I did a talk recently in Darwin for a group of financial planners and I wasn't looking forward to it. With all the chaos in the financial markets at present I didn't know what to expect. Fortunately they were a good bunch and they loved my story. They said “Tom, we needed to hear your positive message now more than ever”. The markets will come back, they always do and nothing is forever.

Darwin is really going ahead and what I liked is that their newspapers were only talking about positive things for Darwin. No doom & gloom. We all need to be doing this, especially now!

Tom

The other day a very excited  lady rang  to tell me that she had just purchased her first home, and she was ringing to thank me.

Annette had been to one of my BBREAD workshops and she had written down as one of her goals to achieve this year, owning her own home. This was over 12 months ago and her phone call was a real surprise. Annette told me how the BBREAD workshop had  got her focused on what she really wanted, and how to go about achieving it.

Goal setting does work, but first you have to know what you really want before you can achieve it.

Tom

Recently I was speaking with a couple of other men on the subject of how business is mostly about people and relationships. One of thm told me how he drives from one side of Melbourne to the other just to get his hair cut, and then the other guy told  a similar story.

And its the same for me! I explained howI I've been driving 45km to Albury for over 23 years to get my hair cut. My hairdresser Barbara has moved location 3 times, and I have followed her and her team each time.

It’s all about relationships…it’s about treating people how you like to be treated. That works out to a fair bit of money over 23 years!! 

Tom

At the moment I am reading a book called “The Last Lecture” and I would recommend it to any one. I will be buying a few more copies to give away to my friends.

It is about a man, Randy Pausch, who has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He was a professor, 47 years old and with 3 very young kids and he was asked to give his last lecture.

You just have to read it, it is all about living. If you only read one book a year, this should be it .

Last Lecture website http://www.thelastlecture.com/

 Tom

I had a flat tyre this week and I rang my old mate Noel to see if he could repair it. He asked how urgent it was and said he would be there as soon as possible. Noel would be in his late 60’s maybe 70, and he is still flat out working. He told me he has just won a trip to Los Angeles & Las Vegas, but he's too busy to take time off. Plus he has never been on a plane before.

At the moment the bake house is flat out making Christmas cakes and puddings. It's great to see. We get orders from all over Australia and several from overseas. There's one man from the UK who has been ordering our Christmas cakes for the last 10 years and he rings us to place the order!

We now also get a lot of people ordering them on line through the bakery website Beechwoth Bakery

It’s a big job as each cake in hand made It's very labour intensive, but well worth it. I love our cakes and so do many of our customers.

Tom

  Dianne at Beechworth