Are your friends spamming you on your birthday?

My husband Jason wrote this for our friend's 70th and sent it to a special email account his wife set up for Ken's special day with surprise birthday greetings.

Greetings Sir Ken,

I am prince Abdul Yakoubar from Estonia. My father has passed on and left me a huge sum of money (over 2 million). I am contact you, Ken, because you are man of distinction and someone I can trust. Your reputation as a ride leader makes you a perfect candidate for this mission.

My father, Jarraq "Jerry" Yakoubar was a professional businessman who enjoyed bicycling throughout Africa and Europe. In his travels he traded diamonds, emassing great wealth. To honor his tradition I have choosen you as a cyclist to continue his journey. All I need from you is a bank account number to transfer his great wealth into and then when I arrive in the United States, I will withdraw half of the funds to move my family to your great country. Since I'm over 50, I might also ask you to allow me to stay in your great home as part of the Evergreen Club. I will then begin my own journey across your nation on bicycle and would ask you join me for that journey to honor my father.

If intersted, please contact me with this email for futher discussion.

The honorable Prince Abdul Yakoubar.

HAPPY 70TH KEN! - Jason & Ruth

Jason Wood © 2009 Editor of www.365webapplications.com

Who's the New Stanley Kubrick of Our Generation?

Who's creating films with such powerful sounds and images etched in our minds? Who's capturing the conversation of world adventures, fears and hopes? Are you a fan of this film maker? Is it YOU? Weigh in Stanley Kubrivk fans on facebook.

Tina Fey Understands The 6 Steps to Set and Achieve Goals

Thanks, Tina Fey for inspiring me for so many years to be an inspirational writer, director, coach and playwright. You are one of the special people that really understands "The Six Steps to making your dreams come true"! http://www.scriptingforsuccess.com/Setting_and_Acheving_Dreams.htm

Elizabeth Tina Fey Facebook Fan Page

Interview for Enlightened Goal Setters and Achievers
Ruth Anne Wood © 2009 Scripting for Success

6 Steps to Setting and Achieving Your Dreams

I wish I knew this a lot sooner and yet I think I knew it all along:
6 Steps to Setting and Achieving Your Dreams
30 minute interview with the director of Scripting for Success.
Oh wait c'est moi!

Interview for Enlightened Goal Setters and Achievers
Ruth Anne Wood © 2009 Scripting for Success

The Enlightened Comedy of Urban Legends Through Email

I was inspired to stop and think from this email:

"A Violinist in the Metro

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousand of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

Comments: True. For 45 minutes on the morning of January 12, 2007, concert violinist Joshua Bell stood incognito on a Washington, D.C. subway platform and performed classical music for passersby. Video and audio of the performance are available on the Washington Post website.

"No one knew it," explained Washington Post reporter Gene Weingarten several months after the event, "but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made." Weingarted came up with the experiment to see how ordinary people would react.

And how did they react? For the most part, not at all. More than a thousand people entered the Metro station as Bell worked his way through a set list of classical masterpieces, but only a few stopped to listen. Some dropped money in his open violin case (for a total of about $27), but most never even stopped to look, Weingarten wrote.

The text above, penned by an unidentifed author and circulated via blogs and email, poses a philosophical question: "If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?"

Which is fair to ask, and fair to answer that the demands of our fast-paced workaday world can indeed stand in the way of appreciating truth and beauty and other contemplative delights when we encounter them. But it's equally fair to point out that there's an appropriate time and place for everything. Was an experiment really necessary to determine that rush hour on a busy subway platform isn't conducive to an appreciation of the sublime? Probably not, though it makes for an interesting story just the same.

Email This Article

Sources and further reading:

Video of Joshua Bell's Subway Platform Performance
WashingtonPost.com, 7 April 2007

Pearls Before Breakfast
Washington Post Magazine, 7 April 2007

Too Busy to Stop and Hear the Music
WashingtonPost.com, 9 April 2007"

What Are You Afraid to Try?

This Dynamic Duo: A Goal Setting and Achievement Coach and her co-author an Inspiring Friend a Blind Ice Skater Tells Audience Members How to Stop Putting Their Dreams on Ice

Has anyone ever told you that you couldn’t do something? Are you letting fear hold you back from pursuing your dreams? Blind since birth, figure skater Stash Serafin never let fears or obstacles get in the way of his dream of becoming a nationally-renowned figure skater.

Stash, along with his co-author, Ruth Anne Wood, a coach who helps her clients achieve their own impossible dreams, will relate his amazing story of determination and personal triumph. His story will inspire others to overcome their personal roadblocks to success. Stash and Ruth will talk about:

* Six steps to overcoming the obstacles which stand in the way of achieving your dreams.

* How to get the people around you to help you accomplish your goals.

* How to stop stalling. Why you don’t need to learn a new skill, go back to school or have more money to achieve your dreams.

CREDENTIALS: Stash Serafin inspires and teaches people on and off the ice and has appeared in the national media since the 1970s, skating with local and world-class figure skaters despite being blind since birth. Ruth Anne Wood is the director of Scripting for Success™, a production company that helps clients set and achieve impossible dreams. She is the editor of the e-zine Script Your Success and of multiple books. Serafin and Wood have written YOU CAN’T GET IT ‘CAUSE YOU’VE ALREADY GOT IT.

AVAILABILITY: PA, nationwide by arrangement and via telephone

CONTACT: Ruth Anne Wood, (215) 872-5035 (PA); ruth@scriptingforsuccess.com;
Stash Serafin, (215) 806-0799 (PA); Stash@stashskate.com

MEDIA: Three minute "b roll" of Ruth and Stash (3 minute "b roll" of Ruth and Stash talking and Stash skating)

MEDIA KIT: You Can't Get It 'Cause You've Already Got It!

BLOG: "The Enlightened Comic"

http://www.rtironline.com/blog?cmd=search&keywords=Ruth+Anne+Wood

Written for Enlightened Media
Ruth Anne Wood © 2009 Scripting for Success

Is The Carrot Mightier Than The Sword?

How marketers fend off hate mongers with carrots rather than swords...

Joe's problem was that a computer manufacturer with the initials of D.E.L.L. ruined his computer with online tech support. For a week he was complaining about it. Then today Joe explained he just bought a new server!

And my husband asked , "Well, you didn't buy from DELL, did you?"And Joe said, "they gave me 'free' pro support!" And he is now a fan of DELL again. The point is DELL messed up his life royally for a whole week and got away with it because DELL'S CARROT was mightier than Joe's sword.

And that's how a fair amount of these internet marketers retain customers and deflect negative feedback.

It's like saying "I get eight free ads from a large media PR firm after taking their "Million dollar author crash course". Instead of going to my credit card company and demanding my $4500 "investment" back for something that hasn't made me a million dollars yet, the promise of using those eight "free" ads keeps me on the hook. Don't get me wrong I'd gladly pay that amount again in a year or two for such a great steady diet of carrots.

Written for Enlightened Marketers
Ruth Anne Wood © 2009 Scripting for Success

The Comedy Is: How Powerful Committment Is Once You Make One

I'm asking for all the inspiration, support and encouragement I can get to take my eight year dream of writing the rough draft of my screen play "The Five Rites" by January 31, 2009. Here's your chance to encourage and coach the woman in 9th grade dubbed "The Writer of Our Lives" because what I write about has a nack for "coming true".

One of the reasons I put this fiction story on the back burner for a while was the imaginary/ archetypal characters and events I wrote about took on a life of their own and mirrored the events and relationships of my future that are now here. That's one of the reasons the subtitle of my co-authored book with Stash Serafin, _You Can't Get It 'Cause You've Already Got It!_ is: A blind figure skater and visionary writer's inspirational guide to moving through life.

Now with all your wisdom of goal setting and achieving SMART goals please weigh in and coach me and my readers what it takes to honr your commitments and acheive your "impossible" goals.

Click here to post Comments i.e. share you insights and offer me your encouraging kudos. Thanks!

5 Tips For Creating Effective Marketing with Enlightened Comedy

1. Observe something funny about your industry.
2. Record your experience of noted industry practices by sharing how it makes you feel.
3. Notice other enlightened observations about your competitions' business and comment on their blog or website to drive traffic to you site.
4. Invent an off the wall pie in the sky solution to your clients' biggest problems and roll it out as a product or service and notice what happens...
5. Quote your favorite comedians.

BONUS ROUND
6. To spice up your marketing ask yourself, "What would (insert one of your favorite enlightened comedian's name) do?
7. Go to The Onion for comical reporting of half made up news for inspiration.

Written for Enlightened Marketers
Ruth Anne Wood © 2009 Scripting for Success

Remeber The Original Budweiser Frogs Commercial?

How effective is marketing with "enlightened comedy"?
Everyone, even me who hasn't owned a TV in about two years remembers the 1995 Super Bowl Budweiser Frog Commercial? Why, because it's "Enlightened Comedy" at its best! It's just three frogs below a sign saying the product name. I'm sure my Sesame Street generation (1975) and Two Headed Monster Fans loves it the best.

What's the best advertising money can buy? Enlightened Comedy? People can read your sales pitch for so long, week after week and still not get your message or really care. People can read long ezines with helpful tips and skim here and there. I'm guilty of that even with my friends.

Let's see if my theory works
Email me at ruth@ruthannewood.com with a link to your site and your name, company name and phone number and I'll create an "Enlightened Comedy" post about your products and services that gets emailed to everyone I know.

You have full rights to use the Enlighten Comedy with your "enlightened" message to make everyone on your list laugh and pass on the "Enlightened Comedy" promoting your
business. For a limited time this service is F.R.E.E. Also I may even add it to my permanent wall of Enlightened Comedy which is cool because over 7,000,000 people searched google for jokes last month! Too bad they did see yours yet!

Need Enlightened Comedy and Jokes? Read my blog for inspired ideas!!

http://write-funny-jokes-for-comedians.blogspot.com/

Written for Enlightened Marketers
Ruth Anne Wood © 2009 Scripting for Success

PAIN vs. PANE

WIFE: It's snowing! Have you been outside.
HUSBAND: I've checked my gmail account. :)
See the snowing icon?
WIFE: Ha. Ha.
KNOCK KNOCK
(Minutes later...)
WIFE: Who was that?
HUSBAND: A window salesman.
WIFE: Couldn't he tell we already have windows?
HUSBAND: Yea, he wasn't a very good salesman.
WIFE: Why's that?
HUSBAND: He should of sold me on PAIN.
WIFE: Instead he just talked to you about your window PANE.
HUSBAND: Exactly, he really needs Sandler Training!
WIFE: Clearly.

Written for Sandler Training and Enlightened Marketers
Ruth Anne Wood © 2009 Scripting for Success