When Commuting Is A Way Of Life, A Train Tragedy Hits Home

Once again, tragedy grips my brave yet battered stretch of New Jersey corridor. This has not been an easy two weeks for New Jersey Transit or the millions of citizens who can call its trains and tracks and parking lots and platforms their second home. On the heels of a bombing incident at Elizabeth station and the subsequent capture of the bomber in Linden just a few miles down the track, a horrific accident at the Hoboken station left one dead and over 100 injured yesterday morning.

As part of the proud and populous cross section of society known as The Commuters, I live my life with the thought of trains somewhere in the front, back or constantly calculating corners of my mind. Each day, there is a voice inside that doubles as an inspiring life coach and ruthless timekeeper, asking: how long do I have to get ready before I have to get to the station? What train do I need to take to get to work on time? Which train will I make tonight? What time will that make dinner be? Which train am I missing because this meeting just won’t wrap? Can I make the train in time to pick up the dog from daycare? Can I make it home in time to take a quick bike ride before sundown? And so on.

As commuters, we spend a shocking amount of our days contemplating trains, and they are (both literally and metaphorically) the engines that make our lives go, go, go. But if trains are such an integral part of our everyday routines, the people we share them with must be as well... and that’s another fact I am just coming around to noticing.

A tragedy like Hoboken makes me realize that, like the trains themselves, we really don’t grasp how much the fellow citizens who ride the lines with us are part of our lives. If you ride the same trains at the same times every day, you are sure to see the same people again and again. The same cheerful (or, yes, maybe not-so-cheerful) engineers collecting tickets… the same harried businessman checking stocks on his i-Phone… the same industrious young woman touching up her makeup while taking a conference call… the same loving couple swapping pages of the New York Times… the same ear-budded upstart scrolling through his music folder. To them all, I’m surely “the same middle-aged neurotic guy audibly sighing and talking back to his inbox.”

As commuters, we spend a shocking amount of our days contemplating trains, and they are (both literally and metaphorically) the engines that make our lives go, go, go.

They’re with us every day, these familiar strangers. It’s both a habit and a comfort to see them in the same place at the same time, although nary a word is spoken or sentiment expressed. We don’t know their names or their occupations or their life stories, although we probably know exactly what they eat, drink and read every morning, which stop they get off at or which way they turn when they reach the top of the escalators at Penn Station.

When yesterday’s tragedy struck, I hadn’t begun my morning commute. Hearing the news, my first thought was for friends and colleagues living in Hoboken (all of whom are thankfully safe) along with those nameless yet familiar faces I ride the trains with every morning – and every single community of commuters just like us. Even though our particular train line doesn’t pass through Hoboken, the worry gripped me nonetheless – are they okay? In a horror that hits so close to home, they were the piece of “home” I longed to hear from, connect with. But in a tale all too familiar in modern day living, I don’t actually know them ― we merely co-exist in a choreographed dance known as the urban/suburban commuter grind.

First and foremost, my thoughts and prayers go out to all those injured and affected in the Hoboken tragedy. And beyond that, another sentiment grips me as never before. To all those friendly strangers who I walk by and wait with and ride next to every day ― as well as the heroic, hard-working conductors and transit staff who make it their life’s calling to take those journeys with us ― you are a part of my life and I am so glad to “know” you. And I’ll see you soon.

Edward 'Tiger Mike' Davis, The World's Meanest Boss, Dead At 85

Think your boss is bad? Odds are, he has nothing on Edward “Tiger Mike” Davis ― the meanest boss in the world. 

Davis was so surly even a quick hello would be out of the question. In a memo, he once wrote:

“Do not speak to me when you see me. If I want to to speak to you, I will do so. I want to save my throat. I don’t want to ruin it by saying hello to all of you sons-of-bitches.”

As owner of the Tiger Oil Company, Davis turned nasty interoffice memos into an art form.

It all began in 1959 when he married “one of the earliest cougars ever,” as his obituary states.

At the age of 28, Davis wed 69-year-old Helen Bonfils. He was a high school dropout and her limo driver until her husband, theater and film director George Somnes, died in 1956. She was the owner of the Denver Post newspaper. 

When the two divorced in 1971, Davis received what the book Here Lies Colorado called “a substantial settlement,” which he used to start his oil exploration business. And that’s where his memos entered the picture; these notes developed almost a cult following years later when they began turning up on the website Letters of Note.

For example, he didn’t like guys with hair below the ears:

Anyone who lets their hair grow below their ears to where I can’t see their ears means they don’t wash. If they don’t wash, they stink, and if they stink, I don’t want the son-of-a-bitch around me.

Davis had a potty mouth, but he made it clear he was the only one allowed to cuss in the office:

There is one thing that differentiates me from my employees. I am a known son-of-a-bitch, and I care to remain that way. I have the privilege of swearing publicly, in front of anyone, or doing anything I want to because I pay the bills. When you work for me, you don’t have that privilege.

On the other hand, Davis was open to new ideas:

If you have a suggestion on how we can improve our methods, your suggestions are more than welcome. The best way to submit a suggestion is to put it in writing, sign your name and send it to me by registered mail ― then you can’t say it got lost. I DON’T WANT ANY EXCUSES. 

“There was no one else like him; there was only one Tiger Mike,” spokesman Marcelo Anevcua told the Las Vegas Sun. “Things had to be done his way all of the time. That’s just the way he was. And he spoke the way he felt.”

His way included no “shabby attire” in the workplace. According to his memos, Davis was also opposed to  “birthday celebrations, birthday cakes, levity or celebration of any kind,” in the office. 

While the infamous memoranda were written in the 1970s, Davis remained active in the oil industry. In 2012, he settled a multimillion dollar lawsuit over a finder’s fee he received for a deal that went sour. And he continued to work as recently as this year.

“He was working until about six months ago — still drilling oil wells, mostly in the Wyoming and Nebraska area,” friend and colleague Kevin Trujillo told the Denver Business Journal.

Davis died earlier this month of complications due to prostate cancer, The New York Times reported. He was 85. 

His obituary in the Las Vegas Review-Journal insisted there were two sides to the man, the one in the memos and another Tiger Mike.

“If he loved you, it was Heaven. If he disliked you, it was Hell,” the obit noted. “If you were powerful and arrogant, he would destroy you. If you were down and out, he would pick you up, dust you off and change your life forever.”

Read more of his memos on the Letters of Note website, or in the book “Letters Of Note: Volume 2,” which will be available Oct. 11. 

Presenting the 2016 Madison Avenue Walk of Fame Winners!

Heather Taylor

The votes are in, the polls have closed, and Decision 2016 has been made! On Monday September 26, 2016, brand mascots celebrated Advertising Week’s 13th Annual Madison Avenue Walk of Fame — the advertising industry's version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame — by inducting the year's most iconic mascots and slogans.

Cleatus the FOX Sports Robot and Woodsy Owl were announced as this year’s winning mascots from a lineup of 26 nominees. Over 60,000 votes were cast online, making it the most successful voting year in Advertising Week history.

Joining the honored winners in attendance at Nasdaq’s Closing Bell were several other ad icons including Charlie the Tuna, Little Caesar, Vince and Larry Crash Test Dummies, The Laughing Cow, Sugar Bear, Chester Cheetah, The Nesquik Bunny, Horatio Magellan Crunch, Kool-Aid Man, Vlasic Stork, Pillsbury Doughboy, Mr. Peanut, Serta Counting Sheep, Travelocity Roaming Gnome, ICEE Bear, Slush Puppie, Rooty the Great Root Bear, and more.

In addition to the winning mascots, Sprite also took home honors with “Obey your thirst” inducted as the year’s slogan out of a pool of 26 brand slogan nominations.

Congratulations to this year’s winners and thanks to one and all for rocking the brand mascot vote!

The votes are in, the polls have closed, and Decision 2016 has been made! On Monday September 26, 2016, brand mascots celebrated Advertising Week’s 13th Annual Madison Avenue Walk of Fame — the advertising industry's version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame — by inducting the year's most iconic mascots and slogans.

Cleatus the FOX Sports Robot and Woodsy Owl were announced as this year’s winning mascots from a lineup of 26 nominees. Over 60,000 votes were cast online, making it the most successful voting year in Advertising Week history.

Joining the honored winners in attendance at Nasdaq’s Closing Bell were several other ad icons including Charlie the Tuna, Little Caesar, Vince and Larry Crash Test Dummies, The Laughing Cow, Sugar Bear, Chester Cheetah, The Nesquik Bunny, Horatio Magellan Crunch, Kool-Aid Man, Vlasic Stork, Pillsbury Doughboy, Mr. Peanut, Serta Counting Sheep, Travelocity Roaming Gnome, ICEE Bear, Slush Puppie, Rooty the Great Root Bear, and more.

In addition to the winning mascots, Sprite also took home honors with “Obey your thirst” inducted as the year’s slogan out of a pool of 26 brand slogan nominations.

Congratulations to this year’s winners and thanks to one and all for rocking the brand mascot vote!

Real Talk From 4 Airline Pilots On How To Beat Jet Lag

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome from the flight deck. Our nonstop service from Los Angeles to London’s Heathrow Airport has a flight time of 10 hours and 35 minutes. So sit back, relax, and accept our sincere apologies in advance for the debilitating case of jet lag during your stay in London, including falling asleep mid-conversation with the executive you needed to impress, and wandering, bleary-eyed, through a vacant Piccadilly Circus at 5:15 a.m. Looks like we’re first in line for departure, so enjoy the flight ― because jet lag’s coming for you, and it’s not going to be pretty. My co-pilot and I will be just fine, though.”

OK, so you’re unlikely to hear this kind of real talk from a pilot. But doesn’t it feel like the captain and her crew ― who seem to hop the International Date Line weekly without complaint ― know something you don’t when it comes to beating jet lag?

In partnership with United Polaris, we checked in with four long-haul commercial pilots to finally clue passengers in on the secrets of the flight deck, sharing their top tips for combating the grogginess and fatigue of traveling to another side of the world. With this guide, you’ll be crossing time zones like a pro before you know it.

Switch Up Your Sleep Schedule Beforehand

BFG Images via Getty Images

If you wake up one to two hours earlier a few days before a flight to Europe, your body will thank you later.

Overcoming jet lag starts before you step into the taxi to the airport. Begin adjusting your sleep routine three days before your flight, says Captain Lisa Mrozek, a commercial pilot for a major domestic carrier who’s logged 18 years of flying to far-flung locales. If you’re departing an American city for Europe, Mrozek recommends waking an hour or two earlier than usual. Conversely, try to stay up one to two hours later if Asian travel is on the itinerary.

Yet even in spite of all the proper prep, you may still nod off into a glass of chardonnay at your Parisian hotel’s bar. Flying east, Mrozek says, is just more of a challenge. “If you’re flying against the sun, it’s a lot harder on your body,” she explains. “If you’re going west, it just seems to be easier. That’s the general gist I get from most airline people.”

An All-Nighter Before Flying Can Only Lead To Sadness

Ryan McVay via Getty Images

Exhausting yourself the night before a long flight can be a recipe for jet lag disaster.

For once, your penchant for procrastination will serve you well! Or so you might think. If you’re up all night barreling through last-minute laundry loads, you’ll be knocked out for the duration of the 14-hour flight from D.C. to Tokyo, thus arriving in the Japanese city feeling fresh as a sakura blossom. Right?

Not a smart move, Mrozek says. “You don’t want to start out your trip tired,” she cautions. “Make sure you’re well-rested before you depart and that you have some sort of a base to start with.” Trying to catch a few Zs on a plane when you’re already exhausted isn’t a sure bet, and the quality of sleep you have may leave you feeling sluggish even when you’re on the ground. If you’re overtired, you might also have to skip that power nap after your 2 p.m. hotel check-in, lest you accidentally snooze until 10 p.m. ― and then stay up all night ― as your body tries to make up the deficit.

Your New In-Flight Cocktail: Water And Electrolyte Powder

Maciej Laska via Getty Images

Tempting, but just say no.

All of the pilots we talked to agreed: Hydration is key in stemming jet lag, especially as you while away hours in a plane’s pressurized cabin. So think of the beverage cart as more water fountain than booze barge ― avoid the dehydrating influence of alcohol or salty drinks like tomato juice and instead simply opt for H20. Captain Suzanne Skeeters, a long-haul commercial pilot with decades of experience ferrying passengers to cities like Mumbai, Bangkok and Frankfurt, recommends boosting the benefits of your water even further by mixing in powdered electrolytes, essential minerals that keep your body in an optimal balance.

Step Away From The In-Flight Entertainment

Fran Polito via Getty Images

We know the 14th viewing of “Frozen” is even more special than the first 13, but substituting sleep for binge-watching on the plane means having a better chance of beating jet lag after you land.

International flights have become, for many of us (cough, parents, cough), prime time to catch up on movies. But beware: binge-watching Meg Ryan rom-coms is liable to leave you Sleepless in your destination city. Mrozek remembers a family trip she took to Australia, in which her kids insisted on watching every movie on the plane they could, over her suggestion that they sleep instead. “They didn’t listen,” she recalls. “And we were up at 2 a.m. every night for the next five nights. We had to wait for the local McDonald’s to open up at 5 a.m. because they were starving and there were no restaurants open.” Their fellow patrons at that hour? The sequined, tipsy bar crowd. “It was kind of an eye-opener for them, let’s put it that way,” she laughs.

Test This Pill At Home First Or Face The Sleepwalking Consequences

Digital Vision. via Getty Images

If you’re not used to sleeping pills, taking them could lead to awkward cuddling with your neighbor.

To medicate or not to medicate? So many travelers weigh the question of whether to use sleep aids in-flight to mitigate the effects of jet lag. Of course, pilots aren’t allowed to use sleeping pills, says Kathy McCullough, a retired 747 captain of 17 years whose Tokyo-Singapore-Taipei routes would often take her from home for 13 days at a time. But melatonin, a hormone supplement which helps to reset one’s sleep cycle, is permissible for pilots and proved helpful to McCullough in managing her work-sleep balance. She now recommends it for others. “It kind of just quiets the thoughts in your head long enough so that you can go to sleep,” she says. “But it’s not a sleeping pill, so it won’t knock you out.”

Mrozek is more direct about sleeping pills. Unless you want to star in “The Flying Dead,” your very own mile-high zombie spinoff, she advises against using them on a flight if you’re not already accustomed to taking them. “We’ve had passengers take sleeping pills and then they sleepwalked on the airplane,” she says. “Or they keep sleeping and the flight attendants have trouble waking them up when they land.”

Get In A Workout At The Hotel Gym

Radius Images via Getty Images

Got back-to-back meetings as soon as you land? Squeeze in a quick treadmill session as soon as you hit the hotel and you’ll be in better shape to fight off jet lag.

Flights from the West Coast of the U.S. to Europe tend to touch down in the early afternoon, says Chris Cooke, a pilot with 24 years of experience flying commercial. Listen to your body if you’re tired and take a nap ― no more than two to three hours ― but then get active if you’re looking to keep jet lag at bay. “If I’m staying longer than 30 hours, I have to exercise,” Cooke says. “Even if it’s just getting out and walking for a half hour or going to the gym in the middle of the night, that’s what I do.” Regular exercise, especially after a long bout of travel, will keep your body operating at peak conditions, which allows your internal systems to more nimbly adjust to changes in eating, sleeping and other activities.

Shut Out The World In A Room That’s Cool And Dark

swissmediavision via Getty Images

Not pictured: Restful slumber.

You’ve finally made it. Arrived at your destination well-hydrated, took an afternoon nap, and kept yourself busy and awake with exercise and meetings until the local bedtime. Now all that’s left is to let yourself drift off into a full night of sleep. And with the right hotel arrangements, enjoying a truly restful slumber could be well within reach.

“Go for a really cold room so you can snuggle under the covers and sleep much better,” McCullough advises. A room that fully blocks out light can further ensure you’re maximizing restorative R.E.M. sleep. “They have shoji screens [in Japan] that fit together so tightly, hardly a crack of light comes in the room,” McCullough recalls of her usual base of operations on Asian routes. So go ahead and cocoon yourself in your suite. By the time you emerge, you’ll be more than ready to get the day started ― on local time.

United Polaris is United Airlines’ all-new business class service, featuring a reimagined, built-from-scratch experience that prioritizes sleep and rest with the goal of making jet-lagged business travel a relic of the past.

This Family Went A Whole Year Without Buying New Clothes

This article is part of HuffPost’s “Reclaim” campaign, an ongoing project spotlighting the world’s waste crisis and how we can begin to solve it.

In June 2015, Emily Hedlund gave herself a challenge: She would go an entire year without buying any clothes. 

At first she thought she’d try it out on her own. But because she was also in charge of clothes shopping for her husband and young son, she expanded the experiment to also include them. Hedlund calculated that she spent hundreds of dollars each year on thrift store finds and cheap fast-fashion impulse buys, stuff she and her family didn’t feel any connection to and never actually wore.

Together, they had enough of a stockpile to keep themselves dressed for a year, Hedlund thought. There was just one potential hitch: She was pregnant ― her second child was born two months after she started the challenge ― and would need clothes in various sizes. Fortunately, she had a strong rotation of summer dresses, activewear, leggings and jeans, including items from the first time she was pregnant. 

Hedlund shared her pledge on Facebook and her personal blog to keep herself accountable. And to eliminate temptations, she unsubscribed from emails from companies like Old Navy, Victoria’s Secret and American Eagle, which peppered her inbox with emails about sales.

It worked. With the exception of a single pair of running shoes, Hedlund succeeded in not buying any clothing for anyone in her family for one year. Along the way, the exercise in frugality brought her attention to something else entirely: the clothing industry’s staggering wastefulness. This problem, Hedlund realized, was fueled in part by people like herself, who bought too many clothes they didn’t need or even really want.  

Worldwide, people buy more than 80 billion pieces of clothing each year. Compared to other household expenses, Americans are buying more clothing than ever before but spending less. These purchases power a fashion industry where pollution, waste and unsafe working conditions are too often seen as simply the cost of doing business ― unsettling truths that Hedlund realized as her experiment progressed.

“There’s this whole dark side of the fashion industry that I’d heard of but wasn’t really aware of,” Hedlund told The Huffington Post. “It definitely wasn’t at the forefront of my mind when I started the ban, but now it just makes me want to keep not buying clothing.” 

There’s this whole dark side of the fashion industry that I’d heard of but wasn’t really aware of.Emily Hedlund

It’s not necessarily naïve to think that one person’s actions can impact a trillion-dollar global industry notorious for its lack of transparency. Consumers can pressure retailers into slowing the hyperproduction that leads to so much waste, said Christina Dean, founder of the fashion waste reduction organization Redress. 

By controlling their consumption ― that is, buying less stuff ― consumers can “send a clearer signal to the big players that are producing billions of garments a year that they don’t want to buy so much and they don’t want to buy cheap stuff that’s badly made,” Dean said.

Hedlund, who lives in St. Louis, began to think about her own place in a larger system when, in the midst of her yearlong experiment, she invited a group of friends to her home for a clothing swap. They arrived toting garbage bags full of unwanted items, many of which were from fast-fashion brands like H&M and Forever 21. When they’d finished picking over each other’s stuff, most of it remained unclaimed.

“There was so much left over,” Hedlund said. “I could not believe how much.” Afterward, the bulging trash bags sat in her dining room, waiting to be donated. “It just gives you an idea that there’s so much overconsumption going on.” 

Courtesy of Emily Hedlund

Hedlund began hosting clothing swaps at her St. Louis home. The sheer number of unwanted items opened her eyes to problems of overconsumption and waste. 

Hedlund has assigned herself other challenges, including frugal grocery shopping and buying (almost) nothing at all for an entire month. She’s part of a community of bloggers responding to consumer culture with an ethos of minimalism, a lifestyle category containing everything from decluttering to tiny houses.

Even some businesses, counterintuitively, are encouraging people to buy less. Cladwell, a minimalist clothing app, helps customers curate a wardrobe of fewer, higher-quality items, with a stated goal of crusading against the fashion industry’s wastefulness.

“As a society, we’ve consumed our way into this mess,” Cladwell founder Blake Smith told HuffPost. “So it’s my belief that we can’t consume our way out of it.”

Self-congratulatory expressions of minimalist living have earned plenty of critics. To people who don’t have enough in the first place, celebrations of “less is more” can sound more like a luxury than a sacrifice.

“Minimalism is a virtue only when it’s a choice, and it’s telling that its fan base is clustered in the well-off middle class,” Stephanie Land wrote in The New York Times in July. “For people who are not so well off, the idea of opting to have even less is not really an option.” 

Hedlund gets this. She was able to go a year without buying clothes for her two children because she was able to inherit hand-me-down coats, mittens, socks and shoes from a friend with four sons.

Courtesy of Emily Hedlund

Hedlund's sons Shiloh and Malachi, pictured here in hand-me-downs from a family friend.

For those who take dramatic steps to curb their shopping habits, it’s about bringing sustained attention to a part of everyday life they once took for granted.

When Andrew Morgan began making “The True Cost,” a documentary about the human and environmental consequences of the fashion industry, he vowed not to buy any clothing until he finished the film ― which ended up taking two years.

“I just wanted to reset. I wanted to step back and say, ‘I want to figure out what I believe in and where I want to buy stuff,’” Morgan said. “And that was an awesome exercise.” He kicked his habit of buying cheap, poorly made items at fast-fashion companies and now shops almost exclusively at secondhand stores.

For Hedlund, changing habits took some time. At first, she missed the feeling of buying and having new things, and even the act of shopping itself. As summer turned to fall, she felt the urge to rush out and buy fleece-lined leggings, leather boots and other cold-weather comforts. She even kept a list of things she planned to buy once her yearlong embargo lifted.

But as time went on, the urge to shop began to fall away. In the three months since her challenge’s end, she has treated herself to two $3 dresses from her local Goodwill. She hasn’t even looked at her list, and doesn’t intend to.

“I didn’t actually need those things,” Hedlund said. “I just thought I did.” 

More stories like this:

• We Buy A Staggering Amount Of Clothing, And Most Of It Ends Up In Landfills.
• The ‘Chilling’ Moment This Father Realized Where His Kids’ Clothes Come From
• Before Buying More Clothes At H&M, Read This
• Dressing Like A Cartoon Character Made Me Happier, Calmer And A Better Consumer
• This Company Is Basically A Hospital For Sad, Damaged Clothes
• Why This Company Wants You To Fall In Love With People’s Old Jeans
• These African Countries Don’t Want Your Used Clothing Anymore

8 of the Best Tips For Successful Link Building in 2016

Are you looking to improve your site’s rankings through successful link building? Well, here are some useful tips to help you along the way.

1.Offering Military Or Alumni Discounts

If there are any local universities in the area, you can benefit from offering discount to the alumni. If there is a page on your site explaining the discounts, it’s effortless to reach out to the local alumni and link to the sites. On the other hand, you can also try out military discounts. However, you might have to do a little outreach and follow-ups to get the links you need.

2.Local Connections Or Meet-ups

Try sites like meetup.com to find out if there are any active groups planning reconnections in your locality. Of course, the groups need to be related to your business but you can also reach out to other local groups for the best results.

Look for those groups that need a place to meet and offer your business as a venue. It’s one of the easiest ways to find local links. On the other hand, you can try out any groups looking for sponsors. For as little as $100 or $50 each month, you can provide refreshments at these meet-ups and get as many links as possible.

3.Hosting A Community Event

Try throwing a party and invite the entire city if possible. You can try emulating the local car dealers who are always throwing events for the localities they live in. You should consider theme parties such as 4th of July barbecues or cookouts or egg hunts during Easter for the kids. If you throw an event that’s open to the public, you can rest assured that you will get local links or social media mentions.

4.Local Resource Page

Keep in mind that resource pages don’t refer to trading links with the local businesses. Basically, it’s a way of sharing enticing information with outsiders about your locality. For instance, if you love smoked meat, you can always list the best barbecue joints in the area. If you love the outdoors, share a list of places where families can do the same. If the information proves useful, it’s a guarantee that other sites will offer links.

5.Local Awards

Most cities have local awards they offer to notable businesses. These might include crowd favorites, excellent community service or vertical-specific awards. Do as much research as possible to find out which awards your business might be eligible for and try getting a nomination. With the results getting published online, there is a guaranteed chance that the winners will get links to their sites.

6.Relationships And Reputation

Unless you’re running a completely new business, you have already established reputable relationships with other businesses in the area. Therefore, take advantage of the existing relationships and get as many links as possible. Try connecting with other business that offer similar products to build a good baseline. Since you know the business owners, it’s very easy to get links.

7.Local Celebrities

Are there any celebrities in your locality? Well, you should mine them for links to your business. For instance, if you have celeb golf buddies or attend social functions with prominent people, you should try getting links from that. If you don’t know anybody famous, you can always find acquaintances who know such people and connect to them accordingly. With these sources, you’re bound to get the best links.

8.Local Directories

When looking for citations, local directories are the best sources. On the other hand, you can also use them successfully for link-building purposes. Most cities have numerous directories so you can do a quick Google search to find the best ones in your locality to suit your needs.

Try these link-building tricks for the best results.

Meet Two Guys Who Are Changing The Fate Of Real Estate

In 2010, I was at a low point in my life. I had lost my job in the mortgage industry and had been blackballed from working in the profession again. I reached out to my longtime friend and referral partner, Michael Reese and we met up at the Gengis Grill in Frisco, Texas. On that particular day, Mike was amped up. Now, he's an excitable guy anyway, but this day he was over the top.

He didn't know it, but I was there to ask him for a job. I had always admired his work ethic and I wanted to be a part of his team. As fate would have it, the "working for you" conversation never took place. Instead, we talked about the Internet and the future of real estate.

During the time we were talking, I just nodded and agreed with Mike, having no idea in the world what he was going on about, chatting about how he and his partner Jay Kinder were working on a way to streamline the real estate process by pairing online and offline processes together. Again, it was all gibberish to me, but it sounded interesting.

Flash forward six years to the moment I witnessed firsthand, the operation Jay and Mike had been dreaming of. It was just a few days ago that I was able to tour the National Association of Expert Advisors (NAEA) facilities in Dallas, Texas.

To say my mind was blown is an understatement.

I've seen my fair share of real estate operations. I've helped launch and run ads for some of the biggest real estate firms on the planet. Yet, I've never seen anything like the partner program Jay and Mike have created.

Nothing even comes close to what they've birthed.

Mr. Reese and Mr. Kinder have taken the monotony out of real estate. Matter of fact, they have automated all the work agents hate. Cold calls, email marketing, pipeline follow up, CRM management--the "hard work" has been removed from the equation through the use of Jay and Mike's business strategies.

The Kinder Reese model allows agents to focus on what they do best: real estate. When members of the NAEA partner program get a lead, it's a real live lead. Matter of fact, it's more than a lead. It's basically the handoff of a new client to the agent and the agent getting to work for them immediately.

Most real estate agents will joke as they agree; the knowledge acquired in order to pass the board exam is rarely used in the field. Serious agents know sales and marketing drive real estate. Yet, they don't teach sales and marketing in real estate school. With the NAEA model, agents can focus on using their real estate knowledge and leave the sales and marketing to the automation side of the operation.

This partner program is so game-changing, Mike and Jay plan on teaching the model and fully launching it at their upcoming Exponential Growth Summit (EGS) from October 9-11 in Dallas, Texas. Each year, Mike and Jay go all out with an amazing line of speakers, and this year, you can expect more of the same.

The current roster of speakers is the best to date. Darren Hardy from Success Magazine will come by and impart knowledge in his own amazing way. Dustin Black, CEO of Black Tie Moving, will be speaking on how he grew an idea into a multi-million dollar moving company in a crowded market, and in less than five years. Josh Altman of Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles will be discussing real estate investing and how to sell high-end properties. Several other top tier speakers are also on the schedule. I'm one of them! I'll be speaking on selling in the modern marketplace.

Jay and Mike are revolutionizing the fate of real estate by altering the course of how real estate is bought and sold.

Their vision is so far into the future, it will be years before the big brands catch on.

Keep your eyes and ears out for these guys. Mark my words, "They will change the game."