My Natural

There have been thousands of sports movies throughout the years. Some have been absolute crap and most are mediocre at best, but there are that select few that remain deep-seated in our memories. Those movies not only invoke our passion of sports, they manage to cross over and teach us greater life lessons. They teach us the importance of hard work and learning from our mistakes. They teach us that the impossible can come true. That’s what I consider a great sports movie. Well, either that or it has to be really funny.

Below are my Top 10 sports movies of all time. There are some popular movies missing - either because I don’t think they are as good as everyone else, or because I haven’t seen them.

10. Major League - This one falls under the comedy category. Willie Mays Hays, Jake Taylor, Pedro Cerano, Rick Vaughn, and Jake Taylor somehow manage to band together to win the pennant in spite of their owner. It’s not the best comedy ever, but it’s certainly the best sports comedy ever. Major League 2 is equally as good. Let’s pretend that Major League 3 was never made.

9. Remember the Titans - The best part about this flick is that it shows how sports can transcend society. The unification of the black and white high school is successful only because of the bonds formed between the two schools on the football field.

8. Rudy - How can you not be inspired watching this? No one believed in this kid and he not only got into ND, he made the football team. Most people would have given up long before Rudy, and it is a testament to his character for enduring and being able to live his dream.

7. Miracle - I am a huge ‘Miracle on Ice’ fan so I was a bit skeptical about the movie. Usually they find a way to screw up history. But amazingly, Disney stuck to the story nearly perfectly. By involving everyone from the original team in the making of the movie, including the late Herb Brooks, they made sure the movie was accurate. I love having Al Michaels call the action; it feels like I’m actually watching the real game!

6. He Got Game - This film chronicles high school senior Jesus Shuttlesworth, the best college basketball prospect in the country, as he deals with pressures from his father and girlfriend who are trying to influence his decision for their own benefit. Ray Allen is the perfect choice for Shuttlesworth because Allen WAS Shuttlesworth in real life a few years before that. How many actors can make that claim?

5. Eight Men Out - The best part of the movie was that they didn’t try to dumb it down for Hollywood - they made a point to follow the story as it was told in the book. This meant that it had the feel of a documentary, which is probably why this movie isn’t that popular, but true sports fans will appreciate that what they are getting is close to the truth.

4. Field of Dreams - This movie will appeal to sports fans and non sports fans alike. Sports fans will love how they work in Shoeless Joe and other classic greats. Non sports fans will appreciate the fantastic journey that Ray takes to build the field of his dreams. “If you build it, he will come” is one of the great movie quotes of all time.

3. When We Were Kings - I’m too young to remember Ali as a fighter, but this movie truly shows his greatness. Forman is the superior fighter, but Ali uses his wit to defeat Forman in “The Rumble in the Jungle”, one of the greatest fights ever.

2. Hoosiers - If you ever need to get pumped up, watch this movie. Nothing seems impossible after seeing Coach Norman Dale lead his team to the Indiana state championship.

1. The Natural - I own the DVD of The Natural and I’ve seen it more times than I can remember. Yet, anytime I see it on TV I immediately freeze and watch. It captivates me like few movies do. Roy Hobbs gets that second chance that we all want. He had the talent to be the best pitcher ever, but had it taken away by a mysterious shooter. Years later, he reappears as an outfielder and leads his team to the top of the league with his famous “Wonder Boy” bat.

Disagree? Rate and review sports moviess at Movies.SportsLizard.com.

Adam McFarland owns the SportsLizard.com Network - a network of sports sites including collectibles, movies, books, video games, and more.

SportsLizard.com recently won honorable mention in the Microsoft Start Something Amazing Awards and was featured in the February 2006 issue of Tuff Stuff Magazine.

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April 11 of this year I was shopping for bed linens on the internet. I found some sheets on Ebay that seemed to be wonderful items at reasonable prices. One of them I liked was described as “Court of Versailles Queen Fitted Sage Sheet”. My bedroom is done in sage colors. Nothing could have seemed more perfect. The picture of the sheet was quite effective - it was just what I wanted. I couldn’t find out what the thread count was from the seller, as they weren’t quite sure, but I made a bid on the item anyway.

The seller was Ty Trading Company and my winning bid was a measly $23.21. The shipping charge was a whopping $13.46. Well, a total of $36.67 didn’t seem like too much to pay. I would have spent at least $10.00 on gas going to Macy’s or Bed Bath & Beyond. .

In case you don’t know how Ebay works, you have the option to either bid on an item or “Buy it Now”, depending on how it’s listed. This was a bid only item. I was so excited to have actually been the highest bidder in an Ebay auction. I paid for the sheet with my PayPal account.

Something strange happened. A few hours later I received an email from Ty Trading Company. It said that they could not honor my bid because I didn’t have a PayPal account. Well, of course I had a PayPal account - I had just used it to pay them for the sheet.

I called Ty Trading Company and was told that they were sorry, but I was out of luck. I surmised that perhaps they had gotten a higher bid at the last moment and had disregarded mine..of course I’ll never know what really happened. They refunded my PayPal account and I forgot all about it.

Meanwhile, later on in the month I wrote an ebook about how to cure acid reflux by natural means. I had been a victim of this condition for years. I had been taking prescription drugs, namely Nexium, and after a while the drugs didn’t work anymore. I desperately looked for an alternative cure. After much research and experimentation, I did heal myself of this wretched condition and decided to share it with others like myself. I started selling my ebook on my website, www.refluxgoneforever.com, and at the urging of a friend, I listed my eBook on Ebay.

I was amazed - the eBook started selling at a brisk pace. I was getting great feed back from my Ebay buyers. I was making a little money and helping others at the same time. Everything was going along fine, until I finally gave in to Ebays constant nagging to rate all the buyers and sellers that I had dealt with. I had been putting this off, but it was a rainy Friday morning and I had some free time. I thought I would finally get this much requested chore out of the way.

This is how it works. When you buy or sell an item, you are asked to rate the buyer or seller. You have three choices; negative, neutral or positive. You are then asked to type in some feedback remarks.

I gave positive rave reviews to everyone, with the exception of Ty Trading Company. After all, what they had done to me was not very nice. I couldn’t be honest and give them rave reviews, could I? I simply remarked that they had not honored my winning bid and had charged me anyway.

To my surprise, later in the day I received an email from Ebay notifying me that I had been accused of non payment of an item. Guess who made that accusation? Of course, you guessed right - it was Ty Trading Company. They were getting even with me.

Ebay should have known that a long time savvy trader like this company would not have waited more than a month to collect on an item that had shipped. In fact, without payment, the item wouldn’t have been shipped anyway. I wonder if Ebay is completely operated by mindless computers..are there any human beings there at all?

The Ebay message said that I had seven days in which to respond to and dispute the accusation. Boy, those seven days went by in the flash of an eye. Less than an hour later Ebay had awarded me a “Strike”. A strike is the worst thing that can happen to anyone using Ebay. It can ruin your rating in a heartbeat. Mine went down from 100% to 91% instantly. It’s like having your hand slapped by a mean old school teacher who mistakenly thinks you are the one who threw that paper airplane in class. Except this is a bit more serious, it can effect your livelihood.

Ebay certainly did not review the responses I had made to these charges. I had irrevocable proof of the payment and the refund concerning item # 4453528876, listed by Ty Trading Company. I had emailed that proof to Ebay when I first responded to the false accusation. I was right in front of my computer when that notification came through. I was writing a news release about saving the American Bald Eagle on the Upper Delaware River from the NYRI power lines. I had a deadline and had not left my keyboard all day.

It would seem that the Ebay system is loaded in favor of their big sellers. Had they checked the item number in question before setting me down, they would have seen the payment and refund of the item and there would have been no case against me. Maybe computers can’t grasp that kind of logic?

You see, each buyer and seller on Ebay has a rating at the top of their listing to sell, or next to their name when they buy. It is their policy that negative ratings are never removed from anyone’s profile. I suppose that this is done to warn potential buyers and sellers of the bad guys, however it apparently does not allow for mistakes or erroneous remarks. It certainly does not allow for lies, due to vicious vindictive behavior. I don’t think that this is a very good system.

I will certainly think twice about ever buying anything on Ebay again, unless it is a digital item which can be downloaded immediately after payment. Of course I am just saying this because I still have my ebook for sale on Ebay. I don’t want to discourage anyone from buying it. But who knows, if the computers read this article they may just kick me out. Maybe they have a rule forbidding account holders from writing critical articles about them.

When you have a rating of less than 100%, some prospective buyers will shy away. The big company I offended obviously didn’t like a little guy like me bringing down their rating, even just a little - so they got even. Ebay allowed them to do so - it’s their policy. I was told by an Ebay spokesman, “Unfortunately, we can’t remove Feedback just because it’s unfair or untrue.” Well, of course they could if they wanted to. They can do anything they like; after all it’s their game - their company. They make the rules. I take it by that remark that they support unethical behavior?

I suspect that my ebook sales will diminish considerably because of this. I have sent a letter of protest to Ebay’s dispute center in Utah, in an effort to have the negative remarks removed. However, I doubt that a company which you can’t even get on the phone will do any thing to correct this error. It’s an unfair and injudicious system at best. It certainly does not engender good relations with the very people on which Ebay depends.

So watch yourself when buying or selling on the world’s largest auction machine. You could get stung and your hopes for success dashed by an insensitive computer driven website and a dishonest merchant.

© 2006 Wind Publishing

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What do you think that biggest mistake is? Is it not finding the best source for your leads? Or maybe it is not finding the best “closing” sales method to really convert those borderline prospects. How about not having that “killer” sales letter?

It is none of these. The biggest mistake that many, if not most, network marketers make is that they don’t understand the REAL business they are in. They are not in the product business or “sales” business. They are really in the PEOPLE business, whether they realize it or not.

Now what do I mean by the people business? Well, it is the people you sign up and sponsor as your distributors or downline that are going to build your business. Our business is really creating long term positive relationships with others. And if you don’t understand how to treat them, how to tap into their internal motivations, you are going to be swimming upstream. If you learn how to treat the people you bring into your business the right way, your business will blossom and boom.

This really begins with the way you find those people you want to join your business. You need to have a true “service to others” attitude. They are going to join your business because of what’s in it for them, not for you. Finding your business partners needs to be a win-win for both of you. That means when you talk with people about joining your business you don’t start off right away with “Hello, Mr. Smith, I represent ABC business, and we are the greatest thing since sliced bread! ” And then go off into your sales spiel. You need to create that long term relationship. So you need to use a method that is “other” focused instead of “me” focused.

In the network marketing and MLM business, your REAL business is discovering people who are motivated enough to do their business on their own, rather than trying to sell someone on your concept of how to sell other people. People don’t like to be sold. They don’t like to be “closed”. But there are ways to turn it around so that they sell themselves. That means focusing your attention on the person.

The real business is training and mentoring those people so they can duplicate the business to do it on their own. Have you ever joined a network marketing or MLM organization where soon after you joined your sponsor pretty much left you on your own, wouldn’t support you and after a while wouldn’t even return your calls? If that hasn’t happened to you, can you imagine what that would be like? So don’t do that. Train your people to the highest standard, mentor them, be available for them and they will work harder to help themselves. Which will help you immensely in the long run.

Most people can be highly successful in network marketing if they can change their focus to helping others and working as much toward the other person’s success as their own.

Now, in this short article I cannot give you all the information you need to learn about how to do this process. But I can recommend two things that will help you on the road to learning how to turn your head around 180 degrees. The first is Michael Dlouhy’s free book “Success in 10 Steps (Home Business Warning: Don’t Get Toasted Like a Pop-Tart!). You can get it at

http://accomplish.successin10steps.com/defaultSTS.aspx?u=accomplish

This excellent book goes into much more detail about what network marketing is all about, how it is really teaching and mentoring. I learned a lot about motivating people and how that really works in network marketing. In the true spirit of giving and service to others, he even offers free “mentoring” calls several days during the week, which anyone can call in to. And it doesn’t matter what network marketing organization you belong to. Now, of course, he does make money by selling his system. But there is no pressure (and believe me I am very resistant to sales pressure). He really does want everyone to be successful.

The method I use for my business is called Natural Selling, in a book written by Michael Oliver. His book is called “How to Sell Network Marketing without fear, anxiety or losing your friends”. You can check out his web site at

http://www.naturalselling.com/

You can also buy the book at Amazon.com.

What his method teaches you is how to really understand another person, in terms of their wanting to start their own business, which is what network marketing really is. What are their motivations and why do they really want or need to join with you. It uses a no pressure, conversational method of you asking simple and direct questions to help you understand who the other person really is. It is truly “other” focused. It is putting the Golden Rule into practice. You learn how to “detach from the sale” so you can truly have the other person’s interests at heart. If you learn the principles and techniques in this book, you can even use them to make your own personal relationships deeper and better.
Just for the record, I do not make any money recommending these two excellent books. And, yes, I could be lying to you, but would that really be a good way to serve other people?

If you read either of these, I would love to hear your opinion of them. I think you will find both or either of these very enlightening.

Copyright 2005 by Steven Currie

Helping People on Their Road to Financial Freedom

Steven Currie
866-211-8012 Toll Free (Daytime Pacific Time)
866-574-6262 Toll Free (Evening/Weekend)
http://www.YouSendTheCards.com
Steven@YouSendTheCards.com

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