Attention Smokers: The new taxes are coming.
They will be here on July 1.
This is the banner headline I saw on one newspaper a few days ago.
I have talked about this at several recent networking group meetings, including my BNI group on Tuesday morning as I described the benefits of hypnosis to quit smoking and how you can do this effectively at Explore with Hypnosis.
Knowing my interest in helping people quit smoking and clear other habits as well, a friend from my BNI group e-mailed me this picture this morning.
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(thank you to Patrice Atkinson, from the New Brighton Parks and Rec dept for e-mailing me this pic)
Yesterday, as I was walking out of the grocery store, I overheard two older gentlemen standing in the parking lot grousing about the tax hike. One was complaining about how he was going to have to go to North Dakota to stock up on cigarettes. During the conversation, I heard each of them stop at least once during mid sentence to cough. I noted they clearly were short of breath, etc. Yet they were dedicated to the one thing that was burning up their lives - smoking.
So yesterday morning, during my weekly BNI (Business Networking International) meeting, I did a brief 60 second talk on the upcoming cigarette taxes. I presented some numbers as to how one can recover the costs of hypnosis for smoking cessation in six weeks.
Cigarettes are presently something lilke $6.00-plus per pack - at least that's what I saw in a convenience store window a few days ago. Add $1.60 a pack to that and we're talking $7.60 a pack. I have no doubt they will be up to $8.00 a pack in no time flat.
At $8 per pack, if you smoke one pack a day, that means you are burning $240 per month.
From the financial savings alone, you can recover the costs of a series of three hypnosis sessions for smoking cessation in about six weeks. From that point on, it's money in your pocket and fresh air in your lungs. So from a purely financial perspective, quitting smoking is just like getting a big raise. What could you do with that money? I can think of lots of things I'd do with an extra $240 per month.
Few incentives for change hit us as hard as a kick to the pocketbook. And the key factor in quitting smoking is just that, incentive. You save a whole lot of money and you get improved health, too. The last several quit-smoking clients I've had have done spectacularly well for just that reason. They were dedicated to freeing themselves of their addiction, and they had no desire to burn up over two hundred dollars a month supporting a stadium for some rich dudes.
In complaining about taxes, rather than quitting smoking, these two men were missing a tremendous opportunity. What if they didn't need to drive four hundred miles to buy cigarettes (at $3.50 per gallon for gas). What if they didn't have to pause in mid sentence to cough or catch their breath. What if they didn't have to pay to support a project neither of them were in favor of? They had an alternative - they could quit smoking.
Unfortunately for these two gentlemen, I didn't approach them. Their disposition looked pretty angry and mean and personal safety is a rather high priority for me. Yet I was parked right next to them with a big sign on my car window that says Explore with Hypnosis. They could have seen it, and hopefully it registered within their subconscious mind. One day in the future, hopefully they will notice (or remember) such an opportunity.
Yes, you can be free, healthy, wealthier - and you can even express a political opinion (whatever that may be) by quitting smoking. And here is your opportunity - the new taxes are coming...
