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With so many folks working at fulfilling a New Year's resolution of becoming more fit and losing weight, and the fact that February is American Heart Month as well as Valentine's Day on February 14th, we felt it appropriate to feature Jack LaLannne as our entrepreneur this month.  Many younger readers might say, "Who in the world is Jack LaLannne?"

Born to French immigrant parents on September 26, 1914 in San Francisco, California, Francoise Henri "Jack" LaLanne was an American fitness, exercise, and nutritional expert and motivational speaker who is sometimes referred to as "the godfather of fitness" and the "first fitness superhero."  He described himself up to age 15 as being addicted to sugar and junk food, which he felt contributed to a violent temper directed against himself and others; he also suffered from headaches and bulimia, and temporarily dropped out of high school at age 14.  When 15 years old, he listened intently to a speech by well-known health food pioneer Paul Bragg who spoke on the evils of meat and sugar and almost overnight Jack became a new person with a new goal of focusing on his diet and exercise.  Little did he know at that time that this was the start of his lifelong career!  Besides changing his daily eating habits, he began working out each day.  He then went back to school, where he made the high school football team, and later went on to college and earned a Doctor of Chiropractic degree.  He studied Henry Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body and concentrated on bodybuilding and weightlifting.

Decades before fitness was promoted by celebrities like Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons, Jack was already widely recognized for publicly preaching the health benefits of regular exercise and a good diet.  He published numerous fitness books and hosted a fitness television show between 1951 and 1985.  As early as 1936, at age 21, he opened one of the nation's first fitness gyms in Okland, California which became a prototype for dozens of similar gyms using his name, and offered supervised weight and exercise training and gave nutritional advice.  His primary goal was to encourage and motivate his clients to improve their overall health.  The initial reaction of doctors to his promotion of weight-lifting was to advised their patients to stay away from his health club, a business totally unheard of at the time, and warned their patients that "LaLanne was an exercise 'nut,' whose programs would make them muscle-bound" and cause severe medical problems and would give people heart attacks.

Jack LaLanne designed the first leg extension machines, pulley machines using cables, and the weight selectors that are now standard in the fitness industry.  He invented the original model of what became the "Smith machine."  He encouraged women to lift weights.  By the 1980s, his gym-chain in the United States was 100-strong; his European Health Spas numbered more than 200.  He eventually licensed all of his health clubs to the Bally company, now known as Bally Total Fitness.

His syndicated TV show, The Jack LaLanne Show,  began in 1951 as a local daytime program on San Francisco's ABC television station with Jack paying for the airtime himself as a way to promote his gym and related health products.  He met his second wife, Elaine Doyle, while she was working for the local station and they married in 1959.  (He was first married to Irma Navarre for six years before her death in 1948.)  In 1959, the ABC network picked up the show for nationwide broadcast which continued until 1985, making it the longest-running (34 years!) television exercise program.  The show inspired viewers to used basic home objects such as a chair to perform their exercises along with him.  Wearing his standard jumpsuit, he urged his audience, many of who were stay-at-home mothers, to get off their couch and copy his basic movements.  His wife Elaine was part of the show demonstrating the exercises, as well as showing viewers that doing exercises would not ruin their figures or musculature.  The show also included their dog Happy (and later another dog named Walter) as a way to attract children to the show.  After more than 3,000 shows, he repackaged the program and leased it to ESPN Classic.

Besides producing books and videos on fitness and nutrition, he coached the elderly and disabled to not forgo exercise, believing it would enable them to enhance their strength.  Jack appeared in several movies, recorded a song with Connie Haines, marketed exercise equipment, a range of vitamin supplements, and two models of electric juicers (the Juice Tiger and Jack LaLane's Power Juicer).  Jack's book Live Young Forever was released in celebration of his 95th birthday.  In the book, he discussed how he kept healthy and active well into his advanced age.  During his impressive career, Jack received many accolades.  He has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as well as the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award from the President's Council on Physical fitness and Sports.  Jack was also inducted into the Muscle Beach Venice Bodybuilding Hall of Fame in 2007.

Jack LaJanne summed up his philosophy about good nutrition and exercise:  Living is a pain in the butt.  Dying is easy.  It's like an athletic event.  You've got to train for it.  You've got to eat right.  You've got to exercise.  Your health account, your bank account, they're the same thing.  The more you put in, the more you can take out.  Exercise is king and nutrition is queen:  together, you have a kingdom.

Jack LaLanne died at the age of 96 of respiratory failure due to pneumonia at his home in Morro Bay, California on January 23, 2011.  His wife Elaine, two sons (Dan and Jon) and daughter (Yvonne) continue to run the family business, BeFit Enterprises.

You don't need a business plan to be in business or to start a business, but it is recommended that you have clear, measurable goals with specific "actions" to be taken to achieve them.  Written goals provide you with focus and clarity, so take time to write down what you WANT (results or outcomes) and what you need to DO (actions) to make it happen for you this year.  Mazon would like to be part of that plan by factoring your business-to-business invoices this year.

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.

In our hectic, quick-fix society, one of the hardest things to accept is that it takes time to achieve our most important life goals. The concept of patience seems to have somehow been lost in a world that tells us, "We should have it all" and "We should have it now!"

As you work towards achieving your goals, there will be times when you become impatient because things are taking longer than you expected.  When you are frustrated and impatient, remember this important fact:  "If you are facing in the right direction, all you have to do is keep moving forward."

When you become impatient, take a moment to refocus on your goal and remind yourself how far you have already come.  Check that you are still facing in the right direction and keep moving forward.  Just as a building is constructed one brick at a time, you will reach your goal one step at a time as long as you don't stop moving forward or change directions.  Don't let impatience rob you of your ultimate victory.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, "Patience and fortitude conquer all things!"

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

Feb. 1: National Freedom Day; Feb. 2: Groundhog Day; Feb. 3: National Wear Red Day;  Feb. 4: Thank a Mailman Day; Feb. 5: Super Bowl Sunday; National Weatherman's Day; Feb. 8: Boy Scout Day; Feb. 14: Valentine's Day; National Organ Donor Day; Feb. 20: Presidents Day; Feb. 21: Marti Gras (Fat Tuesday); Feb. 28: National Tooth Fairy Day; Feb 29: Leap Day.  February is also American Heart Month, Black History Month and National Children's Dental Month.

Notice: Mazon offices will be closed on Monday, Feb. 20th in observance of Presidents Day. We will resume normal business hours of 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 21st. You may still submit invoices during our closed hours via fax, e-mail or drop-slot to be processed on Tuesday.

Each year on February 2, thousands of revelers travel to Gobblers Knob in Punxstawney, Pennsylvania (about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh) to witness the prediction of Punxsutawney Phil, a groundhog with the mythical ability of forecasting either an early spring or lengthier winter.  With the help of his keepers and protectors, the tuxedo-clad members of the mysterious Inner Circle called "The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club," Phil shares that prediction with the world from the region known as the Pennsylvania Wilds.

• If Phil sees his shadow, he predicts six more weeks of winter and returns to his burrow.  If he does not see his shadow, spring is just around the corner.
• The first legendary trek to Gobbler's Knob occurred in 1887.  This year, Phil celebrates 126 years of prognosticating.
• Crowds numbering as high as 30,000 have visited Gobbler's Knob for a multi-day festival celebrating the town's most famous resident -- Punxsutawney Phil.

The custom dates back to the early days of Christianity in Europe and grew out of a winter festival called Candlemas Day, a day for clergy to bless and distribute candles. According to legend, clear skies on Candlemas Day meant an extended winter snow.

The Roman legions, during the conquest of the northern country, brought this tradition to the Germans, who concluded that if the sun made an appearance on Candlemas Day, a hedgehog (who became part of the legend) would cast a shadow, thus predicting six more weeks of bad weather or "Second Winter."  Some of Pennsylvania's earliest settlers were German, and they noted a large population of groundhogs.  Because of its resemblance to the European hedgehog, the groundhog carried on the tradition.  (Source:  www.Groundhog.org)

Even in a little thing like a stick of gum, quality is important.

-- William Wrigley, Jr. (Wrigley Chewing Gum)

Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, was originally published in 1937.  It was founded on Hill's earlier work, The Law of Success, the result of more than twenty years of research based on his close association with a large number of individuals who achieved great wealth during their lifetimes.  Hill studied the characteristics of these achievers and eveloped 16 "laws" of success intended to be applied by anybody to achieve success.  Think and Grow Rich condenses these laws further and provides the reader with 13 principles in the form of a philosophy of personal achievement.  Think and Grow Rich has been revised and updated over the years, the most resent in 2004 which restored the book to its original content, with slight revisions; it went into a third printing in 2008.  (ISBN 1-59330-200-2)

An elderly Floridian woman called 911 on her cell phone to report that her car had been broken into.  She was hysterical as she explained her situation to the dispatcher: "They've stolen the stereo, the steering wheel, the brake pedal and even the accelerator!" she cried.

The dispatcher said, "Stay calm.  An officer is on the way."

A few minutes later, the officer radioed in.  "Disregard," he said, "she got in the back seat by mistake."

-- Contributed by Ron Finklestein, Akron, OH

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