And before you ask – No, I haven’t lost my mind – all day our brains are working hard to forget things so we don’t get overloaded and have a brain meltdown. Can you even imagine what our heads would be like if our memory actually remembered every single detail, from every sense – smell, touch, sight, hearing and taste – from every moment of every day? Let’s not even think about it!

The Big Question

How does your brain know what you want and need to remember?

Our brains need to be given clear signals about the things we want to remember, and that is a huge topic to cover, so I’ve outlined 4 easy ways to ensure you never forget again:

1. Focus, concentrate, remember
Looking or listening for a second or so isn’t long enough to for your brain to remember. You need to concentrate for seven seconds if you want to remember something later. Initially, seven seconds will seem a long time but, if you spend this time repeating, connecting or visualizing the data, you will remember it.

2. Downsize – only use ONE diary.
Put everything in there so that you are not looking through several places each time you want to check something.

3. Organize your surroundings.
Establish places for all of the items that you regularly lose, and use them! Hooks for your keys, drawer for your wallet, mobile, glasses and diary – all need a defined place where you put them. Concentrate while you place them there – this will avoid that all too familiar last minute dash about the house looking for your glasses in the morning!

4. Give your brain some help!
Remembering appointments ahead of time is much easier if you give your brain as many ‘hooks’ as you can. In your mind, embed the details of the appointment in as many ways as you can:

I’m meeting the accountant on Thursday at 9.30 am.

• What is his/her name?
• Where will I park the car?
• Which floor of the building is it on?
• What do I need to take?
• What questions will I ask?
• Where will I go once I have left that appointment at 10.30?

Use as many senses as you can:

• visualize the clock, the building and face of the accountant,
• ‘hear’ the questions you will ask,
• ‘feel’ the papers you will need to take, and so on.

I bet you are already thinking that you haven’t a spare seven seconds to do this?? Well, just think of how many minutes you waste trying to remember the time, day, location and name if you haven’t committed them to memory. It’s a no-brainer!

Forgetfulness can ruin your confidence and your life
When you forget something important, you feel all at sea and your confidence can take a serious hit. This does not have to be the story of your life. Taking a few easy actions can quickly provide certainty in your memory, every day.

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Blog Post BY:
Gillian M Eadie
CEO
The Brain and Memory Foundation

The author, Gillian Eadie founded the Brain and Memory Foundation. Gillian is an award-winning educator with more than 20 years as a principal at several prestigious private schools and is a Churchill Fellow. For more free help and personal advice on diet, exercise, brain food and improving your memory please visit the Brain and Memory Foundation. You’ll also find lots more information and tips like these in the great new book by Allison Lamont PhD and Gillian Eadie, Seven Second Memory

By Dr Allison Lamont

Have you ever been in that uncomfortable position when you were about to introduce a long time dear friend of yours … and yes, your mind went totally blank … you simply could not remember her name?

If so, then please read this true story…..

“This moment will stay with me for the rest of my life.

We had just moved into a new house, in a new neighbourhood, and were entertaining some of our new neighbours, on a gorgeous late summer evening out on the terrace.  I had invited some old friends to come along as well, and my dearest friend was helping with the drinks etc.  She came over and as I introduced her to the couple next door, my mind went blank, like my head was full of cotton wool and I couldn’t remember her name.

My closest and dearest friend, who had gone to primary school with me, been bridesmaid at my wedding, and I couldn’t remember her name!

To say I was horribly embarrassed would be the understatement of the century, but fortunately she laughed it off and put it down to the stress of meeting and entertaining a bunch of new people.  I, however, went into a mild panic about it – after the party, of course.

Was I going mad?  Was I losing my mind?  Was I starting a slippery slope into senility?

Dr. Allison Lamont’s research has discovered that the storing of memories is a highly dynamic system, which is interwoven with your emotions, how you view things and your actions.

From birth to death the brain files away faces, facts, sounds names and events along with the emotions that are connected to them. Our ability to create, store and recall new memories when we need them allows us to learn and interact with other people.  Remember the days when you knew everyone’s name and face instantly? In those days, you never seemed to have to struggle for clues – you just knew. You were probably about 14!

Actually, until you find yourself searching frantically for a name you really know quite well (like your best friend’s), you’ve taken the skill of recognition for granted. But it is actually a very complex process and it isn’t until your memory has let you down, that you begin to realize this.

In our new book Seven Second Memory we explain that to remember and recognize someone, you have to bring together an amazing range of stored memories that, if you remember, come together quite unconsciously.

These include facts about someone from your semantic memory (same school/married Sally/three daughters/drives a Lexus), the relationship the person has with you (I know him/played football on the same team) and episodic memories (we visited a bar last time we were in town) and then, the person’s name. At the same time you may have an emotional response to the person (I don’t get on with him, really). If there is a malfunction in the remembering process, it could be because you are distracted by other thoughts, stress or maybe one too many margaritas! Or it could be, if the person is only slightly known to you, that you did not encode the information well enough into your memory.

It takes seven seconds of concentration to create a memory trace in the long-term memory.

Once new information comes into the short term memory, it goes straight to the brains’ processing plant (hippocampus) and is then moved along to the long-term storage department.

Paying attention is like shining a light on what needs to be remembered – focusing on the information creates the all important pathway to memory.

Try these tips for remembering names and faces:

• Pay attention to the person and note any distinctive features of the face.
• Focus on the name and process it a little. Ask questions – Is that Graeme with an ‘e’ or an ‘h’? Does McCallum mean you are Scottish?
• Try to take time a few minutes after meeting the person to review and visualize what you know about them.

Memory lapses can be troubling and irritating, but they are not signs of dementia, and do not mean you are on that slippery slope into senility!

Research shows that these little lapses happen at least once a week to young people, and two to four times a week, typically, for older adults.  The best news, though, is that by exercising and training your brain, it can stay healthy and agile well into old age.

You’ll find lots more tips like these in the great new book by Allison Lamont PhD and Gillian Eadie, Seven Second Memory.

Dr Allison Lamont, PhD, MA (Hons) and Gillian Eadie, MEd, BA, Dip. Tchg, LTCL established the Brain and Memory Foundation to ensure that all baby boomers realize that brain and memory improvement is possible at any age. The brain can regrow and these new connections provide the best buffer against memory loss in later life. Beginning on an active memory plan works best if begun in the late 40′s, early 50′s.

Gillian and Allison, baby boomers themselves, have addressed international conferences and their book, “Seven Second Memory” has helped thousands of readers in USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Zambia and New Zealand.

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Websites: brainandmemoryfoundation.org; sevensecondmemory.com

By Dr Allison Lamont, PhD, MA (Hons)

Have you?

• Ever put your glasses down then five minutes later can’t find them?
• Gone to get some milk and come home with everything but?
• Forgotten the name of someone you know well?
• Lost the word you were just about to say?
• Forgotten why you just walked into a room?

What a nightmare it is when time is against you, you’re in a crowded parking lot, your phone is ringing, you’re scrabbling for the keys you know must be somewhere in your over-filled handbag, there are cars as far as the eye can see, in every direction and, you DON’T HAVE A CLUE where you left yours?  Is this your worst nightmare too?

Why does this happen?

Well, it’s quite simple really – you just weren’t paying enough attention when you parked.

Every day you are being bombarded with information through the senses of sight, touch, taste, hearing and smell. If you remembered it all your brain would explode! (Well, not really, but you get the idea.)

Contrary to media buzz that urges us to multi-task every day, the human brain can focus on only one thing at a time. Not everything needs to be remembered and your brain has efficient ways of making sure you remember only what is important to you.

Probably when you were parking, you were thinking about the shop you needed to get to, how much time you had until you needed to be driving out again and how you were going to handle your teenager who flew out of the house this morning, slamming the door.

Until recently it was believed that by the age of 50, brain cells were lost daily at a prodigious rate and signalled a rapid slide into senility.  In later years it does become harder to remember where keys were left, names, dates or what was done two days ago.  But science has established that it’s more likely your memory powers have dulled simply because your brain (and maybe your body!) is no longer in tip top shape.

Dr. Allison Lamont and Gillian Eadie have written a whole book about this called Seven Second Memory which explains that forgetting and mis-remembering are normal parts of everyday life – at all ages!

Scientists are just beginning to understand why people forget.

From the age of 40 or 50 most people notice some degree of change in their cognitive (or mental) abilities, including memory.  Without regular brain exercise, the number of synapses (meeting points between neurons) diminishes so less information can be transmitted. But research shows you have the power to improve your memory, regrow brain connections and sharpen your overall brain health, and that the normal degree of changes in memory, abstract thinking, reasoning, imagination and insight caused by ageing varies from person to person

Your brain will quickly ‘forget’ anything that you have not committed to long-term memory so, if you put down your keys or wallet – or even park your car – on autopilot, without thinking, then your memory will let you down.

To remember where things are, you need to focus on the item, concentrate on where they are being placed. You need to create a ‘memory trace’.

It takes seven seconds of concentration to create a memory trace in the long-term memory.  Once new information comes into the short-term memory, it goes straight to the brains’ processing plant (hippocampus) and is then moved along to the long-term storage department.

Paying attention is like shining a light on what needs to be remembered– focusing on the information creates the all important pathway to memory.  There are ways to help your memory, though. Try these tips for remembering where things are:

• Always remember where your car is parked:

Look for the closest parking spot, keep track of the number and level of your parking spot, jot this down and look out for landmarks like stores, large signs or trees. You can even take a photo with your phone if you are really having trouble with this one!

• Always know where your keys, glasses and wallet are:

Designate a dish as your official wallet and glasses holder, keep this dish (or simply your wallet) on a table you’ll see it on your way out. Say out loud: I am putting my wallet in this dish.

Leave keys on a specific hook and always hang your keys up there. Make a point of it. You can attach a paging or remote locating device to your key-chain. Giving a trusted friend or family member a spare might save your sanity in an emergency.

You’ll find lots more tips like these in the great new book by Allison Lamont PhD and Gillian Eadie, Seven Second Memory.

__________________________________________________________________________

Dr Allison Lamont, PhD, MA (Hons) and Gillian Eadie, MEd, BA, Dip. Tchg, LTCL established the Brain and Memory Foundation to ensure that all baby boomers realize that brain and memory improvement is possible at any age. The brain can regrow and these new connections provide the best buffer against memory loss in later life. Beginning on an active memory plan works best if begun in the late 40′s, early 50′s.

Gillian and Allison, baby boomers themselves, have addressed international conferences and their book, “Seven Second Memory” has helped thousands of readers in USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Zambia and New Zealand.

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Websites: brainandmemoryfoundation.org; sevensecondmemory.com

If you have, as I have countless times in the past, you’ve possibly thought, ‘I want to make some changes in my life, I need to change, but I don’t know how to do that, so, in due course you do nothing you break your resolution … again.

For others though, the desire to make some life changes is potently strong, but there’s a proviso – it must be lasting positive change.

If you have those feelings do you know who you can you talk with, someone with whom you can brainstorm ideas – certainly not someone who thinks your ideas are ridiculous, but someone who is creative, and a positive thinker?

You may not want to brainstorm or look for ongoing guidance from your family, your friends or your work mates, so who do you talk with?

In a simple nutshell, a life coach!

Life Coaching has become one of the fastest growing successful professions of the last decade and it’s continuing to grow with boomers and seniors adding to that growth.

Why is it growing so fast, because it’s practical and it works!

Life coaching doesn’t reflect back on the past, it’s a future focused, non-judgemental process where you can work with a life coach to improve or change one or more areas of your personal or business life, or both. You can do that for a week, a few months, or years as some do.

Beginning from the present, and that’s important to understand, a Life Coach helps to inspire and empower you to achieve the changes or the goals YOU set yourself.

Life coaches are not counsellors, not therapists, not psychologists, not business analysts; they are people who have undertaken specific study to achieve the recognition of being a Certified Life Coach.

But those people can be like you and me, who want more out of life, and people who want to help others because that can be so very satisfying.

But the big question is why do people want a Life Coach?

There’s any number of reasons, but some of them are:

• Transition periods like career change, divorce, job loss or retirement
• Managing a life after the children have left home
• Adjusting to living and working in a new country
• Having an unfulfilling job
• Wanting a new career
• Living in a remote area

Many people understand there’s a lot more to life, but they don’t know how to achieve that, so they explore their options with a Life Coach.

Technology has made this new profession even more accessible for both a Life Coach and their clients. The use of email, Skype, video coaching and webinars makes it easier for those isolated by distance or travel, or those with heavy commitments during the day.

The list of reasons for having a Life Coach, are endless, as are the benefits and the same can be said for becoming a Certified Life Coach.

There are no age barriers so don’t think you’re too young or too old, in fact there are no real barriers or limitations at all, just the limitations you put on yourself.

Becoming a Life Coach is a positive move for the over 50’s, by then, you’ve experienced a few high and lows, a few hurdles and successes, made several moves, had a few transitional periods and above all … lived life.

Having said all that Life Coaching is not suited to everyone.

You need to have a keen, eager interest in not only learning something new, but also, a genuine desire to help empower and inspire others to reach whatever goal or goals they want to reach down the road.

Life Coaching is a powerful positive process and if one of your New Year resolutions was about change and doing something new, either just for yourself or to learn and gain new knowledge so you can help others, while you generate an income, then take a look at the following three questions.

Would you like to find out more about Life Coaching?

Would you like to help others to achieve their goals and be paid to do that?

Do you feel now is the good time to do something new and worthwhile, and something you would enjoy doing on a daily basis?

If you answer yes to any of those questions, you can find out more about Life Coaching by clicking on the link below.

When the page appears, just insert your name, email address and country in the area provided, and shortly after you’ll receive a link for a free tele-seminar about Life Coaching, conducted by a colleague, Sandy Forster.

An international multi-award winning business owner and founder of the Inspired Spirit Coaching Academy, Sandy created a powerful training program for Life Coaches, which is recognised around the globe, and from her base in Australia, she travels the world helping others.

Click here for more info!

What’s happening?

There are more seniors and boomers than ever before and this demographic is on the rise. In less than 10 years our rapidly aging population will result in one in two people being over the age of 50.

Now add to that aging equation people living alone. The numbers for this demographic are growing at a staggering rate.

While there are significant implications arising from these two life issues, there is a related area definitely worth highlighting.

Why? Because it’s an aspect of life that is rarely discussed today.

One of the smartest things we can do in our mature age is to follow that famous motto, ‘be prepared’.

Why? Because the grim reality of life is one day, death will come knocking at the door.

It could be a family member, but more likely a neighbor, a friend, or someone you hardly know and you may be the only one to pack up their possessions.

Most people never think of this scenario.

How many people do you know who are living alone? How many of these have little or no family around or living?

Given this ever increasing aging population with so many people living alone wouldn’t you think more people would seek information and importantly ensure their own affairs and important legal documents are current.

Sadly over 50% of people in English speaking nations don’t even have established a Will or any other key documents. If there’s none, this can leave remaining family members in utter chaos and often causing them considerable financial stress.

On top of that subject, there’s one area most people not only don’t talk about, (this includes estate planners, other legal and financial professionals) it’s also an area for which most adults are totally unprepared.

What is it?

How to pack up, sort and distribute, all the possessions, all the household contents, of a person who has died, because it’s nothing like moving house.

We all need to address this subject with some seriousness that it deserves.

Knowing what to do if you are called in to help or even totally pack up the possessions of a person who has died, is a fact of life, we need to know what to do.

Ask anyone who has done this task and they will probably say it was the most stressful task they’ve ever done.

But probe them further and no doubt they’ll say, ‘I didn’t know what to do, or I didn’t know where to start, or where not to start, what dangers and shocks that could occur, how to handle aggressive relatives and neighbours, and how to determine how long it would take.’

It’s not just a case of going in, getting rid of what you think is rubbish or trash, and tossing that out, then packing everything up, all the possessions, then taking those to the local charity or auction house or distributing some items to relatives or friends. No, it’s far more than that.

Following the considerable research results I received, it was distinctly apparent, that everybody needs to identify in their Will, at least one or two people to wrap up all the possessions regardless of how many possessions are involved.

Detailed step-by-step instructions and checklists are included in ‘Wrapping It Up – The Ultimate Guide’, and when the time comes to pack up for a loved one or friend, if the suggestions are followed you will find wrapping it all up will be much easier …and far less stressful.

Remember the grim reality of life is one day, death will come knocking at your door. It could be a family member, but more likely a neighbor, a friend, or someone you hardly know. Be prepared.

Remember the famous motto … ‘Be Prepared’ it is truly apt here.

Read it Before You Need It

‘Wrapping It Up – The Ultimate Guide’

Cher owned one, so has Rod Stewart, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronald Reagan, George C. Scott and Steve McQueen.

It’s a vehicle that could boast ‘limousine to the stars’ and has jaw-dropping appeal.

While Diana Todd-Banks has never graced the silver-screen, she can now add her name to the illustrious list of Excalibur owners.

Diana collected her car from the US late last year and immediately set about making it compliant to Australian Design Rules.

Now fully compliant and registered, the car, all 2.5 tonne of it, has been bending necks on the Gold Coast since early December.

For Diana it has been a 35-year dream come true. Living in a Chicago ghetto in the late 1960s she was doing her weekly shopping, on $10 a week for herself and her student husband.

It was depressing…her neighbourhood was violent, even terrifying, she had little money, with a husband who was a student at Chicago university. She was not legally allowed to work.

“I remember being in the supermarket and while waiting in the queue she picked up a magazine… I opened the page and saw it.

“There was a picture of an Excalibur and my eyeballs just about fell out.”

“Dad and Mum both loved cars, so I always had an appreciation of classic vehicles.”

That was 35 years ago and barely a day passed without her giving some thought to the car she saw in the magazine.

Five years ago, and three husbands later, she moved to the Gold Coast, her 47st move, in a lifetime of roaming the world, selling Vegemite and Australian wine to the Yanks, being a sales manager of then the world’s largest Hyatt Regency Hotel, being a classical guitar teacher and running a cooking school, a life full of real stories!

Having settled into the Gold Coast, the Excalibur still haunted her and so she began making contact with the American makers of the car.

A favourite aunt told her, “If there’s something you really want in life, do it now,” she took it as a sign to take action on her dream.

Where’s there’s a will there’s a way and in no time Diana had located her dream Excalibur in the US.

The car arrived in September last year (2004) and immediately went in for a right-hand drive conversion, and a raft of other changes to meet Australian Design Rules.

On December 1, she took delivery of the massive machine in Armidale and drove it back to the Gold Coast.

“It took some getting used to,” she said.

“From the end of the bonnet there’s another metre before the front of the car, so it’s a bit tricky until you get used to it.”

Diana is hoping to have the car earn its keep in movies and TV commercials and is hoping it can somehow be used to raise money for the local charities.

“I know my dad would be looking down now and smiling,” she said.

“He would approve”!

The south side of Chicago was a terrifying place to live in 1969, particularly for a young couple from Adelaide. The husband studying at the University of Chicago.

The race riots of the late’60s were still fresh in the memory and housing for the

University was at Hyde Park, in the heart of the city’s African-American ghetto.

Arriving on September 1, 1969, the couple had only summer clothes. Their winter clothing, along with pots, pans and other equipment essential for living, were on a small cargo ship, which became icebound for six months in the Great Lakes.

“More demoralising still was the fact we had to live or, rather, exist for 20 months in a small bedroom barely bigger than a double bed,” recalls Diana Todd-Banks.

It’s not fun for two people trying to live on $10 a week in such circumstances, trying to eat three meals a day, seven days a week.

“It was a desperate time, terrifying and enormously depressing for me. I was alone a lot with nowhere to go for help,” she says.

“We were too proud to call our families for help because we we’d had so many going-away parties. It was up to me to apply some serious lateral thinking to find solutions to my dilemma.

“I could not work as I had for the previous 12 because my visa did not permit it. My goal was to stay sane and level-headed. I had t find something to keep me mentally active at no cost and I needed a goal.

“Going to the supermarket terrified me; the stories I had heard from other expats were frightening. But I had to do it, as well as find a way to create a nutritious meal for 33c.

It sounds impossible but I did it.

“The supermarket foods were different; they targeted the poor African-American. Offal, beans and rice became our staple diet.

“On special occasions we tried Kentucky Fried because the containers it came in were useful…the cardboard bucket lids became a joint dinner plate; juice tins from the supermarket became sauce pans; soup tins became cake tins.”

With the cold weather setting in and the young couple freezing, the magazine racks in supermarkets became Diana’s solace. It was while flicking through the pages of a magazine that a goal appeared.

“So my Excalibur dream was born out of seeing a photograph of an Excalibur in a magazine in a suburban supermarket in Chicago when I was desperately poor”.

That was 35 years ago. Last week, (early Dec 2004) the goal became a reality, when her dream of owning an Excalibur Phaeton, arrived at her front gate on Chevron Island, on the Gold Coast.

Diana who arrived on the Gold Coast five years ago, found the car on the Internet in Milwaukee, home of the hand-built Excalibur and a Harley-Davidson motorcycles. After much tussling with seller, importers, customs and banks, it arrived in Brisbane two months ago.

A magnificent car that appeared in several films, including the Disney production 101 Dalmatians, this left-hand drive vehicle, and had to be converted before it could be fully compliant and registered in Australia. That meant being taken by truck to Armidale in NSW where a conversion expert spent a few weeks getting the car into shape. 380 hours in fact. “He did a magnificent job.”

Now she wants to share her car with as many as she can and would like to see it in films and in select, prestige TV advertisements, in product launches, promotions and for charity fundraising.

Even if a dream seems impossible, (and it certainly seemed that to Diana) if you have a dream chase it with conviction, no matter how long it takes.

A well-known author said, ‘To dream, is to achieve but real achievement is when the dream becomes a reality’. Diana Todd-Banks did that.

The Beverley Hills Hilton hosted a lavish cocktail party recently, and among the array of goodies on a buffet table were appetizers laced with a curious spread that looked like a cross between sludge and fudge syrup.

Most of the attendees eyed specimens with scepticism, but eh Australians in the group laughed. They knew what the secret ingredient was. Their amusement was piqued by the way it was used.

It was their beloved Vegemite come out of the breakfast scene and into the cocktail theme.

“Australians eat copious amounts of Vegemite,” says Diana-Todd, who is the one responsible for the importation of this Australian staple. “It’s a product. Though they’d tried such a venture about 10 years ago, it really bombed out because, as Todd explains, “They hadn’t the vaguest idea how to promote it.”

Then came the nutrition-conscious surge and the interest in physical fitness. Vegemite suddenly fit right in. The time was right. So, about a year ago, Todd began negotiations with the senior trade commissioner in Australia to pave the way for Vegemite in America.

“It’s a funny product,” says Todd. “Unless you see it demonstrated, it’s difficult to understand the way we use it in Australia.” It’s as much a part of the daily routine as that morning glass of orange juice is to Americans.

Diana Todd, who has made her mark in talk shows across the States as the lady who brought us Vegemite, has been called the smartest Australian businesswoman in America. It’s a title she earned the old-fashioned way – by working for it. She is listed in the International Who’s in Who in Music as (among other things) classical guitarist, wine connoisseur, nee Grosser (daughter of Adelaide’s prosperous Stan Grosser). Todd cut loose from classical music and a failing marriage to make a career in food and wine, initially as a consultant, then as head of her own company. “It was touch-and-go at first, I lived out for a suitcase for tow years.” Her first import was Vegemite, which benefited from the free publicity of the just-released Men at Work album and became just as much of a hit. Still, Todd found it tough going on her own, sold her company and returned to the road, doing hundreds of radio and television shows across the country.

She might have settled comfortably into the cushion of media celebrity but for her assertiveness at the inaugural meeting of the Australian Chamber of Commerce. “They announced the slate of officers and they were all men! I protested vehemently that there were a lot of qualified women present” – with the result that Todd herself was elected.

While not her intention, Todd took to her new role with characteristic enthusiasm and last year became the only paid member of the board to implement policy. With what has been viewed as Yankee dynamism, she has fuelled the present explosion of Australian/American marketing ventures. Putting on the back burner an equally active private life, (she is proficient in racquetball, big-game fishing and cooking for which she has earned the prized honorific of professeur chef de cuisine). Todd is at present promoting an Australian Rules football match, the ambitious Australian Trade and Cultural Centre soon to open in Orange County, and Skippy the Kangaroo.

Have seventeen years wrought the Americanisation of Diana Todd? “Are you joking? If I couldn’t do things that are Australia-related I wouldn’t be here,” Her licence plate says it all: AUSSIE 1.

Diana Todd-Banks in 1983, Australia’s Business Review Weekly named her “Australia’s secret weapon in the United States.” Now executive director of the Australian American Chamber of Commerce, Diana Todd-Banks can look back on a 20-year career of doggedly promoting Australia, Australian goods and Australian business around the country.

But this is no starched workaholic here. She can barely finish a story without bursting into a hearty laugh, especially when relating the latest instalment of what her friends call “the continuing saga of Diana.” Just back from a three-week honeymoon to Australia, she apologises that she is working out of her home, her car and the local phone booth, explaining that two days after moving her entire operation to new offices in Mission Viejo, the building went up in flames. “And this two weeks before my wedding,” she laughs.

She originally travelled to Chicago in 1969 with her former husband, where they lived on a meager budget in the city’s South Side while he completed his MBA at the university of Chicago. A gourmet cook today and a member of the exclusive Confrerie de la Chaine de Rotisseurs, Todd-Banks credits her interest in food to those humble beginnings.

“We had $10 a week to live off. That’s three meals a day, seven days a week for the two of us. I was determined to work out good nutrition on that small amount, and I did it too. I was able to make a meal for 33cents using the cheapest vegetables and offal…Which was all they sold on the South Side anyway.” Her personal career took off from there. After working as the sales and marketing director for a Hyatt Regency property, she switched and became the director of a food and wine school.

Her interests promoted her to start importing Australian wines and foods into the United States, and it was during a promotional tour up and down the California coast that she zeroed in on Orange County as the place to live. “I loved San Francisco but hated the weather,” she says. “I loved Los Angeles’ weather but hated the city. I loved San Diego, but it was too far off the beaten track.” Orange County, in her eyes, had it all.

It was Todd-Banks who introduced Vegemite to the American Public. A sandwich spread manufactured by Kraft Australia, the tangy, dark paste is extremely rich in B vitamins and niacin and has been credited with keeping roses in Australian children’s cheeks for 50 years, but its unusual looks and flavour make it an acquired taste.
Although she was able to make inroads into the market and heighten the public’s awareness of the product, her financial backer wasn’t willing to put up the capital needed to fully promote it. “ I honestly believe that with careful promotion, Vegemite could still succeed. It is peculiar enough to appeal to off-the-wall American tastes – and I don’t mean that in a negative way.” She says, “I feel good though, for convincing Kraft of the need to develop a low sodium Vegemite exclusively for the American market.”

In 1985, she became less involved with the importing of foodstuffs and more involved in promotional activities when she organised and successful Australia promotion at Buena Park Mall that year.

Since then, Diana has concentrated exclusively on promotional work while running the Australian American Chamber of Commerce. A privately funded organisation, the chamber promotes trade, investment, tourism and economic relations between the two countries. “I learned the hard way through quite a few mistakes,” she explains, “so if I can impart my knowledge and practical experience to help others, I’m really doing a service. That makes me feel good.”