Washington, D.C. socialite, Marjorie Merriweather Post (1887-1973) was one of America's first businesswomen, an art collector and philanthropist. She joined one of a small number of distinguished Americans who bequeathed her lavish estates to the public. She was married four times, and had three daughters.  When her fortune reached approximately $250 million, she became the wealthiest woman in America.

Marjorie's legacy began with her father, Charles (C.W.) Post, who was born October 26, 1854 into a comfortable middle class family in Springfield, Illinois. His father was successful in the agricultural business. C.W. entered the Illinois Industrial College (now the University of Illinois) in 1868 at the young age of 13 but dropped out in his third year to join a special army regiment. After three years of military service, he was discharged in 1874 and opened a hardware store in Independence, Kansas. He returned to Springfield later that year to marry his childhood sweetheart, Ella Merriweather, on November 4, 1874. For the next six years, Ella lived with his parents while C.W. worked as a traveling salesman for various farm equipment companies.

C.W. founded the Illinois Agricultural Works in 1880. An avid inventor, he designed and manufactured farm machinery, and held a number of patents on his inventions.  However, the company suffered financially when a local banker made unauthorized loans in the company's name. In 1885, C.W. suffered a physical and mental collapse which forced him to leave his business for several months. As part of his recuperation, doctors encouraged him to move to a warmer climate. Thus, in 1887 he and several family members purchased a 200-acre ranch outside of Fort Worth, Texas and named it Post City.  C.W. and Ella stayed behind in Springfield to await the birth of their daughter, Marjorie, in March 1887 before moving to Texas in 1888.

Over the next three years, C.W. was involved in every detail of developing and marketing homesites on the Texas ranch under the name Post & Company. He also built a small wool mill to manufacture blankets and a paper mill to produce paper from cottonseed hulls to provide jobs for prospective homeowners. However, the demands of the work once again became too much for C.W. and he suffered a second breakdown. On the recommendation of friends and family, Ella took her wheelchair-bound husband to a reknowned health clinic in Battlecreek Michigan run by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. While at the clinic, C.W. was given Dr. Kellogg's special health beverage as a part of his diet regime. Dr. Kellogg treated C.W. for ten months before releasing him, saying there was nothing more he could do for him. Seeking advice from friends and family, Ella then took her husband to a local Christian Science practioner where he found immediate help by following the counsel's advice to "think and act as though he was well, and he would, in fact, become well."

This revelation started C.W. on the road to health and a desire to share his newfound knowledge with others suffering from chronic ill health. In March 1892, he purchased a farm on the outskirts of Battle Creek with plans to converted the farmhouse into his own health spa where guests could recover their lost vitality. To raise money for the project, he used the same successful method he developed in Texas and provided inexpensive homes to people on the farm, which sold quickly to nearby factory workers. With his financing secure, he was ready to open LaVita Inn later in 1892 which emphasized a healthy diet and exercise. As a part of the healthy diet offered to his guests, he revised Dr. Kellogg's original drink to be a more tasteful hot drink from wheat, bran and molasses, calling it Postum Cereal Coffee -- and Postum Cereal Company was born.

Always the salesman, he marketed Postum as a cereal beverage to area grocery stores, advertised in local newspapers, and hired a young woman to demo Postum around the country. C.W. was one of the first to use extensive retail advertising to sell a food product. He reinvested profits from sales into more advertising and quickly built his business. By the end of the first year, he spent approximately $2,000 in advertising and generated more than $5,000 in Postum sales. Others attempted to create imitations of Postum at a cheaper cost. To run these competitors out of the market, C.W. created another name for Postum, Monk's Brew, which he sold far below competitor prices to drive them out of the business -- and, that accomplished, he did away with the Monk's Brew name. He lost $46,000 in "the year of the contest," but sales rose to almost $400,000 the next year.

C.W.'s Grape-Nuts cereal (invented in 1897) and his first corn flake product, Post Toasties (1904), sold in Great Britain at the turn of the century. Four years later, his cereals were selling in several more countries. By 1906, more than 600 employees were working around the clock at Post's factory producing 6-7 million boxes of cereal a month. In less than a decade, C.W. had become a millionaire and an internationally recognized business tycoon.

During this time (1900-1904), C.W. left the daily operations of the factory to others while he pursued his dream of starting other businesses. He purchased property in downtown Battle Creek and built the Post Tavern which opened in 1901. He furnished the public rooms with his extensive art collection; and had connecting baths and telephones in every room. He then built a complex of buildings in the area including a six-story office building and the Marjorie Block. The Post Theater opened in 1902 and featured popular attractions for many years.

Ella suffered a series of illnesses during this time, and spent much of her time in health clinics. C.W. purchased another home to Washington, D.C. to be closer to daughter Marjorie's boarding school and hired Leila Young as her companion (who later became his private secretary at the factory). C.W. and Marjorie traveled extensively and he taught his daughter all aspects of his businesses, which included her attending board meetings. Ella and C.W. gradually grew apart and were divorced in 1904. On November 7, that same year, he married Leila Young.

C.W. always paid his employees an above-average wage and frequently made anonymous gifts to those with special needs. He established a merit bonus and savings plan in 1901 as an incentive to his employees, emphasizing that it was not to be considered a "charity," and stating frequently that "the only welfare work I believe in is that which makes it possible for the man to help himself." He was always concerned with cleanliness and safety in the workplace, which was reflected in the construction of his factory and surrounding landscape. In 1902, he provided an option to employees to purchase low-cost housing for a very small downpayment and financing the cost through payroll deductions.

In early May 1914, C.W. became ill with appendicitis and was rushed to the Mayo Clinic where he underwent immediate surgery. Still suffering great pain, he fell into a deep depression and ended his own life with a shotgun on May 9, 1914.

C.W.'s death put Marjorie, age 27, in the controlling position over her father's businesses and his estate. Under keen leadership skills learned from her father and following his desire to expand Post & Company, she acquired Jell-O in 1925, followed closely by Swan's Down Cake Flour, Minute Tapioca, Log Cabin Syrup, Maxwell House Coffee -- to name only a few. When Birdseye "Frosted Foods" were added to the list in 1929, General Foods Corporation was born. Marjorie was an active board member until the 1950's. General Foods was acquired by Philip Morris Companies in 1985. When Kraft Foods was purchased three years later, the resulting conglomerate became known as Kraft General Foods. Expansion continued as the Nabisco label was acquired in 1993. Two years later the company name was changed to Kraft Foods.

With his restless, inventive mind, C.W. Post constantly sought new challenges. He was a pioneer in cereal product development, retail advertising techniques and industrial relations. Although he was a ruthless competitor in business, he was a compassionate employer who was continually interested in the welfare of his workers.

Mazon's fee structure is based on a combination of the following criteria: Anticipated monthly factoring volume; customer creditworthiness; number of factored customers; number of invoices sent to customers; average invoice amount and the average days to pay an invoice.

If you would like to find out more about our factoring services for your business and/or apply for an account with Mazon Associates, please phone us at 972-554-6967 (toll-free 800-442-2740) or visit our website www.mazon.com.

A lot of people believe that talent is a natural "gift" that a few lucky individuals receive at birth. However, neuroscience research is now uncovering the truth about talent and how we develop our skills. Our brains are made up of over 100 billion specialized cells called neurons. When you decide to wiggle your big toe, neurons in your brain fire electrical signals that travel through your nervous system to reach the muscles in your toe and tell them to wiggle. In this simple example, the process of wiggling your toe can be seen to be the equivalent of an electrical circuit that is activated by your mind. At a higher level, any skill that you want to develop is in fact just a more complex neural circuit. For example, learning to play the piano involves creating a circuit that involves your eyes, your brain and your fingers.

The most amazing thing about the neural circuits of our body is that they are made up of living tissue, which means they have the ability to grow and improve. The first time you fire a particular neural circuit it is usually weak and poorly connected. However, the more you fire the same circuit, the stronger it becomes. Not only do the connections between your neurons improve, but you also activate special cells that wrap your neural pathways in a substance called myelin, which improves the conduction of the electrical signals. So, what does all this actually mean? It means that talent is not something you receive at birth, but rather something that you develop through the creation and reinforcement of particular neural pathways. Once you adopt this view of talent, you will quickly realize that you really can do anything that you put your mind to. All

you have to do is:

1) Make a definite decision to develop a particular skill.

2) Start doing it immediately no matter how bad you initially are.

3) Push through the awkward stage by understanding it takes time to build a neural circuit.

4) Continue to perform the skill regularly in order to strengthen your neural pathways.

(Reprinted with permission from Dr. Anthony Fernando, www.anthonyfernando.com)

Sept. 1: Emma M. Nutt Day; Sept. 2: VJ Day; Sept. 5: Labor Day; Sept. 11: 10th Anniversary of Terrorist Attacks on America; Patriot Day, Grandparents Day; Sept 16: Mayflower Day, Stepfamily Day; Sept 17: Citizenship Day, Constitution Day and Week; Sept. 19: Talk Like a Pirate Day; Sept 21: International Day of Peace; Sept. 22: American Business Women's Day; Sept. 23: Native American Day, First Day of Autumn; Sept. 26: Johnny Appleseed Day.  

Notice: Mazon offices will be closed on Monday, Sept. 5th in observance of Labor Day. We will resume normal business hours of 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 6th. You may still submit invoices during our closed hours via fax, e-mail or drop-slot to be processed on Tuesday.

Before automated telephone exchanges were invented, a human being was required for all calls other than those through a shared "party" line. Telephone callers were required to dial into a central switching office and the operator connected you to the appropriate line to complete the connection. Because the operator's headphones were directly patched into any connection to facilitate the process, many operators ultimately were fired from not resisting the urge to listen in on a multitude of private conversations.

In January 1878, the Edwin Holmes Telephone Dispatch Company (aka Boston Telephone Dispatch Company) of Boston, Massachusetts hired boys as telephone operators for their telephone system because they had been very successful as telegraph operators. However, their attitude, lack of patience and behavior (including pranks and cursing) was unacceptable for live phone contact. Thus, on September 1, 1878, Emma Nutt, who worked at a local telegraph office, was hired by Alexander Graham Bell (credited with inventing the first practical telephone) and became the world's first female telephone operator. Emma reportedly could remember every number in the New England Telephone Co. telephone directory. She was paid a salary of $10 per month for a 54 hour week. Customer response to Emma's soothing, cultured voice and patience was so overwhelmingly positive that boys were soon replaced by women.

A few hours after Emma started work, her sister, Stella Nutt, became the world's second female telephone operator, making Stella Nutt and Emma Nutt the first two sisters in world history to become telephone operators. Unlike Emma, Stella worked as a telephone operator for only a few years.

To be an operator, a woman had to be unmarried, between the ages of seventeen and twenty-six. She had to look prim and proper, and have arms long enough to reach the top of the tall telephone switchboard. Much like many other American businesses at the turn of the century, telephone companies discriminated against people from certain ethnic groups and races. African American and Jewish women were not allowed to become operators.

Direct-dialing systems were put into place around 1920, reducing labor costs and ensuring customer privacy. Traditional switching office operators rapidly began to disappear off the American communications landscape, relegated to be called upon only when the automated systems failed. The synthesized speech system created by Philips Electronics for automated telephone services was named after Emma, in honor of her service for over 33 years.

You cannot always control what goes on outside, but you can always control what goes on inside.

-- Dr. Wayne Dyer (Facebook post, Aug. 15, 2011)

Amazing Face Reading, by Mac Fulfer, J.D.  ISBN 0-9655931-2-6.

When dealing with people in business and personal life, this book helps you read faces to see what may be going on behind their spoken words.  Go to www.amazingfacereading.com to find out more about this very interesting book.