The Cycle Of Physical Abuse

In December, 2005, I conducted a two-day workshop with men who had recently been released from prison for domestic violence. With the men were their wives, as well as the father of a batterer who was still in prison.

The father, Douglas, sat in front of me, sharing his childhood experiences.

“My momma was a very loving woman – a big-hearted, hard working loving woman,” he told me. From my many years of counseling, I knew that my definition of love and his definition of love were likely very different.

“Did she ever beat you?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. She beat me all the time. My daddy beat my momma and my momma beat me. But she beat me because I was bad. I was really bad. Maybe if she had beat me more, I wouldn’t have been so bad.”

“What did she beat you with?”

“Anything she could get her hands on. Extension cords, wooden spoons. Often I had to go into the yard and pick out the switch.”

“How did you feel when you knew you were going to get a beating?”

“Oh, I was terrified. I’d beg and plead and promise not to do again whatever it was she was mad at. But that never worked. I always got the beating. Then after the beating she would tell me that she loved me, that it was for my own good, and that it hurt her more than it hurt me.”

“And how were you bad?”

“Well, sometimes I’d come in late, and sometimes I would talk back. Then I got into alcohol and drugs at a very early age. Maybe if she had beat me more, I wouldn’t have done the alcohol and drugs.”

“Why do you think you did the alcohol and drugs?”

“I was just hurtin’ too much. It took me outta all the pain for awhile.”

“What was the pain?”

“I don’t know. I was just hurtin’ a lot.”

“Do you think it is possible that you were hurting because the woman who was supposed to protect you was instead hurting you? That she was confusing you by telling you she loved you while she was beating and terrifying you? That there was no one to turn to for safety and nurturing? That you were scared much of the time for fear of the beatings? That you were terribly lonely and could not turn to your parents because they were the ones causing the pain?”

Silence………Then he looked at me in shock. As the light bulb when on in his mind, the tears started rolling down his weathered cheeks. Soon he was sobbing.

“That’s right…That’s right….The beatings were the problem. More beatings would not have helped. And I beat my children thinking it was the right thing to do, and now my son is in prison for beating his wife and protective services want to take away their daughter. And I almost hit her the other day when she didn’t mind me. I’m so glad I didn’t. This has to stop! This has to stop!”

I looked around the room. Everyone was in tears. Kathy, the wife of one of the batterers, spoke up, sobbing.

“I’ve always hit my kids, and no matter what anyone told me about it not being good, it never made sense to me. This is the first time I understand why it’s not a good or loving way to discipline my kids. And I can see why I’m having so many problems with my older son and why he is on drugs. He has always been furious with me and I had no idea why. Now I understand. I need to learn a new way to discipline. I’m going to take a parenting class and start reading parenting books.”

I hugged Douglas for the profound work he did, and for the effect his work was having on everyone in the room. I thanked God for giving me the privilege of working with these people. All of them, it turned out, had been severely beaten as children.

I am deeply grateful to James Beard who conducts workshops within the prison with batterers and to Lindsay Wagner, who also works with these men and their families. Both of them were assisting me at this workshop. We all smiled at each other in deep gratitude for the healing that was taking place.

The Way to Health

It’s time to start a Healthy life:
your 7 days program

How many times have you gone to sleep at night, swearing you’ll go to the gym in the morning, and then changing your mind just eight hours later because when you get up, you don’t feel like exercising?

While this can happen to the best of us, it doesn’t mean you should drop the ball altogether when it comes to staying fit. What people need to realize is that staying active and eating right are critical for long-term health and wellness — and that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

The more you know about how your body responds to your lifestyle choices, the better you can customize a nutrition and exercise plan that is right for you. When you eat well, increase your level of physical activity, and
exercise at the proper intensity, you are informing your body that you want to burn a substantial amount of fuel. This translates to burning fat more efficiently for energy.

In other words, proper eating habits plus exercise equals fast metabolism, which, in turn gives you more energy throughout the day and allows you to do more physical work with less effort.

The true purpose of exercise is to send a repetitive message to the body asking for improvement in metabolism, strength, aerobic capacity and overall fitness and health. Each time you exercise, your body responds by upgrading its capabilities to burn fat throughout the day and night, Exercise doesn’t have to be intense to work for you, but it does need to be consistent.

I recommend engaging in regular cardiovascular exercise four times per week for 20 to 30 minutes per session, and resistance training four times per week for 20 to 25 minutes per session. This balanced approach provides a
one-two punch, incorporating aerobic exercise to burn fat and deliver more oxygen, and resistance training to increase lean body mass and burn more calories around the block.

Here’s a sample exercise program that may work for you:

* Warm Up — seven to eight minutes of light aerobic activity intended to increase blood flow and lubricate and warm-up your tendons and joints.

* Resistance Training — Train all major muscle groups. One to two sets of each exercise. Rest 45 seconds between sets.

* Aerobic Exercise — Pick two favorite activities, they could be jogging, rowing, biking or cross-country skiing, whatever fits your lifestyle. Perform 12 to 15 minutes of the first activity and continue with 10 minutes of the
second activity. Cool down during the last five minutes.

* Stretching — Wrap up your exercise session by stretching, breathing deeply, relaxing and meditating.

When starting an exercise program, it is important to have realistic expectations. Depending on your initial fitness level, you should expect the following changes early on.

* From one to eight weeks — Feel better and have more energy.

* From two to six months — Lose size and inches while becoming leaner. Clothes begin to fit more loosely. You are gaining muscle and losing fat.

* After six months — Start losing weight quite rapidly.

Once you make the commitment to exercise several times a week, don’t stop there. You should also change your diet and/or eating habits,’ says Zwiefel. Counting calories or calculating grams and percentages for certain nutrients is
impractical. Instead, I suggest these easy-to-follow guidelines:

* Eat several small meals (optimally four) and a couple of small snacks throughout the day

* Make sure every meal is balanced — incorporate palm-sized proteins like lean meats, fish, egg whites and dairy products, fist-sized portions of complex carbohydrates like whole-wheat bread and pasta, wild rice, multigrain cereal and potatoes, and fist-sized portions of vegetable and
fruits

* Limit your fat intake to only what’s necessary for adequate flavour

* Drink at least eight 8-oz. glasses of water throughout the day

* I also recommend that you take a multi-vitamin each day to ensure you are getting all the vitamins and minerals your body needs.

I suppose that’s all I can think of for now. I should extend my thanks to a doctor friend of mine. Without him, I wouldn’t be able to write this article, or keep my sanity.

Enjoy life, we all deserve it.

You’ll find many more useful information and articles at Health & Vitality – to Enjance Your Life.

Health & Vitality for all your life-enhancing and personal development products. – Visit: >>> http://www.health-vitality.com

Versatile Antioxidant Vitamin

Slice an apple into half, and it turns brown. A copper penny suddenly becomes green, or an iron nail when left outside, will rust. What do all these events have in common? These are examples of a process called oxidation. If the sliced apple is dipped in a lemon juice, however, the rate at which the apple turns brown is slowed. It is because the Vitamin C in the lemon juice slows the rate of oxidative damage.

Since its discovery 65 years ago, vitamin C has come to be known as a “wonder worker.” Because of its role in collagen formation and other life-sustaining functions, Vitamin C serves as a key immune system nutrient and a potent free-radical fighter. This double-duty nutrient has been shown to prevent many illnesses, from everyday ailments such as the common cold to devastating diseases such as cancer.

The water-soluble vitamin C is known in the scientific world as ascorbic acid, a term that actually means “without scurvy.” We depend on ascorbic acid for many aspects of our biochemical functioning; yet human beings are among only a handful of animal species that cannot produce their own supply of vitamin C. Like these other animals, including primates and guinea pigs, we have no choice but to obtain this nutrient through food or our daily diet.

Vitamin C can enhance the body’s resistance from different diseases, including infections and certain types of cancer. It strengthens and protects the immune system by stimulating the activity of antibodies and immune system cells such as phagocytes and neutrophils.

Vitamin C, as an antioxidant, helps reduce the activity of free radicals. Free radicals are by-products of normal metabolism which can damage cells and set the stage for aging, degeneration, and cancer. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that vitamin C is being used for cancer treatment. In large doses, Vitamin C is sometimes administered intravenously as part of cancer treatment.

Vitamin C prevents free radical damage in the lungs and may even help to protect the central nervous system from such damage. Free radicals are molecules with an unpaired electron. In this state, they’re highly reactive and destructive to everything that gets in their way. Although free radicals have been implicated in many diseases, they are actually a part of the body chemistry.

As an antioxidant, vitamin C’s primary role is to neutralize free radicals. Since ascorbic acid is water soluble, it can work both inside and outside the cells to combat free radical damage. Vitamin C is an excellent source of electrons; therefore, it “can donate electrons to free radicals such as hydroxyl and superoxide radicals and quench their reactivity.”

The versatile vitamin C also works along with glutathione peroxidase (a major free radical-fighting enzyme) to revitalize vitamin E, a fat-soluble antioxidant. In addition to its work as a direct scavenger of free radicals in fluids, then, vitamin C also contributes to the antioxidant activity in the lipids.

Optimal health, however, requires a balance between free radical generation and antioxidant protection. One of the functions of Vitamin C is to get and quench these free radicals before they create too much damage.

However, there is research to show that vitamin C may act as a pro-oxidant. In other words, vitamin C, under certain conditions anyway, may act in a manner that is opposite to its intended purpose. This has raised concern among thousands of people who supplement their diets with vitamin C…but that’s another story.

Social Killer

Scared to go out to a meeting to speak to a client? Need to deliver a speech but feel like fainting at the thought of going in front of the class to present? Scared to attend a social gathering for no apparent reason? You might be suffering from social anxiety disorder.

Social anxiety disorder, also known as social phobia, is a kind of mental disorder where the sufferer experiences a severe or unreasonable fear of social gatherings where there is a possibility that one may get embarrassed or ridiculed. Most of the time, these anxieties arise from an intense fear of being closely watched or scrutinized – from the simple things like the way they dress, talk or act; to important job functions like performing in front of a crowd, giving a presentation, or finishing an interview for a job application. This kind of phobia gives sufferers a feeling of being trapped or shut away from the world.

They say social anxiety disorder is closely related to shyness. However social phobia differs in the sense that this disrupts normal socializing functions. It is true that everyone goes through a stage of shyness in their life, overcoming it is a different thing. When it becomes too much that it interrupts your daily life and relationships to the point where you are sick with worry, it is time to seek counsel. It is good to know the signs and symptoms of social anxiety disorder to be able to determine and treat this said condition before it worsens.

People with social phobia manifest 2 basic kinds of symptoms: emotional and physical. The emotional symptoms include: an intense fear of being in situations in which you don’t know people, fear of situations in which you may be judged, worrying about embarrassing or humiliating yourself, fear that others will notice that you look anxious, anxiety that disrupts your daily routine, work, school or other activities, avoiding doing things or speaking to people out of fear of embarrassment, avoiding situations where you might be the center of attention. The physical symptoms include: Blushing, profuse sweating, trembling or shaking, nausea, stomach upset, difficulty talking, shaky voice, muscle tension, confusion, palpitations, diarrhea, cold and clammy hands, and difficulty making eye contact.

Basically, this phobia manifests a symptom of being overly anxious around other people. Sufferers think that other people are more confident that they are, that other people are better them. They feel uncomfortable being around people that it makes it difficult for them to eat, drink, work, asking questions, asking for dates, even going to the toilet, when other people are around.

The good news is that there is a cure for this condition. For the past 20 years, a combination of talk therapy and medications has proven most helpful to limit the effects, if not cure, this mental condition. Certain anti-depressants (Paroxetine, Sertraline and Venlafaxine), anti-anxiety medications, and beta blockers are used to help Socio-phobic people to balance certain chemicals in the brain and minimize panic attacks during periods of heightened anxiety. Talk therapy teaches people with social anxiety disorder to react differently to situations that trigger their anxiety. The therapist helps the patient confront the negative feelings about social situations and the fear about being judged by others. Patients learn how their thinking patterns add to the symptoms of social anxiety disorder and how to change their thinking so the symptoms begin to lessen.
To be shy is quite normal, everybody has gone through a similar phase. Getting past that stage is the difficult part. Ultimately, it ends up to building your confidence to a certain level for you to be comfortable enough to move normally. In case you’ve been diagnosed as a socio-phobic, it is nothing to be ashamed of. With a little bit of therapy, proper medication, and enough support from people who believe in you, you’ll slowly be able to do socialize and function normally within a group without being too anxious.

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The Peace Crib

“The first time I came to Italy, in Naples, I was struck by the cribs of 1700. They opened new horizons to me. I was used to the one of the Metropolitan Museum of New York, small and simple at the base of an imposing Christmas Tree.

The cribs of Naples were a real discovery to me!” Together with the crib Yvonne DiPalma – born in Philadelphia – met also the sculptor Michele Attanasio. She fell in love with him, got married and with him opened the “Paul Whistler Art Gallery”, near Sorrento.

For Christmas, in a place where everybody prepares a crib, they started to make one in the Gallery: scenarios by Michele and characters by Yvonne.

This is how it has begun, by chance, the most charming and passionate adventure of the life of this artist. In the first “Installation” there are 20 characters: sculptures representing the people of the town and famous figures.

This was the start of a thirty-year experience. Every year after that debut in 1976-77 it has had more and more success; it was an opening up of a new life.

The crib emigrated to Florence where it found in Monsignor Setti a supporter and in the Basilica of San Lorenzo a home. In the town of iris the two artists found the same enthusiasm of the first time: that miracle of a sincere participation.

After San Lorenzo, it went to Loggia Rucellai (1981), then to Rome, in the Oratory of Santa Maria in Via, then back to Florence, in the church next to the Gallery of San Jacopo Sopr’Arno (1991). In 1992 the crib by Yvonne was the set in the Theatre Parioli of the programme Maurizio Costanzo Show.

Since then, the work increased “at home” until the interlude of Christmas 1999, when it was lent to the 7th International Festival “Costruimo il Natale”, in the crypt of Santa Croce of Florence.

And now let’s know better this very special crib made of characters of about 50-centimetre height. Yvonne creates the body with iron wire, fabric and stuffing.

To be noticed that all clothes are sews one by one and represent the Neapolitan models of the 18th century. The heads and hair are in terracotta; each sculpted head is a masterpiece of refinement. All characters have the features either of people the artist has met in her life or of famous figures, among them many international politicians: the presidents of United States Nixon, Reagan, Carter, then the Russian, Italian, French, Chinese ones etc. Thirty years of history of 1900 in a crib…

Beside the human characters, there is the world of international animals: in addition to the traditional ox and donkey, there are also horses, sheep, cats, elephants, cocks, baboons, rams, kangaroos, etc… all in terracotta reproduced in the minutest details.

How many are the Crib characters now? Yvonne has stopped counting when they have been more than 200!

They have got out of control and have become alive! Indefatigable, Yvonne creates different groups and expressions, always reflecting upon life and world around us.

Do not miss it in Florence, Via San Zanobi 58 – http://www.yvonnedipalma.com

Landscape of the Soul

Through the years, we accumulate a series of experiences. Our tendency is to evaluate and simply reflect on what we have been through and what we have learned. This inward site into what we can no longer see with our eyes allows us to see through them through our soul.

The landscape of the soul creates a movement and a synchronistic pattern between our heart and our mind through the inner visions of our soul. When the heart and imagination join forces to look back or look forward, we are deepening our awareness of who we really are. This deepening of who we really are is our soul.

It has been said that “our hearts will not rest until we rest in thee.” This is our journey in life. It is our journey home. It is the journey into the spacial quality of existence that brought us into this world. It is the journey of what is leading us through this life. And, it is the journey back to where it all began.

One could say that the infant and the elderly are more soul than body. As you and I develop our personality and ego, we begin to think we are somebody. Ram Dass calls this “somebody training.” We begin to think we are real and act on this appearance of being as we move into adulthood. When we mature, we go back into what Ram Dass has called “nobody training.”

We spend a great deal of time learning to develop independence from infancy only to lose it again as we die. It is the journey from innocence to grace. The human expression is a journey with many ups and downs. What keeps us on tract and often sane in an insane world is the “landscape of the soul.” The landscape of the soul gives us strength to do the impossible and give us hope when there is none.

Even though all parts of the self needs to be embraced with scrutiny and unconditional love, there is something inside us perfecting our true nature. Our authentic self knows we are growing through life and simply going through life at the same time. This delicate balance between these two forces of nature enables us to stay on our path. It is the path a knowing who we are through the various experiences and expressions of our life. Insodoing, we learn to trust in our soul and find direction there when direction in life is not present.

Samuel Oliver, author of, “What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living”

Die Legende des Stuart Ungar

Stuart Ungar wurde am 8. September im Jahre 1953 in Amerika geboren. Er wuchs in Manhattan in ein jüdisches Elternhaus auf und gilt bis heute als einer der besten Poker- und Gin-Rummy-Spieler. Sein Spitznamen “The Kid” hat er seiner jungen Karriere in der Pokerwelt zu verdanken. Auch wirkte er optisch immer wie ein kleiner Junge, Stuart Ungar hatte eine kleinen und schmächtigen Statur.

Stuart Ungar galt schon im jungen Alter Kind als hochintelligent. Sein fotografisches Gedächtnis vermöglichte ihn seinen Erfolg, der schon in frühen Jahren begann. Als zehn jähriges Kind gewann er sein erstes Gin-Rommé Tournier, der auch gleichzeitig sein erster Tournier darstellte, an dem er teilnahm. Mit vierzehn Jahren besiegte Stuart Ungar den zu diesem Zeitpunkt besten Gin-Spieler New Yorks.

Bis dahin hatte Stuart Ungar das Spielen als Freizeit und Hobby angesehen. Doch der tragische Tod seines Vaters sollte alles ändern. Sein Vater starb jung an einem Herzinfarkt und hinterließ seine Frau mit 2 Kindern. Stuart Ungar unterbrach die Schule und ging nach der zehnten Klasse ab, um als Vollzeit-Gin-Rommé-Spieler Geld für die Familie zu verdienen. Stuart Ungar schaffet es durch Tourniere seine Mutter und seine Schwester finanziell zu unterstützen.

Doch es gab auch eine dunkle Seite seines Erfolges, die Spielsucht. Die eine Hälfte seiner Gewinne gab er seiner Familie, die andere verspielte er auf den Rennbahnen. Bald schon hatte sich Stuart Ungar hoch verschuldet und verließ New York. Erst Miami und dann Las Vegas wurden zu seiner neuen Heimat. Dort begegnete er seine Lebensgefährtin, Frau Madelaine, die er heiratete. Zusammen bekamen sie eine Tochter, die Stefanie genannt wurde. Während der ganzen Periode hatte Stuart Ungar mit dem Spielen kein Halt gemacht. Er spielte nun High Stakes Gin Rommé mit großen Erfolg.

Doch auch hier sollte sein Erfolg ihm zuvor kommen. Da Stuart Ungar schon als Gin Rommé einen bekannten Namen trug und kein Rivale ihn besiegte, sollten Casinos ihn nicht mehr willkommen heißen. Stuart Ungar wurde von
Gin Rommé Tourniere ausgeschlossen und keiner traute es sich gegen den großen Sieger anzutreten. Stuart Ungar hatte keine Wahl und musste seine Gin Rommé Karriere aufgeben. Nach der Suche auf ein neuen passenden Spiel, fiel er aufs Poker, dem Hold’em Poker. Schon im Jahr 1980 nahm er an seinem ersten Poker Tournier teil.

Stuart Ungar erster Poker Auftritt sollte unvergesslich werden. Obwohl Stuart Ungar so gut wie keine Erfahrung in No Limit Hold’em hatte, besiegte er die Poker Legende Doyle Brunson im Heads-Up beim WSOP Main Event. Von hier ab erlangte er seinen Spitzname “The Kid”, der bis dato jüngste WSOP Sieger aller Zeiten. Sein Titel verteidigte Start Ungar auch im folgenden Jahr.

Doch Stuart Ungar sollte seine Spielsucht nie im Griff haben. Seine Gewinne verspielte er immer wieder bei Sportwetten oder Pferderennen und gelang so schnell in einen Teufelskreis. Man sagt er habe mindestens viermal sein ganzes Vermögen verloren und wieder gewonnen haben. Bald schon kamen noch Drogenprobleme dazu. Diese ganzen Umstände waren für seine Ehefrau Frau Madelaine zu viel. Sie verließ ihn letztendlich zusammen mit deren gemeinsamen Tochter Stefanie.

Sein größter Tiefpunkt erlitt Stuart Ungar 1990, während der WSOP. Er hatte an der WSOP dank eines Freundes teilnehmen können, der ihm das Startgeld von 10.000$ lieh. Doch am dritten Tag fand man ihn bewusstlos mit einer Überdosis Kokain. Obwohl er das Turnier nicht mehr zu Ende spielen konnte, war sein Vorsprung an Chips so groß, dass er noch den neunten Platz erreichte.

Ein Comeback erreichte Stuart Ungar. Durch geliehene Startgeld konnte er an der in der WSOP 1997 teilnehmen und gewann den ersten Platzt. Nach seinen Gewinn gab Stuart Ungar seine letzte Interviews, wo er sein berühmte Zitat sagt:„Niemand hat mich jemals mit den Karten besiegen können. Der einzige, der mich jemals schlagen könnte bin ich selbst.“ Außerdem sagte er, dass er diesen Poker Turnier seiner Tochter widme, dessen Bild er immer bei sich trage.

Im kommenden Jahr hatte Stuart Ungar wieder mal seinen ganzen Gewinn in Drogen und Wetten verloren. Entzugsversuche blieben erfolglos. Zum Schluss seiner Karriere war niemand mehr bereit, ihm Geld zu leihen. Seine letzten Momente verbrachte Stuart Ungar in einem Motelzimmer, wo er dann am 22. November 1998 an einem Herzinfarkt verstarb.

Stuart Ungar ist das klassische Beispiel für die dunkle Seite des Glücksspiels. Spiel- und Drogensucht sollten ihm zum Verhängnis werden. Mittlerweile sind mehrere Bücher, Filme, Reportagen und weitere Medien über sein Leben veröffentlich worden.

The Inside is What Counts

Greetings self-help readers,

This article will deal with what is on the inside of us. Who we are on the inside, seems to show up on the outside no matter how hard we try to hide it. You have no doubt heard of people wearing their hearts on their sleeves and this is because what is in our hearts are some deep emotions. You can be the best actor/actress in the world but if you are hurting inside you are in bad emotional shape. You can mask your pain with a smile or a laugh but that pain is still there. You can not make that pain disappear with alcohol or drugs it simply returns when the narcotic is out of the system. Medication will also need to be constantly taken if one is on anti-depressants. Why? Because the heart itself, what is on the inside of every single person on this planet is never dealt with. God speaks of people who honor Him with their lips but their hearts are far from Him. God knows what is inside of all of us. The choice can be to run from who we are. To pour ourselves into various addictions to get away from who we are. We must however deal with who we really are if we are to move past any pain in our lives.

Before my darling mother passed away, she uttered the words it is time to move on to my wife and I. Those words were very hard to hear but they still ring true today as I am reminded of them when I reflect back on my last days with her. I could have chosen to stay in the emotional state of numbness that I was in during her last days on earth or proceed to keep all the great memories of my mother in my heart and enyoy the rest of the time that God has given me on the earth. The choice was mine. It was a difficult one but one that I believe that all of us must make when it comes to dealing with who we are. If I chose to stay in a state of numbness and deal with it by working too much or withdrawl I would too busy focusing on myself. I would miss out on spending time with my amazing wife and daughter and I would never be able to get that time back.

Take a look at who you are inside. Talk about the pain with someone you can trust and move on. You can do it. You must do it if you are to be the very best that you can be. Choose not to live in the past because you will miss the very future that God has planned for you.

Much continued positive attitude success,

The creator of “Positive Attitude Secrets”

The Impact of Lacking Self Esteem on Business Professionals

Studies show that at least 85% or more of the world’s people suffer from some degree of lacking self-esteem. Although one might think that such challenges are only characteristic of the poor, uneducated, or lower socio-economic members of society, people from all walks of life can suffer situational or more widespread challenges with their levels of self-esteem.

Many very successful business people lack self-esteem in some areas of their lives. Perhaps they feel socially challenged or they have difficulty establishing close or intimate relationships. Perhaps they experience low self-esteem with regard to their physical appearance or their health. Perhaps they are not having any fun in their lives, maybe devoting too much attention to their work. Many “successful” people are driven to succeed. They compensate for feeling deficient in other areas of their lives by working harder and finding a place they can excel through their work. This provides them with a new focus where they can win but it doesn’t fulfill their neglected needs in other areas like relationships, recreation, personal and spiritual development, health and appearance and their ability to lead balanced, fun, and fulfilling lives.

It’s not that there is something wrong with finding an occupational niche where one can be successful and feel good about oneself. However, many of those lacking self-esteem in other areas find themselves driven to accomplish, driven to prove their worth. Since business is an area where they can shine, they neglect other areas to focus excessively on business.

However, since their actions are built upon the erroneous belief that they are somehow not good enough, somehow defective or unworthy of being fully loved and accepted, there is little lasting satisfaction even in the arenas where they can excel. It’s as though they are climbing a ladder with the top of the ladder in the clouds. They think that if they can just climb high enough, they will be successful. They will have proven their worth. They will find satisfaction, happiness, and fulfillment. However, as they climb higher and higher, they never seem to arrive. There are always new goals and objectives challenging them to prove their worth. The more they achieve, the more they have yet to go. Try as they will, they never seem to fully measure up. Or, if they do, it is short-lived and fleeting at best. There is no arriving to the point where they find what they long for so badly — the peace of mind that comes from self-love and self-acceptance.

Because the foundation of their ladder is grounded on quicksand, they often find themselves sinking as rapidly as they climb. In fact, from their perspective, they will never reach the perfection they seek so badly. They will always find evidence to highlight their flaws and reinforce their fears of being unworthy, unlovable, defective in some way.

The message of The Self-Esteem Book is simple. No one needs to settle for a dimmed existence due to a lacking sense of self-worth. Most people either make up or buy into thoughts that there is something wrong with them, that they are somehow inadequate, not good enough and not worthy of being loved and accessing all the good things that life has to offer. If they are willing to examine their past to get to the source of their resignation and diminished self-esteem, they can reinterpret what happened to them in such a way that they can heal and complete the past and eliminate negative self-talk while making a conscious decision to live their lives from a decision to strive for excellence and contribute to others. By developing a firm belief that they can impact people and the world around them and that they are, in fact, very worthy of receiving life’s blessings, they will manifest happiness and fulfillment.

In addition to the cost of never finding true happiness, long-term fulfillment, or peace, lacking self-esteem impacts business people in many other ways. For example, by not getting to the source of their self-esteem issues, they sacrifice their personal power, their ability to best pursue their life purpose and fully manifest their gifts in the world. If our energy is spent by being preoccupied with our weaknesses or being incomplete with our past, we can never be fully present to today and so we sacrifice our true potential to bring about a result.

Our relationships suffer as we will misinterpret the words and actions of others in a way that invalidates us and has us feel badly about who we are. We may be so driven to prove we are good enough that we sacrifice our personal effectiveness and charisma by focusing on ourselves and our deficiencies rather than on the wants and needs of others. We may play small and hide out in social situations or whenever the possibility of looking bad or “being found out” comes up for us. Or, we may overcompensate and turn to workaholic tendencies out of a desire to prove our worth to others or to ourselves. Because of this misdirected focus, we trade our ability to impact others maximally and to best contribute our gifts to the world.

The answer to escaping the vicious cycle of lacking self-esteem, diminished confidence, and the never-ending, frustrating quest for fulfillment lies in the 3 step process as laid out in detail in The Self-Esteem Book. The process starts with healing one’s past so that it no longer robs us of energy and consumes our attention. Once the pull of past ghosts is complete, we can then turn our attention to properly analyzing our present state of affairs. We can identify what’s working in our lives and what’s missing to support living an upset-free life in choice, a life that honors our most important values and inspires us to live passionately.

And finally, we can take that magic wand that is our birth-right, wave it over our lives and design our future deliberately. We can choose to do so in a way that excites us, as we cast off that gloomy state of low self-esteem, unhealthy resignation and self-pity that no longer supports us. We can live with the intention to honor our God-given magnificence and lead happy, fulfilled lives that fully contribute to others as we share our gifts with the world.

Organic Skin Care Products

We all know that eating food products that contain synthetic additives is not good for our health, especially to our skin. It has been said that if you want to take good care of your well-being, then what you put on your skin can be just as important as what you eat or drink. According to reports, the chemicals we apply to our skin are absorbed directly into our bodies. It is estimated that an average woman absorbs as much as two kilograms a year per person from cosmetics and toiletries alone. Cosmetics are also becomingly madly high-tech, with NASA scientists developing creams and beauty labs dedicated to researching complex ingredients. These are all lovely for youth-seekers, but sometimes one longs for the simple life, and it’s high time to look for alternatives. And that’s probably the reason why there are a lot of people that are shifting to organic skin care products.

Organic skin care is an area of the organic movement which has made real progress in recent times, and where previously, there were few options. But now, there is a fairly wide range of grooming products available out there. Organic skin care products are becoming increasingly popular due to concerns about chemicals used in many products. Studies have found that up to 60 percent of creams or make-up applied can penetrate the skin and get into the blood stream. Whether or not this causes health issues, it has alarmed some people and unsurprisingly, the organic health and beauty market is growing rapidly, with sales increasing around 20 percent every year.

In the last few, years organic beauty products have seen a tremendous growth in popularity and demand, since organic skin care products are the ideal option for people who cannot apply chemically enhanced products.
One can find several standards of the word ‘organic’ as related to skin care and health products. There are accredited certifying organizations trying to set regulations for what constitutes a 100% organic product. How does the consumer know what organic really means? Because we buy organic-labeled skin care and health products, we automatically expects these goods to be 100% free of synthetic and artificial ingredients. But the tremendous growth witnessed by the organic sector in the recent years has also given enough chances to some traders to promote and sell non-organic products as organic. So, products marketed as “organic” can still consist of potentially hazardous artificial ingredients.

Products labeled as 100% organic should not include synthetic ingredients at all nor entail the use of artificial products during the manufacturing process. product. Thus, the amount of natural ingredients in cosmetics, and other organic skin care products should still be scrutinized.

So, before shopping for organic skin care products, do a bit of research work about the brand. Always go for brands that are committed to provide guaranteed and efficient skincare products so that your skin gets only the best. If we were shocked to discover the dangers of many substances used in our every day make-up, shampoos and bath and shower products, why shouldn’t we give ourselves and our Mother Earth a favor, let’s go organic!

Equity Business Partnership

This article could have been titled “The Pros and Cons of a 50/50 Equity Partnership”, but the cons far outweigh the pros. When partnerships are formed, the obvious concerns are addressed. How do each partner’s skills-set and experience complement each other? How much will each partner contribute to get the business going? How long will they grow the business until they entertain selling it? Is that it? … hardly.

Once the business gets going no doubt economic and industry variables change which affect the business. Each partner’s perception of the direction the business should go changes as well. There are constant decisions with regards to the mixture of product and service offerings … the decision to get into another line of business or get out of one. Should the focus be on a higher volume, lower profit margin business model or vice versa? What about a shift to a more capital intensive model. If the business becomes a success, many times potential investors creep in, whether an angel investor or venture capitalist. Both partners need to agree on the investment proposal.

What if one of the partners acquires an asset for the business whether it’s land, a building, a small data center, a thousand servers, or to complicate things further contributes an intellectual asset of some sort. When the company is going to be sold, what is the value of the partner’s contributed asset? Who is supposed to value it? This can become an insurmountable hurdle. Most buyers know not to value any one piece near what it’s worth by itself.

When it’s time to sell the company, the financial situation of each partner has no doubt changed since the company was founded. The consideration for the company could be all cash, all stock or a combination of cash and stock. The tax implications of each of the three scenarios are different for each partner. I have seen the process of divesting a company go up in smoke too many times because the partners didn’t agree on the proposed deal. They spent years growing the business then totally disagree about when to sell, who to sell to, and/or how much to sell it for.

Business is about return on equity, not “all for one and one for all”. My suggestion … one ship, one captain.

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The Best Comes With The Lowest

Are you searching a loan that would be relatively cheap? If yes, then your search ends here, as cheap secured loans are specially customized for you.

Cheap secured loans are offered against any collateral. It could be real estate, automobiles or some other valuable assets. Generally, with cheap secured loans, the ranges of borrowed amount are from £3,000 to £75,000. But, in case of greater amount, lenders will check the worth of your collateral. If your collateral has higher value then, lenders will not only be willing to offer higher amount but also a lower interest rate. Even cheap secured loans are available for a comfortable duration of up to 25 years and you can pay off the installments either monthly or quarterly.

Cheap secured loans however are offered at better terms and conditions that suit the borrower’s requirement. The interest rate of cheap secured loans varies from individual to individual. For a regular income earner, a lower monthly loan will help in saving a big sum of money. On the other hand, for a person whose monthly income is not stable, a loan with flexible monthly payments such as overpayments, underpayments or payment holiday will be highly suitable.

Nevertheless, cheap secured loans are obtainable against your valuable collateral. And for that, in case you fail to repay that can put your collateral in danger. So, before applying, you will have to calculate the amount you want to borrow as a loan. Needless to say, should borrow the exact amount, as borrowing a larger amount may become a huge financial burden in future.

Now the question is how can you get a cheap secured loan. It is a bit tough as many lenders offer cheap secured loans to lure people. But in reality, these loans are not at all cheap. Don’t worry. With some effort, you will be able to get a cheap secured loan. First of all, list your requirement- decide the amount you want to borrow, how long would you like the repayment period to be, what amount of monthly installment are you comfortable with.

Next step is choosing lenders. Besides traditional lenders, you can opt for online cheap secured loans. Even, finding an online cheap secured loan is easier- Just a click brings all data within a minute. And last but not the list, comparative judgment of various quotes will help you to get the best deal.

“The best comes with the lowest”- this line is truly applicable for cheap secured loans. Like other secured loans, cheap secured loans provide same facilities at cheap rate. It’s a favorable opportunity that will suit your pocket.

The Basic Clothing Every Camper Needs

The appropriate clothing is critical to your comfort during your camping trip. Dress in layers. Wearing layers of clothing enables you to have the luxury of removing layers when the weather is warm and piling on the layers when the weather is cold. Without layers, you may find yourself sweating profusely in the heat or shivering in the cold.

Wind is usually a factor when you are out in the wilderness. Therefore, it is recommended to bring a wind breaker jacket. Most camping stores will provide a wide variety of wind breaker jackets that are also water proof and provide ample amount of pockets for storage. Synthetic materials also fight against the winter elements. Synthetic materials ward off cold and also dry up any moisture you may release if you sweat. Try several jackets on until you find one that is not only comfortable, but seals off any drafts to the outside air.

Sturdy hiking boots that are waterproof is a must. Experienced campers wear sock liners in addition to wool socks. Your feet may retain moisture which can dampen your camping experience. Sock liners will help keep your feet comfortably dry. Don’t forget to bring extra pairs of socks!

Make sure to cover your face and head with a hat and scarf. Most of your body heat is lost through you head. Plus, a hat and scarf can shield you from the harmful and tiring effects of the sun and wind. Wear thick gloves, water proof gloves that provide thorough insulation for your hands.

Let’s talk about your sleeping bag. Finding the right sleeping bag is critical because it is the camping “clothing” you will be wearing when you are resting. Therefore, don’t use the sleeping bag that has been hiding in your attic or basement. You need a sleeping bag that is specifically designed for camping. The sleeping bag should have adjustable straps so you can fit it snuggly around your body. Many sleeping bags have a liner which gives you added protection against the wind and cold.

When you are ready to use your sleeping bag, keep the following things in mind. First, wear your hat to bed. Don’t lose heat through your noggin! Second, don’t wear the same socks you have worn all day to bed. They are no doubt stinky and may be wet. Put on a fresh, dry pair of socks. Third, you can add extra insulation and comfort to your sleeping bag by placing a down comforter inside of it. Wrap yourself thoroughly in the comforter and sleeping bag. Tie up any loose ends or drafty areas to prevent unwanted cold and moisture from seeping into your sleeping bag. Follow these tips and you will have a restful sleep.

There you have it, the basic clothing you will need for your camping trip. Do keep in mind that you should take into account where you are going camping and what time of year. Your clothing choices will vary widely if you are just going to the local campground versus heading out to the uncharted trails of a mountain. Either way, “Be Prepared”!

Take This Job and Shove It

“Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.”
-H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Sometimes it’s an easy choice to leave a company. However, one of the most important choices that you can make in your career is to leave your current employer in the right way. Like any other relationship, there are faults and virtues with every company. At the end of a relationship, people tend to focus on the faults.

BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO
When you leave a company, it is like breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend. Regardless of how you do it, there will still be emotions. The longer the relationship, the deeper the feelings. Keep this in mind during the separation. People express their emotions in different ways so be prepared to respond with compassion.

IT’S A SMALL WORLD
I’ve learned first hand not to burn bridges. In fact, I was hired by my former boss within two years of leaving the company. He had moved onto a bigger job with another company and thought of me when a position came open in his department. Since we already had a great relationship, the interview process was both short and painless. Also, the job was a significant step up for me both professionally and financially.

TO DO OR NOT TO DO?
Here are a few do’s and don’ts that may help make the transition a little easier for everyone.

DO write and give a simple resignation letter to your immediate boss and, perhaps, your Human Resources Director, if appropriate. By putting a few key items in writing, it memorializes your intention to leave the company. It also gives you a chance to pre-play the discussion with your boss. The letter should include the following: your last day on the job, open items that you need to complete prior to leaving, and any work that you will need to pass off to someone else.

DON’T say anything negative about the company or anyone working for the company. While this is a good policy to employ at all times, it is even more critical when you are leaving. Disgruntled employees may seek you out during this time to air their negative feelings about the company or people working for the company. Resist the temptation to entertain these conversations. It is likely that your comments will be shared with others.

DO give as much advance notice as possible to allow for a smooth transition. Typically, this is two to four weeks. Use your best judgment to decide how long you will need to give keeping in mind what’s best for the company. Be aware that is also possible that the company will ask you to leave immediately, especially if you’re going to work for a competitor. This is nothing personal and should not be considered an insult.

DO work hard until you leave. It’s perfectly natural to get “short-timer’s disease” as you have already mentally moved onto the new position. Whether discussing movies, books, or relationships; people generally remember the beginning and end more than the middle.

DON’T take anything that is not yours. Whether it’s a stapler, a book that belongs to the company, copy paper, or paper clips; leave them behind. While you’re at it, tidy up a bit.

DO make yourself available for your replacement. If the company hires your replacement before you leave, offer to train them. Even after you have departed, it’s a good idea to leave a phone number where you can be reach with times that it is acceptable to call.

DON’T abuse e-mail, the telephone, or the internet during your last days. Be sure to keep your communication as professional as you have during your tenure.

There’s no reason that you still can’t be friends when it’s over. If you are careful to maintain a good reputation with the company, their suppliers, their customers, and employees; it will pay off considerably. It may not happen right away, but your paths will cross again.

Successful real estate investor tips

Becoming a successful real estate investor
Becoming a successful real estate investor requires being able to find good real estate investment deals and put them together. Your job is not to become an closing attorney, a management expert, or a repair person. Use professionals!

You must learn how to appraise and find the true value of real estate this information will help you make better investment decisions. Realtors, appraisers, and banks determine what a property is worth by looking at comparable sales usually three to five sales of similar property that has recently sold in the same neighborhood. You must be able to do the same.

Getting a list of comparable prices of properties bought or sold (and when it sold) for the neighborhood you need information about, and asking active real estate investors in your area what the market is like will be helpful and making a better investment decision. What is the ideal market for investing?
There is no such thing as an ideal real estate market for investing. It tends to be more difficult to find bargains in rising markets if the market keeps rising the probability of selling the property quickly for a large profit increases. In contrast but when property values are falling more bargains become available.

You need to be able to assess the true value of properties based on when you expect to sell. Your purchase must be made at a good enough discount to allow for a profitable sale at a later date.
Leverage
Leverage is very important for investors because the less cash you put down on each property the more properties you can buy. If the properties go up in value your rate of return goes up. However if the properties go down in value and you have a lot of debt on the property this can result in negative cash flow.

Since real estate is generally cyclical negative cash flow is only a short-term problem and can be handled if you have other income or a cash reserves. This makes “Nothing down” investing very helpful to protect against negative cash flow for high leverage investor.

If you are a long term real estate investor leverage will work in your favor if the markets in which you invest appreciate in the long run and your income from the properties can pay for most of your monthly debt. Strategies to limit risk
To limit risk become educated in your local real estate market first by understanding the large scale trends from global down to national regional and specific neighborhoods. Learn about target neighborhoods with the help of successful real estate investors in your area along the way.

Real estate investors can help you interpret market indicators such as the average length of time houses have been on the market this month versus last month or last year. With this information it will help you make better investment decisions.
Exit strategies
It is important not to guess the future of a local real estate market you need to have a clear plan in mind when purchasing property. As a real estate investor you must know exactly how you will exit the property before you buy. And have a backup plan or two in case the first course of action doesn’t work. You must know your market and your plan before you begin to invest. For more helpful information and online real estate corses from Donald Trump himself visit us today at http://www.TrumpUniversityCo.com

Stop the Stupid Stuff

We are living in a world of change. Shift happens! Competition comes from all over the world, which means that many American businesses are in trouble.

Many decisions are being made that are contrary to both good business sense and building customer loyalty.

Most organizations’ marketing is usually an exercise in figuring out what to do to get current or potential customers to spend more dollars with them.

I’m suggesting that instead of thinking about what to do, figure out what to stop doing. In other words, stop doing the “stupid stuff.”

Not doing the stupid stuff means finding out what prevents customers from spending money with you and making sure that that action or reaction never happens again.

Here’s an example of what I call “stupid stuff.” Some airlines now want to charge customers who want to speak to a live agent.

That’s stupid stuff in two ways. First, they’ve chosen to penalize customers who want to continue getting what they’ve always gotten – one-on-one attention. Worse, they’ve done it by saying they will charge more for this previously standard level of service. How many customers will they lose because of this decision? I know of at least one.

There are more subtle, but no less damaging, stupid things businesses need to stop doing.

Take, for example, the new Wheaties boxes. General Mills recently introduced Wheaties boxes with photos of the U.S. Olympic gold medalists. One was missing: Paul Hamm. Why?

This was General Mills’ response to my inquiry:

“Selecting a Wheaties Champion has never been an easy task, especially when we have witnessed so many outstanding performances by so many championship athletes. But it simply isn’t possible to honor every champion on the Wheaties box.”

So they leave off the first U.S. man to win the Olympics all-around gymnastics championship in one of the sport’s greatest comebacks? His return from a disastrous fall to a near-perfect high-bar routine won near-universal praise and, for most of us, defined the word “champion.”

But there was controversy. As most of you know, a South Korean gymnast claimed that a scoring error cost him the gold and appealed to the Court of Arbitration for sport. The court recently ruled that Hamm can keep the gold medal.

Even though the medal was disputed, it was not because of anything Hamm did or did not do. Still, General Mills decided to do the “safe” thing. But by being safe and leaving out Hamm, Wheaties is alienating the millions of customers who see him not as controversial, but as a hero, and losing customers in the process. Now that’s “stupid stuff.”

So start stopping! Stop saying “No” and start using the word “Yes.” Stop charging for services that most of us think are free.

Find out what exasperates, discourages, hassles or confuses your customers and stop it.

stop Educating Your Prospect

Companies spend thousands of dollars every year building product knowledge “Universities”. They send their sales people to these product schools to learn the features and benefits of their products. They have them go through the process of becoming “product” experts, with the hope that the expertise they gain will propel them to sales success.

Unwittingly, they promote and fund a process that ends up creating “non supportive beliefs” in the minds of their sales people that can actually inhibit their success and lose them both sales revenue and profit margins. Those beliefs include the following:

Disseminating product knowledge to my prospect will build my credibility and make sales.

In order for the prospect to understand the value of my offer I must educate them.

Unfortunately, we have found this type of thinking, or “non supportive beliefs”, end up creating very difficult selling problems. Once we understand the problems these non supportive beliefs create we can begin to change both our thinking and behavior that will lead us to greater success in sales.

Although being credible to your prospect is important , we believe that having them trust you to provide a solution that will limit the risk they take in making a decision to buy from you is much more important. The way you build that trust is by demonstrating to your prospect, through a complete understanding of their problems, that you reduce the chance of making a mistake in the recommendation you make.

Logically, to gain an understanding of what your prospect needs, would require us to ask questions. Through your questions, you gain a greater understanding of their situation and thereby lower the risk of making a recommendation that is inconsistent with what they need. Asking questions about typical problems and understanding the impact they have on your prospect is much more important than giving out information.

Also, we have found that educating your prospect about your value allows them to use your information and recommendations as a way to “shop” you against the competition, frequently building RFP’s and RFQ’s around the unique value you have educated them about. This “shopping” model allows them to get competitive bids built around your recommendations that literally extinguish your value and end up creating sameness. This “free consulting” is particularly frustrating and damaging to our technology and intangible service customers.

Educating your prospect may make you feel good but it will end up being your downfall. It’s a dead end street that will force you to define your difference by a low price!

Starbucks China

Admittedly, there are few genuine “can’t miss” propositions. But I’ve got one for you, Starbucks in China. Giant corporations being granted carte blanche in a totalitarian environment are reminiscent of an age when kings granted exclusive licensing for fur trapping. Starbucks has the product, the relationships, and with some nimble campaigning they’ll have the ubiquitous branding in no time. It will be game, set, match – if it isn’t already.

China is the emerging powerhouse economy in the world today, but it is not a free-for-all for foreign companies. Many companies, in America and elsewhere, would maintain it to be quite the opposite. China has garnered a reputation for being rather lax in its enforcement of intellectual property laws. Tech companies in particular, such as Microsoft, have been frustrated in seeing their handiwork pirated in China. You may add golf club manufacturers, music companies, movie studios and any number of industries to the list of the aggrieved.

And then there’s Starbucks, our giant American caffeinery. I’m looking at a franchise right now from my office at ICMediaDirect.com in the Empire State Building. It’s always busy, filled with sightseers. Did you know that there’s a franchise at the Great Wall? Were you aware that Starbucks announced an opening of one of their stores in Beijing’s Forbidden City, the Chinese were furious? They initially resisted, but quickly got used to it? (I guess the Chinese are just like everyone else.)

What does Starbucks have that Calloway Golf doesn’t in order to do business like this? A product that you can’t reproduce, that’s what. You can’t fake coffee beans en masse. That’s the cornerstone that guarantees Starbucks success in mainland China. Their CEO, Howard Schultz, has declared China to be their “number one priority” in terms of growth.

Schultz and Starbucks aren’t shy about their Chinese ambitions. Currently they have about 11,000 stores in 37 countries, including about 375 in China. By 2008 Starbucks expects to derive 20% of their revenue from Chinese locations. Starbucks has a long-term goal of 30,000 stores and some 8,000 in China.

This is a ramp-up of truly gigantic proportions. Remember, China is, perhaps in name only, a Communist country. While some of the communist economic policies may have fallen by the wayside, the ministers in Beijing have tightly clung to their power. Starbucks has been fully waved in, green lights, red carpet, welcome wagons – the works. This isn’t because they think the CEO is a nice guy, but because their product, its distribution channels and everything can’t be copied.

I could hem and haw all day about this, but there’s more proof that the fix is in on behalf of the Seattle based coffee chain. In recent weeks Starbucks has won not one, but two lawsuits in China protecting its intellectual property. Some enterprising, and certainly observant, locals decided to copy elements of Starbucks brand and serve coffee themselves to their fellow countrymen. No dice. Chinese courts ruled in favor of Starbucks.

I wonder if the local coffee merchant thought he had a chance? Did the Chinese judge think long and hard about the various merits each side had? Were economic ministers in Beijing curious as to how this case would turn? There was no drama. An accomplished CEO like Schultz wouldn’t publicly refer to such lofty goals to succeed in countries like China without knowing he could reach it beforehand. Somebody in Beijing likes them, or again, likes the revenue they generate.

It reminds me of a book I recently read on the infamous pirate Captain Kidd. In short, the English crown hired Kidd to rob pirate fleets for profit. While he was at sea, the winds of political change shifted somewhat and he became a scapegoat – his “trial” was a farce. The powers that be needed a quick conviction and Kidd paid with his life. Perhaps the stakes were not as great, but the outcome was just as assured when China ruled in favor of Starbucks against local knockoffs.

Okay, so Starbucks has the quality coffee and international distribution channels down, they’ve got a golden okay from Beijing, now all they have to do is convince a country with 5,000 years of tea drinking experience that there’s something new, something different – called coffee. This calls for branding.

China is moving towards Westernization, or a more capitalist economy. The growing appetites and expectations of a consumer driven society make the task of Starbucks task easier, especially since their competition is negligible. With the appropriate deals struck in Beijing, it’s now time for Starbucks to sell themselves to the Chinese people. Here’s how they’ll win:

• They are aiming at the young urban Chinese demographic, and store locations are comfortable and offer a social setting – a welcome break from cramped apartments.
• Starbucks locations will serve as Internet user hubs, where socializing and downloading music will be central to the Starbucks Experience. Advertising agencies, like ICMediaDirect.com, will be running seasonal online campaigns (similar to this past Christmas season’s Red Cup campaign in the US) for Starbucks in order to associate the chain with what’s hip. Crossing Medias like music downloads and entertainment websites will be crucial.
• There is a consumer consciousness that’s new to capitalist cultures (never leaves, actually) emerging in China that’s similar to Russia. Coffee will be the drink of change and through multimedia branding with governmental support; this idea will be solidly reinforced.

I don’t push stocks. I don’t preach politics. I’m not searching for justice or defending oppressors. But there is one thing I know – Starbucks can’t miss.

Spoofing

“Spoofing” or “phishing” frauds attempt to make internet users believe that they are receiving e-mail from a specific, trusted source, or that they are securely connected to a trusted web site, when that’s not the case at all, far from it. Spoofing is generally used as a means to convince individuals to divulge personal or financial information which enables the perpetrators to commit credit card/bank fraud or other forms of identity theft.

In “email spoofing” the header of an e-mail appears to originate from someone or somewhere other than the actual source. Spam distributors often use email spoofing in an attempt to get their recipients to open the message and possibly even respond to their solicitations.

“IP spoofing” is a technique used to gain unauthorized access to computers. In this instance the unscrupulous intruder sends a message to a computer with an IP address indicating that the message is coming from a trusted source.

“Link alteration” involves the altering of a return internet address of a web page that’s emailed to a consumer in order to redirect the recipient to a hacker’s site rather than the legitimate site. This is accomplished by adding the hacker’s ip address before the actual address in an e-mail which has a request going back to the original site. If an individual unsuspectingly receives a spoofed e-mail and proceeds to “click here to update” account information, for example, and is redirected to a site that looks exactly like a commercial site such as EBay or PayPal, there is a good chance that the individual will follow through in submitting personal and/or credit information. And that’s exactly what the hacker is counting on.

How to Protect Yourself
• If you need to update your information online, use the same procedure you’ve used before, or open a new browser window and type in the website address of the legitimate company’s page.
• If a website’s address is unfamiliar, it’s probably not authentic. Only use the address that you’ve used before, or better yet, start at the normal homepage.
• Most companies require you to log in to a secure site. Look for the lock at the bottom of your browser and “https” in front of the website address.
• If you encounter an unsolicited e-mail that requests, either directly or through a web site, for personal financial or identity information, such as Social Security number, passwords, or other identifiers, exercise extreme caution.
• Take note of the header address on the web site. Most legitimate sites will have a relatively short internet address that usually depicts the business name followed by “.com,” or possibly “.org.” Spoof sites are more likely to have an excessively long strong of characters in the header, with the legitimate business name somewhere in the string, or possibly not at all.
• If you have any doubts about an e-mail or website, contact the legitimate company directly. Make a copy of the questionable web site’s URL address, send it to the legitimate business and ask if the request is authentic.
• Always report fraudulent or suspicious e-mail to your ISP.
• Lastly, if you’ve been victimized, you should file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at http://www.ic3.gov.

Vigilance and Security

Spectacular 5 Country Scandinavian Cruise

I’ve cruised dozens of ships on various lines and in my opinion this is as good as it gets on a mega-liner of 2200+ passengers with 920 crew. Costa’s Atlantica was a floating palace of art deco furnishings, marble inlaid floors and millions of dollars invested in original works of art. It exceeded my expectations. Also I normally loose weight on cruises shunning the ships artificial fare. This time I over indulged on varied menus of fresh food. I ate enough prosciutto and ice cream to last a decade. The Italian accented cuisine was prepared by Euro-chefs and culinary graduates of the world famous Chaine des Rotisseurs.

We had an awesome group of 60 who blended harmoniously. No love connections occurred (that I know of), but friendships developed as we bonded on our AFS private shore excursions and parties onboard. This group was blessed throughout with the best weather the Baltic region could ever provide – 68º daily and no rain. The First Officer said “this was the best weather of the summer.”

Each country visited was a lesson in culture and history. We saw an eyeful along our 1987 nautical miles. In Copenhagen Denmark – with it’s Mermaid, Stockholm Sweden – the archipelago referred to as “Venice of the North”, Helsinki Finland – so friendly, modern and clean, Grand St. Petersburg Russia where we squeezed in a full power tour of the Hermitage, palaces, onion domed churches, canals and an evening ballet. Our final port was charming Tallinn Estonia where the entire walled Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was like walking through a fairytale.

For our days at sea there was never a dull moment with 3 pools, shops, casino, luxurious spa and contests with the crew. The 2 story gym was so high tech that I didn’t know how to turn on the equipment, so the only exercise I got was jumping to conclusions. The midnight buffets were the most magnificent I’ve ever witnessed with countless ice sculptures. There was a house baked out of bread and piano shaped from white chocolate.

On our last night we attempted to pack all our trinkets collected: faberge egg, Russian nesting dolls, Swedish crystal, Finish glassware, Nordic pewter, lingonberry jams, amber jewelry, hand knit sweaters and a million T-shirts. Many things such as our fur hats may end up in a garage sale some day, but the bargaining sure was fun.

We tasted just an appetizer of this 5 country smorgasbord but leave perfectly satisfied. As I say Bon Voyage to this unique part of this world, I am able to remiss another journey well done.

Songwriting Tips

The moment that people create a melody which they feel is great, many think it already sounds like another song. This is common, and I suffered from this many times. What you’ve got to understand is that ALL SONGS are RECYCLED MELODIES.

Every song has a ‘portion’ of the tune which will be the same as another. So don’t worry if you feel your song sounds like another.

What’s important to know here is that if your melody is a familiar one, then that’s a GOOD THING. I’m not talking about a ‘rip off’ here, I’m talking about a part(s) of your melody that sounds like another song(s).

Why is it a good thing? Because it means PEOPLE can RELATE TO THE MELODY even more. They will want to listen to your song because of the familiarity.

Remember, most people aren’t songwriters. So chances are, most people won’t even realize where it may or may not have been inspired from. And what if they do? Well… ultimately, as a whole, it will be your own words, your own tune and eventually with your own music. So it will be YOUR SONG. So don’t fret.

Here, I’ll share some methods that will jump start the process of creating a melody:

– Pick a song that you like and know *quite* well, and when you are NOT listening to it, hum the tune of the song. DON’T’ SING THE WORDS, just hum the melody. This way, you will think ‘melodically’. Eventually, you should force yourself to sing certain variations of the melody (ie. completely mess around with the tune). When this happens, you’ll end with your own melody.

– If you play an instrument (it doesn’t matter which or what level you are at) try and figure out the melody of another song on the instrument. If you figure it out easily, then mess around and CHANGE certain parts of it. Then SING (hum, la, etc) this CHANGED MELODY out aloud. If you can’t figure it out, then forget about it! CREATE A MELODY YOU FEEL IS CORRECT! Again, don’t prejudge while doing this. Just go where your fingers take you and just ‘la’ the tune simultaneously. Loop this melody once you feel you have something good.

– Grab a song that you DON’T KNOW AT ALL. Listen to the song once, and then listen to it again. The second time around, sing along to it. More than likely, you won’t remember the tune. This is normal! What do you do now? Yup. You guessed it. MAKE UPYOUR OWN MELODY to this obscure song. NOTE: This one may work better if you bought a CD of backing tracks that have no guide vocals on the songs. This way, you HAVE TO make up your own melody to a track that’s already playing. Just make sure you DON’T KNOW the songs….at all.

You have no idea how powerful this is. I’ve written fresh songs on one’s I had no clue about! And believe me, they are original songs – they don’t sound like a copy of anything at all. This is because of what I said earlier – ultimately it will be your own lyrics, your own message and your own music which then translates into your own song.

*Keeping The Melody Simple*

Lastly, there is absolutely no point in making a melody that’s ‘musically clever’. You’re not trying to impress musicians here. What you want is to create a melody that’s SIMPLE yet INTERESTING.

So how do you do this? Well, melodies often re-occur several times in a song. In fact, the verses and choruses alone will often have the tune repeating itself. It’s the basic structure of nearly all songs under the sun. The verses will repeat and so will the choruses.

SO….IF THE MELODY SOUNDS WORTHY ENOUGH TO BE REPEATED, THEN YOU’RE ON TO SOMETHING.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking websites are becoming more and more popular. They allow you to save bookmarks online and Tag/Categorize them with keywords instead of saving them as bookmarks in the favorite’s list of yourbrowser. This is particularly useful when your browser based bookmarks have become unwieldy. It’s also help since you can access your bookmarks from any computer where you have an internet connection.

I have compiled a list of Social Bookmarking websites from a number of sources. You can find it here: http://www.blogmarketingtactics.com/social-bookmarking/social-bookmarking-top-links.html

Once you have bookmarked them, you can view them, sort them by category/keyword as well as see links from others that have been categorized like yours.

You also establish RSS feeds for each category (tag) that you ‘subscribe’ to. This alerts you to new links in your areas of interest. Your bookmark collection/RSS Feed becomes viewable to others who can also copy your bookmarks to their own collection. So now you can aggressively promote your RSS feed to the RSS Directories and Search engines, syndicate them and make them available to a much wider audience.

Social bookmarking sites also help you to meet other people who are interested in the same topics you are and who may also have knowledge of web resources that you don’t.

On Social Bookmarking sites, you first create an account. Then you bookmark interesting and useful things in the area of your interest or expertise. By doing so you create a useful Feed. Once you’ve done that you intermittently, (or aggressively), add useful and interesting items, (that could use additional exposure), from your own content. Make an honest effort to contribute USEFUL information and links. This is all about sharing and exposure. Done properly, you can be as aggressive as you want to be about sharing information. You can share your blog(s), links to your informational/resource sites etc. Think about the fact that when you share links to other’s resources, you’re also effectively promoting their content as well.

This is a way you can aggressively and ethically promote your content and the content of others. I personally have hundreds of gigabytes of my own information and information of others, connected to my notebook. In the final analysis, it’s doing me no good what-so-ever just sitting there. But by organizing it, online, I can help myself, (getting organized, getting my content exposed, etc.) and help others at the same time.

If you spice up your feed with too much sales and marketing related or self promotional stuff, people can and will easily drop their subscription to your feed. And instead of gaining good will and doing a service to the internet community you could get labeled as a spammer and suffer the consequences.

So while being aggressive is possible and acceptable, being careful to consider the best interest of the community is certainly warranted.

Balancing being ethical and providing a useful service to others with promoting your own content enables you to be as aggressive as you like. But remember, in the final analysis, others will make the decision on whether it’s ethical and useful or spam.

Sleep Work Play

Millions of Americans share their beds with enough dust mites to trigger an allergic asthma attack in susceptible people. In fact, two million times a year those symptoms are severe enough to cause a trip to the emergency room. In an effort to help allergic asthma sufferers reduce their exposure to allergens in the home, Andrew Dan-Jumbo of TLC’s While You Were Out has partnered with the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) on an educational campaign called “Sleep Work Play™ at Home.”

As part of the “Sleep Work Play at Home” campaign, asthma and allergic asthma sufferers can enter an essay contest to win a personal “at home” consultation with Andrew and a $500 gift certificate for supplies to manage exposure to allergens in the home. Contestants can enter online at www.sleepworkplay.com by Thursday, July 13, 2006.

Sleep Work Play™ aims to improve the dialogue between patients and physicians by helping patients to explain their experience with asthma symptoms.

At the Web site, you can find a questionnaire designed to help patients better assess the impact allergic asthma has on daily functioning. By asking three simple questions, Sleep Work Play helps allergic asthma patients understand that interruptions of sleep, work, school or play are not inevitable aspects of their disease and that improved communication with their doctor can lead to better asthma management.

Mimi Gilles, one of 10 million Americans who suffers from allergic asthma, attests to years of interruptions in her sleep, work and play. Rushing to the ER because of an asthma attack became an accepted intrusion in her life-she even considered herself lucky when the hospital visits were limited to only once per month.

However, Mimi finally found relief from her allergic asthma symptoms by discussing another treatment option with her doctor. “Until you know there is another way to manage your illness, you don’t know there’s anything different about how you have been living,” Mimi reflects.

If you are being treated for asthma and have tried reducing allergens in your home, but are still affected by symptoms, speak to your physician about a new treatment plan.

Training Your Dog To Sit Like You

The trick of “sitting up” is easily taught to small dogs, but should try not be included in a big dog’s education, as it is difficult for them to preserve their balance.

The training of sitting up is one of the first tricks to teach and forms the groundwork for many other dog tricks. To train a dog to sit up, prepare some treats as a reward, and set your dog on his haunches in a corner, so that he cannot fall either backward or sideways and has very little or no space to lose balance.

Keep him from pitching forward by holding one hand under his chin and with the other hand hold the treat above his nose and keep repeating distinctly and deliberately say, “sit up.” Do not make him sit up too long at any one time, but repeat the lesson frequently and reward him often with plentiful of praise and treats.

During his first lesson he will require considerable assistance from your hand to prevent him from pitching forward, but as he gets control of the balancing muscles and understands what you want, he will depend less and less upon your hand to keep him in position and you can gradually render him less assistance until you will only have to keep one hand in position two or three inches from his neck or chin, so as to be ready to prevent him pitching forward; later on you can withdraw this hand entirely and simply hold the treat just above the level of his head.

By constant practice he will sit up well after you set him up; then he should be set up against the wall, so as to afford him a support for his back only, and after he has been well schooled at this and can keep his position easily, practice him against chair legs, cushions or other objects that afford him less and less assistance, until finally he learns to preserve his balance and sits up without anything to lean against.

During all these lessons the words “sit up” have been impressed upon his mind by frequent repetition, and now comes the final lesson to teach him to sit up as soon as he hears the words, and the chances are, if he has been diligently drilled, it will be necessary only to call him out in the room, show him a treat, hold it up a suitable distance from the floor, say “sit up” and he will do so, when he should be given the treat while still in position.

The only necessity to perfection is to practice him several times a day until he will sit up at the word and without being shown a reward; that can be given him after he has obeyed.

You have now a foundation for many other tricks. He can be taught to beg by moving your hand up and down just in front of his paws, which he will move in unison with yours. He can also be taught to salute by bringing one paw up to the side of his head, or to hold a wooden pipe in his mouth, or to wear a cap on his head or other articles of wearing apparel.

In teaching a dog to submit to being dressed up, do not attempt to get him to wear too many things at once; try him at first with a cap and after he becomes accustomed to that you can put on a coat and gradually accustom him to the other clothing articles.

Enjoy teaching your dog the “sit up” trick and most importantly have fun along the way!

short And Fat

Long term care insurance policies have an important component called a benefit period which greatly affectspremium costs. This article discusses what I call “Short and Fat vs. Long and Skinny LTC Policies”.

That is right — Short and Fat LTC policies! So what is a benefit period anyway?

The benefit period is the number of years that ONCE you go on claim (need help in bathing and dressing or have some cognitive impairment (Alzheimer’s or similar ailment) that the insurance company will pay the daily or monthly benefit that you chose when you applied for the policy.

So if you bought a benefit period of say 5 years, once you qualified for benefits, and satisfied the deductible (how many days of care that you need to pay out of pocket), the insurance company will pay those benefits for a maximum of 5 years in this case.

The benefit period, whether a set number of years, say 6 years for example or unlimited years are the MAXIMUM amount of time, if you used your FULL chosen daily or monthly benefit that your policy would pay on a claim.

If you had Alzheimer’s for 9 years, the policy benefits would have been exhausted after those 5 years and you would be paying for the last four years from your own money.

Most insurance companies have a number of benefit periods to choose from. Typically they are 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 10 years OR an Unlimited benefit period (say you went on claim for 35 years due to being in a wheelchair or something).

Most LTC policies have at least four or five different benefits periods from the above choices which you can choose from for your policy.

The benefit period, whether a set number of years, say 4 years for example or unlimited years are the MAXIMUM amount of time, if you used your FULL chosen daily or monthly benefit that your policy would pay on a claim.

Now for the “Short and Fat” part…

Long ago there wasn’t too much difference in the premium prices for a 5 year benefit period compared to an Unlimited policy. So since there wasn’t much of a cost difference, many clients chose the Unlimited benefit to protect against a HUGE potential disaster of needing help in bathing/dressing, etc. for DECADES — not just a few years.

But today, there is a much larger difference in the premium prices for unlimited. So what to do?

First of all let me say that one of the largest LTC insurance companies has statistics that show that only 11% of their claims last longer than five years. Of course this means that about 90% of the claims last shorter than five years. So the odds are very much in favor of never needing a policy that would pay unlimited years.

So compared with a policy that offers an Unlimited benefit period, you can get a much higher daily/monthly dollar benefit that you are MUCH more likely to actually use and benefit from. Any unused dollar benefits will extend the number of years of your benefit period and not be lost.

Also you are much more likely to use a higher dollar amount for 2-4 years than having to pay extra money out of your pocket during care with a benefit period that is probably never going to be reached.

But… if you are pretty young (30-55) an Unlimited policy still might be a choice to look at. Older ages will find Unlimited years of benefits very expensive and there is likely a better way to structure a policy.

So knowing the above statistics, would it make more sense to you to have a Short and Fat policy (one with a larger daily or monthly dollar benefit for a shorter period of time)verses… a smaller daily or monthly dollar benefit for a longer period of years?

I’d put my money on Short and Fat!!

So if you would normally consider a policy that pays $150 per day for 7, 10 years or an Unlimited benefit period… you MIGHT seriously consider a policy that would pay $180-$200 per day for three to five years instead.

No sense in paying money out of pocket during the 3-5 years you are most likely to remain on claim.

Keep in mind that in 20 or 30 years the compounded inflation policy rider will work in your favor by giving you much more purchasing power to pay for care by starting out with a bigger initial benefit!

The odds are pretty good that the insurance company will pay more out for your care under these conditions.

Shifts

Six months ago, the economy was roaring. Stock prices were going up, interest rates were staying low, unemployment was down. A few months later, those indicators all were going in opposite directions. Now, it’s hard to tell from day to day where we stand.

I’m optimistic that the current situation is a short-term one, and that long-term prospects are for growth and good times. But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be dips, sometimes deep, along the way. The question is: Are you positioned to take advantage of the good times and navigate the bad?

You have to expect one as well as the other. Fortunately, there are “shifts” you can take that will serve you well during both.

1. Get out of debt. The quicker the better. You can’t take advantage of opportunities when you’re mired in debt. And there are opportunities in both good times and in bad. In both, debt keeps you from profiting from the opportunities that present themselves. In bad, it magnifies the negative, as the cost of money increases and debt service becomes an ever-increasing portion of your expenses.

2. Think globally. No longer can we afford to think and act locally. We must have a broader

vision. We must think about how our vocation, our business and our industry will operate in a global economy – because it already does.

3. Be entrepreneurial. This is the age of the free agent. Even if we are and plan to continue working in a larger company or organization, we must at least think like an entrepreneur. We need to be “in-trepreneurs.” Seniority and experience does not have the value that it did. Producing results – and profits – is what matters.

4. Become a capitalist. The wealthy own assets, the rest own liabilities – things that cost money to own and maintain. Capitalism is not a dirty word. A capitalist, by definition, is someone who owns assets – assets that produce income. Stock, equipment and businesses are assets that generate income. In America, 80 percent of all millionaires are self-made. Be one of them.

5. Be flexible. Things are moving at a rapid pace. This demands adaptability. Things will not remain the same, nor will they go back to the way they used to be. We must be willing to change directions quickly. It’s dodge and weave time. It is time to embrace change. Shift happens!

The Bane of Women Everywhere

“Shape-shifting” is something most women know about all too well. As the years pile on, so do unwanted pounds that-even among those who remain relatively slim-can literally change the body’s contours.

“One may go from an hourglass to more of a shot glass,” says Dr. Pamela Peeke, a clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, best-selling author and creator of the “Body For Life For Women Workout” DVD (rodale store.com). “Aging gracefully is all a matter of girth control.”

Not to mention understanding women’s hormones.

It’s Peeke’s assertion that recognizing what she calls “women’s unique hormonal hard-wiring” is key to achieving and maintaining a peak body for life. There are four hormonal milestones involved:

• Teens and Twenties. This is when estrogen production rises. Women who were skinny teens may suddenly find weight going to their breasts, hips and thighs. This is the time to build a strong fitness foundation that can last the rest of your life. It’s also a good time to build muscle tone and minimize body fat changes.

• The Reproductive Years. Science shows that if you enter pregnancy healthy and fit, you’ll have a healthier nine months and a healthier baby. Whether you have children or not, this is the time when your metabolism begins to slow down. During this period, you should add resistance training-weights-to keep your metabolism as hot as you can.

• The Forties. This is a time of shape-shifting. Fluctuating estrogen and progesterone levels lead to a three- to five-pound potbelly, or menopot, for many women-on top of which toxic stress levels boost your food cravings. You need to regroup, ramp up your physical activity, examine your lifestyle and put things into balance.

• Menopause. Once you’ve reached this milestone, it’s important to exercise the mind and body so that you stay sharp and keep fit. Keep learning. Make the effort to add resistance training and cardio-revving walks every day. Your goal is to live a long and indepen-dent life by taking good care of yourself.

Whether you’re 20 or 50, Dr. Peeke’s new DVD, “Body For Life For Women Workout,” can help you.

Seven Secrets of Internet Millionaires

Internet millionaires don’t acquire their wealth and success by luck of the draw. They know the secrets to success. These secrets are so valuable that if you implement them, you will succeed in your own Internet business.

There are two general types of secrets that Internet millionaires know which include external and internal secrets. We will discuss these secrets in detail in hopes that you will use them to your advantage and become an Internet millionaire yourself.

First, let’s look at the external secrets that Internet millionaires have in their tool kit.

Internet Millionaire Secret #1: Internet millionaires recognize that strategy should be the foundation of any marketing plan. It is critical to have a marketing strategy and not just jump into marketing techniques. For example, we don’t have to use mass advertising anymore because mass advertising doesn’t have strength because consumers have choices. You would have wasted valuable time and money if you used mass marketing techniques without first strategizing about the state of the market.

Internet Millionaire Secret #2: Internet millionaires are not generalists. They focus on selling their products and services to specific niche markets. The business market in general is going in the direction of niche markets because customers have more choices regarding places to buy their products.

Internet Millionaire Secret #3: Search for and grab untapped markets. Seek out people that have not been able to have access to your product in the past. In untapped markets, you don’t have to deal with competitors which helps keep the marketing costs down. In addition, you will be able to establish a rapport and trust with your customers.

Internet Millionaire Secret #4: Your backend strategy is crucial to success.
You want several profit centers that allow you to sell your products and services to more customers. The backend part of your company supports these profit centers. It diversifies your business so you are bringing in money through many different areas. You can’t rely on retiring early if you only have one profit center.

Internet Millionaire Secret #5: Try to automate as many services as possible. This will allow you to sell services 24 hours a day 7 days a week online. Automate your service centers to cut down on costs and help your customers at all hours of the day.

Internet Millionaire Secret #6: Set up your business so that you are replaceable. You can make yourself replaceable by branding. Branding encompasses yourself or the value that you provide. Branding yourself is lucrative, but it doesn’t allow you to take a break because you have to make every decision. Branding your value, on the other hand, sells your expertise and not your time.

Internet Millionaire Secret #7: Don’t work alone; build a team to support your business venture. Create a team of marketing, business, a mentor and accountability individuals. Remember, two heads are better than one so you can discuss ideas and strategies you have for your business.

Internet millionaires also have internal secrets. An Internet millionaire has self confidence and believes in their product. They are able to make decisions quickly. They have learned the correct information and modeled others that have proven success. They are not afraid to make a mistake and realize that their job doesn’t define who they are. One of the most vital secrets is that Internet millionaires persevere and never give up no matter what obstacles cross their path.

Será ud un buen padre o madre para sus hijos

Ser padre o madre no es tan fácil como parece. Se necesita reconocer que la persona que traemos al mundo es una persona que necesita de ayuda por varios años, además necesita de atención amor y comprensión.

Es difícil comprender cómo en la edad media se solía tratar a un niño de la misma forma que se le trataba a un adulto. Hay diferentes libros que comprueban esa teoría y diferentes autores tanto de literatura como de poesía. Hablamos de Charles Perrault, los hermanos Grimm, y otros escritores que plasmaron su cultura y sociedad desde el siglo 17 en adelante.

Hay varios libros que fueron escritos en esa época y que muestran como era el trato de los adultos con los niños, desde que edad los niños empezaban a trabajar, y como fue la evolución de la vestimenta, carácter y vida de un menor hasta nuestros tiempos.

El libro Daniel campeón del mundo “Danny Champion of the World” muestra uno de los ejemplos de libros escritos para niños que muestran el trato de su padre hacia su hijo y el mal ejemplo que se promueve hacia el acto del robo. Esa misma idea y la idea original fue escrita para adultos bajo el nombre de Campeón de mundo “Champion of the world” que después de unos años fue traducido por el mismo escritor Roald Dahl a una versión para niños.

En la versión para niños fue escrita en un lenguaje mucho mas entendible para los niños pero igual lo que ocurre es contenido para adultos y no para niños, hay escenas de venganza, robo, complicidad etc.

¿Cómo es posible que se escriba un libro en el que un padre le mal ejemplo a su hijo? Es obvio que los padre siempre quieren lo mejor para sus hijos pero en la realidad hay padres que se olvidan de esa frase y simplemente trata a sus hijos como personas ya maduras, teniendo el niños apenas 5 o mas años.

Cuando me refiero a mal ejemplo es a las cosas que hacen los padres delante de sus hijos y no se dan cuenta de los problemas que pueden causarle al niño en su infancia y además cuando ya sea grande y tome sus propias decisiones.

Si un padre, fuma en frente de sus hijos y no le importa que los afecte, si juega en un Casino Online todo el día, si un padre golpea a su mujer delante de los hijos, ¿qué se puede esperar de este niño cuando sea grande? Hay varias opciones, o que el niño crezca y cuando tenga a su familia haga exactamente lo mismo porque es algo que el ya vivió y le parece algo muy normal o por lo contrario que diga que el no quiere ser y actuar como su padre o simplemente ser indiferente a lo que le ocurrió cuando era niño.

Ahora padres, pónganse a pensar en qué quieren que sus hijos se conviertan cuando sean grandes. Desen cuenta que la mayoría de los niños toman sus padres como un modelo y quieren ser como ellos cuando grandes; entonces piensen un poco y cambien sus actitudes contra aquellos que toman su ejemplo a diario. O lo mejor es que antes de tener un hijo piensen bien si Uds. son un buen ejemplo para aquel ser que va a nacer y si Uds. pueden con la responsabilidad de ser padres y criar a niños que sean personas de bien.

Seduction Techniques

Imagine that you are already in your college days and still you can’t find a date. Or even asking someone for a date is a misery for you. In short, you find it hard to approach women and lacks confidence in yourself.

Seduction techniques in this new millennium are on the rise. Seduction techniques can greatly help guys who find it hard to get the women they always wanted. So it is never a problem now. Seduction as thought by many is not wrong. You are just simply studying the best techniques that will make dating and picking up easier. Seduction techniques in the other hand are simply getting to know and basically mastering the proper ways of attracting women.

But did you know that seduction techniques are not just for men? It is also most useful too for women. These are the women who have been waiting to get noticed by their special men. Well it is indeed nowadays, a perfect help that life has to offer. Not that it is offering easy tactics on how to collect men or women – but making it easier to enjoy life and find that perfect mate. Seduction techniques are commonly practiced by people who are not well skilled in terms of attracting the opposite sex. Not that they are ugly or what, but there are just people who needs seduction techniques to boost their self-esteem and develop confidence in their selves. Seduction techniques are therefore not as bad as other think of unless you are using it to enhance the inner skills that humans usually possess.

Seduction techniques are not generally focused on developing your tactics on attracting the opposite sex. It can also be very helpful in businesses. Like for example, you are a car salesman. And you find it very hard to approach prospective clients. You are wasting your time and effort on studying how to deal with them when you can actually make business with them. Seduction technique is one great help. You wouldn’t imagine how it can greatly affect your sales by simply practicing the principles used in seduction techniques.

Job seekers can also benefit from seduction techniques. While on interview, you can mesmerize the interviewer with the tactics that you have learned in seduction techniques. Not that you are inviting them to indulge into sexual activities, but you can impress them with the way you are boosting your self. Seduction techniques can tame any roaring beasts.

Seduction technique in general is an absolute solution for losers, men and women who possess low self-esteem, job seekers and even businessmen. People who are in immense need for help, in terms of capturing the hearts of the people they always wanted will be overwhelmed if they discover the wander of the so-called seduction technique. So go, and share the seduction technique to your friends whom you know are suffering from different encumbrance in their lives. You can absolutely be of great help in solving the miseries of their own lives.

Secrets of a Positive Attitude

Greetings self help reader,

Are you constantly bombarded by thoughts of negativity? Plagued by feelings of insecurity? Do you see everything in a negative manner? The reason for this lies deep within your heart. You are what you mentally and spiritually eat. If a person drinks alchohol on a daily basis, odds are their body will be affected in some way. They may have liver issues, develop cancer or incur some other type of health problem directly related to the amount of alcohol they have consumed. In the same way, a person who constantly feeds themselves negative thoughts will simply turn into a negative person.

This is the time to go on a diet. A diet of positive attitude food. You have to literally stop feeding your mind negative things. Ask yourself is this thought negative or positive or negative? What do negative thoughts look like? Well, they start with can’t rather than can, no as opposed to yes, will and not won’t. The Bible which is the greatest self help book ever written, speaks about taking every thought captive. The problem in our society has become that our thoughts have taken us captive. We have begun to let our thoughts control us.

A great way to know what we are negative about is to ask those people who are closest to us. You can ask your spouse
or another person in your life who really knows you how they would rate your attitude on a scale of 1 to 10. 10 being super positive and 1 super negative. Ask this person to be totally honest with you. You will benefit from their honesty even if it causes you pain. Ask this person what it is that you specifically say that they perceive as negative. Write down what they say and look at the actual words. Now is the time to be honest with yourself. Those words are a reflection of what is inside you. They are who you are. The great thing is that you can change. It is as simple as making a choice to do so. You must decide to replace the thoughts of negativity with thoughts of positivity. Decide what words you will change the negative words on your paper to. Once you have done this, make an effort to insert these new positive thoughts in your mind. You will begin to notice a positive change taking place in your life. Your family, friends and co-workers will all notice it as well. They may not know what is different about you. But they will know that you are not the same person that you were.

The items which are causing negativity in your life could very well be the news, movies, constantly replaying tragedy in your mind and the list could go on. These things should be eliminated if you want your new mental health regimen to be a success. The news is very negative and does not help someone who is trying to rid their mind of such thoughts. When you are feeding yourself thoughts of death from a war or gunshot or car accident visually the outcome will be negative. I do believe there is a time to grieve over the death of a loved one. However, if a person constantly replays this negative event in their minds it can lead to depression. The person who has passed away is not coming back and we must close that chapter in our lives and move on to the next chapter. This is a difficult task which can only be done by making a decision to proceed with our own life, no matter how hard this may be.

You can do it. You can and will have a positive attitude, if you simply take the steps outlined above. You do not have to be what you were in the past. You can be different in the future. The choice is yours. I know you will make a positive one.

Much continued positive attitude success,

The creator of “Positive Attitude Secrets”

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Tips For Water Fun

There may be few better ways to spend a hot day than at the beach, lake, water park or swimming pool but amid all the fun and games it is important to put safety first.

Learning to swim and be safe in and around the water are important survival skills. Accidents only take a few seconds to occur, but they can often be prevented by ensuring your loved ones follow simple water safety guidelines.

Pioneers in swimming instruction and water safety, the nation’s YMCAs are celebrating 100 years of group swimming instruction to children and adults. The YMCA offers these tips to help keep you and your loved ones safe in and around the water during the summer and at any time of year:

• Make sure children are supervised by an adult at all times.

• No one, not even adults, should ever swim alone.

• Be prepared in an emergency by learning lifesaving, first aid and CPR techniques.

• Always have a stocked first aid kit, phone, emergency numbers and sunscreen close at hand.

• Follow the posted rules in any water environment.

• Backyard pools should have posted rules, ring buoy and security fences with self-closing gates and childproof locks.

• If you have an above-ground pool, secure and lock the steps or remove them completely when not in use.

• Be aware of water depth, incline and any underwater obstructions before diving. Never dive in water less than nine feet deep.

• Children should use U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jackets. Avoid inflatable toys including armbands or “swimmies”-they can be dangerous, giving a false sense of confidence.

• And finally, everyone should learn swimming and basic water safety skills. The YMCA offers swimming classes for all ages and levels.

Which One Is Right For You

The term “recreational vehicle” or RV usually calls to mind a motorhome, perhaps a Winnebago brand specifically. It’s a large vehicle in which the living space and the driver’s seat are all part of the same structure, rather than having the “car” part towing the “living” part.

But recreational vehicles come in many other shapes and sizes, too, and are still properly called RVs. Which one you buy depends on your needs.

The motorhome (commonly called a Winnebago even when it’s actually a different brand) is convenient because it offers reasonable living quarters, including a place to sleep, prepare food and use the bathroom. The driver is not disconnected from his passengers; they’re in the “back seat,” as the living quarters are right behind him. Many people, especially retirees, live in motorhomes full-time, touring the country and enjoying their mobile lifestyle. RV parks have sprouted up all over the country, offering traveling recreational vehicle enthusiasts a place to stop and rest, hook up to electrical posts, and even use the Internet.

Other recreational vehicles are better suited to temporary arrangements, not full-time living. The most basic kind of RV is a simple truck camper, where a shell is attached to the bed of a pickup truck. This is usually for day or weekend trips, with supplies in the covered bed of the truck. The shell can serve the same purpose as a tent would (protection and warmth), making it useful for outdoor camping, too.

Also common is the “fifth wheel,” a trailer that attaches to a pickup or medium-duty truck and is hauled that way. A fifth wheel is similar to a motorhome, except that the living quarters are separate from the vehicle. This means the driver cannot communicate directly with people in the trailer unless it’s by walkie-talkie or cell phone. Fifth wheels are generally not as comfortable as motorhomes, either, as hence are most useful for relatively short road trips and sightseeing.

Vibration Issues With Rubber Molding

Noise and vibration can be controlled in various ways, including blocking, absorbing, isolating and damping the noise source. The dictionary defines damping as “the dissipation of energy by conversion to heat.” Because rubber has such a low damping factor, it is one of the best materials for noise and vibration control. That’s why rubber molding is an effective means of controlling noise, vibration and shock.

How exactly does damping with rubber molding work? By reducing resonant vibration, it effectively mitigates both structural and impact noise. In effect, it produces a reduction in the inaudible sounds that are carried by structural surfaces.

If these sounds are inaudible, why do they need to be reduced? Because at resonance (increase in amplitude of oscillation), a considerable amount of audible airborne noise may be generated by that sound. While damping does not absorb the noise’s initial impact, in terms of both time and magnitude, it does reduce the “pinging’ or “roar” that results from that impact.

Whether the environment producing the noise is nautical, electrical, computer-related, aeronautical, or business-machine-applicable, rubber molding can eradicate the offending sound and vibration. When considering a rubber molding noise and vibration solution, look for a line of isolators and mounts that come in a variety of styles and sizes. From one pound to one ton, the right type of mount for your application is vital. Also, keep in mind that the thicker the damping material is, the more noise and vibration it will control.

No matter what the source of your vibration isolation problem, if you keep these recommendations in mind, the noise, vibration and shock you’re currently contending with can be efficiently controlled. Choose a leader in the rubber molding industry, one that’s established a long track record of producing custom molded rubber parts, and that noise and vibration problem of yours won’t be a problem for very much longer.

Remote Control Cars

What could be the best possible gift for your child this Christmas? What could be the best possible replacement of his old car with which he does vroom-vroom all the day? Well the answer is simple. Present him with an RTR Remote Control Car.

An RTR Car implies a ready-to-run car. It is a remote control car which comes assembled from the company. All you have to do is put the batteries in the car and it’s ready to use.
The functioning of the car is controlled by a remote, provided along. The remote is easy-to-operate and contains all the buttons which control the featured movements of the car. These RTR Remote Control Cars are also used for racing purposes. You might find your child racing with his friend’s remote control car.

The RTR Remote Control Racing is fast emerging as a recreational hobby which is not merely confined to children. Adults and aged people are also finding these RTR remote control cars racing as a real fun.

As the craze for RTR Remote Control Cars is growing among the kids, toy manufacturers have started manufacturing various types of it. Today you can choose from different types of RTR Remote Control Cars.

You can find lots and lots of RTR Remote Control Cars in the market today. One of the best ways to find and buy RTR cars is internet. On the internet you can find several websites providing numerous types, styles and shapes of RTR Remote Control Cars.

Some of the RTR remoter control car manufacturers design the exact models of some of the famous cars in the world. Among the famous brands on which these RTR cars are based include- Mitsubishi, Ferrari, Mercedes, Porsche and much more.

If you plan to buy RTR remote control cars on the internet by searching for the car which you think would be the best for your child. You can search RTR Remote Control Cars by the famous manufacturers. You can narrow down your search by pre-determining what kind of an RTR model you are looking for.

If you want an RTR remote control car for yourself, you should probably search for gasoline cars. These RTR cars provide you with ultimate remote control car experience as they employ the use of nitro boosters in them. As soon as you would throttle your car, the flames from the exhaust of your car would definitely add to your confidence.

However if you are a starter you can opt for electric RTR remote control cars. These cars run on battery and there is no such thing as flame exhaust in them. Though the performance of these cars is less than the nitro cars, they are easy-to-handle and operate. As a beginner your child can enjoy with the car and learn how to control remote cars.

Buying and playing with RTR remote control cars can be a real fun for you and your child. You can even buy two cars and watch your child compete with you. This way you can play and enjoy with your child.

Roughing

You’ve seen the Expedia.com commercials with the couple in the beachside bungalow with mosquito nets… and the thought of going on vacation to stay in a tent gives you the creepy crawlies already. Not to worry, you won’t need a sleeping bag and a bottle of Off! for this exotic vacation. When was the last time you stayed in an air-conditioned, 790 square-foot tent with wooden floors, embroidered interior canopies, private gardens, outside deck for sunbathing, king size four-poster bed, freestanding rolltop bath and separate shower? And just to make sure you don’t feel like you’re “roughing it,” your tent comes with a DVD player and minibar.

It’s seems contradictory that the words “luxury” be used to describe a tent but at the Oberoi Vanyavilas, located between the Aravali and the Vindhya mountain ranges in South-Eastern Rajasthan, India, the concept is far from novel. Nestled among 20 acres of landscaped gardens, lemon and mango trees, and lakes and fountains, are 25 tents, bordering on one of the most extraordinary wildlife reserves in the world, Ranthambore National Park and Tiger Reserve, which is home to the majestic Indian tiger, as well as deer, leopard, and crocodile.

Now, before you think that this is an isolated retreat, consider the fine dining options and extensive spa services available. In the Dining Room and Inner Courtyard, Executive Chef Saurav Banerjee and Indian Master Chef Arjun Singh Yadava present an impressive spread of Western, Thai and Indian cuisine from a revolving menu. The exquisitely decorated restaurant features hand painted frescoes of flowers and animals by the celebrated miniaturist Mohan Singh Kumawat. Outside is the walled terrace of the Inner Courtyard which is lit at night by a massive log fire (camp fire songs optional).

As with any quality resort, there is a spa, where you’ll find steam rooms, showers and private therapy suites and a long menu of spa treatments, massages, facials, manicures and pedicures. Try the stimulating Indian Spice Wrap and a delicious Orange Wrap. All the massage and aromatherapy treatments are aimed at relieving stress and promoting a deep sense of relaxation and wellbeing. And for fitness buffs who can’t miss a workout, there is an exercycle, rowing machine, steppers and a treadmill, as well as an outdoor heated pool.

Research for Adult Dating Web Sites

People are always curious about SEX, aren’t they? But any given individual will always bring a different viewpoint to the subject. Some take it aesthetically, some practice it purely for pleasure and fun, while others are really very serious about sex. Differences in attitude do exist between Westerners and Easterners, but both will agree that the subject of sex grabs their attention. As far as dating sites are concerned, they have been playing a major role by providing an ideal platform where adults can meet with like minded people. The days have gone when people are embarrassed to talk about sex openly. SEX is like a golf ball: you just need to swing your stick and the ball will find its HOT HOLE eventually. As you know, dating sites (especially, adult dating sites) are gaining popularity and people are becoming more candid than ever. Let’s consider some facts and the status of the UK adult dating and social networking industry.

You may be wondering why I’ve chosen the UK as my base for research. The UK is the most developed nation in Europe, with deeply rooted culture and tradition. My intention behind this small investigation is to explore:

1. How far age-old traditions and customs have affected their closed-door devil dance (i.e. SEX) and;
2. What is the current position of the UK adult dating industry?

My UK adult dating research is basically conducted on four major search engines: Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask. I searched for the keyword “UK adult dating” and found the following top ten sites (of a total 42,200 results):
1. UKAdultDating.net
2. TheAdultHub.com
3. SexintheUK.com
4. Izito.co.uk
5. Next.gr
6. IslandDates.com
7. E.Datingyes.com
8. DatingSites1000.com
9. EscortsList.co.uk
10. BritishsEXContacts.com

Yahoo shows the top ten “UK adult dating” web sites (of 31,600 results) to be:
1. UKAdultDate.com
2. HullDating.com
3. XAdultSingles.com
4. IslandDates.com
5. Bizrate.co.uk
6. Nelli2.com
7. MQSearch.co.uk
8. UKAdultDatingSite.com
9. TouchLocal.com
10. SFGate.com

Through MSN, the keyword “UK adult dating” turns up the following top ten, competing against 3,422 others:
1. IslandDates.com
2. UKAdultDating.co.uk
3. UKSmitten.com
4. UKAdultDatingSite.com
5. Nelli2.com
6. Dedicated2Dating.co.uk
7. HelloBar.co.uk
8. DatingBiz.co.uk
9. UKNation.co.uk
10. GalsDating.co.uk

At Ask, the keyword “UK adult dating” has a total of 11,700 exact competitors, and the top ten are:
1. Swingers.org.uk
2. Dating4Fun.org
3. DateOurSingles.co.uk
4. IslandDates.com
5. Hugging.co.uk
6. UKSingles.co.uk
7. LoveAddicts.co.uk
8. Love-Finder.net
9. MerlinSelect.co.uk
10. Nelli2.com

IslandDates.com is appearing in the top ten listing for the keyword “UK adult dating” in all of the four major search engines. You can use the above information for your own research. Suprisingly, my personal top adult dating site is glaringly absent…I have got the most convenient, free and user-friendly UK adult dating web site, Kisscafé (www.KissCafe.com).