Back from Vieques

Hi all, Jane and I just got back from the island of Vieques, which is situated off the coast of Puerto Rico. It use to be the the bombing training ground for the US navy. I believe the navy left in 2003 after a local was killed in a bombing miscue. The natives protested and they finally won. However, the navy left all sorts of unexploded ordance on the island that will take another twenty years to remove. That being said, the beaches are pristine. If you see four other people on a beach , it is considered crowded. The island has a very diverse animal and plant life. Wild horses wander the island and they are competely road savvy. I have seen iguanas up to four feet long and mongoose as well. The iguanas were introduced by people who had them as pets. When they became to large for them to be cared for they were released. Now they are considered a real problem for the islanders. They eat many of the local plants and they like to poop in swimming pools. How strange is that? We also went to the bio-luminiscent bay with a group of people one dark night. This was a magical experience. The bay lights up when the dino-flagelettes are disturbed. When swimming every stroke produces this blue light. Fish swimming through the water leave a blue light trail. The ride in was a trip unto itself. It is on a one lane dirt road through the jungle. About two miles long. We rounded a corner 1/2 way in and we met another outfitter towing a dozen kayaks. Welll, the bus driver was amazing. After slamming the bus into a couple of boulders he finally managed to pull the bus into the jungle. The other vehicle passed by scraping the side of our bus. No place to drive a new car. lol. Their are several great resturants on the island. This is probably the last place in the Carribean where land and homes are still reasonable. It won't take but a few more years before they totally discovered by the rest of the world. The downside is that the infastructure is really poor. When the navy was there they were responsible for the upkeep of the roads and such. When George bush was in office he closed all the military bases on the island and the main island of Puerto Rico and that devastated the local economy. There is a 60% unemployment rate. There are quite a few Americans living here now or that have vacation homes. Several friends of ours have homes here. It is nice to have good friends in the Carribean. Well Jane and I are home for a little while now. Until next post. Have a great holiday season and a prosperous and healthy New Year.

Setting up a Marketing mastermind group

Good day everyone, We are in the process of creating a marketing mastermind group of business owners in our community. I will set it up on a monthly basis instead of weekly. We will share ideas about marketing, whats working, whats not, different challenges people may be having. We have a wealth of knowledge of marketing that we will share with our peers. By starting our own group we can deliver the best to the best companies in town. I believe the dynamic of the group will be very beneficial to all because we all know, like and trust each other. We will be launching this in January 2011. I will keep you posted on our development. I will be asking 15 to 20 businesses in different industries to join. I have already signed 8 companies. This will be an exciting project. Wish me luck. Peace Don

Back from Palm Springs and LA

Hello everyone, Jane and I are now home from two amazing weeks away. Actually, we were gone for 6 days, flew home for one so that Jane could speak at the VSBR meeting and then flew back to LA for four days. The Masters of Influence event put on by Peak Potentials was a very informative time. We met some old friends and learned a lot of things that we could implement right away into our businesses. One speaker who had the greatest influence on me was a man by the name of Kevin Hogan. He is a master of reading people and persuasion techniques. I was so enthralled by his presentation that I purchased his program and have been listening to the cd's since they arrived. I believe it will have a great impact on how I interact with people. Another speaker was Greg Montana. He had made millions then gave it all away to study with the monks for about 8 years. He has sinced made millions more and is a very dynamic speaker. He is changing lives. We flew home and Jane spoke to a group of business owners from the Vermont Business for Social Responsibility's annual conference. Her passion is the Dream Manager program that she has started in our company and another company in town. She wants to take this program nationwide and believe me, she will. Then it was on to LA where we stayed at the Standard Hotel. Everything in this hotel has a sexual overtone. The bedrooms had retro furniture from the sixties with platform beds that were 8 in off the floor. Lots of mirrors and wide open glass showers so your roommates could observe you. Pretty funky stuff. There was a bar on the roof which overlooked the city. Lots of craziness up on the roof. We spent two days in Joe Polish's 25 k mastermind group. There were about 50 very successful business owners in attendance. They pay Joe 25 thousand a year to meet three times to mastermind with each other. Many million dollar ideas were shared by the group. It was a very humbling experience to be included in that setting. Thanks Joe. We also had our photo taken with Sir Richard Branson who flew in for his Rock the Casbah fund raiser for Virgin Unite that took place that night. We connected with people like Joe Sugarman ,who is one of the all time best marketers ,best known for selling many millions of the Blu Blocker sunglasses. He gave everyone in attendance a pair. Tellman Knudson who is a millionaire internet guru, best known for his list building site Overcome Everything. He is a Vermont guy and we will go to dinner with him to share ideas on our foundation. Brendon Burchard author of Lifes Golden Ticket. A must read if you want to turn your life around. Dan Sullivan , he owns Strategic Coach . A very high powered program for entrepenurs. Manny Goldman who is a personal growth coach as well as a warrior and wizard. I share the last two titles with him and I easily was drawn to him. Warriors and wizards are in tune to the world as no others. It was a fabulous trip and we are truly blessed. We hung with some of our dear friends from Piranha Marketing. Well thats it for now. Peace and may God spare your life. Don

Cash Creation Conference Phoenix Az

Hello Everyone, Jane and I are back from Phoenix. We were at the annual Piranha marketing conference last week. It was an incredible event. Every year Joe Polish and his team out does the previous one. We were able to spend some quality time with Lisa Wagner who is the CEO of Piranha as we drove to and fro to Sedona. Jane and I were finalists in Piranha's Better your Best contest which incidently was won by Steve Nash ,who is a remodeling contractor from New York. A brilliant guy who turned his business completely around this past year. Do you believe that there is a recession going on? Not our group. Well, Joe, in his truly giving way , has invited all the finalists to go to LA in November to participate in his 25K group. This is a group of high powered entrepenurs who spend 25K per year to mastermind with each other under Joe's tutelage. We will have an opportunity to meet Sir Richard Branson, Paula Abdul, and many brilliant people from the business world. Thank you Joe. We learned many cutting edge marketing stratagies this year that will enable us to increase our business substantially. Next week Jane and I are off to Palm Springs where we will be attending the Master of Influence program that is put on by T.Harv Ecker and Peak Potentials. We will come home for two days because Jane is speaking at the annual meeting for the VSBR group. Vermont Business for Social Responsibility. Then we go to La. Awesome. Thanksgiving week will be spent on the island of Veiques off the coast of Puerto Rico. We have friends building a home on the island and it is a beautiful place. If you see more than four people on a beach it is considered crowded. Looking forward to the sun as it snowed here in Vermont last night. Well that covers our recent travels and activities. Until we meet again. May God spare your life. Peace Don

Back from Salt Lake and Michigan

Well the leaves are about gone and with the torrential downpour forecast for tomorrow it won't be long before they're gone. Jane and I spent a great week in Salt Lake City with Garrett Gunderson and his staff. While there we visited with Sean Stephenson, who is an amazing guy and we also met Bo Eason. Bo is the brother of the Patriots ex quarterback Tony Eason. Bo played for the Houston Oilers as a defensive safety. He has written and starred in a one man play called "Runt of the Litter". It was riveting performance. He has done over 1300 shows. Soon to be a movie and there are several actors vying for the lead. We all went to dinner at Zoom which is Robert Redfords resturant. It was great. Thanks to Garrett. Jane flew home and I headed to Michigan to play golf and play in the casinos for a week. I played 99 holes of golf in 5 days and made a nice sum playing poker. I got home Monday and have been extremely busy with the businesss. It is nice that it is an ELF business. That is Easy, Lucrative and Fun. Thanks Joe Polish and Piranha marketing as well as our fabulous staff of co-workers. The next trip planned is Oct 13 - 17th. We are going to Phoenix to the Cash Creation conference put on by Piranha Marketing. We are taking Nancy our office manager with us. She is very happy. Well thats it for now. Peace and prosperity Don

Summer closing to quickly

Hi everyone, Sorry about not posting for almost two months. It has been a very hectic and wonderful summer. Our trip to Brewster on Cape Cod was a very cool trip. We stay in a two bedroom condo with about twelve family members for a week. There are bodies everywhere.This is the best time of all our yearly travels, because it is with family. Jane and I just returned from a trip to Toronto, Detroit and Niagra Falls back on the Canadian side. We visited with friends in Toronto who we met at the Wizard camp and they stayed with us last year in St. Martin. It was a great time and David and I played golf on a beautiful course located on the shores of Lake Ontario. We then drove to Canton, Michigan to go to a 50th birthday party for Janes cousin and my friend and ex business partner Tony Minichiello. It was fantastic with about 120 friends and family partying. Our next leg of the trip took us to Niagra Falls to visit a friend and business. Annette Mariconda and Len Hume. Unfortunately Len was out of town but we had a great visit and dinner with Annette. She is one of the smartest marketers I know. Jane and I continue to network with other companies and it is paying off. We had another breakfast presentation with a property management company this past week. We are looking for another employee right now. Our next trip is coming soon in September. We are off to Salt Lake city again to spend time with our friend and mentor Garrett Gunderson. Check out his books . "Killing Sacred Cows" and "Jack Rabbitt Factor/Portal to Genius" Jane flys home from there but lucky me goes off to Detroit for four days to golf and let loose in the casinos. I love this life that we have created. It seems like we can manifest anything we want. Remember you get what you focus on. Be it good or bad. If you want to Change Your Life Change the Way You Think. It is as simple as that. May God spare your life until next time. Peace Don

Vegas trip and then camping in Salt Lake City, Utah

I was in Las Vegas for a week at the Infestfest 2010. It was a four day event with about 24 speakers, some good,some bad and one or two excellent speakers. Garrett Gunderson was the most powerful speaker. If you have not read his book " Killing Sacred Cows " and have your money in a 401K plan than you had better read it quick. You neeed to take stewardship over your money and your life. Stop living by default and make things happen in your life by living in your soul purpose. The resort was 1st class. The Green Valley Resort in Henderson. About 6 mi from the strip. Mike Johnson from Wisconsin met me there and we had a great time. But, alas, a week in sin city is always to long. The crap table was not very lucky this trip. I was home for about a week and I went to Salt Lake City with Jane. We did a 1 1/2 day workshop with Garrett Gunderson and then a group of 27 of us went backpacking and camping in the mountains at about 8000 ft. It was a challenge climbing at that altitude but everyone made it up. It was an amazing experience. We saw deer everyday. The chef prepared a vegan diet for us and our meals were carried up to the campsite by Garrett and his coaches everyday. What a work out they got. The nights got down into the high 30's and it wqs tough sleeping the first night. Everyone gathered around the campfire every morning to shake off the chill. It was a very inspiring group of people that we hung with in the mountains. Our lives grow tremendously every time we get with a group of that caliber. Hats off to Garrett and his crew. He always under promises and over delivers. This program has dramatically changed our lives and the way we see our soul purpose mission here in this world. We are off on Friday to Cape Cod for a week with the family . So until then . peace Don

Back from St Martin

Hello all, Jane and I just returned from three glorious weeks in St Martin(the friendly island). The first week we were joined by by daughter Tracy,Danny and our two beautiful grandaughters Cassidy and Camille. The girls had a ball playing in the ocean and playing all day. They had no problems sleeping at night. Danny and I fished just about every morning and evening. We caught a lot of snook. A few over twenty pounds. The fishing was incredible. The girls went shopping and sight seeing and a great time was had by all. Jane and I had a few days to ourselves and then we had friends from Toronto,David and Karen Jones spend a week with us. A tribute to David was that he was out of bed every morning at 5 AM to go fishing. Unfortunately the fishing had slowed down but we were still able to catch a few good fish. We ate like kings . We had fresh fish a lot. I was giving away fish to the hotel guests. I think I fed at least twelve people. I made four big batches of cerviche during our stay. We had a great time with the other Jones'es. One day we took a road trip. It was truly an adventure. When they left, Jane and I still had three days to ourselves. We flew home to 50 degrees and a driving rain storm. This morning I woke up to snow coming down and the temp at 31. Makes me want to go back to the island. All in all it was a very relaxing vacation. Next off to Las Vegas for a week. Until later Peace Don

Return from Bali

Hello Everyone, Jane and I recently returned from a week in Bali. About a year or so ago we attended a program called Lifebook. The creator of Lifebook, Jon Butcher invited Jane and I and several other Lifebook alumni to visit Bali. We are so glad we said yes. We left Boston and the trip to get there was about 26 hrs. We flew Cathay Pacific airline, which is the finest airline I have ever been on. We had plenty of room to move around and the food and service was outstanding. We arrived and were met at the airport . From that moment on everything was taken care of for us. We stayed at a first class villa and had our own private chef and two drivers at our disposal. We did not hear or experience one negative word or attitude the entire time. The people are amazing. The first day was a festival to appease the demons. The locals build these 10 to 12 ft high demons out of paper mache and after leaving offerings to them they pick them up on a bamboo platform and parade them down main street where they set them down and recite prayers. Then they pick them up and parade them to the other end of town, this time with loud music and a lot of shaking of the demons. I believe they are trying to shake them apart. when they arrive at the destination they set them on fire. It was a grand festival. The next day no one is allowed to leave thier home. So we all stayed in the villa and had a great master mind group meeting and hung out for the day. We visited the temples,Monkey Forest, which was a blast,shopping in Ubud,lunched at a fabulous resturant on the Indian ocean,went to the night market in Densapar. The group took over 3700 photos and many videos. Tonight Jane and I are hosting a get together of friends to show them a slide show of our trip. The last night we had dinner at Jon and Missy Butcher's villa. What an awesome time we had. We recieved the itinerary of our trip to Cairo in January. Almost everyone in the Bali group is going. This is an amazing group we belong to and we look forward to many more world travels with them. We had great dining experiences and made wonderful new friends. Can't wait to see them again. We are off to St. Martin on Tuesday for three weeks. I will update when I return. The first week my grandaughters are going to be there with thier parents. It will be so much fun. Later peace Don

Life Transformation

Hello all, what I'm about to share with you today is the journey that Jane and I have taken so far to transform our lives. In 1997 I was introduced to Joe Polish , the owner and creator of Piranha Marketing. I was a struggling business owner who was looking for the magic solution to all my problems. I bought Joe's boot camp in a box and went through it and then set it on a shelf. It sat there for about another six months before I was desperate enough to actually implement some of the marketing strategies that Joe had reccommended. Low and behold I started making money with these ideas and a great ROI as well. We continued using the strategies for the next couple of years and we saw our income grow. In 2001 Jane said that we were going to Joe's boot camp in Phoenix and we were off. We became platinum members that year. Platinum is a select group of entrepenurs that want to be the best they can be and want to keep on learning and staying on the cutting edge. It was a sizable investment and it was still another two years before I finally left my ego at the door and decided to get with the program. It was the best decision I have ever made, with the exception of asking Jane to be my wife. The people that Joe has introduced us to have changed our lives forever. Joe is like a world class conducter who brings people together, this is his special talent. We were introduced to Robert Kyosagi who got us involved with real estate. To date we have acquired four homes and a beautiful piece of property that we will be building our summer home on. Our life transformation took a GIANT leap when we went to T. Harv Ecker's Enlightened Warrior Camp. Harv is the owner and mastermind behind Peak Potentials Inc. We first attended his Millionaire Mind Intensive seminar and that changed the way we viewed money in our lives. The Warrior camp was the most intense thing that I had ever gone through and it was truly tranformational. We met people there that will be friends for life. Later in the year , on a field trip to San Diego with the Platinum group we were introduced to a program that was created by John Butcher, the owner of the Precious Moment collectibles company. We signed up for the program called Lifebook and we attended it in Chicago. It to was a life transformational experience. The Warrior camp gave us the courage to do and tackle anything with no fear and the Lifebook gave us a blueprint for accomplishing things in our lives and really finding out what is truly important. The following summer we went to Peak Potentials Wizard camp. This was the feminine side of the Warrior camp. So now we have the balance in our lives. This was a very , very spiritual event and to this day I flashback and re-live things that we experienced in those very intense days of Wizard. Again we reconnected with friends from Warrior and made new friends as well. Two of them that are going to St. Martin with us in April. Jane and I are off to Bali on Friday to spend time with John and Missy Butcher and three other couples. This would not have been possible without Joe's introduction. Joe also introduced us to Garrett Gunderson , the author of "Killing Sacred Cows and The Jackrabbit Factor and Portal to Genius. Garrett runs a program called Freedom Fast Track which we are currently involved with. This program gives you all the tools we will ever need for understanding our finances and our soul purpose. Once you are aligned with your soul purpose life is fun and magical. You can't wait to get out of bed every day to stay involved . We have truly been blessed and are able to manifest what we want. We continue to invest in ourselves and will always be part of Joe Polish's program no matter where we are in our lives. I will give you an update on our Bali trip next month. I hope you have found this post informative and enlightening. Until next time . Peace Don

Phoenix and then Salt Lake

Hello everyone, Jane and I spent last week in Phoenix with our mastermind group from Piranha Marketing. The first day was a brainstorming session with the finalists from last years better your best competition. Every company got in the hot seat and told of a special challenge they were having with thier company. The rest of the group acted as marketing analysts and we critqued thier situations. It was very enlightening. A lot of great information was shared. This is the power of the group.The next three days were a fabulous learning experience. One of my favorite speakers was there. Sean Stephenson. He is such a great inspiration. Google Sean and watch some of his video on You Tube. It is mesmerizing. We flew to Salt Lake City on Sunday and spent two days with Garrett Gunderson and his staff. We actually stayed in his townhouse with his mother. What a first class lady she is. The two days we spent were part of our Freedom Fast Track program. We met with five proffessionals on Monday. It was a real eye opener. On Monday we spent half a day with Garrett and Dale Clarke. We believe we are now on the path to obtaining our soul purpose . There have been more opportunities that have opened up to us in the last year then ever be for. We will be going back in February for another visit. We are also goint to Bali for a week to spend time with Jon and Missy Butcher . They own Precious Moments collectables. Life is good. We could not do any of the things we do if it was'nt for the great staff we have running our business while we are away. Peace for now