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It Really Ain't Me.
If you have followed me for some time you know I explain how it doesn't take long to teach people how to become wealthy or at least improve their finances. If you are good at taking notes I can do it over a nice dinner. You would know what to do or at least enough to create a good action plan to follow. The problem is with that action plan. It takes action. We all have a subconscious mind. If you are conscious, you also have a subconscious mind and there are even some things that point to you having a subconscious mind even if you are never conscious, but simply are alive. The subconscious mind really runs and sometimes ruins our lives. It ain't me that ate that cheesecake, it was my subconscious mind, it was the other guy or gal that did it. Reminds me of Flip Wilson, the comedian of the 70's that was always saying, “The Devil made me do it!” Realizing you have a subconscious mind and trying to get it to go along with your goals, like losing weight, exercising, stopping smoking or whatever you want to change is a lot like being married. Marriage or at least serious dating. You are going to spend a lot of time trying to get your significant other to do what you want them to do. How do you get someone you are married to, to actually do what you want them to do? Several things come to mind. Nagging, which is actually repetition. Logical arguments, which is changing the meaning of things, which I do in sessions for smokers, weight loss clients and a lot of others. That cheesecake long term is not going to be a positive experience. Trading, which I do with smokers, addiction and other clients. Think of me as a marriage counselor for you and your subconscious mind. Coaching is big too. In marriage we might call it counseling. There are actually changes that occur in your brain when you are in a good coaching session. It creates new activity. You become more mindful of what you are doing and the consequences of your action. Sort of a more whole brain you. A happy relationship or marriage between you and your subconscious mind. This is the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Best and be blest, Scott Hogue CChH
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Millennials are just different animals. A lot of businesses haven't figured that out. There are two main reasons that Sears is going bankrupt and the second one wouldn't matter too much if they fixed the first one with a bang.
Problem One Imagine two Millennials meet up for lunch on a Saturday. They are sitting over their meals at a table and strike up a conversation. Millennial One, “So, what have you been doing today?” Millennial Two, “I just got back from a trip to the Apple/Iphone Store.” Do we have a conversation here? Sure we do. Houston, we have a conversation, the launch was successful. These Millennials are even on their Iphones while they are having this conversation or at least some brand of smart phone. We have relevance, connection, interest, curiosity, we have a conversation in a bag or box just busting at the seams to come out. Back up and reset the scene. Now we try it again. Millennial One, “So, what have you been up to today?” Millennial Two, “I went to Sears this morning.” Do we have a conversation here? Not much of one if any. The next line if there is one, they could just go back to their phones and eating, but if there is a next line it might be one of the following: 1. Sears? 2. What is Sears? 3. I just sent you a photo. 4. I just posted us on Facebook. 5. Have you seen what “The current media star” just posted on Snapchat? 6. Oh, I need to go to the Apple store. Here is problem number one: Sears isn't cool. They aren't current. They aren't part of the social conversation. They are largely an unknown to this new generation. They are not on the map. They would be all of the above and more if they were cool. Apple is cool, not as cool as when Steve Jobs was alive, but it is cooler than Sears by a light year or two. Maybe a billion dollars or two, even three when you compare the profit/loss statements. Sears doesn't have Kim Kardashian, they don't have Paris Hilton, they don't have Yogi the Bear even. A dead Steve Jobs is better than no one at Sears. You can talk about Apple and Steve Jobs, but you don't have anyone on social media to talk about if you were to talk about Sears. Problem Two Why would you go to Sears? You have to have a reason to go somewhere and do something, what is the reason that takes you to Sears? Take cost. Does Sears have the lowest prices? In people's minds Walmart, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Amazon, Ebay, Somewhere else on the internet, these are the people and places with the lowest prices. If Sears did have the lowest price on something they would have a hard time getting people to believe it. So saving money or getting the lowest price is no reason to go to Sears. What about selection? Do they carry it and is it in stock? Sears does have a large line of products, but unfortunately, it is more of a little of everything than a good selection of whatever you are looking for. Specialty stores and the internet have the best selection for most shopping events. I don't know anyone that goes shopping for tires, casserole bowls, pants and perfume all in the same trip with list in hand, but if you do, you are more likely to go to Walmart. So selection is no reason to go to Sears. What about atmosphere? Well, they have oxygen in the air, but that is about it. They don't have reading areas, coffee shops in the store or places to charge your tablet or Iphone. They aren't Starbucks. They aren't Millenial friendly. Convenience? Convenience is the cell phone in your hand and the Amazon app. It is the Itunes store. We had a record Cyber Monday this year and Amazon was a big winner. Sears was so far down the list the business news I heard didn't even report on their market share of Cyber Monday. Management has a big problem at Sears too. They have been more worried about Wall Street than Main Street. More about the stock holders than the customers. Take care of the customers and the stock will take care of itself. You can't drive looking in the rear view mirror all of the time. Sears has withstood Two World Wars and the Great Depression, but it isn't surviving old style business management. I could keep going here, but you get the idea. There isn't much of a reason to go to Sears. I think that is sad because my parents used to shop at Sears when I was a child. There were good reasons back then. There isn't even much of a reason to talk about Sears, if they weren't in the news for going broke we wouldn't be talking about them here. The problem is that Sears is just figuring that out. I am not sure they understand the problem still. They are looking to sell off Craftsman, Kenmore and Die Hard, the brand names that people do identify with Sears. When Sears gets rid of Sears merchandise, what are they going to sell? Sears isn't even in the Sears Tower anymore. They lost almost three quarters of a billion dollars last quarter. $9.8 billion since 2011. They could have launched thousands of start-ups with that money, but they couldn't save Sears. What can you use to your advantage from the Sears lesson? Is your business or your identity cool? Do people have a reason to interact with you? Best and be blest, Scott Hogue CChH Sources for this post include Bloomberg and CNN wire. All trademarks and company names belong to their respective owners. Copyright 2016, Scott Hogue and Three Steps To Wealth All Rights Reserved. Today is go back Thursday and here is an article I wrote over a year ago and still hear from people that are just finding it today.
The link at ezinearticles is: http://ezinearticles.com/?How-Do-I-Make-Money?-A-Beginners-Guide&id=9179909 or just click HOW TO MAKE MONEY I like things that are simple. Sort of a Beginner's guide, but you might find something you didn't know. Have a great weekend! best and be blest, Scott Hogue CChH Tomorrow night it will be colder here than in a long time. This is early to have a hard freeze here. We have five vehicles. I will check the antifreeze in them today. So my wife is leaving out early this morning and the wheels seldom stop turning on her van, in a minute, when the sun is up a little more and I can see, I will test the antifreeze in her van. I was a mechanic some thirty years ago and it is just easier to do some things yourself than to schedule it and then take the vehicle somewhere to be worked on. I can check all five vehicles before I could drive one to town.
I got to wondering, where is my antifreeze tester? Actually, I wonder that every year. You don't use it every day. It turns out it was where it is every year, in the top right drawer of my tool box. Why did I wonder where it was? Because I use that tool box every few weeks and I don't remember seeing it since last year. When I don't need it, my brain just filters it out. My grandson and I were looking at one of those activity books a while back and it had this picture with all of these cats. Cats on the mailbox, cats on the porch, cats in the car window, cats and more cats. The caption at the top of the page read, "How Many Cats Do You See?" We counted and counted the cats. Then at the bottom of the page it said, "Turn The Page And Answer The Question." What was the question? "How Many Dogs Are In The Picture?" Heck if I know, I was counting the cats. Were there dogs in the picture? We turn back and sure enough, there were lots of dogs. Ever buy a car you thought was a little rare, you just didn't see one every day and then when you bought it you found out everyone was driving a car like it? Your awareness for that car was turned on after it entered your sphere of interest. Before it just wasn't important. The point here is we overlook a lot in life. Our brain and mind filter out a lot of information. Usually they do a pretty good job, but often they filter out things that are important and we miss opportunities. A person coming to the United States from another country has four times the chance statistically of becoming a millionaire than someone born in the United States. Why? Because everything is new to them. They don't filter a lot of their world out as being old and unimportant. How do you see things? You look for them like my grandson and I looked for the cats. Look for opportunities and with a little practice you will get good at it. My grandson and I see cats everywhere now. best and be blest, Scott Hogue CChH I highly recommend the December 1st, 2016 episode of Freakonomics. You can find it at http://freakonomics.com/archive and on a number of podcast directories, such as itunes. Unfortunately their podcasts and even their website doesn't play well. You probably need to download it to hear it without stuttering or rebuffering. Beats me, I tried several podcast players and it often just repeats sections. On to the reason I mention the episode.
One of my pet peeves is the saying that antibiotics don't treat viruses and should not be given when you have a virus. This is hogwash. Well, you can at least say they give them to hogs with results. Years ago the animal food industry learned that even healthy animals given antibiotics gained weight faster and grew faster than those that weren't. I am not advocating antibiotics in our food or the food of our food, I am just stating a fact and running with it. It turns out we have something called total biological load. The body has to overcome a lot of things just to stay alive and germs are part of that. The issue here is that we have limited resources, so energy going into killing germs can't go into growing and in the case of an animal, getting fat. So you give a healthy animal antibiotics and they grow faster. Take that information and apply it to you with a bad cold or flu. First, antibiotics would lower your total biological load and give you some extra free biological resources to fight off the bad cold or flu. Secondly, antibiotics prevent secondary infections. Almost every time I get a bad cold it goes into a bacterial sinus condition if I don't do something to prevent it. In this episode of freakonomics, they have a doctor that points out he learned that contrary to popular belief, you should give antibiotics to children with the measles. It prevents secondary infections and even death in some cases. You just don't hear that truth spoken. I was amazed. You mention antibiotics for a virus and they are ready to tar and feather you. If you do an internet search you will see article after article about how antibiotics are not effective against viruses and you are worse than a thief stealing candy from a baby if you take them. Well, that brings us to my third point. Some antibiotics, good old bacteria killing or hindering antibiotics are effective against viruses. You won't hear that many places. Some of our modern antibiotics work by interfering with the dna or rna of bacteria. They may hinder the reproduction of the bacteria this way. It is too much to get into in a blog post, but guess what? Viruses have dna and rna too. We actually have dna viruses and rna viruses. Not a lot, but a few of our antibiotics work on these viruses. Surprise! This is actually how they came up with the antiviral drugs we have. They saw things interfering with the reproduction of viruses. Now, this all aside, there is a huge group telling you that if we take antibiotics that we are creating antibiotic resistant bacteria. This is true, but not nearly to the extent that they claim it. By the way, when you start fighting off an infection, you are creating resistant bacteria too. I spent some time in Africa and guess what? We found antibiotic resistant bacteria in places where they had never had antibiotics before. The truth is as bacteria change, we are going to run up on bacteria that resist our current antibiotics no matter what we do. We had better just decide to work on that and some people are having success in their research in overcoming the factors that make bacteria resistant to antibiotics. It turns out that garlic added to antibiotics shows promise. It looks to me like we are going to lose the effectiveness of many of our antibiotics even if we don't use them. So what does this have to do with wealth? It turns out many of the things we are told ain't like we heard them. It isn't just in health where eggs are good this year and bad the next year and good again the year after. When it comes to money and building wealth we get a lot of bad advice and they even reverse what they say. What do you believe about money and wealth? Write down what comes to mind. Then ask yourself, what would it look like if these things were wrong. Do this exercise over a number of days and get ready for a breakthrough. Einstein said, "We can't solve our problems with the level of thinking we created them with," best and be blest, Scott Hogue CChH Something bothered me for a while and then I found out why it was that way. Since then it is like I have a behind the scenes view of what is going on. I will share it with you.
Ever wonder why when you bought an internet product you liked, like a training or how to ebook, some course or program, that the person you bought this nice product from would later send you an email recommending some product that turned out to be junk? I did. Why would someone of this quality and caliber recommend something as crude as this other product? The answer is syndication. It turns out most internet marketers are members in one way or another of some internet marketing group or you might say syndicate. They work together, they share ideas and they promote each other's stuff. So someone new, makes friends, begs and pleads, is recommended, buys their way in or otherwise joins a group and members of the group send out recommendations for the newbie's products to their list. Usually a freebie is involved and you sign up to a new list. Sounds ok so far. The problem is this new guy or gal is now indebted to the group and has to now recommend the group's products to their list. Junk or not. Match or not. You might buy dog training and then get a recommendation for internet marketing products or ventriliquism or voice coaching or negotiating, maybe even old car restoration. Cool? Right? Well, now that you know what is going on, it might be funny. The worst part about it is you could buy a very professional product and then the person that created that product may recommend a product someone hired school kids in India to create. Not anything against school kids in India, I think that country has some outstanding people, but the school kids in India may not know much about restoring cars in the United States for fun and profit. I use a marketing email address when I sign up to things like this. It doesn't clog my work or personal emails, so friends and clients can get through to me without me taking twenty minutes of email searching to find them. I also see what other people are doing on the internet. If I don't like what they are doing or don't think it will work I ask myself with this in mind, how would I do it to make it work? I get a lot of ideas that way. Some I even get around to using. best and be blest, Scott Hogue CChH While I support the efforts to keep jobs and create jobs in the United States, it will only delay the inevitable and put off the suffering. Our next big threat to making a living in the United States is not foreign competition, but artifical intelligence and robots or automation. If you want an income source for the future, you need a business. Why more people can't see that jobs are becoming extinct, I just can't see. I believe it is cultural and perpetuated by our education system, as well as our government. You can't make someone hire you, but you can create a business. If you want control of your future, start a business.
This is a lot like raising tomatoes or even like growing trees for lumber, start now if you want it later. If you think you will want to eat in the future, then plant now. The best thing you can do for your children and grandchildren from a financial and security perspective is start a business and raise them in it. Stanford University has a course on Youtube on doing a start-up. It is a little slow and generic, the delivery is a bit choppy, but it probably has a lot of material that most people just starting in business have never considered, like "in a start-up you can probably change everything but your market, so get that right first" and it is free. Here is one of my rules, exhaust the free options before you start parting with your money. Just go to Youtube and search for Stanford Courses and it is there. be blest, Scott Hogue CChH From The Ridiculous To The Practical
I have been all around the world and have seen a lot of things. I used to make fun, if not openly at least privately of a lot of the things I saw. I am certainly older now and I hope wiser. I don't make as much fun of things anymore. I try to think, where is the practical in the ridiculous? Take Meditation. Visual Imagery. Crystals. Howling at the moon. Things like that. Imagining sitting on Mars and drinking tea with talking vegetables may work for you, it may be a way for you to get off your blood pressure medicine, but it isn't my cup of tea. However I realize it could be the next hit Saturday morning children's television show. Meditation is one of those things that can be ridiculous or practical. Meditation is basically thinking and thinking is pretty much the process of asking yourself questions and coming up with answers. We think on the conscious level and we think on the subconscious level. Since meditation is thinking, when someone says they would never meditate I realize they probably don't understand what the definition of meditation really is or in some cases I just agree with them and say, "You know, I can see that in you." If I were to sit around meditating on my navel I would probably start wondering if I had navel lint and if navel oranges were popular in the Navy when they figured out citrus prevented scurvy and why we laughed at the Naval Air Force joke when everyone knew it had nothing to do with forcing air through your naval. On the other hand, meditation has a practical side. First we hear people say that meditation isn't Christian. That is a big objection I hear. In the big picture mediation is really just thinking and no one is going to convince me that true Christianity is against thinking. As a matter of fact, the bible tells us to meditate on scripture. There are plenty of interesting and practical lessons in the bible, not to mention principles and teachings, so thinking on the bible turns out to be pretty practical. Then there are your problems. You really can't escape your problems. Recovering alcoholics know this. When they sober up their problems are right there where they left them and they usually have brought friends. You can't really escape your problems, because after all they are your problems, sort of like a faithful dog that follows you around and chews your slippers, but you can deal with them. It is popular to tell people not to meditate or you might say dwell on your problems. I think that is good advice in general. What we think about tends to expand. Think about buying a certain new car and all of a sudden they are everywhere. On the other hand, if what we think about tends to expand or grow or become part of our life, then why not think on not our problems, but solutions for our problems? Take Facebook, there is something that can be ridiculous or practical. Globally on average I see statistics that say people active on Facebook spend an average of 50 minutes a day on Facebook and that number is growing. It turns out that it is popular to say you are spending less time on Facebook, but studies show people are spending more. The figures are in for September of 2016, if you can believe them, Facebook has had a little of a statistic scandal lately, but the numbers are 1.18 billion people were active daily that month on Facebook. Get out an envelope and your pen, scribble a little and close one eye and you will find that means almost a billion human hours in one month were spent on Facebook. Since the number of people online is going up and the trend for usage is up, we can easily say we are looking at a billion hours a month going forward. So how big is a billion? If you spent a thousand dollars a day ($1,000) how long would it take you to spend a billion dollars? Well, you can't, you won't live that long unless you know something I don't. If you started spending a thousand dollars a day at the time of Christ and Nero and Julius Caesar and Cleopatra and all of that group (yes, I know they didn't exactly live at the same exact time, this is just to get a rough idea of things) you still wouldn't be done. It would take you 2,740 years to spend those dollars at a thousand a day. So that means a thousand people spending one hour on something a day would take 2,740 years to spend a collective billion hours. So here is my point. If we took half of those hours spent on Facebook and people spent them working on their problems what would happen? A half billion hours a month spent on people meditating and working on their problems, not just thinking problem, problem, problem, but on solutions to their problems, Remember, you are in the world, your problems are the world's problems. Well, I don't expect people to trim their Facebook time globally or for me to start a revolution, but what if I got you to just spend 20 minutes a day, half thinking on the solutions to your problems and half working on them using the answers you come up with? What would happen? Try it and let me know. Scott Hogue CChH What Would You Do?
Today a little exercise that just might change your life. I often work with people in my practice that are in a rut. I am not talking about the staff, I mean some of my clients. When you are in a rut it can be difficult to get out. Our ruts can grow very deep. Some people are jarred out of their ruts by traumatic life changing events. People don't come to me to have a car wreck, lose their job, have a serious illness or get a divorce, so I have to come up with something else. I use a lot of little tricks and exercises. Just for fun, play along with me and I will show you one of the exercises. Imagine you are home on your day off after a pretty rough week. You slept late. You are wearing your lazy day clothes, maybe still in your pajamas. You are just starting to think, do you want breakfast or just wait and try for lunch when you hear the doorbell ring. If you don't have a doorbell you hear a knock at the door. Just work with me here. You think, “Did I really hear that?” when you hear it again and decide you will have to deal with it. You open the door and see a man in his late forties, maybe early fifties. He is wearing a suit that costs more than a first class air ticket to Hawaii. You can see your reflection in his shoes, he has an expensive looking watch and what appears to be a diamond tie pin. The man also has a briefcase, a very expensive looking briefcase. You are thinking “This man has the wrong address,” just when he says your name. Your thoughts change to, “Could I possibly be being sued?” and the man says, “My name is Charles Miller and I represent the Freewater Foundation. I have a financial matter to discuss with you. May I come in or is this an inopportune time?” You pause a moment and think, “Could I have inherited some money?” Then, you realize you are keeping the man in suspense outside at the door and you invite him in. You motion for him to sit down and he proceeds… “The Freewater Foundation is a very private and well funded foundation, I would be surprised if you have heard of the Foundation,” and he hands you his card. Charles Miller, Freewater Foundation and a phone number on thick, crisp, white card stock printed in glossy raised ink. “I am sure that if I could mention the names of the board members there would be a least a few you would know from the news and certain publications, but I will have to ask you to trust me on that, they are very private about their connection to the Foundation and the work they do. It makes things much easier that way. One of the things they do is to endow certain selected people to do their life's work, which brings me to you today.” “You have come to the attention of the board and I am here to offer you two million dollars a year to do your life's work. Here are the terms: 1. You must quit all other work for payment, financial reimbursement or compensation. Any charity work you are doing or would do in the future is exempt from restrictions. 2. In this briefcase there is a quarter of a million dollars for a retainer and a blank sheet of paper. If you accept the offer I will leave the briefcase and the money, a quarter of a million dollars which is about all I could get in the briefcase in smaller bills. I will return in 48 hours with another briefcase with another quarter of a million dollars which I will exchange for that sheet of paper. 3. On that sheet of paper you will have written two things. The first is what you will do for your life's work and the second, how it will benefit mankind. Think of it as our receipt. 4. In three months I will return with another briefcase containing another quarter of a million dollars and another blank sheet of paper. 5. I will leave the briefcase and contents with you and return in 48 hours with another briefcase containing another quarter of a million dollars in exchange for that sheet of paper. 6. On that sheet of paper you will write in a few sentences what you did in your work the last three months and how it will benefit mankind, again, as our receipt. 7. This will continue as long as you wish to continue under the terms aforementioned, with the total amount paid to you being two million dollars a year as long as you abide by the agreement.” He opens the briefcase and sure enough there is a blank sheet of paper sitting on top of a lot of money. What would you do? Do you have any resistance or hesitation? Are you clear on what your life's work is or would be? Could you explain how it would benefit mankind? If you have resistance or hesitation it is usually one or both of two reasons. 1. You have a problem receiving, which isn't a good problem to have in life. It is sort of like locking your mailbox and then complaining that you never get any mail and believe me, you will complain in time if you aren't allowing yourself to receive in this world. There are things you will need from the world to travel through the world. When I studied Kung Fu, my teacher taught me the lesson of the seven cups. The teacher has the pot of tea to pour out to the students, but some have their cup turned upside down and cannot receive what is being poured out to them. The tea represents what the world has to offer, knowledge, experience, relationships, wealth, many things. In the lesson of the seven cups, only one of the cups is turned up and in position to receive. What is the position and condition of your cup? 2. You aren't clear on what you want to do with your life and how it fits into the rest of the world. This is a common problem and one you can often use some help with. I think one of the great secrets to having a happy, rewarding and fulfilling life, even a life full of wealth, is to understand that you can have anything you want in life if you only help enough other people get what they want. Find a way to help people get what they want that you enjoy and you are on your way to great success and happiness. There is also a third reason people hesitate when they do this exercise. They are afraid. Perhaps they feel undeserving or don't know what to do with the money and they are afraid to proceed. They believe the money will cause problems. They feel secure in their struggle, which may sound odd, but I assure you it is common. People go to school for years and years, work at a job for years and years, they are just used to being told what to do. Being free is a strange thought and experience to them. I had a friend that kept his dog in a dog pen all day and when he came home and opened the door to the pen he had to drag the dog out. The dog was comfortable being confined. People often become comfortable with their confinement, the limits on their lives. When they come to my office for help they need something they can't find in their confinement and one way or another I have to drag them out into a larger world so they can have what they need. Most people believe that there are people making millions of dollars a year doing what they want to do in life, they just don't believe they can be one of those people. If you don't believe you can be one of those people than I have to ask you, Why? That Why is keeping you from the life you desire and deserve and I am betting that Why won't hold water. Figure out how that Why is wrong and full of holes and you will take off like a rocket. Why not start the process of trading your job for your life's work? When you do you will find it is a lot like our little story. You can exchange what you do for mankind for wealth and satisfaction. It may not come in briefcases, but when it comes you can buy all the briefcases you want. If you need some help with that contact me, Scott Hogue CChH We seem to collect tablets around here. Most of the old ones work just fine, but the screens are bigger and better now, so are the memory and operating systems for the newer tablets. With today being Thanksgiving and seeing we are blest with old tablets, I was thinking of what you can do with an old tablet. Here are ten suggestions you might find helpful:
1. Donate it to someone that could use it. Family members and children come to mind, but don't forget nursing homes and veteran organizations. A tablet in hand can open the world up for a shut in. 2. Keep it in the car for a GPS. If it has a satellite and GPS function, just pick your favorite travel and mapping program, throw in a car adapter and you are through or at least on your way. 3. Make it a GPS/Car entertainment system. You could Bluetooth to your car system if your car is Bluetooth capable or you could throw in some portable speakers. A radio transmitter connected to the tablet would allow it to access your old fashioned car radio and speaker system. Not only would you have GPS, but you could play your favorite car tunes. They make a number of tablet holders for cars these days. 4. Put it by the bed for a number of uses. I have a tablet by the bedside that I made a wooden stand for. I am a bit of a hobbyist. I use the sleep mode clock on low brightness, I Bluetooth connect to my stereo speakers. I have one of those personal assistant apps I bought before Google and Apple and now Amazon got into the act. The app isn't a rocket scientist, but it can read you the weather, the news and set an alarm for you. I also have Amazon Prime which comes with a version of Audible. The tablet can play any of the channels available for prime members, including news, sports, science and business updates. There are a number of audio books available too. A tablet by the bedside gives you plenty of reasons to stay in bed. 5. Make a picture player out of it. If your tablet didn't come with a slide player program to play picture content, then there are plenty in the apps stores to choose from. We have a little bamboo easel really made for recipes, cookbooks and such, that we place a tablet on from time to time to show pictures of the grandchildren in slide show fashion. 6. Dedicated Video Phone. After watching the slide show of grandchildren's pictures you will want to get in touch with them. Does your old tablet have a front facing camera and enough computing power to run skype, facetime or Google hang outs? We have a granddaughter that lives in another state. It is nice to just pick up a tablet that is set and ready to go for when we want to video visit. 7. Make a radio out of it. One of the drawbacks of living near the lake here in Tennessee is although the scenery is beautiful, the mountains and valleys make it hard to pick up radio stations. In any case, no matter where you live there are more radio stations on the internet than you can pick up with your average radio. Even police, fire and plane calls. Pick your radio app or why not pick a few? I am an old time radio buff and I like the mysteries, Sherlock Holmes and other programs of long ago. There are a number of OTR or Old Time Radio apps in the app stores. We listen to the Chiquita Banana Christmas special of 1942 every year as we near Christmas. 8. Big TV in your hands. If you can mirror your screen to your TV then you can play content and do your work on the big screen. I did that with the widescreen in the bedroom one day and was almost overwhelmed by the size of the display. My wife came in and said, "What is that?" I told her it was my email King Kong version. Youtube mirrored to my TV screen actually plays better than the smart TV youtube app. 9. Instead of taking it to school, take school to it. Udemy and other online training is pretty popular these days. There are people that report they like studying courses on their desktop or laptop because they aren't as interrupted by email and messages as on the tablets. Get rid of those other programs and just put your training on the tablet to put school in your hands. Some companies are loading up tablets with training for their employees and passing them out to keep them up to date, so training by tablet is both popular and effective, if you can get away from facebook long enough to finish a lesson. 10. Financial Assistant Having a dedicated tablet on your desk can be pretty handy. There are all kinds of calculator apps from financial to scientific. With programs like Mint you can keep up with your expenses and account balances. Walmart has a savings catcher program where you can scan your receipts and it will check for lower prices at competitors and refund the difference to an egift card. 11. Child's travel entertainment I like going the extra mile, so here is an eleventh idea. Load it up with children's movies and games for times you will be on the road with a youngster. Wifi doesn't travel with you and hotspots can be pretty spotty. Cell phone signals and cell internet isn't available in a lot of areas where we travel, so a tablet loaded up with Peppa the Pig and children's games can take the misery out of travel boredom. 12. Okay, an even dozen. Sleep machine. Noisli is a sound machine app with sounds like rain, thunder storms and even trains. Very customizable. I use it when I need to sleep and the background noise from the minecraft wars are a bit loud.. Remember, before you give your tablet away you want to reset it to factory settings wiping the memory and disconnecting any accounts you have. It would be a good idea to do this even if you are keeping the tablet and want to use it for one of the purposes we discussed. It will clean out the memory and let you start fresh. With Christmas specials I have seen decent, but not great tablets selling for as little as $34. You just might want to buy a low powered tablet to do one of these projects. Happy Thanksgiving for all thankful people around the globe, Scott Hogue CChH |
AuthorScott Hogue is a Strategic Life Coach, an Author and a Certified Christian Hypnotist. Archives
September 2017
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