A couple of misnomers

I'm still farting around with probabilities, even though I said I wouldn't for a while. The answer to how often a million heads in a row would show up are 1 in 2 to the millionth power. But how much is that in normal (base 10) numbers?

According to Web 2.0 Calc:

What is 2 to the millionth power?   

It is a very, very, very BIG NUMBER!!. It has 301,030 digits long!.If you were to print it on an ordinary paper, you would need about 150 pages of paper. It begins with: 9900656...........and so on.

That's a big number! I won't get into googols and googolplexes (as opposed to Google and the Googleplex), I'll save that for another math lesson.

Onto the misnomers:

Most people, me included, would call this device a combination lock, although the mathematically correct term would be permutation lock. A combination is a group of numbers where order doesn't matter, like the lotto where you pick 6 numbers out of 49 (or whatever number is decided upon). BTW - I just introduced you to the other misnomer but I'll get back to it.

In a "combination" lock, the order matters...5, 17, 12 is not the same as 17, 5, 12. The lock pictured above is mine, although I don't remember the "combination" to it...I'll try to figure it out later even though there are 64,000 different permutations (40 x 40 x 40). This would be considered a permutation with replacement because technically it's possible to repeat a number more than once. A lotto is similar but without replacement, which will bring us to our second misnomer.

Often a lotto game is called a Pick 6 (or Pick 5, or whatever). In math you use the term pick with permutations and choose with combinations. Pick and permutation both start with p, and choose and combination both start with c. So, the correct terminology would be Choose 6, not Pick 6. Above I said that a combination is where order doesn't matter...in a lotto, it doesn't matter what order the numbers are drawn, you just need to have the right numbers. I also said the lotto was without replacement. In the original California Lotto, it was a "Pick" 6 numbers out of 49. There were 49 ways to choose the 1st number, but only 48 ways to choose the 2nd, 47 ways to choose the 3rd and so on. Mathematically, it would look like this 49!/(43!6!), which means the odds of winning were 1 in 13,983,816. They've played around with it and it's currently "Pick" 5 out of 47 plus a Mega number...the odds of winning that are 1 in 41,416,353. The more difficult it is to win, the larger the jackpot will become. When it gets high enough there's usually a ticket buying frenzy.

So, "choose" your lotto numbers carefully, and wish me luck as I attempt to crack my "permutation" lock.

Interesting days

Today - Go For A Ride Day

Tomorrow- Thanksgiving Day and Fibonacci Day

Next Wednesday - Electronic Greetings Day and Square Dancing Day

December 22 - Date Nut Bread Day and Forefathers' Day

How to Carve a Turkey

This timely post is from The Art of Manliness:

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and that means one thing: turkey. Preparing, and especially carving, a turkey for loved ones at Thanksgiving is a task often assigned to the family patriarch. Roasted flesh, sharp knives, popping joints — it just doesn’t get much more virile than that! Rather than fumble around and end up with a disorganized and mangled platter of bird flesh, impress your friends and family by masterfully carving and plating your turkey with cleanly cut and sliced pieces.

To help guide you through carving your Thanksgiving bird, we got some help from award-winning BBQ master Karl Engel from Pigcasso here in Tulsa. In addition to the video above, this complete guide to carving also includes an annotated pictorial and illustrated guides below.

How to Carve a Turkey — Illustrated

Click the image for a larger version

How to Carve a Turkey — In Text and Pictures

Let the bird rest. 

After you take the turkey out of the oven, you want to let it rest for about 20 to 30 minutes before you start carving. If you start carving too early, the juices from the bird will run all over the place and your turkey will dry out. Also, letting the turkey rest and cool will reduce the chances you’ll scald yourself with delicious but molten hot turkey juice.

Separate the leg and thigh from the body.

Take a sharp knife and cut the piece of skin in between the body and the leg. Once you have some separation, grab the body of the bird in one hand and the leg and thigh of the turkey in the other, and start pulling them apart to expose the joint that holds the leg to the turkey. You know you’ve reached it when you hear a pop. Carve around the joint until you don’t get any resistance. Pull the leg and the thigh away from the body of the turkey all in one piece. Repeat on the other side.

Separate the leg from the thigh.

Holding the drumstick, stand the thigh and leg piece up on its end. Take your knife and cut between the drumstick and the thigh bone. When you meet some resistance with the thigh bone, move your knife around it a bit until you don’t get any resistance. Make the final cut and separate the drumstick from the thigh. Place the drumstick on the platter so the kids can start fighting over who has dibs on it at dinner time.

Cut the thigh meat.

You’ve got some great meat on the thigh bone. Don’t let it go to waste by just hacking away at it. There’s one bone in the thigh meat and your goal is to separate the meat from the bone. Grab the end of the thigh bone, and take your knife and carefully start scraping the meat away from the bone. If you’re really careful you can take the thigh meat off in one piece. But if you need to separate it in two pieces when cutting it away from the bone, it’s no big deal. Once you get the meat separated from the thigh bone, you can carve it up for your platter.

Separate the wing from the body.

Our next step is to separate the wing from the body. The wing is attached to the turkey by a ball joint. Cut the area between the wing and body until you get to the joint. Once you get there, grab the wing and pull it away from the turkey until you hear a pop. Once you hear that pop, take your knife and start cutting through the tendons and ligaments surrounding the joint until you separate the wing from the body. You can serve the wing whole on your platter. Repeat on the other side.

Carve the turkey breast.

You have some options on how you carve the turkey breast. The traditional way is to carve small slices off the side of the breast. There’s nothing wrong with this way, but it does tend to dry the meat out. Also, if you get the wrong kind of knife, you can tear the meat and it won’t look as good when you serve it.

Another way you can carve the breast meat so that you maintain juiciness is to cut the entire breast off the turkey and then carve it up into smaller slices. Find the breastbone in the middle of the turkey. Pick which breast you’re going to carve first, and make a cut right next to the breastbone on that side.

Continue cutting down the side of the breastbone. It helps to use your hands to peel the breast away from the bone as you’re cutting. Keep making small slices with your knife until you can separate the entire breast from the turkey.

Once it’s off, grab your large carving knife and slice the meat against the grain starting at the small point of the breast. You can make the slices as thin or as thick as you want. If you don’t think you’ll eat the entire breast, just cut what you’ll use, and wrap the rest of the breast in plastic wrap. It will stay nice and juicy for later.

Interesting days

Today - Entrepreneurs' Day, World Hello Day and World Television Day

Tomorrow -  Go For A Ride Day

Next Tuesday - Giving Tuesday and French Toast Day

December 21 - Don’t Make Your Bed Day, Crossword Puzzle Day, Short Story Day, Re-gifting Day, International Dalek Remembrance Day, Flashlight Day, Ribbon Candy Day, Short Girl Appreciation Day and Look On The Bright Side Day

So, what business are you really in?

You may say that you're in the real estate business, or insurance, or personal finance, or whatever you may think your business is, but you'd be wrong!

Being in business is like poker: "Poker is not a card game played with people; poker is a people game played with cards". It's the same with business. We're all in the people business. Real estate, insurance, and personal finance are the tools that we use to serve the people who are our clients or customers.

But it's not enough to solve the problem your customers have, whether it's the need for shelter or a roll of toilet paper, your client needs to feel appreciated.

Once you've filled their physical need, whether a house or a roll of toilet paper, will your customer or client come back the next time they need a house or toilet paper? And perhaps more importantly, will they send their friends to you?

Most of us will excitedly seek new customers or clients, while ignoring our greatest business asset - our existing customers!

There are only 3 types of people in the world: your current clients, your former clients and those you've never done business with. And it's easiest to sell to people in that order...clients, former clients and a distant last, those who've never bought from you.

It takes very little effort to keep your clients from becoming former clients, a little more effort to get former clients to come back but a lot of effort to get someone new to buy from you.

A little gratitude goes a long way in keeping your customers or bringing former customers back. But remember this isn't a time to sell, but a time to show appreciation and gratitude.

This article has tips on how to send a thank you card. So, take a few minutes to read that article and then click on the link in that article to send a free thank you card. Once you see the results, you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner!

Interesting days

Today - Universal Children's Day, African Industrialization Day, Peanut Butter Fudge Day, Human-Animal Relationship Awareness Week and Name Your PC Day

Tomorrow - Entrepreneurs' Day, World Hello Day and World Television Day

Next Monday - Pins And Needles Day

December 20 - Sangria Day, Go Caroling Day and Games Day

Your weekend guide to intereting days

This week

Sunday - International Tongue Twister Day, World Quality Day, Fancy Rat & Mouse Day and Pizza With The Works Except Anchovies Day

Monday - World Kindness Day and World Orphans Day

Tuesday - Loosen Up, Lighten Up Day, Operating Room Nurse Day, Pickle Day, World Diabetes Day and Spicy Guacamole Day

Wednesday - Philanthropy Day, Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day and I Love to Write Day

Thursday - Social Enterprise Day, Fast Food Day, International Day for Tolerance, Beaujolais Nouveau Day, Button Day and Have a Party with Your Bear Day

Yesterday - Take A Hike Day, Unfriend Day, Homemade Bread Day, Petroleum Day and World Prematurity Day

Today - Occult Day, Housing Day, Mickey Mouse Day and GIS Day

Next week

Tomorrow - Guinness World Record Day, Have A Bad Day Day, World Toilet Day and International Men's Day

Monday - Universal Children's Day, African Industrialization Day, Peanut Butter Fudge Day, Human-Animal Relationship Awareness Week and Name Your PC Day

Tuesday - Entrepreneurs' Day, World Hello Day and World Television Day

Wednesday -  Go For A Ride Day

Thursday- Fibonacci Day

Friday - Maize Day, Buy Nothing Day, Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day, Flossing Day and Systems Engineer Day  

Saturday - Shopping Reminder Day, Small Business Saturday (US) and Parfait Day

Next month

December 12 - Gingerbread House Day and Poinsettia Day

December 13 - Violin Day

December 14 - Bouillabaisse Day, Monkey Day and Roast Chestnuts Day

December 15 - Underdog Day, Lemon Cupcake Day, Cat Herders Day, Free Shipping Day and Ugly Christmas Sweater Day

December 16 - Day Of Reconciliation and Chocolate Covered Anything Day

December 17 - Maple Syrup Day and Wright Brothers Day 

December 18 - Bake Cookies Day, International Migrants Day, Roast Suckling Pig Day and Arabic Language Day

The Friday Fishwrap

All the news that's fit to wrap around a dead fish

The week in review

Monday - "Relationship Marketing 101" How to grow your business by strengthening your relationships. "If you're a sales professional or a business owner, you'll learn how to keep more of your existing customers and attract new customers to your business."

Tuesday - "Paying the ultimate price" Who pays the ultimate price? "The service member dies once but to those left behind, their loved one dies every day!"

Wednesday - "Follow-up: Set it and forget it" Would you like to automate your follow-up? "And all for about $18.25 per year, including sales tax and postage (the total may be a little more or less depending on your sales tax rate), which comes out to a nickel a day."

Thursday - "Habit 1 - Be Proactive #TBT" From The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. "Be proactive and choose to live your life the way YOU want to live it"

Interesting days

Today - Take A Hike Day, Unfriend Day, Homemade Bread Day, Petroleum Day and World Prematurity Day

Tomorrow - Occult Day, Housing Day, Mickey Mouse Day and GIS Day

Next Friday - Maize Day, Buy Nothing Day, Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day, Flossing Day and Systems Engineer Day

December 17 - Maple Syrup Day and Wright Brothers Day

Habit 1 - Be Proactive #TBT

Today's post is from two years ago. The rest of the habits are linked below:

Those of you who've read "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey will probably recognize the title of today's blog post. My plan is to do an 8 part series...the 7 habits of highly effective people plus "The 8th Habit" over the next 8 days. However, I'm on call with UPS this holiday season, so I may not be able to do this in 8 consecutive days.

From www.stephencovey.com:

Your life doesn't just "happen." Whether you know it or not, it is carefully designed by you. The choices, after all, are yours. You choose happiness. You choose sadness. You choose decisiveness. You choose ambivalence. You choose success. You choose failure. You choose courage. You choose fear. Just remember that every moment, every situation, provides a new choice. And in doing so, it gives you a perfect opportunity to do things differently to produce more positive results.

Habit 1: Be Proactive is about taking responsibility for your life. You can't keep blaming everything on your parents or grandparents. Proactive people recognize that they are "response-able." They don't blame genetics, circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. They know they choose their behavior. Reactive people, on the other hand, are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn't, it affects their attitude and performance, and they blame the weather. All of these external forces act as stimuli that we respond to. Between the stimulus and the response is your greatest power--you have the freedom to choose your response. One of the most important things you choose is what you say. Your language is a good indicator of how you see yourself. A proactive person uses proactive language--I can, I will, I prefer, etc. A reactive person uses reactive language--I can't, I have to, if only. Reactive people believe they are not responsible for what they say and do--they have no choice.

Instead of reacting to or worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control, proactive people focus their time and energy on things they can control. The problems, challenges, and opportunities we face fall into two areas--Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence.

Proactive people focus their efforts on their Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about: health, children, problems at work. Reactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern--things over which they have little or no control: the national debt, terrorism, the weather. Gaining an awareness of the areas in which we expend our energies in is a giant step in becoming proactive.

 Like I posted on Facebook the other day:

Our lives are not determined by the circumstances we were born into (nature) nor the circumstances that were thrust upon us (nurture) but instead how we choose to deal with those circumstances (choice). 

Be proactive and choose to live your life the way YOU want to live it

Here's my planned schedule:

Monday - Habit 1 - Be Proactive

Tuesday - Habit 2 - Begin with the End in Mind

Wednesday - Habit 3 - Put First Things First

Thursday - Habit 4 - Think Win-win

Monday - Habit 5 - Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood

Tuesday - Habit 6 - Synergize

Wednesday - Habit 7 - Sharpen the Saw

Thursday - The 8th Habit - Find Your Voice and Inspire Others to Find Theirs

Interesting days

Today - Social Enterprise Day, Fast Food Day, International Day for Tolerance, Beaujolais Nouveau Day, Button Day and Have a Party with Your Bear Day

Tomorrow - Take A Hike Day, Unfriend Day, Homemade Bread Day, Petroleum Day and World Prematurity Day

Next Thursday- Fibonacci Day

December 16 - Day Of Reconciliation and Chocolate Covered Anything Day

Follow-up: Set it and forget it

Customers and clients are a lot like spouses...you may love them but if you don't let them know from time to time, they may leave you!

You work hard to get that new client, but unless you work hard to keep them, somebody will work just as hard to take them away.

There are all kinds of statistics out there, such as 70% of customers leave because of perceived indifference; it costs 10 times as much to get a new customer as it costs to keep an existing customer; etc. The most important thing to remember is that the most difficult person to sell to is someone who's never bought from you before, while the easiest person to sell to is an existing customer.

A couple of more statistics: you lose 10% of your influence for every month that you don't have contact with someone, and it takes 90% of people four or more contacts before they make a buying decision, but only 10% of salespeople or marketers follow up that many times; which means that 90% of salespeople are fighting over 10% of the market. What's even worse is that 50% don't follow up at all, but only 2% of people make a buying decision right away.

Yes or no?

Let's talk now about how to set and forget your follow-up. If you have a client's (or prospect's) mailing address and birthday, you can keep in touch with them 7 times over the coming year, automatically. SendOutCards will send out a birthday card, a holiday card, a Thanksgiving card, plus another card for each of the 4 seasons and you don't have to do anything after you input their contact information. And all for about $18.25 per year, including sales tax and postage (the total may be a little more or less depending on your sales tax rate), which comes out to a nickel a day.

According to the Master Relationship Marketing training offered by SendOutCards, 80% of contacts with a customer or prospect should be about building the relationship, while 20% can be marketing. The 7 cards in the campaign mentioned above are all geared to building the relationship. You can add one or two other cards to maybe offer a promotion or to ask for the business (from a prospect) or ask for a referral (from a customer). DO NOT do any marketing with the 7 cards in the campaign! You can put some marketing on the back panel, but to be even more effective you can add a tip or quote on the back of each card. As a relationship marketing specialist, I can add a relationship marketing tip to the back of each card. No matter what business you're in, you can do the same thing, Your clients and prospects will be more willing to buy or refer because you've added value to your relationship before asking for something in return.

So, reach out to me and I can get you set up whether you're an existing customer or not.

Interesting days

Today - Philanthropy Day, Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day and I Love to Write Day

Tomorrow - Social Enterprise Day, Fast Food Day, International Day for Tolerance, Beaujolais Nouveau Day, Button Day and Have a Party with Your Bear Day

Next Wednesday -  Go For A Ride Day

December 15 - Underdog Day, Lemon Cupcake Day, Cat Herders Day, Free Shipping Day and Ugly Christmas Sweater Day