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Volume 1, Number 6 July 27, 2001
Publisher: GoalMinds, Inc. mailto:Condrill@goalminds.com
http://www.goalminds.com/
Copyright 2001 GoalMinds, Inc. All rights reserved
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WELCOME to our many new subscribers who signed up since our last newsletter!
Please FORWARD this newsletter to anyone you know that is interested in self-development, making money writing or speaking, or just hanging out with interesting folks having fun.
We aim to DOUBLE our mailing list within the next 45 days. Will you help us? If you received this issue as a forward, and would like to get your own FREE subscription, please put SUBSCRIBE in the body of an email and mailto:condrill@goalminds.com
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Hot off the press! FROM BOOK SIGNING TO BEST SELLER: An Insider's Guide to Conducting a Low Cost Book Signing Tour is now available. We interviewed booksellers, publicists, and other authors; coupled it with our own experiences and inserted lots of checklists, forms, and a sample budget. This book is getting excellent reviews from publications such as Writers World, Midwest Book Review, and Poets and Writers. Book Marketing Update published a full-page feature in its June 15th issue. FROM BOOK SIGNING TO BEST SELLER is now available in book stores, online outlets, BookZone, and our website, http://www.goalminds.com/ . This book makes a great gift for the writer on your list! To get an autographed copy, order from our web page and give us the details in the comment section. Watch for our upcoming seminars on book signing

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PRIVACY STATEMENT: We will not distribute your address to anyone. Period.
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SPONSORED BY: GoalMinds, Inc. where every day is a new adventure.
A new way to communicate with us! http://www.authorsden.com/jocondrill and click on message center.

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The difference between success and a near miss is often knowing when to be flexible and when to stand firm.
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IN THIS ISSUE
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1. How Strong Is Your Foundation? by John B. Slack

2. Envision Success

3. Survey
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1. How Strong is Your Foundation?
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We've all heard it before. "Build a solid foundation before you can ever hope to erect a lasting structure." This is true whether it is a home, a business, or a relationship.

We saw the folly of trying to fool Mother Nature on a recent trip. While on a 3,000 mile loop this month, we drove through the vast, arid reaches of the American Southwest. Just a few miles north of Phoenix we were the guests of one of Jo's aunts. Wayne and Mary bought a new home 18 months ago in a complex built by one of the nation's well-known developers.

Built on a gently sloping desert tract, their beautiful new home is on one of the lower lots of a stepping stone series of homes. A concrete slab was poured and the house was built on top of it. Underneath was desert sand. During the winter, as the rains came pouring down, all that water had to go somewhere. So it went directly under Aunt Mary's new home. And as it flowed under and away from the slab, it took copious amounts of desert sand with it. Inspectors and engineers came to view the problems and venture opinions. Their conclusion was that the house was built on a faulty foundation. Now, sorry to say, with no sound support beneath it, the house is starting to crack apart and settle into a jigsaw mosaic of windows, walls, and assorted parts coming undone.

The moral of the story is that no structure, no relationship, and no organization can stand for long if there is not a strong, stable foundation supporting it. For a while, the superficial façade looks very imposing. Then what? It just can't withstand challenges. Take a look at the important things in your life, a real hard look. How is your foundation holding up? Think about it.

At a recent dinner meeting in Studio City an author was bemoaning the fact that a major bookstore chain would not schedule book signings by authors who are self-published. I knew that was incorrect because I'd signed at many of their stores. After looking at the book, I detected a problem: the back cover of the book did not conform to industry standard. There are certain things required to get books into the book distribution system, for instance, a bar code in the bottom right corner. In this case, the code was in the center. A piece of the foundation was missing. It's important to know the standard and, unless you have a good reason not to conform, don't buck the system. There are times when being a maverick pays off; and, there are times when you need to "go with the flow." In the book marketing business, it's best to find a system that works and keep working the system.

Marketing efforts must be built on a solid product. FROM BOOK SIGNING TO BEST SELLER: An Insider's Guide to Conducting a Successful Low-Cost Book Signing Tour begins with this principle. Before contacting any bookstore or event planner, be sure your book meets industry standards. Dan Poynter provides all the details in his outstanding book, The Self-Publishing Manual.
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Check out our FREE communication tips--a new tip every day for fourteen days.

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2. Envision Success
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Shortly after A Millennium Primer: Take Charge of Your Life was published, a professional course developer at Ontimetraining.com developed two courses from the material presented in the book. They already had one of my seminars on their web site, Empowering Communication Skills for Women... I was honored. The courses developed are: Envision Success--Creative Leadership for Managers and Envision Your Future--Reach Your Dreams. Businesses like American Airlines and Coldwell Banker Commercial are taking advantage of the Ontimetraining.com distance learning opportunity. Their site offers a wide variety of excellent courses and seminars. Your company might also benefit by their training. Go to http://www.goalminds.com/ then click on the Ontimetraining icon.
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How often do you sit and think about your future? --say five or ten years down the road? For most of us, it's rarely! We are busy dealing with daily challenges and opportunities and we seldom spend time thinking and deciding what we want our future to be. Many of us have given up on the idea and believe that destiny will dictate. Thinking about what we want, however, will allow us to make better decisions that lead to greater happiness.

That is not to say that we must CONTROL all the events in our lives. We just need to pick a point in the future and set our gyroscopes on it. Then we do the best we can to make decisions that lead in the direction we've chosen. This is not a linear process, but a dynamic leaping forward and sometimes looping back to evaluate, dream some more, and sometimes make midcourse corrections.

Often we find serendipities along the way. For example, a few months ago while I was an extra in a movie that was filming at Union Station in Los Angeles, I picked up a voice message on my cell phone during one of the breaks. Someone wanted to buy a couple of copies of our book, 101 Ways to Improve Your Communication Skills Instantly. John followed up and the caller bought several books and audio-tape sets. In a later conversation with the gentleman, I asked how he'd heard about the book. "Jo, you won't believe it," he said. He related how he had found a satchel, "like a briefcase," in the road. In the briefcase were several different books, but no identification of the owner. Our friend took the satchel home and looked at the books. 101 Ways. . . caught his attention and he read it. Inside he found our telephone number and called. "I'm an immigrant," he explained, "and I like your book. I can really use it."
Out of nowhere, a stranger found our book and was influenced by it. Out of nowhere, things happen to move you toward your destination. If you know where you're going, you will recognize these "coincidences" and take full advantage of them.

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3. Survey
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Thanks to all of you who participated in the RETREAT survey in our last issue. We had respondents from Toronto, Canada to California and are happy to see a lively interest in a retreat! While the original deadline is past, we're still interested in your comments if you have not yet responded. That article is repeated below for your convenience. Most respondents simply marked the form, then copied and pasted their replies in email.
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At the end of each year most of us begin thinking of New Year's Resolutions and how we want our lives to change in the coming year. Something invariably intervenes and we never seem to quite get what we want. At the beginning of the year 2002, we will be offering a RETREAT and we'd like your help.
A RETREAT is stepping back, away from a routine. It is going within and taking time to think, to plan, to refocus or to just relax and feel rejuvenated. It is two or three days set aside so that participants can relax, network, and feel revitalized! All of us need such times in our lives. A quiet time away from the routine; an energizing time of stretching muscle, mind, and spirit. A happy time of meeting people and forming lasting relationships. All of these come together for you in a well-planned retreat presented by a master meeting planner, Allegra Bowman, with Jo Condrill lining up the program.
Here's an opportunity for you to help plan this very exciting event. Please take time to answer these few questions. This will help us fine-tune an agenda that will more surely satisfy most people. It is not a commitment to attend.

Please complete the following and return it to us as soon as possible, mailto:condrill@goalminds.com
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On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being lowest and 10 being highest, please rank each item

What are your areas of interest?

_____TIME MANAGEMENT
_____STRESS MANAGEMENT
_____COMMUNICATIONS
_____GOAL SETTING
_____MONEY MANAGEMENT
_____IMPROVING APPEARANCE
_____SPIRITUAL GROWTH
_____RESUME WRITING AND INTERVIEWS
_____ENTREPRENEURSHIP
_____MASSAGE/SPA/EXERCISE
_____RECREATION E.G. GOLF, TENNIS SWIMMING
_____OTHER AREAS WHICH YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE _____________________________________________________


SUGGESTED FACILITY FOR RETREAT
_____Studio City, CA
_____Los Angeles
_____Palm Springs, CA
_____San Francisco
_____Hollywood, CA
_____New York
_____Other __________________________________________
_____Need child care

TIME INVESTED
_____Friday evening, Sat. & Sun
_____Sat and Sunday
_____riday and Saturday
_____Thursday evening, Friday & Sat
_____Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

COST
_____Under $500
_____$500-$1,000
_____$1,000-$2,000
_____Price is no object

PLEASE TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF (not on a scale of 1 to 10!)
Age:
_____20-30
_____31-40
_____41-50
_____Over 50

BUSINESS
_____Owner
_____Manager
_____Mid-level manager
_____Employee
_____Domestic engineer
(stay-at-home Mom or Dad)
_____Retired
_____Looking for employment
_____Looking for a better-paying job
_____Looking for more rewarding, satisfying work
_____Looking for a way to simplify my life
_____Other

INCOME RANGE
_____Under $25,000
_____$25-50,000
_____50-75,000
_____over 75,000

LOCATION - I live in
_____Metropolitan area
_____Suburbs
_____Country

I work in
_____Metropolitan area
_____Suburbs
_____Country

My commute to work is
_____Work at home
_____Less than 30 minutes
_____An hour or more

NAME: _____________________________________________
ADDRESS: __________________________________________
PHONE: ____________________________________________
EMAIL: _____________________________________
WEB SITE: __________________________________

Please act right away. Mark the survey, then mailto:condrill@goalminds.comor print it out and fax it back to 661 273-0760. We sincerely appreciate your input.
Thanks!
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Thanks for being with us. Please tell your friends about this newsletter and recommend that they sign up. To subscribe just type SUBSCRIBE in an email to mailto:Condrill@goalminds.com
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GoalMinds, Inc.
http://www.goalminds.com/
139 S. Beverly Dr. #222
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
Phone: 310 858-0100