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SKG Software

2011-03-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

REASONS WHY THE PEOPLE FAIL....

2011-01-01T23:40:00.000-08:00

1. Taking Action Without Planning

When it comes to your goals and future, impulsiveness is the mother of regret. Considerable thought must be given to the ends as well as the means of your strategy.

2. Planning Without Taking Action

Endless preparation is worse than action without planning. Accept that things will never be perfect. Questions will forever exist. Plan well and launch!

3. Unrealistic Timeframes and Expectations

Life is a process not an event. Nothing great was ever built easily. Exercise wisdom and learn to be patient. Unfortunately most things in life take longer and cost more than the best-laid plans anticipate.

4. Reasons "Why" Are Unclear

Why you want to achieve a goal is more important than the goal itself. Before taking action on anything it is imperative that you ask yourself this key question: "Why do I want to achieve this goal?"

5. Denial of Reality

It's far easier to deny reality than it is to accept it. And far too many people take what seems like the easy way out. Success is information dependent, when we deny reality for whatever reason, we devalue the integrity of our information, thus ensuring failure.

6. Conflicting Values

When we have not clarified our reasons why or defined what success means to us personally, we operate on someone else's definition. When that occurs values are sure to be in conflict and progress is short- circuited.

7. Diffusion of Energy

Attempting to do too much is a recipe for mediocrity. Rather than doing an excellent job at a few chosen goals we spread our energies over a vast terrain and diffuse what matters most; time and energy.

8. Lack of Focus

Success demands focus. It is the hallmark of all truly great people. Your ability to get and remain focused or lack there of is perhaps the key determinant of your success.

9. Trying To Do It All Alone

Nobody goes through life alone, we all need the cooperation and assistance of others. Put your pride aside and learn to ask for help when you need it. Learn to leverage and share knowledge for your own well being as well as for others who are dependent upon your cooperation.

10. Fear Of Failure

Fear of failure is The "Grand Daddy" of them all. Far too many dreams have suffocated and died because of it. Fear resides where knowledge does not exist; the more you know about anything the less intimidated that you feel. Replace your fears with knowledge and watch your performance leap.

Article Source : Gary Ryan Blair

MYTHS AND REALITIES TO ACHIEVE A GOAL !!!

2011-01-01T23:27:00.000-08:00

Myth #1:

Goal Setting is Not That Important.

Reality:

Success Requires Goals - End of Story! A life of meaning needs goals and specific plans to achieve them. Success does not happen by accident.

Myth #2:

Goal Setting is Difficult and Takes Too Much Time.

Reality:

Performance is accelerated by time invested in strategy. The game of life is won behind the scenes, in time spent on preparation.

Myth #3:

New Years is the Best Time To Set Goals.

Reality:

There's no better time than now to take control of your life. Goal-Setting is not about timing it's about decision. This life is not a dress rehearsal; it's the only one you've got.

Myth #4:

Goals Don't Need To Be Written – Keep Them In Your Head.

Reality:

Written goals clarify thinking, objectify their potential, and reinforce commitment. The palest ink is better than the strongest memory. Goals once out of site, soon become goals out of mind!

Myth #5:

Long-Term Planning Is A Waste of Time.

Reality:

Your Future deserves consideration. It will someday be your present reality. It's worth considering seriously.

Myth #6:

A Good Plan Is All You Need To Be Successful.

Reality:

Success is active, not passive. All plans require action. Preparation is no substitute for action. Commit to the philosophy of implement now - perfect later.

Myth #7:

The Best Way To Achieve a Goal Is To Just Begin.

Reality:

Action without planning is the root cause of most failure Success is a choice. With a plan to lead you, you can figure out how to get where you are going.

Myth #8:

All It Takes is Hard Work To Achieve Your Goals.

Reality:

Hard work is important, but working smart is mandatory. Quit trying harder, look for new solutions, and you will accomplish far more in far less time with only a fraction of the effort you have been giving.

Myth #9:

I Can Do It On My Own. I Don't Need Help.

Reality:

Success requires cooperation. Nobody does it alone. In order to achieve more you must learn to help yourself. Success requires the cooperation of others.

Myth #10:

Goals Only Need to Be Reviewed Once a Year.

Reality:

Inspect what you expect. Everything changes. Your goals must keep shaping, shifting and flexing to fit these fast-changing times. Adopt a regular and consistent review process.

Article Source : Gary Ryan Blair

TEN THOUGHTS ON THINKING

2011-01-01T23:18:00.000-08:00

1.

"The world we have made as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far, creates problems we cannot solve at the same level of thought at which we created them."

2.

"You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you."

3.

"No matter how hard you work for success, if your thoughts are saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors and make success impossible."

4.

"Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world."

5.

"Never dismiss a good thought or idea simply because you don't like the source."

6.

"Ideas and thoughts will never fail you, you fail them through inaction!"

7.

"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature."

8.

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought... If a person speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows... If a person speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows, like a shadow that never leaves."

9.

"How we think shows through in how we act. Attitudes are mirrors of the mind. Actions are the physical manifestation of thought!"

10.

"A thought which does not result in an action is nothing much, and an action which does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all."

Top Ten New Year Resolutions

2011-01-01T22:57:00.000-08:00

New Year's is the only holiday that celebrates the passage of time. Perhaps that's why, as the final seconds of the year tick away, we become introspective. Inevitably, that introspection turns to thoughts of self-improvement and the annual ritual of making resolutions, which offer the first of many important tools for remaking ourselves.

The following list is the result of our extensive survey, which consisted of over 300,000 responses worldwide.

1. Lose Weight and Get in Better Physical Shape

Physical activity builds physical vitality. With every year of your life, you have more to gain from being physically active; as your age-related risks of chronic disease increase, regular exercise generally slows or reverses that trend.

In fact, you're even more likely to notice the benefits of regular exercise if you already have a chronic condition.

Are you ever going to be fit again as long as you live? The answer is unless you make a resolution to get fit – you’re never going to be fit – ever. The choice is yours; it begins by opting for the stairs instead of the elevator, fruit in place of chocolate, and active rather than sedentary activities.

2. Stick to a Budget

It’s been said that the best defense is a good offense. Developing and sticking to a realistic budget is a brilliant offensive move as it prevents overspending and ensures peace of mind.

Many people find it very difficult to stick to a budget. It does take hard work and a lot of self-discipline, at least in the beginning. The good news is that most people find the longer they can stick to a budget, the easier it becomes.

3. Debt Reduction

One of the first things you have to do before any debt can be eliminated is to stop using charge accounts. If you continue to use the accounts, you are only fueling the problem, and building on it, not solving it.

Make a resolution now to stop charging anything and to get financially stable. If you can't pay cash for it, you don't need it, make it just that simple and you will find yourself out of debt in no time at all.

Keep a diary of all money spent, whether it is by cash, check, credit card, etc. Once you know where your money is going, then, and only then, can you take the steps needed to prepare a good budget that you can live with and make huge strides to budgeting your debt away.

4. Enjoy More Quality Time with Family & Friends

More and more people are resolving to spend more quality time with family and friends this year. This means you must consciously decide to actively and purposely work on improving your family situation every day.

You may need to do such things as reschedule business activities to make time for your kids, help your children set and achieve worthwhile goals, and setting aside an hour a day for the family, every day.

Starting right now, you can begin to make choices and take day-to-day actions that will create nothing short of a phenomenal family. You can choose to have one if you just resolve to do it and know where to put your focus. Making our families stronger and healthier is important to our communities, our state and our world.

5. Find My Soul Mate

Romance is alive and well as more and more people are looking for that special someone, their soul mate who lights their fire, the ONE whom they love unequivocally and who shares their worldview.

Soul mate relationships are the sort of romantic relationships most of us dreamt of when we were young and innocent: loving and erotic, committed and inspiring and best of all - lasting.

Soul mate relationships give both partners the fulfillment that deeply satisfies them and makes them feel that they have found the most wonderful person in the whole universe.

6. Quit Smoking

Becoming a non-smoker is probably one of the best decisions you can ever make, and is a life changing as well as a life saving decision.

The benefits to your health, relationships, finances, vitality, the environment and to your sense of self-esteem for having conquered a really hard-to-kick habit will make any and all of your efforts and determination more than worth while. The resolution to become a non-smoker will also help you to live longer and enjoy the finer things in life.

Once you’ve made the resolution to stop, acted upon it and succeeded, you'll feel great about what you have achieved. Resolving to give up is your decision, and will improve your life from that moment on. No one can make you quit, and no one can help you make the resolution. You have to do it yourself, you have to want to do it, and you need to do it now!

7. Find a Better Job

A new year provides a sense of getting a free do-over, so you can try again and get it right. Many people resolve to find better jobs or to take a new approach to the jobs they've already got.

It's corny, but true -- most of us get reflective at this time of year and if we are in jobs already, we begin thinking: Am I on the right path? Do I like where my position and my company are headed? Am I even in the right career?

So you've been hearing that voice again, the one that says you're not doing what you were born to do. That may be true, but how do you figure out what you should be doing?

To begin answering this question, examine whether your current career path matches your core interests, beliefs, values, needs and skills. Resolve to ask and answer those essential questions before making any new career changes.

8. Learn Something New

People throughout the world are realizing that a strong resolve to lifelong learning is more than just education and training beyond formal schooling. A lifelong learning framework encompasses learning throughout the life cycle, from cradle to grave and in different learning environments, formal, non-formal and informal.

Perhaps you are considering a career change, want to learn a new language or musical instrument, or just how to become a better cook? Whether you take a course or read a book, you'll find education to be one of the easiest, most motivating and beneficial resolutions to keep. Challenge your mind in the coming year, break out of currents routines and challenge every comfort zone and watch your horizons expand.

9. Volunteer and Help Others

A popular, non-selfish New Year's resolution, volunteerism can take many forms such as spending time helping out at your local library, mentoring a child, or building a house to name a few.

Volunteering has risen sharply in the years since we began collecting resolutions. This suggests the possible emergence of a new civic generation and a resolve to make a bigger and better difference with your life.

Resolve to replace the pursuit of success and materialism with the pursuit of contribution and generosity. For this to occur, the critical question must move from, “How can I become successful?” to, “What can I contribute that will significantly impact other people's lives?” By focusing on what we can contribute, we automatically become successful.

10. Get Organized

Resolve this year to plan your days, reduce interruptions, clean off your desk, say "No", and make detailed lists. The benefits of getting more organized include being able to save time, as you no longer look for the same things over and over again or need to replace things you can’t find at all.

You will reduce stress because when you know where everything is, there’s no last-minute rush to find what you need and get out the door on time for school, soccer practice, or that important business meeting.

You will also find yourself being much more productive, as all the time you once spent looking for things can now be used to do more important or more enjoyable tasks.

Most people define being organized as quickly and easily able to find what you need. While this is certainly true, organization is so much more. The ability to staying organized lets you focus on accomplishing your most important goals. That’s the true benefit of being organized.

Article Source : Gary Ryan Blair

COMBATING CORRUPTION

2010-11-22T06:08:00.000-08:00

Fighting poverty is a popular cause these days. But if do-gooders are serious about reducing global poverty, fighting corruption is one of the best places to start, says the Wall Street Journal.

Consider:

Corruption keeps poor countries poor by squirreling away resources in the hands of elites, who spend the gains on, at best, inefficient public works and at worst, private ends.

Corruption also drives away foreign investment and discourages local entrepreneurs from starting new businesses.

According to Transparency International's annual Corruption Perceptions Index (which scores countries on a scale from zero to ten, with zero indicating high levels of perceived corruption and ten indicating low levels of perceived corruption):

The world's poorest countries -- Burma or Bangladesh, etc. -- languish at the bottom of the list, while the world's richest countries get top marks.

Some 40 percent of the countries that have "rampant" corruption are also desperately poor -- a trend that's endured since the poll's inception in 1995.

That doesn't mean that corrupt countries don't attract investment, says the Journal. China, which tied with India at a middling rank, pulled down $63 billion of foreign direct investment, despite widespread corruption in the Communist Party ranks. But imagine how much money the mainland would receive if it made a more serious effort to bolster its legal system and enforce clean business practices -- like Hong Kong does, which ranks number 14.

Source: Editorial, "Combating Corruption," Wall Street Journal, October 2, 2007.

What Type of Corruption?

2010-11-22T06:04:00.001-08:00

What Type of Corruption?

Corruption stifles freedom and economic growth. However, there are two types of corruption: top-down and bottom-up. Bottom-up refers to low-level officials collecting bribes and sharing them with superiors, while top-down refers to corrupt superior officials buying the silence of subordinates by sharing their ill-gotten gains. Recent research analyzes the two types of corruption, using the notoriously corrupt Commonwealth of Independent States as a model.

Firms report paying 5.7 percent of all revenues as bribes in the CIS, as opposed to 3.3 percent in the Balkans, Baltic republics and Central Europe.

Economic growth in these other states is more than 2 percent higher on average than growth in the CIS.

After further analyzing the CIS, the researchers found that if corruption is inevitable, then top-down corruption is superior to bottom-up:

The amount of bribes paid per investment project is smaller with top-down corruption.

Firms have better information about the exact quantity and method of payment under a top-down corruption, meaning that firms have better information about the true costs of a project.

The economy is larger under centralized corruption.

Furthermore, centralized corruption is more easily controlled and restricted, leading to smaller bribes.

The researchers note that under bottom-up corruption the absolute amount of bribes is smaller. However, this reflects the fact that under a bottom-up system the entire economy is smaller, resulting in fewer opportunities for graft.

Source: Christopher J Walker, Thierry Verdeir, and Roy Gardner, "Corruption: Top Down or Bottom Up?" Economic Inquiry, Vol. 40, No. 4, October 2002

How To Overcome A Divorce

2010-11-15T02:17:00.000-08:00

For most people it is always very hard to deal with divorce. No one enters a marriage believing that it will end some day, however almost 50 per cent of all marriages do end in divorce. Feelings, such an anger, sadness, depression, helplessness, loneliness, and guilt are common for divorcing people.

When everything in a life has been turned upside down, figuring out how to handle divorce is one of the tougher things that one can possibly encounter. It does not only mean that people have to deal with the end of a relationship, but they also have to figure out how to share and split everything, who will have to move out, and many other unpleasant things.

Divorce is a type of loss for many people, and a tough transition. It takes a lot of time and energy to adjust or heal. Particularly, during the first year after divorce, people usually have a hard time re-establishing their lifestyle as singles again. They may feel hopeless and try to isolate themselves from other people. Some feel shame thinking that they will be criticized and judged by others, some feel abandoned and miserable, blaming self or other part for causing the divorce. Yet, there are some things that a person can try to do in order to make the process of divorce and recovery go as smooth as it possibly can.

First of all, after a divorce, it is important to take oneself together and take charge of your own life. Never see yourself as a victim. Recognize that it is a person himself who is responsible for his own fate. Yes, life circumstances might be painful, and sometimes it is really almost impossible to see things in an optimistic way, but it is still up to you only how you will go forward. It is up to you only to establish whether you will learn from your life failures, or whether you will be broken by them.

Another important thing to do in dealing with a divorce is to never put yourself down, let bygones be bygones, just understand that whatever was done will never be undone. While moving forward, you need to stop comparing yourself to others. Try to focus on the things that you can do, even the minor ones. Remember that every new day is one more day that you are further in the healing process, and another sign that you are learning how to handle the divorce.

Planning for the future is also one of the most important components of the recovery process. Having something to do, or a plan in mind is necessary for you to keep moving on. As long as you calm down, make up your mind, set your goal and try your best to overcome all the hardships, you will be in significantly better position to succeed. There might be financial problems or problems in making decisions about what to do. Finding resources and support from others is helpful to set your plan and eliminate some barriers.

Surround yourself with things that make you feel comfortable, as well as with some new ones that have nothing to do with your past married life. Get out of the house from time to time. Isolation only leads deeper into depression. Spend more time with friends and try to keep your life at ease. Look for activities that you may enjoy and participate in them on a regular basis.

Do not forget to laugh. It is helpful to be around people with good sense of humor which will make you laugh and, therefore, forget at least for some time about all the difficulties in your life. Try to look at your life in a positive way, rather than whining and crying over something that has to be considered as past. Also, stay as active as possible by keeping a regular exercise routine. Nothing helps our emotions bounce back better than physical activity. It will help in relieving tense, anger and anxiety.

If you have children, don't use them as leverage in a divorce struggle between you and your ex. The split affects them, but it should not involve them. Make sure that you are being a good parent by taking care of your children, and by make sure that your children understand that, no matter what happens, you love them and have their best interests at heart.

Avoid destructive activities, such as alcohol or drugs, when trying to deal with your problem. Don't allow your problems and feelings to cause you to seek revenge, or play the victim. If you are stressed, hurt or angry, it is best to find a safe shoulder to vent to and get those feelings out.

When you are living through a highly stressful situation no hasty decisions or changes to your life should be made until you have thought of all the following consequences. Take time to think things through and thoroughly weigh all your options. And what is most important, do not blame anyone, forgive yourself and your spouse and don't let the issues from this marriage follow you into new life and new relationships. The road to a complete recovery after divorce is a long one, however, by dealing with your divorce, you may finally find yourself in a much better place.

The above are just some suggestions, however, everyone has their own different ways to handle a divorce. Adjusting to divorce is a process that takes time, so allow yourself time to heal and remember to focus on one day at a time. Only you are the one who knows which best fits your needs.

Corruption Hinders Global Economic Development !!!

2010-11-11T07:34:00.000-08:00

Bribery, nepotism and other forms of corruption exist to a greater or lesser extent in all countries. But their corrosive effects hurt poor nations the most. The World Bank considers corruption one of the greatest obstacles to economic and social development.

The Bank says corruption undermines the rule of law and weakens the institutional foundations upon which economic growth depends.

"Corruption is something that afflicts all of us. There is no country that does not have a challenge in terms of controlling corruption."

Corruption takes many forms - from bribery of police or government officials, to insider trading in stock markets, to nepotism in hiring for jobs - both in the public and private sectors.
Generally it is in dictatorships, where corruption flourishes. There is no transparency, no free press, and citizens have almost no rights.
"You need citizens that are so fed up with the corruption that is in existence that they demand change. And that they are ready to change their ways and their behavior so they are not complicit in this corruption. Every time we see the damage, particularly in the poorest areas of the world, and we understand the disproportionate impact of corruption on the poor."

The stakes are highest for developing countries and all nations must stamp out corruption if they hope to emerge from the mire of underdevelopment and poverty.

If we want to remove the corruption then we should start from overself first of all we should not be corrupted.and
we should not suport the corruption and we should fight against the corruption..

TwitMesh brings to you Twitter tools and fun at one place !

2010-10-22T07:09:00.000-07:00

TwitMesh brings to you Twitter tools and fun at one place. Features like Twitter Groups, Twitter Invitations, Twitter IM and Twitter Search are available without wandering around on other sites. Use your existing Twitter login to use these tools absolutely FREE !! http://www.twitmesh.com/

Twitter Groups

Create groups of people who are following you on Twitter. Add users and create unlimited number of groups for Family, Friends or Colleagues. The easiest way to manage groups and send them messages directly. Know More..

Twitter Invitations

After creating your groups you can send invitations to group of people. Very easy: Just type your invitation text (90 chars) and we will add a confirmation link for acceptance in the tweet. Once they respond to your message you can see the responses of people. Very effective way of managing your invitations via Twitter. Know More..

Twitter IM

The most unique feature in Twitter. You can chat with your Twitter friends from TwitMesh without going to Twitter site. A seamless experience where you post tweets and view replies just as if you are chatting on instant messenger.Know More..

Twitter Search

Feeling bored and need to check out what people are discussing on a topic ? Just enter your topic and we will stream all the tweets related to that topic live on your screen without any refresh. Know More..

Follow Your Heart !!!

2010-10-06T01:14:00.000-07:00

Today is a very special day. We’ve all achieved a lot to get here. Therefore, reach over, give your neighbor a pat on the back, give yourself a pat on the back. You deserve it! We’ve earned it!

But for many of us, today is also a day of new beginnings. Our lives lie ahead of us like a large empty white canvas. How should we paint it? What paths do we take? How do we know what to do in life? What do we want to achieve? In the next few minutes I’m going to give you some pointers from one of my favorite books, entitled Follow Your Heart, written by Andrew Matthews. This book contains some concepts that made a lot of sense to me, and I know they’ll help you just as greatly. I’d like to tell you about five of theses concepts to help guide us in our lives ahead.

First concept: We are here to learn lessons, and the world is our teacher.

The funny thing about this concept is that if we don’t learn the lesson we get to take it over and over again. At times, we have to be hit on the head before we learn the lesson. Think about it! People who have to exercise and lose weight don’t do much at all until they suffer a heart attack or a doctor tells them to change or else… When did you study the hardest? Was it when you were afraid you would fail? We know bad habits are hard to break; it’s easier not to change. Broke people remain broke (even if they win a jackpot of money), overweight people remain overweight, smokers continue to smoke and people continue to go to jobs they hate because it pays the bills. Life is not about punishment, life is about education. Winners face each lesson and learn, losers say “Why do bad things always happen to me?” Sam says, “Why am I always broke?” Mary says, “No one likes me because I’m fat,” and Mary eats some more, gets fatter, and gets more depressed. The good news is that once we learn a lesson we move on to the next lesson. We can never run out of life's lessons.

Second concept: The universe has no favorites.

Plan your life like you’d live forever, live your life like you’ll die tomorrow.
Chinese proverb

Six years ago, my 18-year-old cousin Luis died in a car accident on Jan 13, 1996. We had just celebrated the New Year with family dinners and gatherings. None of us even suspected for a moment that these were the last gatherings we would have with Luis alive. Luis was in a car driven by his 16-year-old friend Scott who had just gotten his license. Scott died that day too. After that tragic day my parents would not let my sister or me go in a friend’s car or let us drive our friends around unless the driver was 18 or older. My sister and I thought this was a ridiculous rule. “Bad luck could not hit a family twice,” my sister said. To this she got the snap retort, “Bad luck doesn’t know which family it has hit or hasn’t hit.” So remember friends, the universe has no favorites, and it has no victims either—you are in charge of your destiny. Live each day to its fullest, plan your life like you’d live forever, live your life like you’ll die tomorrow.

Third concept: God is never going to come down from a cloud and say: “You now have permission to be successful!”

A few years ago Nike came up with a slogan about exercising. It was, “Just do it!” They hit the nail on the head. We are a race of procrastinators and excuse-makers. How often do we say, “Oh, I’ll exercise when I get more energy or have more time,” or “I’ll save money when I make more money,” or “I’ll work harder when I get a nicer boss.” Not! Start doing whatever you need to do and then you’ll feel the energy and the excitement. Discipline is not one of my favorite words—it fits in somewhere between dentist and dull—but self-discipline in little things leads to big things. Studying instead of watching TV leads to better grades, going to the gym three times a week leads to a trimmer and fitter body, saving money from a part-time job may lead to the car of your dreams. Make the effort first; harvest the rewards later. The world rewards effort, not excuses. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Start with that one bite and make progress. My mother is writing a book. I’ve asked her, “How do you write a book?” She said, “One word at a time, and if you don’t like the words, you rewrite them again and again, until you get it right.” Get started, make the effort, and then be successful. Remember the Nike slogan and “Just do it!”

Fourth concept: Our mission in life is not to change the world, our mission in life is to change ourselves.

It is a present because it is a gift
And it is precious because anyone who receives such a present is happy forever.
The Precious Present, by Spencer Johnson, M.D.

How many of you have heard of Steven Covey, the author of the best-selling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People? Many of you don’t know this, but his son Sean Covey wrote a book entitled The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. In the accolades of his book, his high school English teacher wrote, “What? Sean Covey wrote a book? You’ve got to be kidding!!” So what may seem impossible to us at this time can be changed. Happy people know that the only thing they can control is themselves—they are in charge of their attitude and their lives. People who have achieved greatness have done so by disciplined, dedicated, daily efforts (there’s that word “discipline” again). They have a path to follow, and they didn’t wait for someone else to show them or carry them down that path. Instead of trying to change other people, look for the beauty within them and you’ll find more beauty and strength within yourself. Do your best in the present, and let your life unfold. You can choose to be happy now, or you can choose to be happy “when…” or “if …”

Fifth concept: Follow your heart—your mission in life is not to be without problems, your mission is to get excited.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you NOTHING. It was here first.
Mark Twain

Remember the days when you gave 100% on your homework or extended yourself to create a tremendous project report or presentation? You wanted to get to school and turn it in. As you made your presentation, your adrenaline was probably rushing, because you knew it was good. This “homework” principle applies every day of your life. You don’t work for your teacher or for your boss or for you parents—you work for yourself. You know when you’ve made the extra effort, you know when the results are great. My next few sentences are really important, so listen up! Many of us don’t know exactly what we want in life, but we do know what we like doing and what we are good at. So figure out what is close to what you want, and go from there. Do your best in the present, and let your life unfold.

Article Source : Andrew Matthews

In pics: India unveiled at CWG opening ceremony-2010

2010-10-03T20:26:00.000-07:00

http://ibnlive.in.com/photogallery/2531-0.html?from=tn

SKG Software

2010-09-29T07:43:00.000-07:00

SKG Software

Winning Versus Losing

2010-09-28T23:49:00.000-07:00

I attended a forum organized by IMH on Mental Health and Resilience on Young Children and Adolescents. When I thought that the speakers were insightful in their presentations, the sharing posted by one of the participants during Q&A was even more awakening.

This lady has five children and she shared how her second son has always been competitive since young, trying his best to outdo his elder brother. Once at a national-level canoe competition, when his team did not come in first, he sank into depression and failures alike brought about the same resentment and self-doubt throughout his adult life. He has only learnt to win and losing is not part of his vocabulary. The lady ended her sharing by asking, “We only teach our children how to win, have we taught them how to lose?”

I guess it is not difficult to resonate with the feeling that if so much hard work has been invested in the task at hand, there should be no reason to fail; if failure ever happens, it is sheer unfairness and the fault of someone else, at times maybe I-am-a-loser. The case of secondary school rugby match turned into ugly brawl in April this year is a fairly good illustration. What could have landed these young children and adolescents in negative behaviour towards losing?

This question lingered in my mind for the longest time as I reflect the way how our educational system steam lines the best, how our competitive economy and inclusive society fuel parents’ worries and hence high expectations of their children, hoping that they can have a brighter future. At which point of the environment have we allowed our children to fail?

How many times as parents, when our children want to experiment how to load the disc into the player, we so eagerly show them how? Do we as role models to our children have the resilience and open mindset to deal with failure? Do we snarl at the wrong button pressed or do we let our children experience the consequence of their actions and hence encourage self-directed learning, a skill that is very much valued in the 21st century? It is not only important buy essential to provide a safe environment whether in school or at home for kids to learn how to lose; that failures provide the best learning experiences that lead to eventual success.

Thomas Edison once said, “Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”; in other words, if we choose not to give up, we can never fail!

Article Source : Siew Peng

10 tips for a healthy heart

2010-09-26T05:21:00.000-07:00

A strong heart is a result of healthy lifestyle choices. Be active and stress-free

Today's fast-paced life and workplace pressures escalate stress levels, taking a toll on one's heart. We must realise that the healing power of the body decreases when under stress, leading to many complications like hypertension and poor immunity. Today, even youngsters are prone to heart ailments. So, it's very important to stay healthy and manage your stress levels by understanding the risk factors — high cholesterol levels, stressful lifestyle, smoking, and lack of exercise — following simple changes in lifestyle.

Avoid smoking

Smoking reduces life expectancy by 15-25 years. If you are a smoker, you are twice more likely to have a heart attack than a non-smoker. The moment you stop smoking, the risk of heart attack begins to reduce.

Cut down on salt

Too much salt can cause high blood pressure, which increases the risk of developing coronary heart disease.

Watch your diet

Try to have a balanced diet. Eat fresh fruits and vegetables, starch foods such as wholegrain bread and rice.

Monitor your alcohol

Too much alcohol can damage the heart muscle, increase blood pressure and also lead to weight gain. Avoid intake of alcohol or at least limit it to one to two units a day, gradually decreasing the consumption.

Get active

At least aim for 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day. Keeping yourself fit not only benefits the heart but also improves mental health and well-being.

Monitor your BP, blood sugar and cholesterol levels

Routine medical check-ups will ring an alarm, if you need medical help.

Manage your waist

Cholesterol deposition in blood vessels begins in the first decade of life. Carrying a lot of extra weight as fat can greatly affect your health. Make small but healthy changes in your diet.

Manage your stress level

If you find things are getting on top of you, you may fail to eat properly, smoke and drink too much. This may increase your risk of a heart attack. Practice yoga/meditation. Take a vacation.

Check your family history

If a close relative is at risk of developing coronary heart disease from smoking, high BP, high cholesterol, lack of physical activity, obesity and diabetes, then you could be at risk too.

Laughter is the best therapy

Laughter anytime will work wonders for you. It is an instant way to unleash the pressure and it makes you feel light.

Article Source by Dr Kushagra Katariya, chief cardiothoracic surgeon, Artemis Health Institute, Gurgaon

10 Easy Tweaks To Double Your Sales

2010-09-23T03:48:00.000-07:00

When it comes to selling, tiny changes can generate big results. This post contains ten “tweaks” to your day-to-day sales routine. Each “tweak” has the potential to double, or even triple, the sales that you’re making on a regular basis.

The root of these “tweaks” is a conversation I had a couple of years ago with Tom Black, author of “The Boxcar Millionaire.” He’s an interesting guy who used his selling skills to climb from the depths of poverty to becoming a multi-millionaire.

I’ve taken his brief suggestions and fleshed them out, based upon my consultations with other sales experts and trainers, along with my own observations and experience.

BTW, I spent a LOT of time on this post, so if you think it’s useful, I’d like you do me a favor. Please forward this post to at least one colleague. To do this, tap the “EMAIL” button on the left side of the menu bar and fill out the short form.

TWEAK #1: Only contact decision-makers

Key Terminology: A “decision-maker” is a person who either owns the problem (or part of the problem) that your offering solves or owns the budget (or part of the budget) that will pay for it.

What You Do: Research the job titles and backgrounds of people who have bought your offering (or similar offerings) in the past. Limit your lead qualification activities (i.e. cold calling, email marketing) to individuals with a similar profile.

Why This Works: Because these are the people who make the decisions, they’re worth the extra effort it takes to try to reach them directly. If you find that you can only get access to a gatekeeper, move to the next lead.

How This Saves Time: Because you have a limited amount of time to sell each day, don’t waste it calling upon people who don’t have the authority to purchase. While it is possible to use a lower-level individual to get contact with a decision-maker, cultivating such individuals can take more time and effort than getting directly in touch with the people that you really need to speak with.

Warning: If you’re going to speak with high-level executives, you must be able to present yourself as their equal. If you take a subservient position, you’ll just get bumped down to the drones.

View more ..TWEAK #2: Only sell to big buyers

Key Terminology: A “big buyer” is a company that is sufficiently large that it definitely has the kind of money required to purchase your offering, without causing any strain whatsoever on their finances.

What You Do: Before you even make a call to a company, use the Internet to research the company and confirm that they are large enough, and financial solvent enough, to purchase your offering.

Why This Works: Experience proves that it can take more time to make a small sale to a small customer than it does to make a big sale to a big customer.

How This Saves Time: Because you have a limited amount of time to sell each day, it’s better to pursue a handful of big deals than chasing a hundred small ones.

Warning: Regardless of size, if a prospect can’t spend money at this time, they’re not really a qualified prospect. So don’t waste your time.

TWEAK #3: Take control of your meeting times

Key Terminology: A “meeting time” is the time you have committed to meet with a prospect.

What You Do: When you first make an appointment, agree to whatever time is convenient for the prospect. Then, once the appointment is in the prospect’s calendar, request that the appointment be moved to match what’s convenient for you.

Why This Works: Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a prospect will not mind changing the appointment date around, once the prospect has already decided to meet with you.

How This Saves Time: It allows you to better schedule your travel time, preparation time, and meeting time, so that you spend less time on each prospect, but with the same positive impact.

Warning: If you keep your calendar (and prospect list) SOLELY on your computer or smartphone, you’re eventually going to get burned. Those devices are wonderful, but they 1) run out of battery power, 2) crash unexpectedly, 3) get stolen, 4) get broken, 5) lose files, 6) won’t connect to the network, 7) require complicated commands, and 8) strain your eyeballs. If you’ve got your sales activities recorded on paper, the only excuse you’ve got for not contacting a prospect is if your dog eats the piece of paper, which rarely happens.

TWEAK #4: Use more referrals

Key Terminology: A “referral” is when an existing customer or colleague suggests to a prospect that he or she speak with you.

What You Do: When you’ve confirmed that a customer is delighted with you and your offering, ask that customer to contact somebody who might also need your service.

Why This Works: When you come into a sales situation with a referral, the potential prospect knows somebody who has recommended from you. You have therefore been “vetted” as a trustworthy person and worthy of their time.

How This Saves Time: Because the customer trusts you, it’s easier to get the information you need to qualify the lead. As a result, you end up spending less time on false opportunities and more time on opportunities that could really lead to a sale.

Warning: Only ask for referrals from delighted customers; asking when you close (or worse, when you don’t) is a good way to get dead-end referrals. Why should somebody put his own career and reputation on the line, if they aren’t 100 percent sure you can deliver?

TWEAK #5: Optimize your meeting schedule

Key Terminology: Your “meeting schedule” is the collection of “meeting times” that you’ve put into a single day, week or month.

What You Do: Figure out the optimum number of sales calls or meetings that you can make during a day and the craft your schedule accordingly. For example, if you find that your typical sales call takes half a day, schedule meetings at 8:30am and 1:30pm.

Why This Works: It ensures that you spend time with as many prospects as possible

How This Saves Time: It allows you to handle more prospects in the same amount of elapsed time, without lessening the amount of time spent with each prospect.

Warning: Beware of the “one meeting” day. For example if your meetings with prospects typically take four hours, if you schedule a meeting at 11am, that will be the only meeting you’ll have that day.

TWEAK #6: Sell when prospects are available

Key Terminology: “Available” means that the prospect is able to take your call or meet with you face to face.

What You Do: Don’t waste prime sales call time (i.e. “working hours”) fussing with your CRM system, doing research, answering emails and so forth. Instead, spend that time getting in touch with, and meeting with, real live prospects.

Why This Works: The crux of your job is to sell; all the rest is just busywork - necessary, perhaps, but secondary to getting the real job done. If possible, offload the electronic paperwork onto a clerical staff.

How This Saves Time: Prospects are only available when they’re available. If you’re ready to sell and they’re not ready to buy, you’ll have to wait before you can get your sales process into gear.

Warning: Many sales reps have NO IDEA about the best time to call or contact prospects. Quick clue: the worst time to call is right after lunch. See: What’s The Best Time to Cold Call?

TWEAK #7: Keep initial meetings brief

Key Terminology: An “initial meeting” is your first substantive meeting you’ve contacted a lead, qualified them as a real prospect, and entered them into your sales pipeline.

What You Do: Most B2B sales require more than one meeting to close, especially if there ismore than one decision-maker. Find an appropriate goal for the initial meeting and achieve that, then move the sale forward to the next step.

Why This Works: The biggest fear that most prospects have at the beginning of a relationship with a sales pro is that the pro is going to waste their time. Having a brief first meeting lets the prospect know that you’re busy, too.

How This Saves Time: A brief telephone call, web-conference, or face-to-face conversation consumes less of your time, and allows you to further qualify and prioritize the prospect, so that you spend more energy on the most likely opportunities.

Warning: There’s a natural tendency to want to close business when you’re meeting with a decision-maker. However, if you try to close too soon (like before everyone is on board) it can actually make it more difficult to close in the future.

TWEAK #8: Stop repeating yourself

Key Terminology: “Repeating yourself” is when you attempt to make the same point more than once, in the belief that it didn’t “stick” the first time you said it. Again and again. As in more than once. Repeating yourself. Get it?

What You Do: Create an agenda for your meeting and for any presentation that you might give. State your main points once, forcefully and with confidence.

Why This Works: Many sales pros are secretly afraid prospects won’t believe what they’re saying, so they start repeating themselves, hoping it will add credibility. However, repetition actually detracts from credibility because it makes you seem uncertain.

How This Saves Time: When you show a lack of confidence in yourself, the prospect begins to suspect that you can’t be trusted to deliver or (worse) that you’re hiding something. As result, you end up spending extra time re-establishing your lost credibility.

Warning: There’s a myth floating around in “how to present” programs that you should repeat your messages 3 times. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The rule is: “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.” The first is a pre-positioning of the message (so that they know it’s important), the second is the message itself, and the third is the call to action based on the message.

TWEAK #9: Don’t Anticipate Objections

Key Terminology: An “objection” is a temporary mental barrier that the prospects has put in the way of buying.

What You Do: Become familiar with the objections that you usually encounter in your sales cycle. Never surface those objections explicitly (e.g. “I suppose you’re wondering why this costs more than the competition.”). Instead, build the answers to those objections into the presentation without identifying them explicitly. (e.g. “Our customers show an ROI in three months — the fastest ROI in our product category.)

Why This Works: Most objections are variations of “it costs too much”, so building a strong financial case into your sales message defuses most objections anyway. And while prospects almost always have objections, the last thing you want is to provide them with a laundry list, even if you’re pretty sure that you’ve got the answers to everything on that list.

How This Saves Time: While some objections are inevitable, you could easily surface an objection that hadn’t yet occurred to the prospect. Then you must spend time answering that objection, when you should have left well enough alone.

Warning: If a prospect doesn’t surface at least one objection, there’s a good chance that the prospect is leading you on. An objection is usually a sign that the prospect is considering a purchase.

TWEAK #10: Test for the close, then close

Key Terminology: Ultimately, the “close” is, of course, the point when you ask the customer to buy your offering. However, a “close” can also refer to achieving an intermediate step in the buying cycle.

What You Do: When you have told your story, check to see whether it’s time to close by asking a question that confirms the prospect’s interest in buying. (E.g. “Does all of this make sense to you?”)

Why This Works: Many sales pros avoid closing, especially after they’ve invested significant time and effort in an opportunity. They’re afraid that all their positive expectations will be disappointed and the they’ll learn that the relationship they’ve built with the prospects is bogus.

How This Saves Time: Testing before closing makes it more likely that you’ll close at the appropriate time, neither too soon nor too late in the sales cycle. Attempting to close at at the wrong time always means that you’ll need to spend extra time selling. If you try to close too soon, you’ll create resistance, which must then be overcome. If you delay your close, you may delay it so long that somebody else will close for you…with their offering, not yours.

Warning: Many sales training programs teach various kinds of “trick closes.” (E.g. “what would I have to do to get you to buy today.”) Those hoary old techniques don’t work any longer, if they ever did. Avoid them.

Article By : Geoffrey James

Negative Attitude: Causes, Consequences And Cures

2010-09-21T01:07:00.000-07:00

The Causes of Negative Attitude

Limiting beliefs. The main cause of negative attitude is wrong beliefs about life or certain aspects of it. You see the life through your beliefs and if your beliefs are negative, you will see your life as unhappy or downright pointless. So to change such attitude you need to change your beliefs. Read this article about NLP Techniques to change your beliefs (look at the technique no.5).

Negative family/friends. It seems that your friends and family affect how you feel and if your family is negative, they cause your bad attitude. That's, however, not the case because only you can decide how you feel. I know this may seem unreal to those who hear it for the first time, but you and only you can decide how to react to anything that happens to you.

You don't have to get upset when someone tries to get you upset. You can choose to remain calm or even be happy. If you allow others to decide how you should feel, you let them have control over you. That's, of course, not a wise decision since people usually mind their own well-being first.

You always have choices. If your family is negative, for example, you can choose to live away from them or at least see them less often. If your friends are negative, you can simply refuse to be with them. This will definitely be beneficial because then nobody will reinforce your negative beliefs and thus cause your negative attitude. Remember, however, that you attracted your friends and because of that you have the power to attract better ones.

Negative environment. If you do not see the relation between your thoughts and the environment that you find yourself in, it's no surprise that you assume that you have no power to change it. So when you think you are powerless over your environment and your environment is negative, that causes your negative attitude.

To change that you need to understand that your thinking led you to this environment and it wasn't so simply by accident. So to change your negative environment you need to change your thinking which will be described further on in this article.

Unsatisfying circumstances/life. If you find yourself complaining about how unhappy you are, it's exactly the reason you have such a negative attitude. It may be hard at first to understand and accept this but the quicker you do, the quicker you will be able to change your life for the better. Your complaining alone can keep you stuck in the circumstances that you find unsatisfying. So to change your life you should stop complaining and start working on improving your life.

The Consequences of Negative Attitude

Negative attitude Shortens your life. The more often you become angry, upset or frustrated, the less days you will have left to live. I know this is extreme, but that's how it is. You are shortening your life every time you let negative emotions overtake you.

Such attitude Creates unpleasant future. Your present actions determine your future. If you constantly moan and are dissatisfied with your circumstances, in the future you are sure to meet with more of the things you are unhappy about. The more you complain, the more things you will find to complain about.

It harms others. Your negative mood affects people around you. You should never make others feel bad because by doing so you are contributing not only to your own misery, but to the unhappiness of others also.

Such attitude produces negative effects. Every cause has an effect and so your negative attitude (cause) produces negative circumstances. Mostly people think it's the other way round, but that's not the case. Your thinking causes your circumstances.

How To Change Negative Attitude

It is possible to change negative attitude, but it will not be easy. If you lived your life seeing only dark colours, you cannot turn this around in a day. However, by taking small and consistent steps you will gradually become a happier person.

The best way to change your mental state is by understanding the outcome of negativity. Carefully read the consequences of negative attitude and they will serve as reminders as soon as your mood goes down. You will think twice before getting upset, angry or depressed. And Yes, you cause your own mood and you can change it by simply focusing on good aspects of your life or imagining something positive. You are not at the mercy of different kinds of negative feelings that visit you when you least expect. You can control how you feel.

As soon as you spot a negative aspect of a situation or thing, try your best to find its positive aspect instead. For example, if you oversleep, you will think that you will be late for work. Instead try to find something positive that you gain from over-sleeping. You may realise that your efficiency will increase significantly because of the extra hours of sleep. So always look at the positive aspects of any situation that you find yourself in.

You should try to understand what causes your negative attitude. It might be that you live with a person who constantly ruins your mood or it may also be something to do with your past. Maybe something happened to you that made you deeply upset and you have not recovered from that incident since. Try to understand that the incident is long gone, and you should not live in the shadow of it. Your past can only have influence on your present if you let it. Remember, your whole power is in the present moment.

Positive thinking is not enough. If you cannot find the cause of your negative attitude, you will only cover this attitude with positive words which will do no good to you. So try to find the cause of it and this will allow you to change your negative attitude.

Sometimes causes are internal rather than external. In fact, any external cause will lead you to the deeper, internal cause. For example, you might understand that you are negative because your family makes you negative. But when you dig deeper, you may realize that you feel unworthy as a person and you project this unworthiness onto your family and that makes you angry at them. It's true that the qualities you don't like in other people are yours, so it's not others that are at fault but you. So in this example you uncover that it's your limiting belief of unworthiness that makes you negative. The next step will be to eliminate it and then your attitude will improve.

The Types of Negative Attitude

There are certain types of people that indulge in negative states of mind. They are all different in some ways of thinking and acting, but the unifying feature of all of them is their constant negativity. Here are several types of such personalities:

The miserable type. Such people are grumpy from the start of the day. They meet with failures as soon as they wake up, which sets their day to be full of anger and hopelessness.

Usually this type of people keep to themselves and their presence makes others moody. People instantly feel their bad energy and try to stay away from them.

When you talk to the person of this type, s/he may insult you without even intending so. This is because their negativity is so aligned with who they are that they cannot recognise if they make others happy or sad.

The most interesting distinction of this type is that they are mainly unaware of their mental state. They don't realise that they are negative.

Friendship with the miserable type of people can get you seriously depressed. This is because they have a very strong negative energy resonating from them which might draw you in. This is especially true if you are mentally weak or insecure.

Silent killer. Such people usually understand psychology quite well. They use this knowledge to gradually introduce hatred, anger and low self-esteem in others. They do this by making remarks about how others behave or look. They know that their remarks are destructive, but others may not realise that.

For example, your friend casually implies that you should not wear this type of suit because it emphasizes your waist. Do you see the real intention behind the advice?

Another example could be such situation. You have just met your dream partner and you are in love with each other. You meet your friend and start conversation about your new partner. The friend makes such remark: 'Hmm, I wonder what made her choose you...'

This kind of advice or statement makes you question your appearance and abilities which leads to low self-esteem and self-doubt.

The reason why silent killers act this way is because they are very insecure beings. Because of that, they want to make others feel as insecure as them. Getting others in such negative state gives them reassurance, control and satisfaction.

Drama queen This is the most common type. Their emotions range from anger to self-pity, and every small incident can be turned into the storm. They seem to like the fact that they can change how others feel and be the centres of attention.

Such people are needy and insecure, they crave for constant reassurance. They strive for attention and approval. If they don't receive what they want, they begin acting in childish ways. They may start crying, throwing things around or trying to get on others' nerves.

That eventually backfires on them. Once that happens, drama queens become scared and surprised by the reaction they caused. This way drama queens try to make others feel guilty and cruel.

This kind of behaviour is the result of neediness and low self esteem.

Woe is me. Such people love to talk about their failures to everyone who would listen. They do that purely to get attention and sympathy of others.

Many people do not realise that such unfortunate stories can do a lot of harm. You should stay away from such people because they will draw you in to their world of unfairness and unhappiness.

This especially applies if you are mentally weak. By listening to the stories of the 'woe is me' type, you are likely to start visualising their troubles and invite them into your own life.

The paranoid type. They perceive others to be constantly trying to worsen their lives. If they go shopping, they think that shopkeepers are trying to rip them off; If someone wants to befriend them, they think that s/he wants something in return for the friendship.

Many people who live in foreign countries fall into this type. Once they encounter one unfortunate situation when they are treated unfairly because they are foreign, they start to see unfairness everywhere. It may come to the stage where they would see that everyone is against them because of their skin colour or accent.

This negative attitude is mainly caused by self-doubt and poor self-image.

Trigger type. Such people seek ways to release their anger or self-pity. An example would be a person who gets into the conversation with someone who is sure to make him feel angry or hopeless. This way he destroys his mental balance and health.

Another example could be a person who tries to spark an argument. He starts accusing someone of doing something insignificant and continue with his/her accusations until another person finally breaks down.

By releasing their emotions they discharge their negativity and give some of their negative energy to the people they argue with.

These are the most common types of people with negative attitude. One person can have a mixture of several types, but then one type will be more prominent than others.

Conclusion

Negative attitude serves no good to you or others. The quicker you start changing, the sooner you will notice the benefits you will get.

People will start treating you differently and you will notice opportunities everywhere you go. You will start seeing the world as full of happiness and possibilities.

From now on, start planting seeds of joy, love and happiness. This will pave your way to success in everything you do.

Article Source : Simona Rich

How To Not Get Upset Over Small Things ?

2010-09-21T00:25:00.000-07:00

It’s amazing how quickly a person’s mood can go from great to negative. You can wake up extremely happy because it’s sunny outside and you have a perfect plan for your day, but as soon as someone looks at you the wrong way or something doesn’t go the way you expect, you find your attitude drastically changing.

It looks like such change of mood is unavoidable – after all, something did go wrong. It’s only natural to react to a bad event in a negative way, right? Not quite so. By reacting you don’t create new possibilities and that makes you stuck in life. When you react, you re-inforce your old conditioning which doesn’t benefit you in any way, it just creates more routine.

It’s much better to respond rather than react. Responding to an event means taking some time to think about it and then making an intelligent choice about what to do next. For example, if you break the door handle, you would probably react to this event by getting upset and affirming that negative things keep happening to you. But it’s much wiser to take a moment and think what you could do to make yourself grow or put yourself in a better situation because of this incident.

Know that every event, no matter if it’s positive or negative, can help you improve yourself and get in touch with your core. So if we continue with the same example (a broken door handle), you might think of fixing it yourself whilst staying completely present and not labelling the event. Such experience then will actually relax you and make you understand yourself better.

If fixing things is not your strong side, you can decide to call your neighbour to ask for help and thus have a chance to better to know him or her. The more people you meet and listen to, the more you understand them. When you understand other people well, you increase your understanding of yourself.

So it’s really true that there is no negative without positive and it’s much wiser to focus on the positive rather than the negative side of every thing or experience. Make anything that happens to you into a lesson which you learn and increase your own ability and intelligence as a result.

Losing the bigger picture

You get upset over small things because you lose the bigger picture from your view – your whole attention is on that small problem. So to change this, you should always back off from the problem and look at the total view.

For example, you went on holiday and everything went fine until you found out that the beach is much further from the hotel than it was advertised (it happened to me a few times). So you focus on this fact alone and – surprise, surprise – your mood goes down. You then start thinking about other unfair events that happened to you during your stay: the sheets were not replaced as often as you thought they should be, the breakfast was not that great and your partner seemed not to enjoy himself/herself.

Here’s a better way to handle this situation: when you catch yourself exclusively focusing on that bad event, take a deep breath and stop focusing on that thought – let it go. Now think about the bigger picture: you went on holiday, you are in a beautiful country and the locals are the nicest people you have ever met. Once you focus on these positive points, you will soon see that the problem you were thinking about a minute ago is too small to even mention.

What to do when other people upset you

If some person upsets you, you should understand that different people have different views on things and it’s impossible to please them all – and unnecessary. You may look extremely attractive to one person and totally unattractive to another. So there’s no point in getting upset when someone doesn’t like you or disagrees with you.

Rarely do the critics make observations and give advice that is constructive, helpful or necessary. Successful and happy people never discourage you, they in-courage you. Only failures try to bring you down to their level. So it’s always a wise choice to ignore people who criticise you with an understanding that they don’t want you to go for your dreams because they are too lazy or doubting to go for theirs.

I recently went to R. Kiyosaki’s seminar and there I met many wonderful people. But there was also one guy who I knew before, but only now I saw his true face. He didn’t achieve much in life, yet he had plenty of advice to give me about my business. He offered no advice when he didn’t know much about my business, but when he found out that I have many clients and that I am asked to do interviews, he started pointing out my “mistakes”.

That was a sad thing to see, since I thought he is my friend, but at least now I know his intentions. Therefore I made a decision not to be his friend anymore, and you should make such decision too about people who don’t want you to succeed.

An easy escape out of any problem

There’s another thing you can do to remain happy even if something negative happens. Simply return to the present moment. You get negative only if you keep thinking about the negative thing that happened to you. As soon as you center yourself, take a few breaths and try to “feel” the present moment in some way, you instantly relax and feel better.

To make this practice easy, when you feel upset about something, simply ask yourself this question: “What difficulties/problems do I have in this very moment?” And then you will realise that there cannot be any problems “now”, they exist only in your head concerned about your past or worried about your future.

Sometimes, when you try to stay present, your mind will keep interfering reminding you how bad things are and that you should focus on what’s wrong with your life rather than be in the present. That seems like a valid point for most, but that’s just an illusion created by your mind which desperately wants your attention. So if you keep ignoring these messages, your mind will eventually go quiet letting you experience the joy of the present moment.

Conclusion

You really don’t have to be a slave to anything that happens to you. Most people react to negative events in the same ways and therefore create more confusion and routine in their lives. Don’t be like most – choose to respond to negative events in more useful ways.

In general, you should always try to keep your vibration high – to keep your mood high, in other words – so that you would not get into the zone of mass-negativity. Because if you do, you will keep getting more and more upset until you remember all the bad things that people did to you and how unfair the world is. That’s not true, but you will really believe it if you keep dwelling in the negativity zone.

Lastly, I hope that this post convinced you that it’s definitely possible to not get upset over small things and that it’s not a hard thing to do. Try a couple of my suggested tips and see which one works for you best. Then get into the habit of using it and and you will change your average vibration to a higher one, thus making you a more relaxed and uplifted person.

How To Overcome Fear !

2010-09-20T23:58:00.000-07:00

A lot has been said and written about how to overcome fear.

But no matter how many books people read on the subject of fear or how much advice they get, if they don't apply it, their knowledge is worth nothing.

If you want to overcome fear, you have to want to do it bad enough.

If you don't have a strong desire to do, have or achieve something, you will not. So it's important to be absolutely determined to get rid of your fear once and for all.

If you don't take risks, you've lost without even trying. Those who live lives in fear regret when their life is over. You are here to experience new things and to grow, to overcome your fears and enjoy a higher standard of life. The knowledge of how to overcome fear, therefore, is essential if you want to enjoy your life.

How to overcome fear – The gradual method

Let me tell you how I overcame my fear – quitting my job. This was a big fear for me because I really wanted to quit my job, but I was scared that I will not be able to pay my rent and pay my bills. But I was determined to quit my job as soon as possible, so I came up with the plan.

I decided to push myself to work harder on my business so that the money I get from it would be able to cover my expenses. I knew that quitting job without having significant income outside the job was not a wise decision, therefore I decided to set a goal of earning enough to be able to quit.

I visualised my business becoming profitable and worked very hard to achieve this goal. After around a year of my hard work I was able to quit my job. The fear of quitting my job was gone because I knew that the money supply wouldn't finish after I leave my employment.

So sometimes facing the fear immediately is not the wisest decision. Think about your fear. Maybe you can come up with the strategy which would dissolve the fear painlessly.

How to overcome fear – The fast method

Sometimes to overcome some fear you have to face it without any delay. This is very beneficial for your personal development because facing your fears makes you grow and takes you outside of your comfort zone.

To face the fear, however, you have to have a strong motivation behind this goal. Why do you want to overcome the fear? How would that benefit you?

Also, think of the worst thing that could happen to you if you face your fear. For example, maybe you want to have more friends, but you are scared to talk to strangers. The worst that could happen to you in this scenario is probably embarrassment.

So it's not that bad – you don't die and you don't get physically hurt. Isn't it worth to face the fear and finally talk to someone or does a one-time embarrassment matter more than a potential life-long friendship?

So when you want to face the fear immediately, think of the benefits and the drawbacks of facing your fear. Then you will realise (in most cases) that the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks and therefore you will not feel scared to take the action you always wanted to take. ***z-middle-ad.shtml***

How To Overcome Fear – Eliminate small fears first

If you still think you will be unable to face your fear, start from overcoming smaller fears. When you see that you can overcome your small fears, you will move on to bigger ones until you can face your major fear.

If you are scared of spiders, for example, go to a zoo and have a guide talk about them and try to touch them under the supervision of a guide or someone in charge of looking after them. If you are scared of heights, overcome this fear by gradually climbing higher and higher up a ladder. If you are scared of saying “no” to people, start by saying "no" to kids, then teenagers and then older people. Also, start saying “no” for insignificant things like someone asking if you can do something of little importance, and then move on to the bigger ones.

How to overcome fear – Quantum leap

If you want to make a major progress and overcome your big fear, face it without going through your smaller fears. This will save you time but it's harder to accomplish. However when you overcome this fear, it will seem that you can do anything, you will feel much more relaxed, you won't get stressed as much and you will feel happier.

To do that, you have to stop thinking about your fear. The more your think about it, the more it paralyses you and makes you frightened. So the best advice to overcome your biggest fear is “Just do it”.

Don't think about it. Go ahead and do it. The more you think about it, the more you will delay taking action. If you want to think about any aspect of it, think about the benefits that you will get once you are over this fear, but don't let your mind wander into a “What if I fail” question, because it will discourage you.

How to overcome fear – Tim Ferris advice

I remember when I first read “The 4-Hour Workweek” book, there was a great exercise suggested about overcoming fear. In the book it was suggested to go out and ask a phone number from a member of the opposite sex. That looks really hard thing to do, especially for a female.

I've never in my life chatted up any guy before, so this exercise seemed extremely hard. However I love challenges and I love to overcome my fears, so I didn't just put the book aside in the hope that some day I will do that, but I went out and did it.

I simply stopped thinking about what could go wrong, approached the first guy that was on my way and asked him his phone number. Once I opened my mouth and started talking, I no longer was scared to death. It didn't seem as scary as how I thought it would be.

The guy was extremely surprised and didn't say anything for a bit, then he smiled, took out his mobile phone and asked if I have a piece of paper to write the number on. I obviously didn't think the plan through so I didn't have any pen or a piece of paper. I told him that I will remember his number because I have a good memory (sort of:)

When he gave me his number, I thanked for that (he thanked me too) and we went our separate ways. I was so happy that I eliminated this fear because that proved that I can overcome any fear with this method.

How to overcome fear – Fear or phobia?

There is a big difference between a regular fear and phobia. Phobia is a much more extreme fear causing panic attacks and even mental breakdowns. So if you suffer from phobia rather than fear, you need to use other ways to overcome it.

NLP has many great techniques to get rid of phobias. I will give you one of them.

Imagine that you are in a cinema watching yourself on the screen. In the movie you see yourself in the time when you first got the phobia (or at least around the time you got the phobia). Watch yourself getting scared of the thing that produced phobia and what you did afterwards.

Then watch the same movie in black and white. Once you are done, watch the movie in a fast mode. Then watch it backwards. Then remember a funny song and add it to the movie whilst it's in black and white and fast playing backwards.

When you have gone through this self-therapy, test it by facing your phobia. You can only find out if the technique was successful once you face your fear. Also, it can have variations – you can include music earlier or you can play it fast right at the end.

In this video you can see the technique I've just described to you. Watch the video to understand this NLP technique better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRDwhqXWu-A&feature=player_embedded#!

If this method doesn't work, do it again or seek other NLP techniques, because they are really useful. A great book to read about NLP techniques is The Big Book Of NLP Techniques by Shlomo Vaknin. Another great book to read on the subject of fear and how to overcome fear is Feel the Fear... and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers.

How To Overcome Fear – conclusion

I hope that my methods will be useful to you and you will overcome your fear(s) as a result. Remember, if you don't overcome your fears, you don't grow. If you don't grow, you stay stuck in life. Yes, it's quite uncomfortable to face your fears, but sometimes you have to experience a bit of discomfort to get to a more comfortable place.

Good luck in facing your fears and don't think much about it – just do it!

10 Mistakes That Start-Up Entrepreneurs Make

2010-09-19T23:37:00.000-07:00

When it comes to starting a successful business, there's no surefire playbook that contains the winning game plan.

On the other hand, there are about as many mistakes to be made as there are entrepreneurs to make them.

Recently, after a work-out at the gym with my trainer—an attractive young woman who's also a dancer/actor—she told me about a web series that she's producing and starring in together with a few friends. While the series has gained a large following online, she and her friends have not yet incorporated their venture, drafted an operating agreement, trademarked the show's name or done any of the other things that businesses typically do to protect their intellectual property and divvy up the owners' share of the company. While none of this may be a problem now, I told her, just wait until the show hits it big and everybody hires a lawyer.

Here, in my experience, are the top 10 mistakes that entrepreneurs make when starting a company:

1. Going it alone: It's difficult to build a scalable business if you're the only person involved. True, a solo public relations, web design or consulting firm may require little capital to start, and the price of hiring even one administrative assistant, sales representative or entry-level employee can eat up a big chunk of your profits. The solution: Make sure there's enough margin in your pricing to enable you to bring in other people. Clients generally don't mind outsourcing as long as they can still get face time with you, the skilled professional who's managing the project.

2. Asking too many people for advice: It's always good to get input from experts, especially experienced entrepreneurs who've built and sold successful companies in your industry. But getting too many people's opinions can delay your decision so long that your company never gets out of the starting gate. The answer: Assemble a solid advisory board that you can tap on a regular basis but run the day-to-day yourself. Says Elyissia Wassung, chief executive of 2 Chicks With Chocolate Inc., a Matawan, N.J., chocolate company, "Pull in your [advisory] team for bi-weekly or, at the very least, monthly conference calls. You'll wish you did it sooner!"

3. Spending too much time on product development, not enough on sales: While it's hard to build a great company without a great product, entrepreneurs who spend too much time tinkering may lose customers to a competitor with a stronger sales organization. "I call [this misstep] the 'Field of Dreams' of entrepreneurship. If you build it, they will buy it," says Sanjyot Dunung, CEO of Atma Global, Inc., a New York software publisher, who has made this mistake in her own business. "If you don't keep one eye firmly focused on sales, you'll likely run out of money and energy before you can successfully get your product to market."

4. Targeting too small a market: It's tempting to try to corner a niche, but your company's growth will quickly hit a wall if the market you're targeting is too tiny. Think about all the high school basketball stars who dream of playing in the NBA. Because there are only 30 teams and each team employs only a handful of players, the chances that your son will become the next Michael Jordan are pretty slim. The solution: Pick a bigger market that gives you the chance to grab a slice of the pie even if your company remains a smaller player.

5. Entering a market with no distribution partner: It's easier to break into a market if there's already a network of agents, brokers, manufacturers' reps and other third-party resellers ready, willing and able to sell your product into existing distribution channels. Fashion, food, media and other major industries work this way; others are not so lucky. That's why service businesses like public relations firms, yoga studios and pet-grooming companies often struggle to survive, alternating between feast and famine. The solution: Make a list of potential referral sources before you start your business and ask them if they'd be willing to send business your way.

6. Overpaying for customers: Spending big on advertising may bring in lots of customers, but it's a money-losing strategy if your company can't turn those dollars into life-time customer value. A magazine or web site that spends $500 worth of advertising to acquire a customer who pays $20 a month and cancels his or her subscription at the end of the year is simply pouring money down the drain. The solution: Test, measure, then test again. Once you've done enough testing to figure out how to make more money selling products and services to your customers than you spend acquiring those customers in the first place, roll out a major marketing campaign. (See related article, "On a Tight Budget? How to Land a Client.")

7. Raising too little capital: Many start-ups assume that all they need is enough money to rent space, buy equipment, stock inventory and drive customers through the door. What they often forget is that they also need capital to pay for salaries, utilities, insurance and other overhead expenses until their company starts turning a profit. Unless you're running the kind of business where everybody's working for sweat equity and deferring compensation, you'll need to raise enough money to tide you over until your revenues can cover your expenses and generate positive cash flow. The solution: Calculate your start-up costs before you open your doors, not afterwards.

8. Raising too much capital: Believe it or not, raising too much money can be a problem, too. Over-funded companies tend to get big and bloated, hiring too many people too soon and wasting valuable resources on trade show booths, parties, image ads and other frills. When the money runs out and investors lose patience (which is what happened 10 years ago when the dot-com market melted down), start-ups that frittered away their cash will have to close their doors. No matter how much money you raise at the outset, remember to bank some for a rainy day.

9. Not having a business plan: While not every company needs a formal business plan, a start-up that requires significant capital to grow and more than a year to turn a profit should map out how much time and money it's going to take to get to its destination. This means thinking through the key metrics that make your business tick and building a model to spin off three years of sales, profits and cash-flow projections. "I wasted 10 years [fooling around] thinking like an artist and not a business person," says Louis Piscione, president of Avanti Media Group, a New Jersey company that produces videos for corporate and private events. "I learned that you have to put some of your creative genius toward a business plan that forecasts and sets goals for growth and success." (See related article, "Are Business Plans a Waste of Time?")

10. Over-thinking your business plan: While many entrepreneurs I've met engage in seat-of-the-pants decision-making and fail to do their homework, other entrepreneurs are afraid to pull the trigger until they're 100% certain that their plan will succeed. One lawyer I worked with several years ago was so skittish about leaving his six-figure job to launch his business that he never met with a single bank or investor who might have funded his company. The truth is that a business plan is not a crystal ball that can predict the future. At a certain point, you have to close your eyes and take the leap of faith.

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Article Source : ROSALIND RESNICK

54 Amazing IE9 Websites You Have to Try

2010-09-19T11:03:00.000-07:00

When you have a Ferrari you might want to test drive it on a circuit, where there are none of the limitations of a town street. Well, when you have Internet Explorer 9 Beta you need a “circuit” on which to test it, something more than just your average Internet websites, applications and services.

Somewhere where you could really go “pedal to the metal” on IE9. Where the browser will show just what it is capable of.

Fortunately enough, a wide range of such sites designed for Internet Explorer 9 already exist, with a plethora of Microsoft partners introducing new IE9-related web projects with the launch of the Beta on September 15th, 2010.

The Beauty of the Web launch event for IE9 Beta earlier this week was a real show of force from Microsoft partners.

At the bottom of the screen I included a range of photos from the partner section of the event. Below you will also be able to find a list of links with some amazing IE9 websites from the software giant’s Beauty of the Web event.

“Richer Web experiences can blend into the consumer's desktop experience comfortably and consistently. So, today we have an A to Z, literally, of Web sites, partners, live with Web experiences that take advantage of IE9, even more than the A to Z of the Web,” revealed Dean Hachamovitch, Corporate Vice President, Internet Explorer, Microsoft earlier this week.

Users will be able to easily notice that IE9 can enhance the experiences associated with social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Netlog.

But there is additional bleeding edge content from various web design firms, and new perspectives on entertainment and news from BBC, CNN, Hulu, Vimeo, and Daily Motion.

Over 50 projects were on display in total, many of them built in very short time, just a matter of weeks, in preparation for the event.

But all of them extremely impressive, and all of them already live on the web, and available to testers around the world.

It’s important to underline that although the Redmond company catalyzed the creation of the projects, it made sure to have them work not only across Internet Explorer 9, but also across rival browsers.

Superb projects such as Endless Mural will function in IE9, as well as any other browser that supports HTML5.

All the websites featured at the Beauty of the web event in fact, are set up to take advantage of modern web standards, such as HTML5, CSS3, SVG, etc.

And usage is in no way restricted to IE9, which is a brilliant move from Microsoft, showing its commitment to users, developers and partners alike, and a strong focus on driving the web forward by making the same markup vision a reality.

“Today partners around the Internet join us in releasing new experiences for the Web. Over 70 top sites and brands that reach over two-thirds of active Internet users. Together that's over 800 million visitors whose Web experience just got better on Windows with IE9,” Hachamovitch added on September 15th.

Here is the list of IE9 websites, with short descriptions from Microsoft:

“1. Amazon - Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company.

By integrating the pinning and Jump List features enabled by Internet Explorer 9, Amazon continues to enhance the on-line shopping experience for customers by giving them easy access to Amazon.com favorites such as Gold Box Deals and Best Sellers as well as enabling customers to manage their accounts and check the status of orders quickly and effortlessly.

2. Agent 008 Ball by Pixel Lab - Agent 008 Ball is an addictive game that combines billiards with the high stakes world of international espionage. Cutting edge HTML5 features (like Audio and Canvas) supported by Internet Explorer 9, combined with stunning graphics draw you in as you attempt to beat a timer and avoid the nefarious tricks of the terrorist organization CHALK.

3. Always Beautiful by Big Spaceship - Using the new features included in Internet Explorer 9, Big Spaceship created Always Beautiful, an interactive visualization set to music.

Users manipulate colors and objects that adapt to the song's rhythm and structure. At the end of the song, the user is shown the high-resolution artwork they've created using the powerful SVG capabilities and improved JavaScript performance of Internet Explorer 9.

4. AP News Reader by Vectorform - The AP News Lab "Timeline Reader" is a collaboration between Vectorform and The Associated Press (AP) exploring new ways of visualizing and reading online news.

We sought out to create a fully featured online reader application that showcases the beautiful high-res imagery from the AP side-by-side with a full article reading experience.

Users can browse through all of their favorite news categories simultaneously in a timeline visualization that frames the day’s events in a complete chronological sequence. The site is also a showcase of the latest advances in HTML5 and CSS3 supported in modern web browsers.

Some of the new technologies utilized were the HTML5 canvas tag to create a fast loading and snappy intro animation/splash screen, HTML5 local storage to keep track of read articles and a reading queue, and CSS3 support for embedding web fonts.

5. AMD Space Command - AMD Space Command is a fun game that shows the graphics acceleration of Direct2D technology in the Internet Explorer 9 browser.

Shoot as many space attackers possible, and use the “GPU capacitor” to adjust the intensity of the game. AMD Space Command is built in HTML5, leveraging the GPU in your PC to improve graphics.

You can see this first hand by keeping track of the Frames Per Second (FPS) as you adjust your GPU capacitor!

6. BeatKeep by Archetype - Community and creativity are the driving forces behind Archetype’s BeatKeep application.

BeatKeep allows drummers, musicians, and music enthusiasts to discover, create, and share beats of any genre. Through intuitive interactions and the power of HTML5 on Internet Explorer 9, BeatKeep allows users to create unique audio tracks and share them on social networks like Facebook.

7. Beautiful Explorer by Soleil Noir - Web is beautiful, spontaneous, ephemeral and so creative. The beauty of the web is the creative contents produced by everyday people. This website is a design trends daily overview. We hope you'll enjoy it.

8. BMW Vision by EMC - EMC Consulting and BMW have a created the BMW Car Configurator, a ground-breaking tool that shows off the extraordinary BMW Vision EfficientDynamics concept car.

The experience relies on the high performance of Internet Explorer 9, bringing together the awesome power of Chakra, its new JavaScript engine, and GPU acceleration to enable car enthusiasts to manipulate both the car and its environment with a fluid three-dimensional feel.

9. Brain Power by R2Integrated and Scientific America - R2integrated developed Brain Power, a website and interactive learning tool to introduce users to the many parts of the human brain and its functionality.

Brain Power uses HTML5, SVG, CSS3, and JavaScript. An animation layer produces real-time interactions with elements drawn within the HTML5 canvas.

The HTML5/CSS3 engine within Internet Explorer 9 makes full rich interactive applications practical for all new websites. In short, HTML5 and Internet Explorer 9 introduce end users to new levels of flexibility, capability, and expression.

10. Chinese Shadow Play by RedSAFI - Chinese Shadow Play is a traditional form of Chinese art. This demo lets users choose an iconic Chinese shadow puppets, play with puppets individually and organize the puppets in formations.

This demo shows off the power of the Internet Explorer 9 Canvas by featuring a physics engine and a bones system, as well as beautiful bitmap art to create an engaging viewing experience.

11. Also by RedSAFI: Chinese Kite Experiment - In this demo, a user can select a kite and choose a flight pattern.

The user can also add fans to the stage and add collision detection to alter the kite’s flight. This demo shows off Internet Explorer 9 Canvas performance by featuring a physics engine to create the flying environment.

12. Comicx Parallax by Steaw Design - As web technologies continue to evolve, we prepare to enter the age of HTML5. Created for Beauty of The Web in honor of the Internet Explorer 9 launch, “Never Mind the Bullets” offers the traditional comic strip experience enriched by parallax.

With a simple movement of the mouse, the strip is animated and the story comes to life. It unfolds at LongHorn Gush, a quiet town troubled by a band of outlaws, The Red Bandanas.

However, with the arrival of the famous Bill “One Shot” Collins, things are about to change.

13. Cracked.com by Demand Media - Pinning Cracked.com to your task bar allows you easier access to one of the fastest growing humor sites in the world.

Now all of Cracked’s award-winning content is only one click away – no matter where you are online!

14. DailyMotion - Dailymotion is pleased to announce the release of its new HTML5 Player Beta and Demo.

This development takes advantage of the latest web standards, and permits streaming video playback without the need for plugins," said Olivier Poitrey, CTO and Co-Founder.

"We are excited to partner with Microsoft for this announcement as the new Internet Explorer 9 shows commitment to both web standards and innovation. Internet Explorer 9 sets itself apart by supporting hardware accelerated graphics and offering users a more app-like experience with their new Site Mode.

15. Digital News Archive (DNA) by Nave - The web site provides Korean newspapers from various publishers dates starting from 1960's to 1990's.

Users can easily browse through the newspapers using simple UI. To maximize the user experience, the Canvas element was heavily utilized. With the Canvas, we could make zoom, page navigation and other transitions smooth and enjoyable for the users.

16. Discovery - As the world’s number one nonfiction media company, Discovery Communications is always looking for new ways to engage with our passionate fans.

By building new Internet Explorer 9 functionality into Discovery.com, TLC.com and AnimalPlanet.com, we are able to give audiences even more ways to interact with and learn from their favorite TV shows and personalities.

17. EBay

18. eHow by Demand Media - eHow offers more than 2 million articles and videos, providing visitors with trusted solutions for completing life’s daily tasks or larger projects.

With Internet Explorer 9, users enjoy an optimized and more dynamic eHow, a faster loading and immersive video experience - without the need for 3rd party software - plus new tools to bring relevant eHow content straight to our user’s fingertips.

19. Facebook - More than 500 million people actively engage with their friends on Facebook each month.

With IE9, Facebook users will be able to more quickly access and manage their social activities through the browser and get back to their friends via a seamless and rich experience.

20. Flixster - Flixster is the largest online movie community and the leading movie application for mobile devices.

Flixster is using Internet Explorer 9’s new features to give users quick and easy access to great movie content right from the desktop.

21. Floweroscope by LA Surprise - Floweroscope provides users with a kaleidoscope-like online artistic experience that explores the new capacities of Internet Explorer 9 to create a unique animation experience.

Floweroscope provides symmetrical effects and randomly generated shapes, and the user controls the shape colors and sizes.

An HTML5-supported volume effect and the new Chakra JavaScript engine immerse the user into the experience. The Internet Explorer 9 Canvas element provides an innovative way to draw hardware-accelerated animations without plugins.

22. Gorillaz - Gorillaz.com has been optimised for Internet Explorer 9 to take advantage of some great new integration features with Windows 7.

Fans can now drag the Gorillaz favicon to their taskbar and access it like an app. Right-clicking on the Gorillaz icon in the taskbar provides access to site features like News or the G Player.

Gorillaz fans can even personalise this list by clicking the star to save any page. Powered by HTML5, Murdoc’s Reading Room is turned into an interactive space.

He'll talk you through it as you zoom up to the gallery wall and listen to tracks, bring up the Story So Far book off his coffee table with stunning pictures, html5 video and audio, and have a nosey look through the contents of his laptop. Click on the video to play an HTML5 video!

23. Hulu - Hulu on Internet Explorer 9 and Windows 7 will allow users to customize their Jump List menu with the most popular destinations on the site.

To customize, users simply select the menu items in their profile page and they become accessible whenever/wherever you are on Hulu.com.

The site will also enable contextual menus on Show Pages and Watch Pages allowing users to Subscribe to shows or control their video watching experience during content playback.

24. IMDb - More than 100 million unique visitors per month turn to IMDb to discover which movies are coming out and decide what to watch.

IMDb’s new HD Trailer Gallery utilizes HTML5 and Internet Explorer 9 hardware acceleration to dramatically enhance the trailer viewing and movie discovery experience on IMDb.

25. Jack & the Beanstalk, an Animated, Interactive Storybook by Clarity Consulting - The site blends fantasy and realism in custom illustrations animated by physics-based JavaScript.

The GPU acceleration in Internet Explorer 9 allows for smooth rendering of animations, even when leveraging heavy physics libraries. Coupled with SVG graphics and embedded audio most are surprised to hear the entire site has been created using HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript.

The newly supported features of Internet Explorer 9 allows for rich interactivity without the overhead of the traditional plug-in based model.

26. JitterBug by Cynergy - JitterBug is a fast, fun game built exclusively in HTML5. Showing off the rich media and rendering power of Internet Explorer 9, the game challenges the player to draw lassos around fast moving bugs to unlock the Band and start the show before the time runs out.

Relying heavily on Internet Explorer 9’s impressive Canvas abilities, this rich playing experience redefines what’s possible in HTML based game play.

27. Kaboodle - Kaboodle is the Internet’s largest social website for passionate shoppers. Kaboodle’s shopping tools allow users to add products from anywhere online to their Kaboodle lists and to share those products with others.

The site’s integration with Internet Explorer 9 will provide Kaboodle community members with easy access to their personalized shopping content via a custom Jump List, ensuring that it is always just one click away.

28. LinkedIn - LinkedIn is an Internet platform company focused on connecting the world's professionals.

The company is privately held and has a diversified business model with revenues driven from user subscriptions, advertising sales and enterprise software licensing.

The LinkedIn Web site launched in 2003 and is the largest professional networking site in the world with more than 75 million members, representing 200 countries and executives from every Fortune 500 company.

LinkedIn’s integration with Internet Explorer 9 will provide its members with one-click access to their professional network and business insights via a custom Jump List.

29. Live Strong by Demand Media - LIVESTRONG.COM inspires and empowers people to achieve their daily goals around living healthy.

With Internet Explorer 9, users enjoy a more dynamic experience including an expanded HD video browsing and improved recipe discovery.

A newly optimized experience of the popular MyPlate food and fitness tracking application keeps users engaged in real-time.

30. Lost World’s Fairs by Friends of Mighty - To celebrate Internet Explorer 9’s support for the Web Open Font Format (WOFF) Jason Santa Maria, Frank Chimero, Naz Hamid, and Trent Walton have teamed up to create a series of web broadsheets for World’s Fairs that never were.

Each piece uses fully live text (with some HTML5 and CSS3) to showcase what’s typographically possible on the web.

31. MONA (Museum Of Neverending Art) by groupeReflect - At the MONA, users work together to create the biggest online artwork ever.

Everyone can create, draw, write, upload pictures, and add and alter things on the canvas. It’s a user-generated piece of art, which is constantly in motion.

Using Internet Explorer 9 technologies such as HTML5 / CSS3, WebFonts, Canvas and the new Internet Explorer 9 JavaScript Engine, MONA makes you rediscover the beauty of the web, as well as recreate it.

32. MySpace - MySpace Video offers music videos, full episodes of TV shows, and user generated content and creates a social environment for users to view, create and share videos with friends.

In Internet Explorer 9, MySpace Video serves over 200,000 videos and UGC video clips in state of the art high-def H.264 in full compliance with HTML5. Jump Lists in Internet Explorer 9 offer quick content discovery and easy navigation.

33. National Museum Gallery China by NX - One of the most famous museums in China, National Museum of China (NMC) now allows visitors to explore the galleries on their feet or on the web.

Internet Explorer 9’s HTML5 support is just right for this scenario: easy to develop with great flexibility, smooth video and audio playback and a fast experience with the new JavaScript engine.

34. Netlog - Netlog is an online platform where users can keep in touch with and extend their social network and is currently available in 37 languages and has more than 69 million members throughout Europe, and this number increases every day.

Netlog is taking advantage of pinning site to the taskbar and thereby making sure users get to the activities within Netlog they care about via the Jump List.

35. One Day in Beijing by Toujie - One Day in Beijing provides a virtual tour of famous Beijing sites, including the Great Wall, Temple of Heaven, Beihai Park, Tian An Men, and National Stadium China (Bird Nest).

These are the must-go places for anyone touring Beijing. By harnessing the power of Internet Explorer 9 and HTML5 along with the Internet Explorer 9 Canvas 2D API, we created a multitude of interactive scenarios.

Users can experience flying clouds and mouse sensitive navigation, as well as other HTML 5 demos like flying kites, and piyingxi.

36. Photobucket - Photobucket is the premier destination for saving, sharing, searching, and creating images and video on the Web.

With Internet Explorer 9, Photobucket is using Jump List, which will allow users to access both their own content and content from topical “Find Stuff” categories directly from their desktop.

37. Quiksilver

38. Red Bull by Archetype - Archetype has created a next generation global media and social experience for Red Bull.

This interactive application allows users to browse Red Bull’s rich set of photos and video, dynamically surfacing content based on its popularity in social networking sites and on users' interests.

It takes advantage of HTML 5, SVG, CSS3, Jump Lists, Scaling, Audio/Video tags and custom font features and functionality offered by Internet Explorer 9 to raise the bar for interactivity and design in standards based websites.

39. Rough Guides by Metia - Members of this interactive community use an animated compass to navigate a map of the world; view geo-located photographs pulled from the Flickr database; and explore 200 travel experiences selected by Rough Guides.

Members can also submit their own images to the community, and share favourite experiences from their online travels using Facebook, Twitter and email.

40. RTL - RTL Group is a house of excellent content and powerful brands, which is able to deliver its content to all media platforms worldwide and to repeat its broadcasting success story in every country while fulfilling its obligation to society.

By combining pinning, Jump List and previews into the RTL experience, Internet Explorer 9 users get convenient access to the most popular RTL content.

41. Sohu NBA by Digital Hall nbadata.sports.sohu.com - Sohu Sports is one of the most popular interactive sports information network among sport enthusiasts.

Being the NBA-licensed live video broadcast site for NBA events in China, NBA fans can access team schedules, game videos and team/player data, photos, chat rooms, voting and other interactive features. Internet Explorer 9 plus HTML 5 gives an unparalleled high performance hardware accelerated graphics and video experience.

42. t-online.de - This showcase is a sneak peek at the future of t-online.de.

Core features are new picture and video galleries, a 360 degree view of consumer products and a fun and challenging online game, all completely realized in HTML 5.

This, as well as the implementation of the Internet Explorer’s Jump List feature, offers the user a glimpse of what a modern news website could be like when fully implementing the power and simplicity of HTML 5 in combination with the Internet Explorer’s unique way to surf the web.

43. The Doll Parade by Freetouch - The Doll Parade allows its users to assemble a wide variety of dolls by customizing their arms, legs, faces and apparel.

Once the doll is assembled the users doll along with other creations march smoothly via an HTML5 Canvas. The experiences takes advantage of HTML 5 (Canvas), SVG and CSS3.

44. The Killers by SparKart - The Killers' website chronicles the band's career, and offers users a seamless browsing experience of the band’s music and video content.

The website takes advantage of HTML5, Canvas & SVG across the site's panoramic landscape & internal sections, leveling the playing field in displaying content to users across multiple platforms & devices.

45. The Shodo by Business Architects - The Kanji Calligraphy website takes advantage of powerful new Internet Explorer 9 features to introduce users to the beautiful Japanese calligraphy known as Shodo.

Even better, Kanji Calligraphy allows users to create their own calligraphy-based art work and share it on Twitter and Facebook.

This site is based on several of the features supported by Internet Explorer 9 HTML5 (canvas, video element, audio element), SVG, and WOFF.

46. The Wall Street Journal - WSJ.com offers breaking news coverage, real time quotes, and in-depth analysis and commentary to the business elite.

Its high-end magazine, WSJ., emphasizes luxury and discerning lifestyle content. To make it easier for users to find and enjoy the content, WSJ is implementing favicons, pinning and the Jump List functionality of Internet Explorer 9 and employing HTML5 features for the visually enriched magazine.

Users can more quickly and easily access Journal content on their faster Internet Explorer 9 browsers.

47. TopGear.com by BBC - TopGear.com is the award-winning website of the world famous motoring entertainment brand, Top Gear.

Top Gear presenters, producers, magazine team, and contributors regularly post on TopGear.com. The Cool Wall leverages the HTML5 and hardware accelerated graphics support in Internet Explorer 9 to provide amazingly smooth transitions, Deep Zoom functionality and slick video playback.

48. Twitter - Twitter lets you share and discover what's happening in your world. The Twitter pinned app in Internet Explorer 9 makes it easy to jump into your Twitter timeline, read and send direct messages, and more, so it's never more than a click away.

49. USA Today - As a part of the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, USA TODAY built a multimedia project examining where things now stand in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

To build the site, we used a variety of web standards, including HTML5 video tag and several CSS3 features, that take advantage of the capabilities of cutting-edge web technologies in Internet Explorer 9.

50. Vodpod - Vodpod makes it easy to build your own video channel with your favorite videos from the Web, and to tune in to channels by other members who share your tastes and interests.

By pinning Vodpod to the taskbar in Internet Explorer 9, users will be able to jump right to their real-time Vodpod feed, to their video collection, or to their favorite channels.

51. WebVizBench by Stimulant and KEXP - WebVizBench lets fans of Seattle’s non-profit radio station KEXP explore historical airplay data, while putting HTML 5's new features to the test. Sift and sort through 6+ years of music, or use the benchmark mode to see how your browser, CPU and GPU stack up against a thorough battery of DOM, canvas, typographic, SVG and video rendering tests.

52. XING - XING is a social network for business professionals with more than 9.6 million members worldwide.

Using Internet Explorer 9 technology such as Jump Lists, XING members can perform tasks like sending messages faster than ever and also receive real-time updates about their network. This supports our XING Anywhere strategy and our efforts to provide our members with great usability.

53. Yahoo! Japan - Through Jump Lists in Internet Explorer 9, users of Yahoo! can enjoy the ‘People’, 'TV', 'Game/Animation', and 'Sports' categories of search ranking, and further enjoy it by switching to Yahoo! Auction, and Yahoo! Answer to see what is actively traded or discussed related to popular queries.

54. ZKM - “Exhibition and Archive” presents a historic online exhibition and a new experience of archival survey.

The side is driven by HTML5, CANVAS, CSS3, SVG and Jump List, which allow graphically rich, standard conform applications and avoids plugins. The pure implementation supports the modern claim of “form follows function” and adds sustainability.”

Download Internet Explorer 9 beta

The twenty-seven most important rules for keeping your house in order !

2010-09-19T07:28:00.000-07:00

To keep your house from falling into cluttered chaos:

-- never buy “souvenirs.”

-- somewhere, keep an entirely empty shelf or drawer.

-- strive to keep surfaces bare. Put away kitchen appliances you don’t use every day; don’t cram stuff onto every ledge.

-- get rid of newspapers and magazines as soon as possible. Never keep a newspaper overnight, and never keep a magazine for more than two months—unless you find a positive joy in keeping an orderly collection.

-- have an exact place for everything.

-- know where to give things away: books, clothes, kitchenware, toys. It’s much easier to get rid of things if you can imagine who will benefit. Figure this out before you start a major clutter-clearing effort.

-- fight the piles that accumulate in the hallway, in corners, on bedside tables, on the dining room table.

-- use dimmer switches.

-- don’t buy things on impulse, particularly from bargain stores.

-- storing a thing means you don’t need to use it. So before you squirrel something away, ask yourself, “Do I really need to keep this?”

-- never accept anything for free, unless you’re thrilled with it. A mug, a tote bag, a hand-me-down toy, the lamp from your mother-in-law--if you don’t need it, don’t take it.

-- According to “broken windows theory,” signs of decay like broken windows or graffiti create an atmosphere that contributes to larger crime. Burnt-out light bulbs and empty toilet-paper holders are the broken windows of the home; don’t tolerate them.

-- have enough hangers in every closet.

-- make your bed every morning.

-- keep your keys in the same place each day.

-- every night before bed, do a tidy-up to put away everything that’s out of place.

-- if you have stacks of unopened CDs, unread books, unwatched videos of PBS series, or unopened spice jars, don’t let yourself buy any more until you’ve made a dent in what you already have.

-- don’t let yourself run out of necessities like envelopes, tape, toothpaste, stamps, Band-aids, batteries, and the like. If you hate to shop, buy large quantities and stockpile them.

-- don’t hoard huge quantities of things that you could never use up: binder clips, rubber bands, clay pots, florist vases, plastic grocery bags. Give the rest away.

-- hang up your coat (this is probably the rule I personally violate most often).

-- buy a box-cutter. They really are handy.

-- if you have lots of things that you’re reluctant to throw away because you’re not sure what they are—mystery cables, random remote-control devices, important looking screws that appeared mysteriously on the floor, obscure vacuum-cleaner attachments—put them all in one box. You’ll never use the stuff, but you’ll know it’s there.

-- for extra credit, put a date on the box, and if you haven’t opened it in a year, throw it away.

-- never allow a drawer or a closet to get so full that it’s hard to open and shut.

-- get rid of things that don’t work. If you’re like me, you’ll be amazed at how many things you have around the house that are perfectly useless.

-- set aside a place where you put things to give away, and as soon as you realize you want to get rid of something, put it there. That way, you prevent clutter from accumulating.

-- if you can’t find something, clean up.

Article Source :

Gretchen Rubin

Improve your posture in 3-steps !!!!

2010-09-19T04:57:00.000-07:00

3 simple steps to improve your posture !!!

A wrong body posture can predispose people towards aches and pain, but it's never too late to work towards correcting one's pose and keeping the spine healthy.

Posture is the position in which you hold your body upright against gravity while standing, sitting or laying down. Good posture involves training the body to stand, walk, sit, and lie in positions where the least strain is placed on supporting muscles and ligaments.

"Poor posture can lead to loss of shoulder motion, chronic pain, walking deficits, neck-related headaches, the inability to exercise, and more," said Thielman.

He added: "However, aside from contributing to a good appearance, the long-term benefits of proper posture include helping to decrease abnormal wearing of joint surfaces, lessening stress on the ligaments of the spine, preventing the spine from becoming fixed in abnormal positions, and preventing backache and muscular pain."

Thielman shared the following exercises and tips to help you keep your spine healthy:

Evaluate your workstations

workstation is anywhere that an individual spends a notable amount of time daily and for many of us, our primary workstation is standing or sitting at a desk.

"If you're sitting, don't drop a ton of money on an ergonomic chair. Instead, position the chair to provide lumbar, shoulder, and if needed, head support,'' said Thielman

Perform daily exercises

Thielman has recommended regularly exercising the large muscles on the front and back of the thigh, the abdominal muscles, and performing three exercises daily:

Pelvic tilt : "While sitting, push your pelvis back into the chair, hold it for three seconds and then relax. This tightens and strengthens your abdominal muscles," explained Thielman.

Chin tucks : "Also while sitting, put your pointer finger on your chin and push straight back. Be sure your head isn't tilted up or down and this exercise will realign your spine and combat forward head position," said Thielman.

Lean back : "Lastly, most of what we perform at our workstations forces us anterior, so we're constantly bending forward. To straighten the spine, stand-up, put your hands on your lower back, and lean back. This exercise combats the effects of being in a forward position," said Thielman.

Invest in supportive shoes

Stiletto heels may look good, but Thielman has warned that they don't do women any favors in the posture department.

"There is no such thing as a good high heel shoe." Shoes that cover the top of the foot are ideal. "Each brand fits differently, but the key is to find one that works for you and that gives the much-needed overall support,'' said Thielman.

Thielman also cautioned against carrying backpacks that weigh more than 20 pounds, attempting to lift objects that are too heavy, and repetitively making the same moves without taking frequent breaks.

In his opinion, any one of these actions encourage the forward leaning motion that causes poor posture and back problems.

"A common misconception about good posture is that it can be maintained by only doing occasional strength training. Good posture is more than just standing-up straight and holding your shoulders back, and if you don't have the muscle strength, you aren't going to be able to hold that posture for very long. By maintaining your strength and being consciously aware of your posture, you can maintain proper posture and mobility well into your mid-60s, before the natural onset of aging," he said.

Article Source : University of the Sciences in Philadelphia's Assistant Professor of Physical Therapy Dr. Greg Thielman

The Science of Success-5 tips for creating mental momentum for you and your business:

2010-09-16T03:05:00.000-07:00

We are like dogs. We respond better to success than we do failures. Scads of platitudes have been written about learning from failure, and while it is possible to learn great lessons from life's clunkers, neuroscience now shows us that nothing succeeds like success. Have you ever had that golf game, presentation or some other challenge where everything you do with that challenge is golden? Then, the next day, you go at it again and you mess up one time and--bam! You can't seem to get in the groove. There is a brain-based reason for that, and the more aware of it you are, the more you can create success momentum in your business.

Earl Miller of MIT and Mark Histed of Harvard found that our neurons retain memory and become more finely tuned when we succeed, but they don't when success isn't present. There is a difference between the absence of success and the presence of failure. For instance, when a mistake leads to a negative consequence, we have a tendency to learn from it and veer in another direction. We don't necessarily learn what to do, but we learn what not to do. On the other hand, when there is absence of success but no apparent mistakes (you lose money in the stock market but have nothing tangibly to do with it), nothing appears to change in the brain, and relatively little--if any--learning takes place.

Here's what goes on that makes success so...well, successful. When you're learning something new and you have a success, even a small one, your brain gets a little reward bump of the pleasure neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is used to thicken the neural pathways needed to learn a new skill. Your brain is drawn to activities that give you those little pleasure bumps. You can actually become addicted to success. But the big news is that the more you succeed, the longer your brain retains the proper information to help you succeed again.

The implications of this seem enormous for you and your business. We now know that what you celebrate (typically success) gets repeated, and the more you celebrate it, the more of that behavior you get. We used to think this was part of the psycho-babble voodoo of niceness in business and that it really wasn't necessary. It is and now it's proven. Look for low-hanging fruit in your company--small successes that everyone can participate in--because it's a good way to get the snowball of success and high morale rolling when things are going badly.

Following are five things you can do to take advantage of this science in your organization and get the snowball effect of success breeding success.

1.You're looking to experience success, not to learn from mistakes. It might sound like semantics, but it is a different framing that works to keep you going. When you discuss mistakes, make sure you don't just focus on the what-not-to-do part of it. If you want to head down the path of success, you have to understand what is correct and try the successful behavior until you have a positive outcome.

2.Get your head positively in the game. When you make a mistake, don't allow negativity to rule you. As "new-agey" as it sounds, stay positive. Your attitude should be that you get another chance to make it right. Focus on the next turn. Put in neuroscience terms, when you become mired in negativity, the stressor hormone cortisol bathes your brain and blocks access to the part of the brain that breeds success. You become more and more frustrated and will continue to make mistakes. Take a break! When you can come at the challenge with a new and positive perspective, you are primed to try it again.

3.Nothing replaces practice. When you achieve success, mimic the very same behavior again relatively quickly after the last success. You'll build thicker neural pathways for the successful behaviors. In essence, practice and practice and practice the art of success. That's why you see golfers hit ball after ball on a driving range. Focus on the attempts you get right; ignore the wrong ones.

4.Celebrate. If you're trying to teach someone a new skill, celebrate their successes and ignore their mistakes unless the failure is going to be harmful.

5.Positive feedback is like cash in the bank. The old adage is true: "People have a tendency to become what we encourage them to be, not what we nag them to be." As a leader, catch people doing things right and make sure they know you've witnessed it. Give them on-the-spot feedback on it so that they get a big dopamine hit. Don't wait for company meetings or the next time you see them walking down the hall. One of your most important activities as a success chief will be to immediately dole out feedback when someone does something right. Get good and consistent at it.

There are few things as exciting as breeding success, especially when you know you can do it deliberately. If you want to be the titan of your industry and have a high hit rate at success, keep hitting. Notice when you and others get it right and do it again and again. We really are like dogs. Sit. Roll over. Good entrepreneur. Celebrate.

Article Source : Scott Halford

Here are 13 ways to get lucky !!!!!

2010-09-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

Al ways thought other people have all the luck? Well, this is because they understand the difference between luck and planning and know how to place themselves in the path of good fortune. And now, you too can bend the path of luck towards you.

Max Gunther has outlined13 techniques for discovering and taking advantage of life's good breaks in his book 'How to Get Lucky', which has recently been republished after its debut in 1986.

Gunther, who died in 1988, said that lucky people arrange their lives in characteristic patterns and tend to position themselves in the path of onrushing luck, reports Stuff.co.nz.

Here are his 13 tips to turn your luck around:

1. Never confuse luck with planning:

When a desired outcome is brought about by luck, you must acknowledge that fact. If you confuse luck with planning, you will all but guarantee that your luck, in the long run, will be bad.

2. Find the fast flow:

Go where events flow fastest, surround yourself with a churning mass of people and things will happen. It doesn''t matter if you are a quiet person; all you need to do is meet a lot of people and let them know who you are. Then they will direct opportunities your way.

3. Take calculated risks:

There are two ways to be an almost sure loser in life. One is to take risks that are out of proportion to the rewards being sought. The other is to take no risks at all. Lucky people, characteristically, avoid both extremes.

4. Know when to cut and run:

Always assume that a run of luck is going to be short, never try to ride a run to its peak. You will virtually always be right as the law of averages is heavily on your side.

5. Know how to select luck:

Is there some likelihood that the problems with your investment - whether it be time, money or love - will go away? Do you have some realistic hope of fixing them? If so, you should stay aboard. If not, you should get out and look for better luck elsewhere.

6 . Take the zig zag path:

Despite what many people think the path to success is rarely a straight line. Lucky men and women, on the whole, are not straight-line strugglers. They not only allow themselves to be distracted, they invite distraction.

A plan should be used as a guide only and if something better comes along the plan should be discarded immediately without regret.

7. Supernatural belief can help:

Not because it makes you more lucky but because it helps you make impossible choices. Sometimes there is no rational choice to make, yet the worst reaction is to do nothing.

A supernatural belief can enable people to get into a potentially winning position simply by helping them make choices.

8. Be a bit pessimistic:

Lucky people, as a breed, tend to be pessimistic. Optimism means expecting the best, but good luck involves knowing how you will handle the worst.

9. Learn to keep your mouth shut:

Talk can tie you up and lock you in positions that seem right today but may be wrong tomorrow. Avoid unnecessary talk about your problems, plans and feelings. When there is no good reason to say something, say nothing.

10. Recognise a non-lesson:

There are experiences in life that seem to be lessons but aren''t. Recognise when something was just bad luck and move on.

11. Accept the universe is unfair:

All of us, the good, the bad and the in-between, are all equally likely to realise our fondest dreams or contract cancer.

12. Be willing to be busy :

The more activities you have going the greater the likelihood that something good will happen.

13. Find a destiny partner:

This is someone who is someone who changes your luck over a long term. This person is not necessarily a romantic partner and is usually just found by blind luck but it can help if you are actively looking.

Values of Ethics At Workplace

2010-09-15T05:18:00.000-07:00

Work ethics are like guides or values that are followed by both the management and the employees through behavior, thoughts and acts. When you have good ethics at the workplace, then the business and employees will prosper. It is always the lack of work ethics that fail a business practice and also an employee’s career.

There are several work ethics that are required by businesses in their everyday work life. Whether you are a good person or not, having work ethics that are standard to all the employees are a must. One should consider work place ethics as the business code of conduct.

As an employee, you should comply with your workplace ethics by reading, understanding and following them. Always look at your seniors and learn from them. They will show the ethics and also set an example by following them. As an adult, you will also know if your senior is setting a bad or good example.

There are several types of ethics that a company expects from its employees. Some of them are as follows:

•Honesty

•Integrity

•Perseverance

•Respect

•Privacy

•Cyber ethics like maintaining privacy, not spamming and having email etiquette

•Constructive criticism

•Appreciation

•Reporting

These are not all and there are several more to follow.

When employees display work ethics consistently, they climb the ladder of success rather efficiently. In most business practices with ethics, the secret of success for an employee is to climb the work place ladder. Also, in a few years it will lead them to leadership positions. Every leader has a sense of work ethics and also personal values.

TwitMesh-[Twitter Tools]: FAQs FOR SHARE TRADING @ STOCK EXCHANGE OF INDIA

2010-09-14T00:28:00.000-07:00

http://twitmesh.blogspot.com/2010/08/faqs-for-share-trading-stock-exchange.html?spref=bl: "Stock Market FAQS What are the instruments traded in the stock markets? There are various types of instruments in the stock market. They ..."

The Blessings of Forgiveness

2010-09-13T23:57:00.000-07:00

The Lord is my life's refuge: of whom should I be afraid?

Every night, before I go to sleep, I offer my life to God. I give God my eyes, ears, mouth and heart. I want to be freely accessible to Him. I want to use these senses as God wishes. Does that mean I just sit back and

let God do everything? Of course not. It means that I am asking God to help me use my senses to promote whatever will bring His love to each person I meet.

Who do we turn to when we are in trouble? Usually, we turn to God, perhaps in our own way. Our heart and soul knows where our home truly is. We only need to listen. When we are ill or someone we love is sick, don't most of us turn to God? I usually ask for whatever God's will is for that person. I know that God knows the larger picture. Sometimes it is hard to do because, of course, you want the person to get better. However, God knows what is best.

Please don't think I consider it to be not prayer when you request something from God for yourself or someone else. I am saying that, if you truly put your life and that of others in God's hands, this is the only solution I find possible. Sometimes, in these situations, I tell God what I would like, but then say, "Your will, not mine, be done."

Knowing my life's refuge is God, there is no room left for fear of death, someone hurting me emotionally, or illness. We have peace in knowing that God is truly with us. He is not only with us, He is within us. We can have peace and confidence while opening ourselves to new experiences and to the people God would like us to meet. Does that mean we need to go to foreign lands and become missionaries? Some people do this, and I admire and respect them. However, not all of us are called to that ministry.

All we have to do is look within our own families and communities. There may be someone who is isolated and not very outgoing. They may have even hurt us. After you have a conversation with them, you may discover they

are shy and lonely. I once experienced a situation like this. I was on a trip and someone on the airplane seemed preoccupied and a bit irritable. I found that this person had a chronic illness which caused a great deal of pain. This was why they were irritable. I had initially believed the person was someone with a negative outlook on life. If I had left it at that, I'd have missed a great opportunity to share and experience compassion and love.

We all discriminate in some way, usually due to fear or lack of information. It is hard to look within ourselves but, if we realize we are all God's beloved sons and daughters, it gives us a new perspective. We realize there is no need to be afraid.

I need to mention that there are times when you need to be aware of one who shows violence or abuse toward you. I don't see that as fear, but as self-awareness.

Protect yourself! Do what ever is necessary to get out of the abusive situation. Each relationship is different, and I will not generalize, but you deserve a safe place in which to live. If you have children, both you and your children need a safe place to live.

To summarize, in this chapter we have discussed the ways Jesus forgives us and how we are called to forgive others as he has forgiven us. We have reflected on God's light being within us and others and how prayer is very important in forgiveness. We have looked at fear and how sometimes lack of information about someone can lead us to believe they are negative or disrespectful of us when they might be going through a difficult time. The last reflection was if we are being abused we need to get out of the situation. We can work on forgiveness later but if we are being physically, emotionally, or sexually abused we need to get out.

The movies are full of revenge and getting back at people who have done incredibly evil things. My guess is, we don't go through an entire day without someone being irritated at us or insensitive. It could even be ourselves. It seems as if our culture thinks that if we fight back and hurt the person who did these evil acts that we are the heroes. We have "saved the day."

If that were true, how then do we understand the life of Jesus? Even as he was being crucified, He said, "Forgive them Father, they know not what they do." Because of his forgiveness, everlasting life was given to us. Talk about the power of forgiveness! In reality, it takes much more emotional, spiritual, and psychological work to forgive than to settle for a moment of revenge.

The truth is, real power and strength comes from forgiveness. But, how often do we see a movie in which the hero is heroic because he or she forgave? Unfortunately, not very often. If we hold on to our bitterness and

hate, we are in turn held captive by it. We don't have the energy for compassion and happiness. How can we be happy when our stomach is in knots?

We may wonder, how can we possibly forgive someone who has harmed us? Most likely they don't even care or know they hurt us. They go on with their life and we're still stuck in that moment when we were hurt. We still relive it each time we remember and our feelings get churned up within us. No longer are they hurting us but we are hurting ourselves.

Only when we are able to forgive can we have freedom from the pain the person caused us. One of the passages of the Bible explains this well. When you read it think of how forgiveness would relate to this scripture and what Jesus might mean when he says, "The kingdom of God," in Mark 12:28-34.

One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them , asked him" Which is the first of all the commandments?"

Jesus replied," The first is this: Hear oh Israel! The Lord our God is God alone! You shall love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength."

Remember the prodigal son story? Remember the love the father showed? Once we have experienced that love, once we have drawn close to Jesus, our heart yearns to love him more. Once we have felt his presence we know we are loved. Our heart and soul know their creator. This prayer attempts to try and explain this connection.

Fragrance of Love

The sweet aroma

of love surrounds me

as I lift my voice in prayer.

The sweet perfume of

your sacred presence

fills my heart with peace.

I bath in the

waters of rebirth

and listen as you say,

Smell the roses

and breathe in my

scent of delight.

Feel the essence

of my light

as it warms your soul.

My fragrance of love

will calm the inner

storm and turmoil.

Can you smell

my cologne of holiness

as I draw near?

Let it consume

you and take

you off your deepest self.

That's right, follow

me even deeper,

now we are resting in your soul

Feel the aroma of

my sacred light

warm your soul.

Smell the bouquet

of eternal love

and sing with angels.

Now you are home,

now you are

with your creator.

There is no greater love,

no greater peace,

your soul is at peace.

Your heart gently

beats with mine

and the two beat as one.

Rest a little while longer,

then spread the fragrance

of love you have received to the world.

Article Source : Cindy Tuttle

What do you do to tackle stress in your daily work life?

2010-09-13T23:16:00.000-07:00

You need stress in your life! Does that surprise you? Perhaps so, but it is quite true. Without stress, life would be dull and unexciting. Stress adds flavor, challenge, and opportunity to life. Too much stress, however, can seriously affect your physical and mental well-being. A major challenge in this stress-filled world of today is to make the stress in your life work for you instead of against you.

Stress is with us all the time. It comes from mental or emotional activity and physical activity. It is unique and personal to each of us. So personal, in fact, that what may be relaxing to one person may be stressful to another. For example, if you're a busy executive who likes to keep busy all the time, "taking it easy" at the beach on a beautiful day may feel extremely frustrating, nonproductive, and upsetting. You may be emotionally distressed from "doing nothing."

Too much emotional stress can cause physical illness such as high blood pressure, ulcers, or even heart disease; physical stress from work or exercise is not likely to cause such ailments. The truth is that physical exercise can help you to relax and to handle your mental or emotional stress.

Hans Selye, M.D., a recognized expert in the field, has defined stress as a "non-specific response of the body to a demand." The important issue is learning how our bodies respond to these demands. When stress becomes prolonged or particularly frustrating, it can become harmful-causing distress or "bad stress." Recognizing the early signs of distress and then doing something about them can make an important difference in the quality of your life, and may actually influence your survival.

Reacting to Stress

To use stress in a positive way and prevent it from becoming distress, you should become aware of your own reactions to stressful events. The body responds to stress by going through three stages: (1) alarm, (2) resistance, and (3) exhaustion.

Let's take the example of a typical commuter in rush-hour traffic. If a car suddenly pulls out in front of him, his initial alarm reaction may include fear of an accident, anger at the driver who committed the action, and general frustration. His body may respond in the alarm stage by releasing hormones into the bloodstream which cause his face to flush, perspiration to form, his stomach to have a sinking feeling, and his arms and legs to tighten. The next stage is resistance, in which the body repairs damage caused by the stress. If the stress of driving continues with repeated close calls or traffic jams, however, his body will not have time to make repairs. He may become so conditioned to expect potential problems when he drives that he tightens up at the beginning of each commuting day. Eventually, he may even develop one of the diseases of stress, such as migraine headaches, high blood pressure, backaches, or insomnia. While it is impossible to live completely free of stress and distress, it is possible to prevent some distress as well as to minimize its impact when it can't be avoided.

Helping Yourself

When stress does occur, it is important to recognize and deal with it. Here are some suggestions for ways to handle stress. As you begin to understand more about how stress affects you as an individual, you will come up with your own ideas of helping to ease the tensions.

Try physical activity. When you are nervous, angry, or upset, release the pressure through exercise or physical activity. Running, walking, playing tennis, or working in your garden are just some of the activities you might try. Physical exercise will relieve that "up tight" feeling, relax you, and turn the frowns into smiles. Remember, your body and your mind work together.

Share your stress. It helps to talk to someone about your concerns and worries. Perhaps a friend, family member, teacher, or counselor can help you see your problem in a different light. If you feel your problem is serious, you might seek professional help from a psychologist, psychiatrist, or social worker. Knowing when to ask for help may avoid more serious problems later.

Know your limits. If a problem is beyond your control and cannot be changed at the moment, don't fight the situation. Learn to accept what is-for now-until such time when you can change it.

Take care of yourself. You are special. Get enough rest and eat well. If youare irritable and tense from lack of sleep or if you are not eating correctly, you will have less ability to deal with stressful situations. If stress repeatedly keeps you from sleeping, you should ask your doctor for help.

Make time for fun. Schedule time for both work and recreation. Play can be just as important to your well-being as work; you need a break from your daily routine to just relax and have fun.

Be a participant. One way to keep from getting bored, sad, and lonely is to go where it's all happening: Sitting alone can make you feel frustrated. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself, get involved and become a participant. Offer your services in neighborhood or volunteer organizations. Help yourself by helping other people. Get involved in the world and the people around you, and you'll find they will be attracted to you. You're on your way to making new friends and enjoying new activities.

Check off your tasks. Trying to take care of everything at once can seem overwhelming, and, as a result, you may not accomplish anything, Instead, make a list of what tasks you have to do, then do one at a time, checking them off as they're completed. Give priority to the most important ones and do those first.

Must you always be right? Do other people upset you - particularly when they don't do things your way? Try cooperation instead of confrontation; it's better than fighting and always being "right:" A little give and take on both sides will reduce the strain and make you both feel more comfortable.

It's OK to cry. A good cry can be a healthy way to bring relief to your anxiety, and it might even prevent a headache or other physical consequence. Take some deep breaths; they also release tension.

Create a quiet scene. You can't always run away, but you can "dream the impossible dream." A quiet country scene painted mentally, or on canvas, can take you out of the turmoil of a stressful situation. Change the scene by reading a good book or playing beautiful music to create a sense of peace and tranquility.

Avoid self-medication. Although you can use drugs to relieve stress temporarily, drugs do not remove the conditions that caused the stress in the first place. Drugs, in fact, may be habit-forming and create more stress than they take away. They should be taken only on the advice of your doctor, unless, of course, he is not legally able to prescribe them. In such a case it is up to you to exercise control.

The Art of Relaxation

The best strategy for avoiding stress is to learn how to relax. Unfortunately, many people try to relax at the same pace that they lead the rest of their lives. For a while, tune out your worries about time, productivity, and "doing right." You will find satisfaction in just being, without striving. Find activities that give you pleasure and that are good for your mental and physical well-being. Forget about always winning. Focus on relaxation, enjoyment, and health. Be good to yourself.

18 ways to stay focused at work...

2010-09-09T03:45:00.000-07:00

Over the years I have worked at many client sites and a variety of office layouts. On one project in particular, we had as many as 80 people in a project team, seated via an open plan arrangement. It was pretty difficult trying to stay focused in an environment like this. These days, the projects I’m on are typically smaller, but there are still a number of distractions which frequently interrupt my working groove. So what are some of the things we can do to minimise such interruptions and distractions?

Here’s list of 18 ways to stay focused at work:

1.Write out a daily task list and plan your day. There’s nothing like a task list sitting next to you to keep you focused. When you have a list of the things you need to accomplish in a day, having that close to you constantly reminding you of what needs to be done is a great way of keeping on track.

2.Allocate time slots colleagues can interrupt you. In a busy work place, people are moving and talking all the time. If you play a role in a team where others need to interact with you, try allocating a time slot they can interrupt you. Instead of having people stop by your desk every 10 mins and asking you questions, let them know of a time in the day, say between 2-4pm you can be interrupted. At all other times, you can really get some work done.

3.Apply time boxing. In a previous article, I wrote about the benefits of time boxing. Instead of working at something till it is done, try working on it for a limited period, say 30 mins. By that time, the task is either completed or you allocate another time slot, perhaps in another day, to pick it up again. This way, you keep your work fresh and engaging throughout the entire working day.

4.Setup filters in your email. If you spend a lot of your time communicating and planning in front of your computer, chances are you deal with emails on a frequent basis. Setting up filters in your email client can be a great way of sorting out what’s important and urgent from personal stuff which can wait. Instead of dealing with a single Inbox with hundreds of unread email, you only need to deal with smaller folders categorised by project, priority and context.

5.Do not check personal email in the morning. Checking personal emails can be very distracting even with filters setup. This is especially true when your friends send you links to interesting articles, jokes or videos on YouTube. If you’re not careful, you can get side tracked for hours. Instead of checking your personal email as soon as you get in, try starting work straight away. This will build up some momentum as you ease into your work day. You should check your personal email only after you have a few tasks completed or underway. Also, if you don’t want to perpetuate a particular distracting email thread, just don’t reply to it until after work.

6.Set your IM status. If you use Instant Messenger, when you don’t want to be disturbed, make use of the status and set yourself as being away or busy. Your friends and colleagues will honour that. They can either send you an email or look you up later when you aren’t as busy.

7.Listen to the right types of music. Music is a great way of settling into the working routine. In addition, having music can drown out office noises like printers and background chattering. Be careful though, depending on personal preference, some types of music are not particularly conducive to productive work. For me, I can’t work when listening to songs with lots of lyrics because the words interrupt my thinking process.

8.Use the headphones but leave the music off. Some people prefer to have absolute silence when working. I think that also depends on what kind of work you are doing. If you’re doing some serious planning or something computational, having music blasting in your ears may not be the best thing for keeping focused. Try using headphones or ear plugs to block out the background noise but leave the music off.

9.Fill up a water bottle. Keeping yourself hydrated is pretty important for all sorts of health reasons. Instead of going to the water cooler with your glass every hour, try filling up a water bottle at the start of the day. This does a couple of things – firstly, it limits the starts/stops associated every time you get up for water and secondly, it avoids being sucked into lengthy discussions around the water cooler.

10.Find the best time to do repetitive and boring tasks. No matter how much you try to avoid it, you’re going to have to face doing things which are either repetitive or boring. For these tasks, I find it is best to choose a time in the day to work on them. For example, I’m more alert at the start of the day, so it’s better to work on things which require brain power early. Working on boring tasks that can be done via auto-pilot are better left towards the end of the day when I’m usually tired.

11.Bring your lunch and have it at your desk. I’m not suggesting you do this every day, but if you really have to focus and are trying to meet a deadline, having your lunch at your desk really helps. The normal one hour lunch break can really interrupt any momentum you might have built up during the morning. I find when I’m eating lunch at my desk, my lunch breaks are shorter and I can get through a few emails while I’m eating. After I’m done, I’m straight back working on the next task.

12.Don’t make long personal calls. Most of us have a good separation between our working and personal lives (or a least try to). I think we can all agree we should avoid having work intrude on our personal time as much as possible. The reverse of this also applies. Try limiting the time you spend doing personal things during work as they can be distracting and draining on your motivation. For example, you do not really want to be thinking about your weekend away with your spouse when you really need to get things done.

13.Clean up your desk. Some of you may have desks which can only be described as ordered chaos. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as you can find what you need without too much digging around. However, if you can’t, I suggest cleaning up your desk. That doesn’t mean having an empty desk, it just means having neat stacks of paper, all filed in the correct location. It also helps tremendously having all the things you need easily within arms reach. For example, if you need a place to write, having your pen and notepad close by and easily accessible is incredibly useful.

14.Get a good chair. If you sit for long hours at your desk and I’m sure some of you do, you might find it helpful to get a good chair. I find it’s pretty hard to stay focused when my neck and back are sore because I have a bad setup at my desk. A good chair can eliminate this, allowing you to work for long stretches without breaks and physical distractions.

15.Use shortcuts on your computer. If you find you do the same thing with your computer more than once throughout the day, you might find it helpful to look for ways in which you can do them without too much manual repetition. For example, if there’s a project folder you access all the time, try adding a shortcut to your Explorer or Finder so you can get access to it with a single click, instead of expanding folder after folder in the tree panel.

16.Close programs you’re not using. As a software engineer, I use a lot of programs important to my work. However, in most cases, I only need a few applications open at the same time. Instead of Alt-Tabbing constantly and fighting the computer to locate the program you need, try only having the applications you need open. Close everything else. For example, if you have already located a file and no longer need a particular Explorer or Finder instance open, close it. There’s no reason to leave it around at all.

17.Limit time on Digg, Delicious, news sites and blogs. I don’t think I need to say too much about this. There are so many sites on the Internet worth looking at, including this site . Digg, Delicious, news and blogs are great from an interest perspective, but they can really take you away from the work you should be working on. Try to limit going to these sites during the working day. If you really have to, try doing it during your lunch time. No, you don’t need to have your finger on the pulse every single minute of the day…

18.Change your mindset and make work fun. For me, I find it difficult to stay focused on doing things I’m not by nature interested in doing. In most cases, there’s probably nothing I can do about it. However, be mindful of the fact that your perception of work is something you can control. For my last tip here, I suggest you try changing your mindset or turning work into a game. An unfocused mind, is an unchallenged mind. So make things fun!

I hope these tips will take you closer to more focused and productive work days. If you are still in need for more tips about staying focused, you can take a look at a previous blockbuster smash hit article I wrote entitled 11 ways of staying focused. In that article, I approached the issue from a top down, rather than bottom up perspective.

Article Soruce : Dave Cheong

Know more about job interviews

2010-09-04T06:30:00.000-07:00

A quick look at the various types and styles of job-related interviewing followed by different organisations/ employers.

There are various types and styles of job-related interviews. Apart from the usual one-to-one or one-to-panel face to face interview, there is the telephone interview in which there is a great saving in time and energy spent for travel.

Often the telephone interview would be the first stage, to be followed by a face-to-face interview of the candidates selected at the first stage. We discussed in some detail the stress interview and the behavioural interview during the past weeks. Let us now have a quick look at some of the other interview styles followed by employers.

Screening interview

This has the limited objective of confirming the claims of the candidates in respect of their qualifications and professional attainments. There would be questions based on the data furnished in the resume submitted by the candidates. Comparison of attainments of different candidates would be easy if the data are gathered in a digital format. Candidates who do not fall in line with the prescribed norms would be eliminated, thereby saving further efforts at the next stages of evaluation and assessment. Often, the screening may be done over the phone.

You should pay attention to ensure that there is no inconsistency or mismatch in the information you provide in your resume. Long gaps or periods of inactivity in your resume may not be to your advantage. This emphasises the need for your engaging yourself in some creative or useful work, and not remaining idle for long spells. Further, employers are likely to assess the value of your service in relation to your cost.

You should present all relevant information about yourself with clarity in a straightforward manner. Your expressions should be simple and direct. You should not try to cover up any weakness or drawback through vague expressions. The interviewer would be interested in gathering specific details about yourself in the shortest possible time. The questions would be direct; so the answers should also be the same way.

Group interview

There may not be total unanimity in the definitions of group discussion, group interview, and panel interview. The same phrase may mean different things to different people.

A group discussion usually involves 10-12 candidates sitting around a table and discussing the diverse aspects of a controversial topic for 25-30 minutes. The judges will observe and assess their performance, but may not interfere with the proceedings. In a panel interview, a number of interviewers sit together and interview a candidate. The members of the panel may be drawn from different departments of the organisation.

The ‘group interview' involves a situation wherein a number of candidates meet simultaneously one or more interviewers in a small assembly. A company official who is an interviewer may make a quick presentation on the company. It would be followed by a question and answer session, where the candidates can participate effectively if they have already made appropriate preparation. Remember that a person can be assessed from the quality of his questions. The style of interaction, the quality of ideas and expressions, and the overall approach of each candidate would be observed and judged carefully.

Sometimes the candidates may be split into smaller groups and asked to perform some task with a bearing on the job. Each team will then make a presentation on its work. The interviewers would assess attributes such as interpersonal skills, leadership qualities, team spirit, knowledge, insight, ease in communication, and problem-solving ability.

A well-groomed candidate who can introduce himself well in a few words will generate a fine first impression. You should be prepared to do it. You may indicate your favourite area of work and your most important passion, without blowing your own trumpet. Admiring innovative ideas in others, participating actively in the proceedings in a pleasant manner, and not jumping into arguments are positive points. Never be aggressive. Be courteous to all. Control your body language. Remain confident.

Informational interview

This style of interview does not aim at securing an immediate appointment. The purpose is limited to gathering information about a specific career and the various opportunities it offers. The candidate interacts with experienced hands in the line, as part of job-hunting through planned networking. There would be no reference to any specific job opening. However, talking to people working in your chosen field will help you to gain a better understanding of the concerned industry, and to refine your career path. Further, it will develop your confidence in facing job interviews.

Sometimes the informational interview may lead to your appointment in a job position. The chances for such appointments are not few, since many vacancies are not advertised. Selection may be from candidates who come in contact with the employers. This stresses the reason for giving your best presentation and creating a fine impression, although you initiate a meeting with the limited objective of gathering information. Some employers would be maintaining a database of available talent for appointment on a later occasion. If you make a good impression in the meeting, you may be blessed with an appointment afterwards. Do not forget to give the interviewer your card or contact information. So also, sending a thank-you note after the interview is important.

Before you go for the interview, plan your questions well. Anyone would feel flattered if he is given an opportunity to describe the intricacies and prospects of his profession. Listen carefully to what the interviewer tells you. You have to acknowledge his comment with an admiring node or positive expression. Your intellectual curiosity should be transparent. You may explain your background and interests as briefly as possible. Give him more time, so that you gather the finer points of the profession. You should never to try to dominate the discussion. Your manners should be pleasing.

Tag-team interview

In this you may be interviewed by two or more interviewers. Each interviewer would view from his special angle. This style will give the employer insights of different people on your skills and personality.

The members of the interviewing team will have a clear understanding of the specific goal of the exercise. They work with a spirit of total co-operation.

The interviewers may take turns and interact with you one after the other in a series. Alternatively, a few of them may ask you questions simultaneously as in a one-to-panel interview. Remember that each interviewer has his own separate agenda. So you have to pay special attention to each one of them with care. The interviewers may be holding various responsible positions in the company. It is a good idea to know each member of the interview team by name and job positions. You should make each interviewer feel that you give profound importance to him. Be constantly alert. Prepare well on basics as for any conventional interview.

Second interview

When the interview board has problems in making a final choice from the short-listed candidates, it may summon the candidates once again and hold a second interview. You have to maintain consistency in your approach. You can confirm the picture you first presented, and furnish useful additional information if any. In any case, you get an opportunity to cement the rapport you have already built. The second interview may be a routine follow-up interview in certain companies.

Exit interview

In this, you meet an executive of the company which you are leaving. Perhaps, the company wants to study the causes of your leaving and make corrective measures in the company for better employee retention, It is not essential that you attend it. But it is advisable that you attend and depart with no malice or ill feeling. It is indeed a good thing if you can leave a good impression even as you depart. The possibility of your re-joining the company on a later occasion cannot be ruled out.

Article Source : B.S. Warrier

How to Get Free Publicity and Increase Your Local Leads ?

2010-09-03T01:02:00.000-07:00

Are you wondering how you can find more local leads for your business? There are many free ways to do this, and you can easily tap into your local market with these easy tips.

1 - Free local advertising.

Most businesses are so focused on their paid advertising, they may forget to utilize local free and almost-free advertising. Craigslist.org is easy to use and can bring in a lot of local leads, depending on what kind of business you have. Additionally, your town may have a presence on sites such as backpages.com, cityslick.net, hubspot.com, etc. Just do an internet search on "local free advertising" for more ideas. Additionally, your local town or community may have free publications where you can list your business without paying a fee (as opposed to the bigger, flashier paid ads). Take advantage of this local free advertising to get more local leads.

2 - Start a blog.

Blogs are useful for gaining organic ranking (which refers to which sites shows up first in an online search) and a lot of blog owners are missing out on local search traffic because they are not using local tags or keywords. For example, if you are a CPA in Charlotte, it pays to incorporate keywords like "Charlotte CPA" and "Charlotte accountant" into your blog and your website. Starting a blog is free and easy, and you can get started at WordPress.com.

3 - Ask for referrals.

One of the easiest ways to grow your business locally is to ask your existing clients and customers for referrals. This can be as simple as posting a sign in your place of business ("A referral is the greatest compliment you can give us.") or sending out an email to your client base, or calling some of your key clients to ask for referrals. Whether or not you incentivize your clients (offer a gift or payment or finder's fee) for their referrals is entirely up to you.

4 - Host a workshop.

In most communities (even the tiny ones!) there are a variety of ways to reach potential clients by offering free workshops, lectures or information. Check with your local Chamber of Commerce, library, community center, colleges, and Small Business Administration (SBA) to see what kinds of classes or free information is offered, and find out how you can participate. For example, a CPA can host a free 1-hour class on how to save money on your taxes, how to apply for an extension on your taxes, etc. That attracts the perfect target market, and gives an opportunity to collect information from these leads. Additionally, you can monetize these free workshops by giving people a reason to buy today - create a special offer or a discount to invite them to sign up on the spot.

Be on the lookout for other ways you can promote your business for free in your local community. The possibilities are endless once you know where to look.

Article Source: Andy.E.Grant

How to promote your blogs or websites?

2010-09-02T00:09:00.000-07:00

Promote Your Website or Blog

I have hand picked all of these resources based on their usefulness, rate of success and overall quality. I have written this article to help people find new sources of traffic for their website or blog and to shed some light on some of the best resources related to each method of promotion. I hope you find this article informative and useful! Enjoy!

1. Article Directories

Article directories are a wonderful way to get traffic and backlinks to your website. There are many well established article directories that have been proven to get websites traffic. People search for articles in different categories and after reading the article they usually follow a link at the bottom of the article to your website.

www.GoArticles.com

www.eHow.com

www.EasyArticles.com

www.ArticleDashBoard.com

www.Article99.com

www.ValuableContent.com

www.EzineArticles.com

2. Business Directories

Posting in business directories is still an effective way to get backlinks and small amounts of traffic. Most directory sites have many listings that are organized into. Being that there are so many business directories, the best way to find one related to your site would be to do a Google search or to use the websites below to find them.

www.dmoz.org

dir.yahoo.com

www.lii.org

www.stpt.com/directory

www.business.com

www.cannylink.com

3. Classifieds

Classifieds are a common way to easily make posts for free, and reach large amounts of people. They tend to work better for business or service-based websites, but you can also drive traffic to other types of sites as well

www.Kijiji.com

www.craigslist.org

classifieds.myspace.com

classifieds.yahoo.com

4. Forums

Forums are another good way to get backlinks and traffic, but you need to contribute to the forums and not just spam them with your links. I recommend becoming an active member of forums that are related to your site, as well as including your website link in your forum signature. By making intelligent and informative posts people will be inclined to check out the link in your signature because youâ€™ve built interest about yourself.

The best way to do this is to manually search for forums related to your site and then sign up to start posting.

5. Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites are often overlooked as a way to market a website or blog. Having lots of friends and access to groups can be a good way to contact a lot of people in an easy and efficient manner. Most social networking sites also have forums and classifieds that you can post in.

www.myspace.com

www.facebook.com

www.linkedin.com

6. Social Bookmarking Sites

Social bookmarking sites can be an amazing way to promote your website. What a lot of people will do is write a killer article and then submit it to the social bookmarking sites to drive traffic to that article, hoping it will get bookmarked a lot.

www.netscape.com

www.digg.com

del.icio.us

www.furl.net

www.stumbleupon.com

www.reddit.com

ma.gnolia.com

de.lirio.us

myweb2.search.yahoo.com

www.simpy.com

www.newsvine.com

7. Search Engines

This is probably one of the most difficult ways to market a site, but also one of the most popular ways due to the fact that the traffic you get can be extremely targeted to exactly what your site offers. This is especially important for sites that sell a product and are looking for a high conversion rate. It is usually better to start off targeting niche markets and low competition long tail keywords. Ranking well on Google for a phrase like ‘graphic design’ in the search engines would be extremely difficult to do, so look for longer keywords or more detailed ones.

www.google.com

www.yahoo.com

www.msn.com

8. Word of Mouth

This is a very basic and old school way of marketing but it has remained because it really is effective. All you have to do is tell all your family, friends and co-workers about your new site or blog and let them do the work! Be sure to have business cards on hand to give out to anyone you speak with.

9. Pay per Click Advertising (PPC)

PPC advertising takes a lot of studying to do right, and can cost a decent amount of money, but if your site is well designed and converts well, or you are just looking for traffic, it can be a very powerful marketing tool when done right.

adwords.google.com

searchmarketing.yahoo.com

adCenter.Microsoft.com

10. Banner Advertising

The difficulty in banner advertising is simply creating a very alluring banner design in the amount of space specified. Some sites donâ€™t let you create animated banners, but if you have a very intriguing static banner on a good site it can get you traffic for sure.

The best way to do this is to manually search for websites and blogs related to your site and contact them for a banner exchange.

11. Text Link Advertising

Text link advertising is usually cheap and can bring in lots of traffic, but the traffic tends to be rather unspecific – which is ok sometimes. I find it best to look for sites related to your website to buy text links spots on. Or, if you are just looking for tons of traffic, you can go to major text link sites that offer spots on very large websites.

www.text-link-ads.com

www.adbrite.com

www.adengage.com

12. Print Advertising

Print advertising can be very expensive, but is especially useful when advertising in a specific location. For example, if you are opening a new restaurant in a city, sending out flyers is a surefire way to get people to your website and restaurant. You could also drop off business cards or flyers at local stores and start offering your services to local people.

www.4over4.com

www.modernpostcard.com

www.vistaprint.com

www.clubflyers.com

www.alocalprinter.com

13. Portfolio Sites

There are many websites that host portfolios of designers and artists. By submitting your work to their sites you will often get a lot of exposure to your own site by way of a link.

www.behance.net

www.altpick.com

www.portfolios.com

www.deviantart.com

14. Tutorial Sites

Submitting tutorials is a great way to get traffic to your website via a link. A lot of designers submit tutorials to sites like the ones below, and get a lot of exposure. Most of these tutorials sites are very well ranked so getting a link on them can be very good for your website or blog.

www.pixel2life.com

www.good-tutorials.com

www.tutorialoutpost.com

15. Link Baiting

Linking baiting is when you write or post something that has the potential to be blogged about, linked or bookmarked a lot. Good content in general will help your website or blog out a lot, but you can step it up a notch by producing videos or articles specifically for link baiting.

16. Contests

People love entering contest, especially if there is a desirable prize. Contest prizes range in types. Some sites will offer you exposure and links and other sites will offer money or actual physical prizes. The key to a successful contest is obviously getting lots of people to enter, so make sure you promote your contest as much as you can on forums, classifieds and more. Also, donâ€™t be afraid to enter contests for a chance to win some money or prizes, yourself!

17. Link Exchanges

This is arguably one of the most important ways to rank well for keywords and bring traffic to your website. It is important to exchange links or get one-way links from relevant sites. Make sure you are using an important keyword because your links anchor text and not a word like ‘click here’ or something you donâ€™t want to rank well for in search engines.

The best way to do this is to manually search for websites and blogs related to your site and contact them for a link exchange. Also, check out the two sites below.

www.seopen.com/seopen-tools/

blogsearch.google.com

18. Email Marketing

Email marketing can be very beneficial if done well. You do not want to be a spammer or buy lists of emails, though. The way to work email marketing is to have an opt-in email form on your website where users can sign up to receive emails and special offers. Offering a free e-book or tips is a good way to get people to sign up. Once they are signed up you can send emails once in a while to bring them back to your site or to promote something.

www.aweber.com

www.icontact.com

19. Viral Marketing

This is the hottest new way to market a website, but it is not easy! You have probably heard about all these YouTube videos getting millions of views, and articles on Digg getting thousands of hits. If you can think up a really clever, funny or useful idea and tie it into your website via a link or some other way, you can drive incredible amounts of traffic to your site with very little money or possibly none at all.

20. Videos

Creating videos has become very popular since the creation of YouTube and other video-based sites. This ties into viral marketing and is a good way to get people interested in your blog or website. It is most common to show or say the URL of your website at the beginning and/or end of a video, or tie it into your video site profile some how.

www.youtube.com

video.google.com

vids.myspace.com

video.search.yahoo.com

video.msn.com

video.aol.com

www.metacafe.com

21. Podcasting

This is basically creating audio files and then letting your users download or stream them via a link on your website or blog or via RSS feeds. This is a good alternative to creating videos if you donâ€™t have a video camera or donâ€™t like being on film. I have seen many sites successfully offer audio downloads as a way of bringing users a large amount of information quickly. You can even post on craigslist.com and hire voice over talent for your podcasts at affordable prices.

22. Blogs

Blogs are a great way to reach a lot of people in a fast manner. They take a lot of work, and to make a blog really effective they need to be updated with fresh content at least several times a week. A lot of websites will have a blog in addition to a main website as a sort of news system for their main site, or just as a way to drive traffic to a website.

www.wordpress.com

www.blogger.com

www.twitter.com

www.squidoo.com

www.tumblr.com

23. eBooks

eBooks have become very popular and they tend to spread well in downloading communities. You can even sell your eBook on eBay, via a website or just offer it as a gift to get people to sign up for your newsletter.

24. Press Releases

Press releases can be an efficient way to get media attention if your website or product is newsworthy enough. There are several websites you can do this on. However, more commonly press releases are mailed, faxed, or e-mailed to assignment editors at newspapers, magazines, radio stations, television stations, and/or television networks.

25. Networking

Networking can have many benefits to promoting your site. I am always adding people on instant messaging services and talking to people related to my field. By networking and making friends in the business you can learn from each other and help each other which will benefit your site.

The best way to do this is to meet people in forums or on sites related to yours and chat via instant messengers. I usually run 5 different instant messengers that are all filled with business contacts and friends.

www.aim.com

www.skype.com

messenger.yahoo.com

get.live.com/messenger/overview

www.icq.com

Article Source : http://www.youthedesigner.com/

The Best Way to Approach New Clients

2010-09-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

As a business owner you know the kinds of clients you want. Why not go one step further and make a list of actual companies you would like to have as clients? Then, get clear about who it is you want to contact within each company. What position does the person hold? Is it the owner? Is it someone in HR? Is it the sales manager?

Once you have your list, ask people in your network if they know the person who holds the position in the companies you have identified. If so, ask if they would be willing to introduce you via e-mail or a phone call. If you aren't able to find someone who can introduce you, you can still approach companies without cold calling. Begin by finding out the names of the people you want to contact (Google or call). Then send them valuable information you have created along with a personal letter. Be sure to send it in the mail (snail mail).

Your valuable give away can not be a brochure that is information all about your business and what you do. It is hugely important that you send content that is practical and informative for the person receiving it. Think about things like: tips, trends, research, pitfalls to avoid, etc. It can be a few pages or many; the key is that it must be relevant and applicable to the person and their business.

In the letter you can say that you are sharing this information because you believe the person may find it valuable. Also state that you will call next week (you can include a date and time if you want) to find out if the person found what you sent is useful. So when you call as promised, it's not a cold call because the person has received valuable information from you (for free). This makes it a warm call. You simply want to find out if it was of interest for the person.

It is important that you have a marketing sequence in place so when a potential client is interested; you know what the next step will be. Is it a proposal? Is it a consult? Is it a scheduled phone call? If there is interest, but not a need right now, there are still several opportunities. First, ask people if they would like you to check back with them in a certain time frame. If yes, put it in your calendar and do it.

Second, if you have a newsletter with valuable information, you can ask people if they'd like to receive it.

Third, if they are not interested but you feel a positive connection, you can ask if they know one (yes only one) person who may need what you are offering.

Why only one? Because if you ask people if they know 'anyone' they will draw a blank. But, if you ask for just one person, it's much easier to think of someone.

Please remember to thank everyone who takes the time to talk with you or give you referrals. Yes, even the people who are not interested in what your business offers. One of the best ways to do this is to send a thank you note in the mail.

Are you starting to see how sharing valuable information and connecting with potential clients can be relaxed and rewarding? Create your give away, share it, and make a warm call to discover the possibilities.

Article Source: StephanieWard

What Is Addiction? What Causes Addiction?

2010-09-01T04:41:00.000-07:00

What Is Addiction? What Causes Addiction?

FAQs FOR SHARE TRADING @ STOCK EXCHANGE OF INDIA

2010-08-31T04:33:00.000-07:00

Stock Market FAQS

What are the instruments traded in the stock markets?
There are various types of instruments in the stock market. They include Shares, Mutual Funds, IPO's, Futures and Options.

Why would I choose stocks?
Stocks are one of the most effective tools for building wealth, as stocks are a share of ownership of a company.You thus have great potential to receive monetary benefits when you own stock shares. Owning stocks of fundamentally strong companies simply lets your money work harder for you since they appreciate in value over a period of time while also offering rich dividends on a periodic basis.

How can I track stocks?
Tracking stocks lets you gain from the best stock opportunities available in the market while also letting you know how the stocks in your portfolio are performing. Our website is designed to empower you with all the tools you might require to invest wisely. The Portfolio Tracker Section lets you regularly monitor your portfolio. The Kotak securities News Channel enables you to keep pace with all market activities while our Research Section has India's finest financial analysts empowering you with intensive market related research reports.

Where do I buy stock?
Stock trading happens on Stock Exchanges, but one cannot individually buy stocks off the exchange. To do so, you need to find a suitable broker who will understand your needs and buy stocks on your behalf. You can think of them as agents who will conduct transactions for you without actually owning any of the securities themselves. In exchange for facilitating or executing a trade, brokers will charge you a commission. You can easily buy stocks through Kotaksecurities.com, one of India's leading Stock Brokers, with services and products to cater to all your investment needs, at very reasonable brokerage rates.

The Kotak Securities website offers you Internet Broking services while also giving you EASY access to invest in IPOs, Derivatives and Mutual Funds. Our Call & Trade facility also offers you the convenience of trading over the telephone.

What are some of the orders I can place?
As a customer of Kotaksecurities.com, you can place different orders such as Market orders, Limit Orders, Stop Loss Orders, Cover Orders, After Market Orders (AMO'S), Normal Orders etc.

What is a Market Order?
A market order is an order to buy or sell a stock at the current market price. It signals your broker to execute the order at the best price currently available. However, as market prices keep changing, a market order cannot guarantee a specific price.

What is a Limit Order?
To avoid buying or selling a stock at a price higher or lower than you wanted, you need to place a limit order rather than a market order. A limit order is an order to buy or sell a security at a specific price. You could use a limit order when you want to set the price of the stock. In other words, you want to sell/buy particular scrip at a price other than the Current Market Price. However, a limit order guarantees a price but cannot guarantee execution of the trade, because the scrip might not reach the desired price on that particular trading day owing to Market related factors.

What is a Stop Loss Order?
A stop loss order is a Normal order placed with a broker to sell a security when it reaches a certain predetermined price Trigger Price. Sometimes the market movements defy your expectations. Such market reversals often result in loss bearing transactions. The stop loss trigger price is your defense mechanism- an amount at which you will be able to sustain yourself against such unanticipated market movements. Your stop loss instruction is an order to sell when the price of contracts reaches a pre-determined level - the trigger price. Naturally, this price cannot be more than the price of the stock you are trading.

For eg. If you bought a stock at Rs 10, you place a stop loss order with your broker to sell it, if it reaches Rs 8. This helps you prevent further loss, in the eventuality that the price of the stock might dip even further. Thus, it helps limit your loss or protect unrealized profits, whichever the case.

Good-till-canceled (GTC) or Day Order Or Normal Orders Day orders are orders given to your broker that hold true only during the period of the trading day for which the orders have been given. If the order has not been executed on that day, it will not be passed on to the next trading day. Thus they are orders that are only "good until it is canceled" or "good for the day."

For eg. You place a stop loss order with your broker to sell a stock, if its price reaches to level X. Now, if it does not reach limit X, your broker will not sell the stock.
However, the stop loss order given to your broker will not hold true for the next day. For, even if the stock reaches level X on Day 2, he will not execute the trade till you instruct him to do so again.

What are advances and declines?
Advances and declines give you an indication of how the overall market has performed. You get a good overview of the general market direction.

As the name suggest ' advances' will inform you how the market has progressed.
'Declines' signal if the market has not performed as per expectations. The Advance-Decline ratio is a technical Analysis tool that indicates market movement. Advance Decline ratio is calculated using the formula:

Number of stocks that advanced/number of stocks that declined.

Generally, it is seen that in Bullish markets the number of stocks that advance is more than the ones that declined and the converse can be said to hold true in a bearish market. The breadth of market indicator is used to gauge the number of stocks advancing and declining for the day.
'Remains unchanged' is a term used if the market scenario shows no advancement or decline compared to the earlier day.

Advances and declines are calculated from the previous days closing results. However, a market that is significantly on one side either in terms of advances or declines, may have a hard time reversing out of that direction the next day.

A New Job Search Engine Just for Green Jobs

2010-08-31T00:00:00.000-07:00

A New Job Search Engine Just for Green Jobs

TwitMesh - Twitter Tools: TwitMesh is live with loads of twitter tools

2010-08-29T21:16:00.000-07:00

TwitMesh - Twitter Tools: TwitMesh is live with loads of twitter tools: "With increasing use of twitter for 'small talk', we have come up with unique offering with TwitMesh.com. There has been a common problem wit..." @ www.twitmesh.com

"Twitter Application of the Day - TwitMesh" on Tweetube

2009-09-12T02:23:00.000-07:00

TwitMesh is slowly and steadily catching up user's attention. It has made a dashing entry to become "Twitter Application of the Day" after being reviewed by Tweetube. Thanks to Cary Ganz and his team for publishing a great review of the application. According to him Twitter Groups and Twitter Invitations are some of the unique features. A walkthrough of each Twitter tool in his review video gives a brief idea to a user how the application works and how useful it is to them. I look forward to more reviews in coming days from other Twitter communities too. Here is the video for you from YouTube:

Watch the review also at Tweetube:
Tweetube Video

TwitMesh - Twitter IM

2009-09-04T21:32:00.000-07:00

Ever felt why do I need to go Twitter and keep refreshing to check "@username" mentions from other users. It's more of an IM feature where twitters are conversing back and forth. Why should I refresh again and again to view new response from user ? Here is a solution, use TwitMesh. The Twitter IM which let's you converse with people via Titter. You get a feel, as if you are chatting with someone on IM. The "@username" broadcasts are filtered and only shown in the chat box.
More: http://twitmesh.com/LiveConversation.aspx

TwitMesh is live with loads of twitter tools

2009-09-04T21:05:00.000-07:00

With increasing use of twitter for "small talk", we have come up with unique offering with TwitMesh.com. There has been a common problem with Twitter profiles while managing their followers because of increasing numbers. TwitMesh gives you an opportunity to put your followers in various groups/categories.
More on: http://twitmesh.com/twittergroups.aspx

Once your groups are created, send invitations (RSVP) to your groups. Suppose you have a party at home and want to invite your friends. The most common way is to send email invitation to your friends, but there is no way to track responses at one place. TwitMesh solves this problem too. Create an invitation, type in your invitation message, choose your invitee group and send. Invitees will receive a tweet along with a "Reply" link. If invitee wishes he/she can "Accept" or "Decline" the invitation via "Reply" link. Host can view the invitee responses from their TwitMesh dashboard.
More on: http://twitmesh.com/twitterinvitation.aspx