What a great day today is!  Christmas morning has always been one of my favorite days of the year.  Watching how excited the kids are to see that Santa came is priceless.  It brings me back to when I was a kid.

Here are a few pictures, one from last night, and two from this morning.  Hopefully everyone has a GREAT day today and enjoys the downtime spent with family or friends.

Here is my favorite present so far this year!

I am actually quite honored to have my best friend Karl write this weeks post in the blog. Throughout my tenure in business, Karl has always been the person I go to to for advice. When it comes to running a business, this dude knows his shit.

In the affiliate business we deal with emails, PM’s, and general internet B.S. all day. Karl actually has to deal with real people in the real world. He runs a a multi million dollar manufacturing business with his dad and this has always been an inspiration to me.

Although our wives somtimes don’t like it, some of my best business decisions are made on Thursday nights over beers.

Of all the people I know, both in online gaming and outside; Karl has one of the best business minds of anyone I know. So with no further ado, I give you Karl’s Monday morning message. And it is sooo true. Everyone can talk about what they are going to do, but all the ballers I know are do’ers that MAKE IT HAPPEN!

Stop Talking…Start “DO”ing by Karl Ericksen

Have you ever seen the commercial with the chubby little guy in the superman outfit with an “I” on his chest rather than the infamous “S”? The guy storms up the steps of his office building and rambles off typical corporate catch words in passing, to his co-worker. It appears he is going to storm the office and re-structure the direction of the slumping company in a single swoop. However, he forgot the single most important part of his equation….to be discussed later.

This hits home to me, so much, that it prompted me to write a post in Jeremy’s blog about it and, we discussed it over a few beers the other night. First and foremost, I am honored to post any such content on the site belonging to the man who has changed and directed my life in so many ways. The online poker community…(see, even I don’t know what he truly does, but I know I have been a part of his most important business decisions throughout his career, and plan to collect revenue on those decisions someday)…is truly blessed to have a guy like Jeremy in it. Jeremy and I have been friends for as long as I can remember, and I don’t know where I would be without him today. Thank you for your insight and countless memories JE.

The commercial I referred to above struck a nerve to me, because it reminds me of today’s corporate ignorance and run-arounds, and some of the people I work with. This topic obviously has touched others as IBM has chosen to dedicate a business strategy device, using this theory as the brunt of its marketing ploy. What strikes me when I see this commercial is it is meant to be funny, but it annoys me how true it really is in today’s business world. Corporate America and countless other organizations are full of those who know every single “Catch-phrase” and “trigger” words to make themselves look and sound important, when in reality they don’t know shit, and are simply hiding behind their new found vocabulary. I know, you are thinking about the movie Office Space right now, I know I am. Truth is, people like that exist. All talk no action.

Action, to me, is the single most valuable tool you have within yourself to succeed. Talking is too easy, and for most, requires little or no thought. Thinking is a natural process that takes place every second within our brain, with little or no direction at times. With that said, how you act on something is most important. Your physical actions, whether turning a thought into a process or business plan, or physically developing these things, are what really matters. At the end of the day, what you “act”ually produce is what really matters. Talking is only a preface to your actions, and actions are what matters, and THAT is what makes things happens. It is actions that make you a better person or employee. It is actions that develop your business plan into success. Not words. Words are simply an idea or thought, action puts them into place and put them into good use.

So, ask yourself…are you a talker, or a “DO”er?

Karl Ericksen (an Illinois resident) unfortunately is still a GreenBay Packer Fan. Although JeremyEnke.com does not endorse homosexual NFL fans, we do appreciate Karl’s business savvy.

I’m really not sure what to say about this post, except for the fact that I had two remarkable moments today that are contributing to it. Plus it’s Friday, so let’s have some fun!

Number one, I got a new crackberry phone last week. I have been searching for a specific ring tone for quite some time and finally found it.

Number two, while searching for this I came across a picture of an Asian girl in a bathtub, on a cell phone. Immediately I knew I had to incorporate these two events into a blog post.

So with that I bring you the Name That Tone contest, where one lucky reader in going to win a crisp new Hamilton! <——-For the Euros, this is a $20 Bill, and to you this means about $8 in the U.K……(probably not that bad yet, but getting there)

Anyways, here is the tone. The first person to post the correct response in the comments wins $20. Click on the half naked girl…. (not a rick roll either, I promise)

Hint: The answer will contain a name

It is not often that you will ever see me give endorsements on this blog. Nor will you see me advertise poker affiliate programs through affiliate links here.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been asked several times about advertising on the blog, and I’m certain I could make a fair amount of money if I accepted it. Nonetheless, I feel this would devalue my opinions on certain rooms and wouldn’t allow me to be open minded.

In the current landscape of poker affiliate programs, it is not often that I am so damn impressed with a program or individual that I feel I should run to the internet and give credit where credit is due. This is one of those rare exceptions however. Although a director now days, one of my favorite affiliate managers in the industry has always been Shenaz.

This week she proved why her reputation is amongst one of THE best in the affiliate management industry. Not only did CakePoker send actual Cake’s to their players, they also took care of their bigger affiliates and sent them Ipods. There is a thread running at PAW on this.

This was a classy move by the team at Cake and should be a marketing lesson to all the other programs on how to treat both players and affiliates. CakePoker exemplifies how you build brand loyalty amongst your most important assets, your customers.

It baffles me that players can play 10 tables raking 4K+ per month all year and never even get a “Thank-You”, or “we appreciate your business” email or gift. Or for affiliates, we can single handedly send 100K+ per month in PROFITS to a poker site and never even get a Holiday card.

The funny thing about the poker industry is that the value of money is basically negligible. Even for affiliates, good months, bad months, money comes and goes. The team at CakePoker actually understands the golden rule however; It’s the thought that counts.

I guarantee all the affiliates or players that received these gifts have a renewed loyalty to CakePoker.com. If you have never worked with or played at CakePoker before, you should. Not because I am writing this, but because actions such as this show that they truly care about their players and affiliates.

I am genuinely impressed Shenaz, Rob, & Krista. Nice work!

So sign up as a player at www.CakePoker.com or as an affiliate through the CakePoker Affiliate Program.…..Easter’s coming up in April!

Token picture of me and the Cake team below: