Last week’s breakfast speaker was Mike Easterling, a “Baby Boomer”, one of the millions of babies born between 1946 and 1964. He eventually will be in the ranks of retirees who outnumber the working population—a dramatic shift in all of the world’s communities.

For his livelihood—and for the fun of it —Mike Easterling is a humorist in the corporate world. What can humor do? It helps rapport, gains attention, makes you stand out, makes presentation memorable, and makes people listen. Above all, Mike emphasizes getting people to laugh at themselves and the situation—not at others.

• Watch the video

Last week’s speaker was Steve Emerick (left) who is the Manager, Preferred Client Relations of Asset Strategies International. His talk was about adding gold and precious metal metals to individual portfolios.

In spite of the immediate “Why Not To Do It Objections” (Don’t pay interest, Storage, Sometimes high price, Occasional economic uncertainty (currently Cyprus). Steve recommended following his lead in making precious metals at least 5% of one’s portfolio. Think of them as home insurance (volume never goes to zero. They could prove the only backup under a true personal emergency.

Last week’s speaker was a 29-year-old man, Ben Rubenstein, who led us through his remarkable saga of coping with bone cancer during the past 14 years. His tool has been developing a “Superman Complex”, a mind-set to detach and rise above the trauma of treatment for so many years. As a high school sophomore, Ben collapsed while trying out for varsity tennis. Cancerous tumors were found in his bones. In spite of his local constant treatment, and his 100 days in Minnesota as a patient, Ben has earned an economics degree from the University of Virginia where no one knew about his cancer history. He now lives in Washington, has a job downtown, and has been well for several years.