You know me…always looking for the positive angle. It’s part of my DNA. (Or how I was brought up if you ever talk to my mother.) .

Regardless of who’s fault it is, I found a very positive article about the airline industry that I wanted to share in Travel Weekly. I did a short piece on Examiner.com just before the Thanksgiving holiday weekend that caught my eye. AirTran was predicting a 5% increase in air travel during the busy travel holiday weekend over last years numbers. Unfortunately, the ATA (Air Transport Association) wasn’t so sure and was predicting a 4 percent decline during the same period.

Much to the delight of Continental, Southwest, JetBlue, Alaska and AirTran, they too saw a significant increase for the entire month of November now that they’ve looked over the data. As a result, the numbers have most in the industry looking at 2010 in a much different light.

Not all the airlines reported an increase for the month. (Namely Delta, American, United and US Airways) However, the entire industry did see a slight uptick of 0.2% across all the airlines for the same period. According to AirTran Senior Vice President and CFO Arne Haak “The worst is behind us” as the industry has been experiencing close to double digit decreases in traffic in 2009. Prior to this current quarter most everyone in the industry has been extremely cautious. The news coming out of New York at the Next Generation Equity Research investors conference was a welcome change. It prompted Delta’s CFO Hank Halter to quote “demand will remain strong” and more executives stating that they are “starting to see more promising traffic and bookings”.

As an additional sign that the tide is starting to turn United ordered 50 new aircraft last week due to some very attractive pricing. (We can’t forget Carnival’s order of two new Dream Class ships last week either.) Like deals clients have seen to fill seats, rooms, and cabins, suppliers are starting to pull the trigger on some attractive deals of their own. Materials and supplies for building both aircraft and ships right now are looking very attractive for those who are willing to go after them.

And that’s exactly what we’re going to need to get us out of this funk we’ve been in. Those who think Government is that answer with it’s “stimulus package” or “bailouts” simply don’t get it. It’s spending in the private sector that stimulates the economy. The transfer of cash from one to another for a product or service.

We didn’t get here overnight, and it’s going to take more than one good month or a few orders to right this ship. But news like this catches the attention of those who have been “thinking” – into actually “doing”. This recession won’t last forever, and the companies who are willing to step out and spend on expanding and building now will be the ones best poised to take advantage of the recovery when it hits it’s full stride.

Regardless of when it happens, it’s good to see news like this and people starting to look at the future in a more optimistic light.

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Heading out today for fight the chaos in the stores?

Not us. We’ll be spending more time as a family this year as the girls crowd around the laptop and check out Facebook for the best shopping deals of the weekend.

Confused about what Facebook has to do with Black Friday and the busiest shopping weekend of the year?

Just another innovative idea from the good folks at YTB who will be posting cyber specials all weekend long to help me, you, and anyone else who wants to avoid the crowded malls – saving both time and money this holiday weekend.

I gotta hand it to the YTB Home Office. They really know how to marry and capitalize on the latest and greatest market shifts.

Let’s face it – purchasing products over the internet is more the norm these days rather than the exception. Stores like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Macy’s, Sears, The Home Depot, Bass Pro Shop, The Finish Line, Champs, Target, Boarders (all right – you get the idea here) wouldn’t create these sites if people weren’t actually spending money on-line right?

Because I do so much shopping on-line my inbox has been flooded with all kinds of cyber deals this week to get ready for Black Friday. Best Buy is sending me this – Boarders is sending me that – and the vast majority of the deals are internet only. Some may be as small as free shipping and others are an additional discount for shopping on-line with them. The point here is that each of these retail stores have a new medium to reach customers in order to increase profits at a time of year that could make or break their bottom line.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 MILLION people also subscribe to Facebook to connect with friends, post pictures, post links to funny videos and find the best deals for this years Christmas list.

Haven’t seen that last bit yet about the Christmas list? You will if you know where to look.

Because shopYTB has the inside track from hundreds of stores this holiday season, they’ll be posting all their specials this weekend on their three top fan pages for you to simply browse, find a deal you like and then go out and snag. If a deal from one of these major retailers wasn’t good enough, you can access the store through the shopYTB portal (something you can sign up for and do for free right here) you’ll get additional savings in the form of cash back.

Don’t have a Facebook account? Not a problem – each of the following pages are public – meaning you don’t need a Facebook account to see the long list of deals that will be posted this weekend.

www.facebook.com/CoachTomer
www.facebook.com/JKimSorensen
www.facebook.com/YTBDealsandSteals

Simply hit up one of these pages during the weekend for a list of specials and stores that are offering up some great savings this weekend. You can forget the crowded malls, the traffic, and the chaos that Black Friday always brings this time of year.

Save more time with family.

Save money.

Save your sanity.

It’s just a better way to shop for Christmas this year.

Thanks YTB!

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One of the reasons why I like Thanksgiving so much is because it’s the one time of year that most people take the time to be thankful. If some would realize what gratitude would do for their daily lives, a lot more people would use the practice on a daily – or at least weekly basis. The concept of stinkin’ thinkin’ would be a thing of the past.

As I start to formulate some of my goals and things I want to accomplish moving into 2010, there’s been a new resurgence of late about using gratitude as a daily practice. I do take time nearly every day to think about things I should be grateful for. Just this little effort has been so profound, that I’m not only doing more and more of it, but it’s one of the first New Years Resolutions on my 2010 list.

If you’ve watched the movie “The Secret” or read anything related to personal development and self improvement, one of the most significant and simple things you can do to improve any outcome is taking the time each day to write down a few things you’re grateful for. It doesn’t need to be fancy (although I’ve seen “Gratitude Journals” you can purchase for this very practice) but it should be done as a way of moving the negative things out of the way and allowing more positive and meaningful events and opportunities into your life.

Earlier this week I caught wind that Oprah is ending her long running talk show after 25 years. I may have seen her show less than 5 times for whatever reason in all those years. One of those times was to watch an episode with the teachers of “The Secret”. I believe it was James Arthur Ray who said you can’t receive anything new until you let go of the old. It’s like trying to fill a bucket – you can’t fill it with anything new, until you empty out some of it’s current contents. It’s a known scientific fact that the mind can’t compute two opposite thoughts or feelings at the same time. You can’t be both angry and happy at the same time. You can’t picture a tall building and a small building at the same time, and you can’t think about being sick and healthy at the same time.

What a gratitude journal does is help you empty out the old negative thoughts and feelings and replace them with more meaningful and useful thoughts that empower you. Your life always moves in the direction of the minds most dominant thought. Have you ever noticed how people who always complain about being sick are always sick? The people who constantly complain about bad things happening to them or always complain “why” have such bad luck?

Transversely, those who are constantly happy go lucky always have all the luck. Those who talk about moving up the company ladder are the ones sitting in the posh corner office with the new promotion.

This Thanksgiving, I have very personal and practical experience of what letting go of the old – negative aspects in your life and replacing them with new more empowering thoughts of gratitude can do.

About 2 months ago I made a choice to put the YTB critics on ignore. I quit reading the garbage and trash talk because the practice had broken through responsible and respectable social norms. The ideas and perspective of this small group had never matched my own experience or knowledge obtained from more reliable and unbiased sources. Furthermore, throughout this last year others who were exposed to the tactics labeled their activity as “redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter” while another outside source called the emotional outbursts a “bizarre and complete waste of time“.

Therefore, I made the choice to let it all go and move on.

I don’t remember, nor am I going to dig up the exact quote or thread, but I did go back once since I made this choice. While reading the comments section someone called someone else a “goats butt” and the words stopped me dead in my tracks. After being removed for some time, the words were extremely glaring and brought the entire two years of bantering into perspective for me. When I asked myself what value the activity possessed for anyone who read it, I couldn’t even justify it with an answer – so I simply hit the little “x” at the top right hand corner and haven’t been back since.

As a result, I’ve been able to focus more time and effort on more productive and meaningful articles that promote the value of YTB. Home life has become much more loving and fun – and opportunities have presented themselves that have produced a better financial foundation for everyone involved.

In addition, because I’m not being fed all this negative crap about how impossible it is to succeed, I’ve actually been able to resolve a couple of issues. One of the most time consuming over the last two years has been a dispute with a number of credit card companies who decided to change their rules and finance charges. Because I took exception to the changes and decided to fight, several suits were filed and a battle ensued in court. Because of various changes in legislation and because the National Arbitration Forum was not only exposed as a fraud but shut down, and coincidentally because I stopped reading how impossible it was, I resolved and cleaned up the mess I created for myself.

To state that I’m grateful to have these suits settled and dismissed by the plaintiffs is an understatement.

My family life has grown to new heights. Ronda has seen the changes in my ability to get more done now that I don’t spend so much time reading nothing more than insults, and I tend to be more responsive to the needs and responsibilities as head of the house. The kids are doing exceptionally well in school. While there’s always room for improvement, we’ve learned some new ways of motivating and helping them resolve any problems or issues they encounter. As a result, there is more open communication between us as they continue to learn and grow. Kids will be kids, and they’ll always explore boundaries – but there is far more confidence in our abilities to parent and help them grow into responsible adults.

We’re also spending more time together as a family. Not only have we spent time together on a cruise, but the holidays will also be spent with extended family for extended periods of time. Because I’m in the drivers seat with my own business and opportunities, we can enjoy this time together.

Lastly – and probably most importantly – I continue to be blown away over the readership of this blog and our newsletter. I started this blog back in 2005 and the newsletter a little less than two years ago. To see the traffic and the links created pointing here and how the newsletter has grown to thousands of subscribers is humbling. To think that an average guy like myself can have the following I’ve created and the friendships that have been formed because of both this blog and newsletter is a true testimony of what honesty, persistence, and a desire to help others can truly do. Each hit to this blog, and each subscriber that comes in for the newsletter is something that I give thanks for each and every day.

I believe that none of this would have come to fruition if I didn’t extract the negative and focus on the things that I should be grateful for in my life. Some of them are small, like watching my daughter actually empty the dishwasher and vacuum the rug right now. Others appear to be large, like the two year battle I endured with the with critics and the credit card companies. The point here is that no matter how big or how insignificant you might think anything is, you need to give thanks for anything that happens because no matter what it is – there is a valuable lesson to be learned.

If you can learn and grow – no matter how uncomfortable it might be to take responsibility and face it head on – that my friends is something to be truly be thankful for on the other side once you’ve been able to see the fruits of your labor and choices.

Be thankful and grateful – not just tomorrow – but each and every day with an attitude of gratitude and watch you life and circumstances change like it has mine.

Happy Thanksgiving all!

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Each year the family swaps holidays with each set of Grandparents. This year we’ll spend Thanksgiving with Ronda’s side of the family and Christmas with my side of the family. Next year we’ll switch holidays. It’s something we’ve always done, long before the kids ever came along and it works for both us, and our families.

With Thanksgiving comes the annual start of the Christmas shopping season and Black Friday. It’s a day I’ve tried to avoid like the plague. I hate crowded malls, the parking nightmare, and hoards of people. While the girls don’t seem to mind the experience, shopping at one set of Grandparents on Black Friday just to transfer it to another set of Grandparents for Christmas does raise the problem of attempting to smuggle it back home in the car so the kids don’t see what we’ve bought. Then there’s the added problem of transporting the presents to and from Grandmothers house for the Christmas holiday. (Can you imagine the shipping charges or airline baggage fees associated with all those presents under the tree?? Yikes!)

I’m happy to report that most of these problems have been resolved this year thanks to shopYTB.

I’ve always been a big fan of shopping online and have been doing it for years. This year, because of what YTB has created for both ourselves, family and friends, we can all eliminate the nightmare of shopping the traditional way this holiday season – along with the added bonus of getting cash back when it’s all said and done. So far, it’s looking as if the shopYTB concept is the start of a new tradition in our family during the holiday season.

What got the ball rolling was my wife and mother who have been planning just what presents to get for the kids this year for Christmas. Mom had found the perfect doll house for Brittany and wanted Ronda to see it. While the two discussed the item over the phone, Ronda went to the internet to look it up online.

Not only were we able to find the item online, but also found one of the better prices through WalMart.com.

As an added bonus for everyone involved – Ronda can access the WalMart.com web site through the shopYTB portal, purchase the doll house, and have this large item transferred (site to store) to the WalMart near my parents for my mother to pick up free of charge. It also keeps the item out of Brittany’s prying eyes and hands here at home and she has no idea it will be sitting under the tree this Christmas.

We’re also finding other items from stores that offer free shipping, which eliminates the need to even hit the crowded stores and malls this Christmas season. In addition, I’ve had the unpleasant experience of hitting several of the same stores because one store was completely out of stock. I’m seeing more and more products offered exclusively online that are not found in stores – expanding the offering with more products to choose from.

While I’m also aware of the extended hours each store operates during the Holiday Season, it still doesn’t beat the 24/7 hours available from the comfort of our own home. Just after the kids went to bed last night, we ordered new bathroom decor for the kids bathroom that they’ve picked out. (A new beach and surf theme, fresh off their cruise experience.)

This year, not only is shopping for Christmas going to be far less of a hassle, but it will be nice to actually receive a check with cash back for doing it this way come the beginning of the year. Each purchase saves money in an assortment of ways.

If you’re like me, it one heck of a deal – and avoids all the hassle of the Christmas shopping season.

Just one more reason and example that makes YTB a great value for me and my entire family!

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It was 25 years ago this Thanksgiving that I participated in one of the most unique and memorable Thanksgiving Day feasts I’ve been able to recall in some time. I was working for a Top 40 radio station at the time in Pittsburgh. I had started with this station as a lowly intern, a college dropout, and when the internship ended I stayed on in various capabilities just because both they and I worked very well together. For many years I considered my time with B-94 my college education. I learned so much from this experience, and thanks to the relationships I formed there, when other Radio DJ’s went on to bigger and better things, I was often called upon to work with them.

We ran a promotion this particular year and asked people to write in and tell us what they were grateful for that particular Thanksgiving Day. A parent who’s brought them up, a teacher who has mentored them, an employer who’s provided insurance for a sick child, the letters came pouring in. As they did, the letters were read at various times of the day, and some were even able to read their own letter over the phone to be broadcast over the air.

The winner of this contest would win a fully catered Thanksgiving dinner, with all the fixings, on none other than the Mayflower. Now you may be wondering…Mayflower? Ah, you need to think a bit “outside the box” here. Like a “moving box”.

A school teacher actually won this contest and I can still remember the look on the families face when they saw none other than a Mayflower moving van pull up in front of their home. Inside the trailer was a fully waxed and polished hardwood floor, dinning room table with seating for 10, fine china, crystal glassware, silver to match, fall centerpiece with candles, and the wait staff who served this piping hot Thanksgiving feast inside the Mayflower?

Pilgrims.

The promotion got all kinds of television news coverage that year, and for many like me, it’s had a lasting memory decades later.

Many of us tend to only think about being thankful on days like today. It’s as if we can’t be too thankful, as if there’s not enough to go around. Well, there can never be enough thankfulness in this world. Starting today, and being thankful for what you have right now, will bring about even more people, places and things that you can be thankful for.

I got an e-mail yesterday from Rhonda Byrne, the creator of The Secret.

The greatest thief of human happiness and abundance is ungratefulness. Any lack in our lives – whether in money, health, or relationships – is simply the evidence of a lack of gratitude. If you focus on lack you are not being grateful, and that will bring more lack into your life. Yet the simple state of radiating gratitude summons everything to you.

Because I’ve focused on being grateful for each and every visitor to this Blog, what I thought would take 2 to 3 months for people to actually find and link to has taken less than 3 weeks. I’ve already had traffic that rivals some of the best days I’ve ever had in all the years over on the other blog format. Links pop up on the first instead of second or third page, and I’ve expanded my reach to actually help some of the people that have been laid off from Liberty Travel, and clients who were concerned about their sunk cruise booking with Cruise Value Centers. Not to mention that the Newsletter subscription has gone through the roof.

Take some time today to be thankful for what you have as you spend time with extended family. (Mine is flying in from Pittsburgh this morning, as they know a really good Travel Agent who got them a great deal!) Then see if you can extend that gratitude into this weekend. Before you know it, it’s going to be Monday and you’ve spent the entire 4 days being thankful and watch what happens.

It’s a great time to do it and you can start right now.

And thanks for being a part of this new blog. I’m honored and grateful for you taking the time to be here on this special day.

Now where’s that moving van? I’m hungry!

PS - If you're involved with YTB, sign up for our FREE Newsletter. As a Website Owner or Website Seller, we'll keep you up to date with all the latest news, acquisitions, and developments with YTB.

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