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Publisher: GoalMinds, Inc/Jo Condrill
Mailto:2condrill@GoalMinds.com www.goalminds.com
Copyright 2009 GoalMinds, Inc. All rights reserved
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Welcome to our many new subscribers! Thank you for joining us.
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"In the business world, the rearview mirror is always
clearer than the windshield."
- Warren Buffett, American Investor, Businessman and
Philanthropist

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IN THIS ISSUE

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1. Reader's Text Messaging Tip - Doug Baumwall

2 Free Enterprise, Bailouts, and the Freedom to Fail

3. Biographical note: Nicola Iacocca by Connie S. Swinfin

4. Whatever Happened to Free Enterprise? Excerpt from
a Ronald Reagan Speech

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1. Reader's Text Messaging Tip - Doug

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The article on text messaging in the November issue drew a number
of comments from readers and this helpful hint from Doug: If
you're just getting started with text messaging, try sending one
to Google: From local business listings to stock quotes, you can
get the information you are looking for with Google SMS [short
messaging service]. Simply text message your search query to
466453 ("GOOGLE" on most devices) and Google will text message
back your results.

I tried it and Google responded:
Google SMS (sms.google.com): Text to 466453 for results, e.g.
Local: pizza 94131, Weather: w nyc. Text TIPS for more info,
STOP to end. Other charges may apply.
Thanks, Doug! See his website at BizBrokersFL.com

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2. Free Enterprise, Bailouts, and the Freedom to Fail

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Have you applied for a bailout? Would you be in line if one were
offered? What conditions, "strings," would be attached? How much
of your life or your business would you give to the government
for a bailout? Maybe it is just "hard times" for everybody and we
need to suck it up. It is not a US problem; it is a global
problem.

Government handouts are not the answer in the long run, though
sometimes we do need help to get over a hurdle. My Dad was
a small businessman who was responsible for employees who had
families. Sometimes when cash flow was slow, the employees got
paid, and we got groceries on credit from a kind neighborhood
grocer. It would have been a disgrace for my Dad to have to turn
to a government handout. If he ever thought of closing the
business and working for someone else, we never knew it. He
encouraged his six children to be independent. "There is no such
thing as 'Can't," he would say.

Small businesses with a competitive spirit are what will ease the
economic mess we are in today. Small businesses:

- Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.

- Have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade.

- Pay nearly 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll.

(Statistics from the US Small Business Administration)

We need to get back to some basic principles and let go of the
idea that greed is good. Some schools of higher learning have
allowed cheating and lying to become acceptable. "Whatever works"
is not a good answer. When we look at our current economic
situation, we cannot put all the blame on the government.

This is a new year, a new administration in the US, and the first
day of the rest of our lives. How our lives turn out has more to
do with what we think, the principles we value, and our
willingness to work for what we want. Take charge of your life;
find a worthy role model, and set about becoming the person you
want to be.

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"Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be
shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people
see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon." ~Winston
Churchill

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Tools to help you take your life to the next level,
by Jo Condrill. Read what others have said at
Goalminds.com/takecharge.html

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3. Biographical Note by Connie S. Swinfin

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"Why is our free - enterprise system so strong? Not because it
stands still, frozen in the past, but because it has always
adapted to changing realities" - - Lee Iacocca, Legendary Auto
Manufacturer

Lido A. Iacocca was born on October 25, 1924.(Lido would change
his name to Lee after going to work for Ford. He felt it would be
easier for business associates and contacts to recognize and
understand.) His parents, Nicola and Antoinette, were Italian
immigrants. Nicola came to the United States from San Marco in
1902. He was only 12 years old. He did odd jobs until he saved up
enough money to return to Italy in 1921 to bring his widowed
mother back to the United States. While he was there he fell in
love with Antoinette, a shoemaker's daughter, who was 17 years
old. They were married a few weeks later, and he brought both his
mother and new bride back to his new country. Lee's parents
worked hard to provide for their family. Nicola believed in
America. He felt in America you had the freedom to become
anything you wanted to be if you were willing to work hard for
it, and he did just that. He opened a hot dog stand called the
Orpheum Wiener House, sold real estate, and started the first
rental car business called U - Drive - It. He did all this with only
a 4th grade education. From Biography of Lido A. Iacocca, by
Connie S. Swinfin

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4. Whatever Happened to Free Enterprise? By Ronald Reagan

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Ronald Reagan delivered this address on the Hillsdale campus in
the Ludwig von Mises Lectures Series in January 1978, before he
became president of the United States. Much of what he said is
still applicable today. Following is an excerpt. To read the
entire transcript of his speech go to: tinyurl.com/8fkaap

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More than anything else, a new political
economic mythology, widely believed by too many people, has
increased government's ability to interfere as it does in the
marketplace. Profit is a dirty word, blamed for most of our
social ills. In the interest of something called consumerism,
free enterprise is becoming far less free. Property rights are
being reduced, and even eliminated, in the name of environmental
protection. It is time that a voice be raised on behalf of the 73
million independent wage earners in this country, pointing out
that profit, property rights and freedom are inseparable, and you
cannot have the third unless you continue to be entitled to the
first two. Even many of us who believe in free enterprise have
fallen into the habit of saying when something goes wrong: "There
ought to be a law." Sometimes I think there ought to be a law
against saying: "There ought to be a law." The German statesman
Bismark said, "If you like sausages and laws you should never
watch either one of them being made." It is difficult to
understand the ever - increasing number of intellectuals in the
groves of academe, present company excepted, who contend that our
system could be improved by the adoption of some of the features
of socialism. In any comparison between the free market system
and socialism, nowhere is the miracle of capitalism more evident
than in the production and distribution of food. We eat better,
for a lower percentage of earnings, than any other people on
earth. We spend about 17 percent of the average family's
after - tax income for food. The American farmer is producing two
and one - half times as much as he did 60 years ago with one - third
of the man - hours on one - half of the land. If his counterparts
worldwide could reach his level of skill we could feed the entire
world population on one - tenth of the land that is now being
farmed worldwide.

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You will find easy to follow tips in '101 Ways to Improve Your
Communication Skills Instantly,' by Jo Condrill and Bennie Bough,
Ph.D. To add this tool to your personal growth toolbox, ask for
it at your local bookstore or library. Order online from
Amazon.com or Products at GoalMinds.com Go a step farther and
learn how your preferred Listening Style affects your ability to
get your message heard and understood. You can complete the
Personal Listening Profile online. Also in Products on the
GoalMinds website

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Jo Condrill
President GoalMinds, Inc.
TXMAS - 8 - 874060
P.O. Box 100903
San Antonio, TX 78201
Phone: 210 595 - 1340