TACK International has been offering its classic sales training course since 1950. The updated version of this course, now called PRO-PAYBACK tm Selling, is currently offered in 25 different languages around the world - and in over forty countries. The program has won many international awards. Now, for the very first time, the course is available online, for English speaking users, at their own convenience.

Las Vegas, Nevada (PRWEB) January 11, 2010 -- TACK International has been offering its classic sales training course since 1950. The updated version of this course, now called PRO-PAYBACK tm Selling, is currently offered in 25 different languages around the world - and in over forty countries. The program has won many international awards. Now, for the very first time, the course is available online, for English speaking users, at their own convenience. The e-learning, or online, version of this course was created by TACK-USA, the American licensee of TACK International; and has been designed for sales people who want to take responsibility for their own learning and development - at their own time and pace. 

The PRO-PAYBACK tm Selling course is unique in that it covers the entire, consultative sales process from beginning to end. This is a complete course that would take three days of in-classroom instruction to cover. It is offered with no need for live instruction. And, unlike other online sales training courses, this is not a "teaser." This holistic approach begins prior to any customer contact and ends long after the sale has been consummated. Each of the letters in the word "PRO-PAYBACK" stands for a different phase in the selling process. The course is packed with short videos and practical advice translated into exercises that can be practiced over and over again until skills are mastered.

In order to introduce this new, online sales training course to the public, TACK-USA is offering a special, introductory price of $249.

 

...designed for sales people who want to take responsibility for their own learning and development at their own time and pace.

For more information, see www.tack-elearning.com.

The Blue Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey, January 2009

THE YEAR THAT WAS... and aren't we glad to see a new one on the way!

What a year! Certainly there were some positive things that took place, but overall the year felt like we couldn't wait for a new start. All this, of course, being driven by the economy and how it teetered and tottered until we never could tell where the future lay. But here we are, ready to move on, with wishes for the best for you.

Generally by the end of the year we can assess and decide whether it was a good one or not so good. Not so this year. The proof of this year's pudding will be determined in 2010 and beyond. We knew our training and consulting business would suffer in this economic downturn. We just didn't know how badly it would suffer. and we planned on using our time in 2009 to build up the new business that we acquired at the end of 2008, a sales training company, TACK-USA.

It actually has been a great year to start a business since we weren't all that bothered by normal timeconsuming work. We could do "build-a-business" type of work. And, knock on wood, we have some exciting possibilities looking at us for 2010. In March, we had a week long meeting with a number of people who want to work with us here in Las Vegas. We've prepared all our course materials, which was no small task, and are now about to complete development of our first elearning program. We started in August and are just about finished with our "PRO-PAYBACK Selling" three-day course - all on line. The feedback we are getting is very very good. Most importantly, we like it ourselves. Our big task for 2010 will be to market it.

Even with a downturn in business, we still had places to go. Jeff and Janelle and two of our partners here in the U.S. went to Istanbul in January for TACK week long meetings. While there, we took a long four hour walk on the ancient cobblestones that primarily are Istanbul's streets.

Jeff represented us in Greece at our annual TMI meetings, attending a meeting in a hotel that sat at the base of the Parthenon. Next year, these meetings will be held here in Las Vegas, and we are actively planning for that in July.

Janelle went to South Africa for the Global Speakers Federation meeting. While there, she spoke on the impact of the global economy and a new speech she has developed on Obama's rhetorical style - BarackSpeak. Janelle also spoke in Colombia, both Bogata and Medellin. Colombian drivers tail gate, speed on curvy roads, passing whenever it looks like the greatest likelihood of a crash will occur, all the while texting (Yes, TEXTING!) on their PDAs. Janelle smacked one of her drivers to get them to stop what is apparently a Colombian habit. And that was the extent of our foreign travel. As we say, business has been challenging!

But there are lots of conferences in the U.S. Janelle and Jeff went to the Women Business Enterprise Council annual conference in San Francisco. While there, she was honored as a Global Woman of Influence. Janelle was also emcee for the Western WBEC's annual Gala meeting. Janelle leaves her position as Chair of the Nevada Forum, but is getting ready to be President of the Global Speaker's Federation. That will happen in 2010-2011.

Jeff was a keynote speaker at International Association for Near Death Studies this year. Frankly, he spent a big chunk of this year helping set up the TACK business and literally hours every day working on our elearning course. He has also spent many an hour in smoky bars so he can sing karaoke. He keeps getting better!

Jeff's mother is still with us, though Janelle's mother passed away on Monday night, December 28, at the age of 98. Janelle and Lewis will be leaving Las Vegas on New Year's Day for the funeral in Huron, South Dakota.

Jeffrey's mother continues to struggle with Alzheimer's, though - and this is truly amazing - she continues to learn new lines for theatre performances she does. She has entertained so many of us this year, and Janelle believes she is more authentically emotional now than ever before.

Lewis continues to work with us, and that is good. This year he went to the inauguration. It was so frigid that the friend he was with, a young attorney from

Boston, passed out from the cold. But it was an experience never to be forgotten for him. Jeff and Janelle went to see Obama when he was here for a fund raiser for Harry Reid - a riveting experience with Bette Midlar performing. We saw her 25 years earlier in San Francisco, and she hasn't aged at all.

We got a new spiffy little Chrysler Crossfire, two-seater convertible. We decided to buy something American, considered a Jeep, and then found the unused 2007 Crossfire on sale for almost half of the sticker price price. It drives just like a Mercedes, and well it should since about 85% of it is a Mercedes and was built in a German Mercedes plant. It's perfect for Las Vegas.

We continue to exercise; Janelle still swims and probably will for the rest of her life. Jeff hikes out in Red Rock almost every day.

We prepared a slide show of the main news events of the first decade of this century. It's something how quickly this first decade went. So, we're just trying to enjoy every moment of our lives since we'll soon be 100! Well, almost...

Jeff and Janelle

Even though my Mom, Rose Mishlove is suffering from Alzheimer's disease and has, serious short-term memory problems, she still works hard to memorize both songs and theatrical pieces -- and she still performs in public at every opportunity. She is making a major effort not to succumb to the disease, with the help of her acting and singing coach, Jack Winston.



Here is a video of her performing at the Las Ventanas senior living retirement center in Las Vegas, NV.

Here is a flyer for the 2009 conference of the International Association for Near-Death Studies. I'm pleased to be a keynote speaker at this event. And I hope to see some readers of this blog there.

Although I have posted on this blog about many different subjects, I think my passion for karaoke has not been discussed at all. But, here is a video taken August 6, 2009, of me singing a 1960s rock song, "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," at a club in Las Vegas.

And, here is another video of me singing that same evening, a 1960s soul song called "Walking the Dog."

Actually, karaoke has been a big part of my life for the past three years. But, I'll confess that, for most of my adult life, I paid very little attention to popular music. More will follow on this subject. In a week and a half, my singing partner, Cat D'Angelo, and I will be performing for senior citizens at a center in Las Vegas called Las Ventanas. I believe that my 88 year old mother, Rose Mishlove, will also join in.

I have been in Athens since Wednesday, attending business meetings associated with our three, inter-related consulting and training companies -- TACK-USA, TMI US, and Branded Customer Service. The picture above is the view (somewhat closeup) from my hotel window on the fifth floor of the Athenaeum Intercontinental.

I feel like this event has been very transformative for me. For years, I think I've always considered my involvement with our business as something secondary, not central, in my life. It's always seemed as if something I'm doing, peripherally, while I wait for a big break elsewhere -- i.e., a great university position, or a new book, or a new TV show, etc. Somehow I've never thought of these businesses as being central to who I was as a human being. And, as a result, I've never put myself into them wholeheartedly.

But, I believe that something has now shifted for me...partly out of necessity (as we live at a time when one cannot afford to give a business anything less than one's very best right now)...and partly as a result of a new vision I seem to have attained.

I had the realization, yesterday, that the work we are doing -- and the friends we have made through this work around the world -- is really something of a spiritual community. We are part of it. It is part of us. We are already deeply integrated into it. I just had to open my eyes and see it in all of its depth and glory -- rather than distance myself in my own mind from what was going on (because, I suppose, it wasn't about parapsychology, yada yada yada). The veil has been lifted for me. I think I now see that something very extraordinary is happening here.

I had a brief discussion with our partner, Bob, about this tonight and he confirmed for me that the TACK meetings are really not like any other business meetings he has attended before -- and he says he been to thousands of such meetings. People here seem genuinely committed to helping each other and helping their clients -- rather than aggrandizing their own little power base.

Of course, no one is speaking in the language one might read in The Roots of Consciousness. But, that's beside the point (and, probably for the best, anyway). After all, this is fundamentally about business -- and building affluence for ourselves and our clients. In that sense, it is all about a wonderful kind of pragmatic spirituality. And, I can see now that I can fully embrace what we are doing in this business as 100% appropriate for me -- as central to the whole core of my being.

To me, this feels like a subtle shift -- but, at the same time, very major.

What a year! To reuse Charles Dickens, it’s been the best of times and the worst of times. We began 2008 by attending the Rose Parade in Pasadena – where our dear friend, Lynne Morris, choreographed and directed the grand opening of the parade (see previous blog). And, fortunately, we found many things to celebrate since then – especially our thirtieth wedding anniversary and the election of Barack Obama! Both were big events for us. In fact, the actual date of our anniversary, August 28, found us en route to Denver, CO, to attend Obama’s acceptance speech along with 85,000 other people in Invesco Stadium. Later, in October, we celebrated our anniversary again with a visit to the magnificent temple complex in Angkor Wat, Cambodia (after a brief stop in Vietnam). We learned of Obama’s actual election while in the air, flying from Bangkok to Tokyo, on our way home. It was very gratifying to us, as we had been housing election workers in our home for several months. 

 

Above is a photo a Janelle’s hand shaking hands with Obama in Las Vegas. We think that this election signifies an important new era for America – one which will restore integrity back to our political life and put this country back on the track of fulfilling the dreams of our founders for a “Novus Ordo Seclorum” or “new order of the ages” (if you look carefully, you’ll see this phrase on every dollar bill).

 

It’s been a year of new beginnings for us in others ways as well. We have undertaken two new business ventures: Insight Realty Group, Inc., a commercial real estate firm and business brokerage – of which Jeff is the broker; and TACK USA, a sales training company. TACK has been active for fifty years in over forty countries. Now, we hold the first TACK license in the United States. It is a business that complements our existing TMI customer service offerings.

 

2008 has been full of activity for us. Janelle received the “Friendship Award” last summer at the international meeting of our TMI partners. She has also been active on the board of directors of the International Federation for Professional Speakers. As usual, her travels have taken her to exotic locations from Dubai to Germany, France, Singapore, Malaysia and Nepal. And, she continues to swim two miles every morning she is able – while Jeff hikes in the nearby Mohave desert as often as his schedule permits. Janelle is also now the Chair of the Nevada Forum for the Women’s Business Enterprise Council. She’ll have a busy year handling that along with our new business.

 

Jeff has taken a serious interest in karaoke – and has even performed publicly, with his duet (and real estate) partner, Cat D’Angelo, on several occasions for various senior citizens homes and centers. In fact, Jeff and Cat have been joined several times by Jeff’s mother, Rose, who – even at age 87 – still loves to perform.

 

Another important development this year has occurred at the University of Philosophical Research, in Los Angeles – a distant learning program where Jeff and Janelle both teach and where Jeff serves as dean of programs in transformational psychology. This year, UPR received accreditation. This is a big step forward for the institution that Jeff helped to create about ten years ago.

 

Another interesting development is a renewed interest in Jeff’s book, The PK Man, among the European avante-garde community. Dutch artist, Jantine Wijnja, has created several exhibitions, articles and theatrical happenings based on the book. Speaking of books, Janelle’s first major trade book, A Complaint Is a Gift, was reissued as a second edition in October this year. She worked so intently on the rewrite that her vision reversed itself. She used to wear a single contact lens to see distances, and her up-close vision was just fine, pretty remarkable considering her age. Then after 6 weeks on her computer, pretty much every day from early morning to late at night, she regained her distant vision, but is now wearing reading glasses. She still hasn’t had a good explanation for what happened.

 

We continue to host a variety of parties throughout the year; we are blessed to enjoy the wonderful company of our son, Lewis. And, by and large, our families are in good health. We look forward to an enterprising 2009, hopefully an economy and an ecology that turns around, good health for all of us, and lengthy laughter at the craziness in the world.

 

Much Love,

Janelle & Jeff

 

Jeff Mishlove's Blog Index

In a previous blog, I mentioned a book called The Heart of the Mind by my friends Russell Targ and Jane Katra in which they maintained that one could experience god directly by opening themselves up to the experience of universal love. This book was aimed at non-believing members of the scientific community. In effect, it provided a recipe for entering into a direct awareness of god. It was an excellent book, based upon time-honored traditions. However, it certainly would not satisfy one of the world’s most prominent, former philosophical atheists, Anthony Flew, who (I believe) still maintains that it is “impossible to infer from a particular religious [and, therefore, I imagine any other personal] experience that it had as its object a transcendent divine being.”

Anthony Flew, one of the most prominent living philosophers has spent over half a century defending philosophical atheism and attacking philosophical arguments in favor of theism or deism. However, to the astonishment of his atheistic colleagues in academia and the philosophical world, in about 2004 he changed his mind and became a philosophical deist. (Of course, I must be clear that philosophical deism is far from a conventional religious belief in a god associated with Judeo-Christian -- or Islamic -- revelation.)

Flew believes that his acceptance of the “god hypothesis” stems strictly from rational and scientific considerations. Personal experience played no role in his conversion. And, although he has been a lifelong student of parapsychology (to his credit), he employs none of this (very significant) data to justify his believe in a divine creator.

Flew began his philosophical career in the 1940s at a time when the logical positivist school was quite influential. According to adherents to that point of view, questions concerning the existence or nonexistence of god were so completely meaningless that it was impossible to argue intelligently one way or another. In a very significant paper, published in 1950, titled “Theology and Falsification,” Flew rejected that argument. He argued that the claim for god’s existence should, logically, exclude other claims and that philosophers should be able to weigh the evidence on both sides of the argument. Then, and in many other subsequent publications, he argued that the evidence in favor of the god hypothesis was either nonexistent or inconclusive. In the absence of evidence favoring god, one should logically be an atheist – he claimed.

Following the Socratic dictum to “follow the argument wherever it leads,” Flew now claims that recent advances in science have led him to conclude that the arguments in favor of god’s existence now have the upper hand. What are these arguments?

Probably the strongest argument influencing Flew’s conversion was derived from work in the field of genetics. The incredible complexity of the genetic code convinced Flew that it could not possibly have been the product of blind chance (as proposed by the atheist biologist Richard Dawkins). The odds of this happening are so small that the universe, as large and old as it is, would have to be gazillions of times larger and older for such an event to have occurred by chance. It was the discovery of this simple fact of mathematics and probability (originally articulated by the Israeli scientist Gerald Schroeder), I believe, that led Flew to a reexamination of other arguments in favor of god.

Flew was particularly impressed by the statements of Albert Einstein – and many of the other great theoretical physicists – who maintained that the laws of nature, intricate and rational, as discovered by science implied the existence of a divine mind that created those laws.

Furthermore, he then engaged in a reexamination of the foundations of philosophy in ancient Greece – observing that Aristotle, himself, cogently argued that the existence of motion in the universe necessitated the existence of an “unmoved mover.”

Flew also pointed out that the very existence of something (i.e., the universe itself) rather than nothing at all is a problem calling out for a solution – and that the “god hypothesis” offers the only available, satisfactory solution. Flew now rejects, as inadequate, arguments that he once accepted such as the notion that the universe came into existence of its own accord or that the laws of physics exist in and of themselves requiring no other foundation for their being.

Flew also now accepts the argument for god’s existence based on the anthropic principle – i.e., that the laws of the universe (including many of the observed constants of physics, such as the “fine structure constant”) are uniquely fashioned to support life as we know it. The slightest deviation in these constants would have made biological life impossible.

All of these arguments are consistent with the controversial concept of “intelligent design.” In fact, Flew – the former atheist – was one of eleven academics who signed a petition urging the British government to teach the theory of intelligent design in the public schools. Ironically, regarding this issue, he now seems to be aligning himself with the religious fundamentalists – whose cause he certainly does not, in other regards, embrace.

Personally, I am in agreement with Flew’s present position, in almost all regards. (I still find the Buddhist arguments for "anata" or the non-existence of any "self" -- including god -- to be quite impressive.) I would go further than Flew, however, and argue that his case can be strengthened even more with reference to the data of scientific parapsychology – and with reference to developments in the mathematics of hyperspace.

Jeff Mishlove’s Blog Index

Not long ago, the accounting firm of Arthur Anderson was literally put out of business. This occurred as the result, as I recall, of a criminal prosecution stemming from illegal activities of the firm on behalf on the now defunct Enron Corporation. Many people complained at the time that the prosecution was unfair and that thousands of innocent employees were the victims of this prosecution. Yet, the principle prevailed that a corporation engaged in criminal activities had to be held accountable.

 

In my opinion, the Republican Party has done far more damage -- through its culture of unethical behavior -- to the United States than the Arthur Anderson firm ever did.

 

This, I believe, goes back to the electoral activities of Richard Nixon. It has gotten to the point where the vicious, biased, negative campaigning that we see today in behalf of the Republican presidential campaign is considered "normal" and "appropriate" by the party faithful.

 

I won't go into the hundreds of details right now to support my contention. But, I think the fact speaks for itself that many prominent Republicans (such as Colin Powell) are making the same point.

 

I believe in a two-party system, or a multi-party system. But, at this point, I do not believe that the Republican Party has shown itself worthy to govern or to be a part of that system. Political parties in the past (i.e., the Federalist, the Whig) have had to disband. And, I believe that time is running out for the Republicans.

 

How, ironic (and hypocritical), in my opinion that the party that once expected to have a permanent majority and lock on both houses of congress, plus the presidency, and governorships -- is now complaining that the Democrats might achieve this same objective in the coming elections.

 

One of my friends, an intuitive filmmaker, with a deep spiritual orientation, is Dorothy Fadiman. I highly recommend her newest production "Stealing America, Vote By Vote." Here is the website:

 

http://www.stealingamericathemovie.org/

 

It documents the tactics used by the Republicans to control elections, and suppress or miscount votes, going back to 2000. It strongly suggests that if all of the real votes were fairly counted, G.W. Bush would never have won or held the White House.

 

The picture that I have at this point is that the Republicans gained office by, essentially, cheating the voters. Even worse, once they achieved power, they engaged in the active pursuit of proving correct their contention that "government does not work." They made it so. They have been so destructive that, I imagine it will take many years to fully uncover the depth of their deceptions. And, unfortunately, even longer to restore our lost global stature -- and, yet, even longer to restore our economy. (As I recall it took more than a decade to recover from the Great Depression.)

 

To my Republican friends,  I don't doubt your intelligence nor your sincerity in posting arguments that are consistent with the Republican Party line. And, to be fair, I realize that some of the Republican critiques are important and even, occasionally, accurate.

 

But, on the surface, the Republicans have so muddied the waters of our American political discourse that I now believe that every statement coming from their camp is best viewed with suspicion. For me (admittedly a lifelong Democrat), it has gotten to the point that the Republican college student who, recently, fraudulently claimed that a black Obama supporter had mutilated her face (by carving the letter B) has become almost emblematic of the entire Republican Party.

 

Let me add, that I do not make such a claim lightly.

 

I am aware that it rubs up against the very grain of the eight intuitive principles that I, myself, drafted and have posted on this blog in the past. It rubs up against the primary directive that I see in all mystical traditions -- that we are all one. It risks falling into the trap of duality and devisiveness. And, my only antidote to these concerns is to accept that, at a deeper level, odd as it seems to me -- we are all Republicans!

 

 So, while I advocate a complete cleansing of the Republican party, I guess this

implies something even more profound -- a deeper inner cleansing of ourselves and of the American psyche.

 

Jeff Mishlove's Blog Index

The following article is my edit and condensation of Bernard S. Talmey's chapter on the definition of love from his 1933 book, Love: A Treatise on the Science of Sex Attraction. As this book was originally published 75 years ago, it's focus tends to be primarily on nineteenth century romantic philosophy -- with no emphasis on such movements as existentialism, feminism and post-modernism. Certainly, however, one must turn to the romantics (several of whom are quite obscure today) when considering the nature of love.