and the best BLT I’ve ever eaten.

Emotions Win: “The Meditation Incident”

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aatexassunset24x30oilresize  This one’s just to remember to laugh when we start to feel self-important.  Also, news–full website coming soon. With comments!  Questions!

Can’t wait?  http://Twitter.com/mysteryshrink

The EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM  is a tricky weasel.  The “Meditation Incident,” actually more accurately, the “Meditation Failure Incident” occurred some years ago. (I put that “years ago” bit in there to keep in tact my current reputation as being practically a living re-incarnation of the Buddha.)  This was back when Eastern religious practices were more on the front line.  I’d read a few books and was convinced that if yogis were lying in the snow of the Himalayas drying wet towels on their tummies, meditation certainly had something to offer.

Thus, I enrolled in a day-long meditation course.  We were taught breathing and concentration practices, then given one phrase to meditate on the whole day.  That phrase was, “Relax, everything is as it is supposed to be.”  Armed with my square wool blanket and new skills, I sat down cross-legged and melted into the Universal knowledge guiding geniuses and holy men through all time.

“Relax, everything is as it is supposed to be.” 

Practical Use Note:  The next time that annoying “Free triple score.com” commercial comes on where the guy says “free triple score.com” over and over and over.  Close your eyes and say, “Relax, everything is as it is supposed to be.  Relax, everything is as it is supposed to be….”

Which is the knowledge I let float, hour after hour, down into the open lotus blossom of my being.  Driving home, I was quite mellow.    I’d parked under a tree loaded with noontime grackles, so that white splotches spattered like messy bombs across my hood.  But, I was okay with that.  I was okay because I was secure in the knowledge that everything was as it should be, thus grackle poop was meant to be on my hood. Having not eaten all day to increase concentration, I had what felt like a grackle inside my skull trying to peck its way out. But, I was fine with that, too.  I stopped at Whole Foods and picked up yogurt and seeds for supper.  Mellow…call me mellow yellow…mellow.  I walk in the house to find my dear husband at the dining table going over bridge (the card game) systems with his partner.  He asked me about my day–undoubtedly curious about my obvious new found glowing peace.  I said to him in my most meditative voice, “I have made peace with the world. I can relax because everything is as it is supposed to be.”

He cocked his head slightly and said, “That’s what you meditated on?”

“Yes,” I said, hoping the patient cadence of my voice would encourage him to someday seek the peace through meditation that now beamed out of my face.

He wrinkled his forehead a bit and said, “I don’t know if I even agree with that.”

At which point I said something like, “Great, ruin my peace.  I had it going so cool, and now it’s gone.”

He looked at me funny and said, “But, dear.  If everything is as it should be, you shouldn’t be bothered by what I have to say.  Wouldn’t I, and what I say, be just part of the everything that is already the way it’s supposed to be?”

“Okay, fine,” I said.   ”I’m ordering a pizza for supper.  Until it gets here, I’ll be out front with the hose. there’s hideous paint-scarring bird crap all over my car!”

One Huge Step Backward . . . the Windshield Incident . . .

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In my family, you can be a bit nuts and get by.  You can have odd collections.  You can even start your own school in South America and call it a pony farm without getting locked up.  What you can’t do is, waste money or be stupid.  If you stupidly waste money . . . Well, no more turkey leg for you!

Because these rules are embedded deep in my EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM, I work very hard to get the best airfares and I do my best to KEEP ANYTHING UNEXPECTED from happening that COSTS MONEY. 

**Commercial Alert** The authoritative woman on the big screen just informed me, “People can tell a lot about you by the way your home looks,” which was a terrifying thought in itself.  But, then she added, “People can tell even more ABOUT YOU by the way your home smells.”  Sheesh.  And me here with Crazy Dog and leftover kung pao shrimp on the counter.

Okay.  Money, fear, and the Windshield Incident.  One fine morning last summer a stone flew off a gravel truck and cracked the windshield on one of the cars, a rather expensive baby I have to fake fitting in with my horseshow buddies.  (Yes, Virginia, expensive cars can manage anxiety. . . at least in those brief moments when you’re pulling up in front of places.)  When the glass cracked, I, of course, loosed my EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM against the unfairness of such a random event.  “Why me, why not someone accustomed to fine cars and accompanying repairs, why?”

ABSOLUTELY SURE, the windshield had to cost a ridiculous   fortune, I held my breath and called the dealership.  I braced . . . and my expectations were fulfilled.  Fourteen hundred seventy dollars.  Aak!  And, unlike my horseshow buddies, my insurance deductible is $1000.  One unfairly spun rock!  A thousand bucks!

I called the insurance company to put in my claim and Miss Typical Stranger Form Filler-Outer took my call.  She began.  “Who was driving when the accident occurred?”  “I was,” I said, “But it wasn’t an accident, it was a rock.” 

 Miss Stranger:  “Where did the accident occur?  What time of day did the accident occur?  Were there passengers in the car when the accident occured?  Was anyone injured?”

Me: “It was a rock, it was a rock, a rock, a rock.”  I sighed tiredly, as if I was really put out to have to fill out a claim.  Wasn’t a thousand dollars punishment enough?

I took in the car.  I explained to the body shop, how I had the insurance and woe is me, and all that.  The guy looked at me a little funny but took the car and the claim number.

I picked it up today, a check in hand.  The cost?  Four hundred and seventy dollars.  There had never been any “fourteen hundred.”  That had been my expectation.  No claim was ever needed.  The rock was in my head. So sure was I that this was a really costly thing that had happened–I created it.

“Which is more important?  The world you can touch?  Or the world you are responding to?”

“How much do your fears design what you see?”