Memorizing the Wealthiest Celebrities of 2017

Memorizing the Wealthiest Celebrities of 2017

The list of the Forbes wealthiest celebrities for 2017 has just been released and they certainly are worth a lot of money!  A fun mental exercise to boost your brain power is to memorize the top 10 celebrities on the list in a way where you can recite them from top to bottom or bottom to top.

The Top 10

As a reminder, here are the links to every number to which you will associate with the people on the list.

They are:

1. sun
2. shoe
3. tree
4. door
5. hive
6. stick
7. heaven
8. skate
9. wine
10. pen


Now, we'll take a look at  the Top 10  Celebrities list (as of December 2017).

They are:

1. George Lucas, $4.6 billion
2. Steven Spielberg, $3.7 billion
3. Oprah Winfrey, $2.8 billion
4. Michael Jordan, $1.2 billion
5. David Copperfield, $850 million
6. Diddy, $750 million
7. Tiger Woods, $740 million
8. Dr. Dre, $710 million
9. James Patterson, $700 million
10. Jerry Seinfeld, $670 million

Now, let's link the celebrity with the memory aid for each number.

1. George Lucas/sun - Imagine George Lucas directing Star Wars under the hot desert sun

2. Steven Spielberg/shoe - Imagine Steven Spielberg wearing his running shoes, everywhere!

3. Oprah Winfrey/tree - Imagine Oprah Winfrey lounging under a majestic tree

4. Michael Jordan/door - Imagine Michael Jordan poster on a door (plus hoop!)

5. David Copperfield/hive - Imagine David Copperfield doing a magic act with a bee from a local hive

6. Diddy/stick - Imagine Diddy with a selfie stick

7. Tiger Woods/heaven - Imagine Tiger Woods in golf heaven

8. Dr Dre/skate - Imagine Dr Dre and his skate-board speaker

9. James Patterson/wine - Imagine reading a James Patterson book with a glass of wine (hey there, George Clooney!)

10. Jerry Seinfeld/pen - Imagine Jerry Seinfeld with the astronaut's pen that writes upside down.  Take the pen!!!

After you create these images, you'll find it very easy to recite the list from the top or bottom and to instantly recall any number. Quick, what's number 6?  Stick - Diddy

With the links, you can substitute other words for the numbers, such as one-gun or eight-gate but any word will do.  Have fun with the exercise and use it for any top 10 list that you can find useful!

My Twitter Page

My Pinterest Page

How Some Very Famous Brands Were Started

Here are some more inspirational stories about how some famous brand names were started.  They are stories about companies being started by people who found success through innovation, hard work and making the most of opportunities given to them.



BOEING

Wilhelm Böing left Germany for the United States when he was 20 and labored at menial jobs, including farm work.  After he met lumberman Karl Ortmann, Böing found made a sizable fortune by purchasing land in Minnesota for both the timber and the minerals

Böing dies at the age of 42 but his son William Boeing continued his father's business and made his own fortune in the lumber business.  In 1909, he was in Alaska and saw a manned airplane for the first time.  This led to a fascination with airplanes and a friendship with fellow enthusiast Conrad Westervelt who agreed with Boeing that they were better off building planes themselves.

After changing their company name Pacific Aero Products Co. to Boeing Airplane Company and receiving 50 orders for planes from the U.S. Navy (thanks to Westervelt), Boeing was able to literally take off.  His later focus on commercial aircraft, passenger services and airmail enabled Boeing to become the famous company that we all know today.

MENNEN

Gerhard Heinrich Mennen was another German immigrant who founded his New Jersey company in 1878.  What led to his company being formed?  It was a  bout of malaria that led to Mennen taking an interest in pharmaceuticals while he was recovering.  

His remedies included Mennen's Borated Talcum Infant Powder, which was the first talcum powder.  Of course, other products came about including Skin Bracer, Speed Stick and Lady Speed Stick along with that famous jingle "By Mennen", made popular again on Seinfeld!

COLGATE

Colgate and Mennen have a connection in that Mennen was bought out by Colgate-Palmolive in 1992.  Colgate itself was founded by William Colgate who left England in 1804 to settle in the United States and make his own fortune.  After working as a apprentice in the soap industry, he was able to open his own business two years later in New York City.

During that time, soap was traditionally made at home although the process wasn't easy (animal fat and lye were used) and the resulting product didn't have an agreeable aroma.  Colgate's soap business offered home delivery and also added perfumes to the soap.  Customers found that they preferred  buying a perfumed cake of soap as opposed to making it themselves!

Of course, Colgate eventually became most famous for selling toothpaste.  The company sold toothpaste in glass jars but then was the first to package it in collapsible tubes, an innovation which continues to this day.  Indeed, the efforts of Gerhard Mennen and William Colgate can be seen in the many products we use to keep ourselves clean!

TUPPERWARE

The iconic brand Tupperware owes its success to two people who thought outside the box, or container (to put it another way).  Company founder Earl Tupper developed the airtight plastic container that replaced glassware to store food while Brownie Wise successfully marketed the product thanks to her innovative and famous Tupperware parties.

Earl Tupper first had a landscape and nursery business that was a victim of the Great Depression.  Although a major setback, this led to his employment with the Dow Chemical Company in 1937.  Like William Colgate, Tupper saw his employment at Dow as an ideal way to learn about the industry, namely plastics.  He was able to turn polyethylene slag from an oil industry waste product into plastic containers.  Inspired by paint can lids which naturally had to keep the cans airtight, he developed the Tupperware plastic container which sealed in freshness. However, plastic wasn't popular with households yet and glassware was still preferred when consumers shopped in hardware and department stores.  How were shoppers to be convinced that Tupperware was better than glassware? Enter Brownie Wise.

Brownie Wise was a divorced single mother who made ends meet by selling brooms door-to-door.  She had a natural charm and was gifted at persuading people to buy her products. However, she wasn't able to gain a promotion to upper management at her company due to her gender.  She might have settled for being an above-average salesperson had she not been introduced to Tupperware products by a member of her sales team. Seeing the potential, she opted to use house parties to promote Tupperware rather than simple door-to-door sales.  

Gathering women together for a fun event, Tupperware reps were able to be shown firsthand how leak-proof the containers were.  Instead of a boring sales pitch, the women were treated to a fun social gathering with their friends, family and neighbors.  As Wise wrote, "The buying spirit is contagious; it is a proven fact that you will sell more to a group of 15 women than you will sell to them individually.”

Combined with innovative ways to reward top sellers, such as speedboats and exotic vacations, Tupperware and Brownie Wise's network marketing techniques have become major stalwarts that are still prominent today.

My Twitter Page

My Pinterest Page

Motivational Quotes About Learning From Failure

There are very few quotes from successful people that say they succeeded with very little effort or on their first try.  Failure is a part of achieving success because that is where we learn from mistakes and apply those lessons.  Successful people learn to adapt, try a different approach and gain the knowledge required to realize their dreams.  

As the quotes show, accepting the lessons of failure applies to many walks of life, whether it be celebrity, sports, writing or business.  As Abraham Lincoln said, "My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure."

My Twitter Page

My Pinterest Page