Cool Beans SF

Do you think your life is passing you by and you want to get back on track? Do you feel you are stuck in a rut and you don’t really know how to change your life?

That is how Caroline Righton felt to some extent two years ago. She had a high powered job in TV in charge of a department of 25 people but realised that her life was not stimulating:

“I was not sure what I wanted to do with my life two years ago. My husband got a job at the other end of the country and both sons went away to college I was defined by my work and my role as a mother and wife. I now had time to stop and think about where I wanted to be in 6 months time.”

Caroline decided to audit or stock take her own life and especially her time. She wanted to take an unemotional and business like look at her life. She would use some of the same methods and tools that she used in her job.

She decided to compartmentalise her life and stock take what she wanted to change and what she wanted to eliminate. She advises everyone to “look at your life and how you spend your time and then decide what is time well spent and what is a waste of time and what makes you feel guilty.”

When we decide to pursue our dreams, “we start with good intentions and before we know it our time is hijacked. It is taken up by work and friends and with ringing Aunt Edna three times a week. You find that your time is no longer your own.”

It is only too easy to “free fall through each day of your life thinking that was OK but you have never consciously put a quality of life value on each day or each hour.”

Caroline advises you to analyse your days:

“You do time analysis. How am I spending this time and with whom? What am I doing and where am I doing it and when am I doing it? Do I want to spend those two hours with those people or do I prefer to do watercolours which I have wanted to do for years?

Two years ago I thought I don’t know who I am. I didn’t want to get too emotional. I wanted to be very clear about how I was doing and about what my commitments were and whether I really wanted the dreams I was chasing.”

Caroline decided to use the strategies she used at work in charge of a department of 25 people

“I brought in the spreadsheets and found that ticking the boxes was clear and business like. I found that I had spent 4 hours watching TV. It was clear and precise and refreshing. It wasn’t like pouring your heart out.”

There was no psychological mumbo jumbo involved in Caroline’s methods. Her approach is business like and mathematical. She looked at her life in cold numbers and arrived at a clear, unemotional picture of her life.

There are 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in a week and 8760 hours in a year

We all have X hours available. Take away Y hours that are committed to duties like looking after your family and friends. What you have left is Z hours.

You can use Z to fulfil your dreams if you can identify them.

Caroline’s advice is very similar to that of Jim Rohn who advises using numbers and answer boxes to keep in touch with reality.

How many phone calls have you made to promote your product?
A number fits into the answer box or cell. Excuses do not. Numbers give you a clear picture. Words can too easily be hijacked by defensive rationalisation.

Check the numbers in your life and start getting a clear picture of how you are doing. Use that Excel spreadsheet to get you back on track .

Caroline has written a book called Life Audit to express her approach to life over the last two years. I have already ordered my copy from Amazon. The question is: “Will I have time to read it?”

Jim Rohn would certainly suggest that you and I write down the number of books we have read each month. If the number is zero, we should pick up a book immediately.

Resource box

John Watson is an award winning teacher and martial arts instructor. He has recently written two books about achieving your goals and dreams. They can both be found on his website http://www.motivationtoday.com along with a daily motivational message.

The title of the first book is “36 Laws To Ignite Your Inner Power And Realize Your Dreams Now!” The book can be found at this URL: http://www.motivationtoday.com/36_laws.php

You are welcome to publish the article above in your ezine or on your website so long as you do not alter it and keep the resource box as it is.

Clearly defining what you want and feeling good about your goal gets you at least half way to the accomplishment. That’s how important it is. Yet this is the step most people drop out on. Even you probably don’t do it to the degree that you could.

It takes practice to master goal setting. And the best time to practice is now. And the best place to practice is on the little things. So, look at your life and what you’re interested in being, doing and having. Choose something simple that’s really “in your face” - like having an organized office, managing your money or figuring out how to get the kids to help around the house.

Maybe these don’t seem simple, but they’re a lot less overwhelming than choosing something like “make a million dollars in the next year” or “lose twenty pounds before next month.”

Whatever you choose, get paper and pencil and make a list of what you want to accomplish from your goal. For example, an organized office list might look something like this:

- a very comfortable place to work in
- an excellent reminder system for bills and appointments
- easy to find files
- a method to handle each piece of paper only once
- structure for cleaning up projects
- a pleasant atmosphere

Once you have a complete list, analyze what each item on your list means to you. Does “very comfortable” mean your chair is ergonomically designed, the phone is on the correct side of the desk, the file drawers slide easily, the lighting is perfect, the heat and air conditioning work well or something else?

If you want positive results in your life, you need to be clear about and comfortable with whatever it is you want. This applies to everything from visiting your family over the holidays (how do you want that experience to turn out and what do you want to accomplish?) to becoming a millionaire.

You can master the skill of getting clear about what you want. But, before you take on the big things (like big bucks), you need to practice on the little things in life (like paying the bills).

Katie Byrd will take you by the hand and teach you the skills she’s used to journey from a financially strapped, bad credit nightmare to debt free abundant living. To find out more visit: http://abundanceandwealth.bellaonline.com

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.

There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas.

There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation. Whilst there is no sure fire route to commercial success, these processes improve the probability that good ideas will be generated and selected and that investment in developing and commercialising those ideas will not be wasted.

Being receptive to inspiration

Inspiration is one the most misunderstood concepts in creativity and innovation.

Inspiration or insight is that moment when solutions to problems become apparent - they reach the conscious mind from the subconscious. The mind has been tackling problems that have previously been identified either consciously or unconsciously and when the solution arrives, people say aha!

From the above it is possible to construct processes that:

a) Make inspiration more likely.

b) Ensure that the mind is receptive to inspiration when it arrives.

Some of the methods include:

a) Engaging in the task. Instead of waiting for inspiration, it can be triggered by forcing the mind to address problems and find solutions. For example, once screenwriters begin a screenplay, they find that ideas for other screenplays flow like lava from a volcano.

b) Research. Triggers intellectual cross-pollination and advances the boundaries of the task to encompass what is already known. Increases the chance of productivity being out of the ordinary. For example, screenwriters know how valuable research is to the quality of their output.

c) Prolific productivity. The positive relationship between quantity and quality is well known. Further, prolific production increases performance to optimal levels through the learning of competencies, new knowledge, refinement of methodology and so forth. For example, screenwriters know that their seventh screenplay was far better then their first.

These and other topics are covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased (along with a Creativity and Innovation DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator Software and Power Point Presentation) from http://www.managing-creativity.com/

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

Kal Bishop, MBA

**********************************

You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Kal Bishop is a management consultant based in London, UK. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led Improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller. He can be reached on http://www.managing-creativity.com/

In very simple words, the link popularity of your site means
the amount of links coming to you from another sites.

Every major search engine heavily weighs the link popularity
of sites when ranking sites. Some engines even claims they
won’t index sites that don’t have at least one link pointing to
them from another site.

Why they are doing that ? Just because zero popularity means
that nobody has an interest related to your site content. Since
nobody is interested, why search engines should consider it ?
From their point of view zero popularity is a time wasting.

Under the above circumstances, the link popularity of your site
becomes very important to you, especially if you aim to earn
traffic by indexing your site in search engines directories.

Let’s see what you can do in order to increase the link popularity of your site. First of all you should concentrate on finding sites having a similar content to yours. This is the most important point of your campaign because all those links incoming from sites with similar theme will reinforce the credibility of your site.

Then you should act on the following three ways:

1. Link exchanging.
   Contact the owners asking for a link exchange.

2. Sign in guestbooks.
   Many website are inviting visitors to sign in guestbooks. Go there and leave an appropriate comment and do not forget to add the link to your site. Take care what email address you’ll provide, as many spammers are scroling guestbooks to collect addresses.

3. Post in forums or message boards.
   A lot of webmasters have developed forums and message boards
   on their site. First read the terms of use. Most of the times you have to sign in and to provide an available email address. Then watch the sense of discussion and post an appropriate comment together with your link. Some forums do not accept links inside of your message but they accept signature files.

Valerian Dinca is the owner of the newest online business tutorial. Everything you need when you need it.

One of the most distressful financial nightmares is negative credit. People who face bad credit usually seek to get out of it by employing the services of a third party agency. However, with the innumerable number of similer agencies all providing their own array of services, it can get hard to go after the best option. Moreover, the fact that these companies make it appear perplexed does not contribute to the issue very much. Along with that is the problem of acquiring a loan with the existing worldwide economic status; banks now require exceedingly high credit ratings prior to granting a loan on favorable terms. If you happen to be one of those people whose bad credit has wrecked financial position, then fast credit repair is what you need. Remember, that you are not required to have extensive knowledge on fast credit repair. You can get out of that dreaded credit standing without inevitably having to employ the services of an independant company and pay expensive service bills.

A major source of bad credit is relentless use of credit cards. Avoid using a credit card where it’s not necessary. And if you can, get a monthly limit imposed on your credit card, so you don’t end up spending more than your limit. This is one of the strategies used for fast credit repair and will help keep your credit card expenses low. Additionally, shut off any other unnecessary credit accounts. They may not incur you any visible charges, their appearance on your credit reports can damage your overall score. You’ll find out that fast credit repair is not really rocket science!

People generally tend to neglect the easier solutions to fast credit repair. They do not take the matter in their own hands. Instead, they employ costly services. These services are almost identical. They go through the credit statements of the person and come to a conclusion based on their findings. This task is not difficult, and something that can effortlessly be achieved by the individual himself. Thus, people should be better off performing the simple tasks themselves, instead of paying high charges to get them done elsewhere. Since, at the end of the day, pulling yourself out of bad credit is something you need to accomplish yourself, and not the business you’ve engaged the services of.

Direct Answers - Column for the week of October 14, 2002

I am a woman in her mid-60s whose husband passed away, and I do not want to enter into a relationship with another man. I have no family in town other than my daughter.

I always counted on the fact she would be around for me in my older years. However, I recently discovered she may be moving eight hours away to live with her boyfriend. How can my daughter behave so unlovingly and selfishly?

I always helped her when she was in trouble. How can she treat me this badly? I have threatened to disown her if she moves away. What can I do to change her mind?

Minerva

Minerva, don’t enter this letter in a “Mother of the Year” contest. I don’t mean to be completely unsympathetic, but where is the sense of love a mother should feel for her daughter?

You are threatening your daughter as if she has done something wrong. All she has done is fall in love with a man. This is a small world. With telephones, airplanes and the Internet, eight hours isn’t far away.

Your daughter is a single woman looking for her companion. Just because you aren’t interested for yourself, doesn’t mean she should be put in the same position. You aren’t looking at this from the right direction. Instead of having just a daughter, you could be gaining a son-in-law and an extended family.

We don’t threaten the people we love. If we open our heart, we find joy. Close our heart, and we find more isolation than we could possibly imagine. Your attitude so far indicates your daughter has made the right decision.

Tamara

True Companions

I’ve fallen out with someone I regarded as a close friend of 10 years. My friend and an ex-boyfriend had an hour-long telephone call discussing my personal life with him. This boyfriend is a possessive so-and-so I ended up having to call the police about.

I couldn’t believe someone I trusted would do such a thing. We didn’t speak for months. Eventually she said she was sorry, though our friendship cooled a bit. A few weeks later she rings and falsely accuses me of stealing another girl’s boyfriend. Again, I forgave her.

The next month I had surgery on my knee. Two days later she sent me a text message asking me to go out. I told her I was on crutches and couldn’t go, but she was more than welcome to visit for the evening. I got a mobile text message calling me selfish and saying it was true what my ex said about me.

I tried to call her but she wouldn’t answer the phone. I sent a message back saying if she wasn’t going to speak to me, then stop sending nasty messages.

Now she’s sent a letter asking if I’ve been sending her mobile text messages from someone else’s phone. Like I’ve got nothing better to do! I haven’t answered her, but part of me desperately misses our friendship. Most of my single friends have paired off or moved away, and I’m finding it incredibly hard to make new friends to trust.

Elisa

Elisa, your friend sounds more like a tormentor. If you reestablish contact with her, in 10 weeks your life will seem even more chaotic than it does now.

What if you used those 10 weeks to change a few patterns in your life? Perhaps you could change your phone number and where you go out. You could join a short class on doing macramé or throwing pots. Or you could go to the café inside the bookstore where they discuss books.

Then 10 weeks from now you will not only have learned something, but will probably have a new best friend, perhaps a woman wise about human affairs. Small decisions about who we spend time with make huge differences in our quality of life.

Wayne

About The Author

Authors and columnists Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at www.WayneAndTamara.com.

Send letters to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or email: DirectAnswers@WayneAndTamara.com.

“It doesn’t interest me who you are, or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.”

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

You cannot have peace of mind or have a healthy business if you don’t trust yourself.

Trusting yourself is having a true sense of who you are, clarity about what you want and the presence of mind to honour yourself.

At times the pressure from being in business and just living itself, can cause you to make decisions you can’t really stand over. Not trusting yourself enough can leave you out on a limb because you’ve compromised yourself.

Say you’re negotiating a big contract- Don’t you need to be rock steady to make the best deal for you?

Not trusting yourself is not unusual; self-trust is something we build up over our lifetime, through our experiences and by consciously working towards it.

Why is self-trust so vital?

When we don’t trust ourselves enough, we lack a core reference point from which to operate. We may lose our sense of ourselves and ebb and flow according to other’s agendas. A small example of this is, once I agreed to accept payment from a client by cheque versus by standing order. I got burned by not being paid on time, month after month. When all is said and done I exposed myself unnecessarily. Ultimately no one was served.

We need self-trust most when we are in situations where we are unsure. We may be in the company of people who are more influential than we are, or we may be under pressure because we need something. For some reason or other, we’re off-centre.

If we only knew it, these are the times when it’s really critical for our business and our peace of mind that we trust ourselves.

In my opinion, if you’re not aware of what you’re doing, or not able to stop yourself even when you know you should, you cannot trust yourself. You are not in control. Whatever is on your mind is in control, not you.

Trusting yourself gives you a rock-solid foundation, which guarantees that decisions you make are beneficial.

How Do I Gain More Self Trust?

In any situation or circumstance.

1. Stop for a moment

2. Stand in the centre of the situation and check whether you are comfortable or not.

3. Stay present to the situation yet detached enough to tune into your gut instincts and also see the bigger picture.

4. Remain detached and clear about what you want.

5. Choose from that place.

For instance take the client who paid by cheque. On reflection, how could I have avoided putting myself in that situation?

If I were trusting myself, I would have

1. Stopped

2. Realised I was uncomfortable

3. Reflected on the potential problems that might arise, by listening to the messages my gut was sending me

4. Remembered what I really wanted

5. Re-negotiated.

Five Ways To Keep Yourself In Check:

These are five tactics you can use to make sure you can trust yourself, even when the tendency is not to.

1. Observe yourself - this means in your mind’s eye, take yourself out of the situation and look at how you are in it.

2. Never make a decision you’re not ready to make. When you’re not clear, walk away, and come back to it after you’ve thought about it.

3. Know your danger zones - what throws you off centre.

4. Ask yourself, does this fit with me? Is it fitting nicely into place or is it a huge effort. When you feel easy about something and it flows easily it’s right for you.

5. Take white space

You need to build self-awareness, which is all about becoming an observer of yourself and watching how you respond in different situations and environments. Once you are conscious of your own danger zones, you can set up ways to change what you’re doing, to get the result you want.

How Do I Identify My Danger Zones?

Take time to reflect on experiences you’ve had where you didn’t trust yourself enough and ended up with problems. Check what was on your mind at the time. There are always warning signs, (gut responses) or intuitive messages you got. You probably ignored them at the time. Usually we only truly acknowledge them with hindsight.

Another way is to observe yourself in current situations and see how you operate. You’ll soon recognise your pitfalls. Then you can change your responses and build more self-trust.

It looks like you need to have presence of mind to be able to trust yourself.

Yes and this is where white space comes in. We need to stop and take time out just to be with ourselves.

What is White Space?

It’s:

• A designated chunk of time, for you alone. No ’shoulding’ on yourself! You do whatever you want.

• At least two hours, twice a week, with nothing scheduled or planned for it.

• Blocked out in your diary for the coming year.

• Built up over time to two hours/day or a half day/week or two days/week.

• Untouchable

You need to commit to it and also to shift your perception. You are not being self-indulgent. You are being responsible and empowering yourself to have choice and freedom.

How do I use White Space?

The decision on how you use it should come in the first moment you are in it. If you are unsure, just sit and be present and see what comes up. You will learn to be more spontaneous. It’s a bit like clearing clutter. Until you clear it, it’s hard to see what you have currently and what you can eventually have.

Remember:

To trust yourself, you’ve got to know yourself well. Knowing yourself means you are aware, you understand, you are conscious of what’s going on around you and how you are responding to it. It means you know what you want in any given situation. You learn to read signals and adjust your responses as necessary.

When you slow down and take time and space to build awareness, you will notice that you are:

• Observing yourself

• Eventually able to watch your mind in action

• Learning that when nothing is working, to do nothing

• Trusting yourself more and more

• Taking the pressure off and more sure of yourself

• More surefooted and strategic.

About The Author

Ann Kelly is a Personal and Business coach, with an established global reach. Her speciality is helping those who’ve sold their souls to their business or organisation and want a refund. Ann’s unique style has had a significant positive, impact upon many lives and businesses. Check out success stories and visit her website, at http://www.yourworldyourway.com. To arrange a complimentary 30 minute session please call Ann at +353-21-4354725 or email ann@yourworldyourway.com

A Story (Source Unknown) - One day a very wealthy father took his son on a trip to the country for the sole purpose of showing his son how it was to be poor. They spent a few days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. Upon return from their trip, the father asked his son how he liked the trip. “It was great, Dad,” the son replied. “Did you see how poor people can be?” the father asked. “Oh, yeah,” said the son. “So what did you learn from the trip?” continued the father. The son answered, “I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to leave on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.” The boy’s father was speechless. Then the son added this last remark: “It showed me how poor we truly are.”

The young boy demonstrated that his focus created a new reality and allowed him to see with “new eyes.” Individual leaders can also exchange “old eyes” for “new eyes.” For example, individuals who react without thinking to the negative attitudes of others give away their own personal power. By creating a new reality in which they keep their personal power, they begin to see how they can lead through positive attitudes.

By remembering that our reality is created from our past and current experiences and that we “see” pictures in our mind when we hear words, we can initiate change while simultaneously encouraging new attitudes through these new words. Seeing with “new eyes” can be the first step in changing the “landscape” within any individual. Marcel Proust many years ago understood the importance of changing our perspective when he penned these words: “The voyage of true discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in seeing with new eyes.”

Leanne Hoagland-Smith is President of ADVANCED SYSTEMS, The Process Specialist. With over 25 years of business and education experience, she partners with her clients to connect the 3P’s of Passion, Purpose and Performance to affect sustainable change in 4 key areas: financials, leadership, relationships and growth & innovation with a variety of industries. Her ROI solutions align the strategies, systems and people to develop loyal internal customers leading to loyal external customers. She is the co-author of M.A.G.I.C.A.L. Potential:Living an Amazing Life Beyond Purpose to Achievement due for June 205 release. Leanne also speaks nationally to a variety of audiences. Please call Leanne a call at 219.759.5601 or email leanne@processspecialist.com if you are seeking sustainable results for your business or yourself.

Copyright 2005 Leanne Hoagland-Smith, http://www.processspecialist.com

Permission to publish this article, electronically or in print, as long as the bylines are included, with a live link, and the article is not changed in any way (grammatical corrections accepted).

Chances are you have seen some type of disturbance in your lifetime. Whether it was a bully picking on someone or a piece of trash on the ground, disturbances happen daily on several different levels. Some people address them and others wait or assume someone else will handle the situation.

This day and age we do have to choose our battles wisely, making sure not to endanger ourselves or others. So it is recommended that we analyze the situation and then decide if it is safe for us to act. Sometimes if the situation is dangerous then we need to contact the proper authorities, whether it is an ambulance, police, or fire unit. Don’t assume that someone else has called or that someone else will handle it. Chances are there are several other people thinking along the same lines as you, but nobody takes action and places the call.

Nobody gets hurt from too many calls or reports to authorities, but people do get hurt when action is not taken. Every second counts and every second matters. So take that into consideration when you hesitate to make the call. Also put yourself in the shoes of the person you may be apt to help.

We have a moral responsibility to initiate a change in the world. Whether we think it is on a small or large scale does not matter. The truth is that every increment of change is a change towards bettering the world we live in.

If you see a piece of trash on the ground, if you can, pick it up. If you find someone’s wallet, return it. If you see someone wanting to get in front of you in a line of traffic, allow it. Participate in the world you live in by responding to it and being active. All too often we turn our backs on the people involved around us. Or even worse, we don’t accept our own personal moral responsibility. We assume other people will pick up for us or will cover our mishaps.

Think about your involvement in the world. Think about your daily consumptions. Are you conserving the environment or simply consuming? Think about what differences you can make on a personal level to enact a change. Become informed about products or foods you use. Get involved with organizations or causes that you believe in. Most important get your family involved too. It our responsibility to be aware of our surroundings and be aware of our involvement within those surroundings. Chances are you will discover each one of us has more power to make a change than we choose to exhibit.

Inspirational Artist & Author Meilena Hauslendale’s work and articles are displayed internationally. She is the founder of Silence Speaks International Artist Association and the Editor of Intrigue Magazine. Published books include, Making Your Purpose Your Business and Recognizing Unhealthy Relationships. Email: articles@meilena.com http://www.meilena.com

For the small stakes poker player, the internet can be a very frustrating place. I think the main goal for someone who plays with under $100 online is to take something small and turn it into something big. In real life, I don’t think anyone outside of high school kids would play a 90 person poker tournament for $6 apiece. It’s just not a tangible risk/reward for the amount of time you’re going to spend playing the game.

Online, of course, things happen much faster and a 90 person game can be done in 2 hours, while playing other games at the same time. The turn something into nothing concept is also prevalent in multi-table tournaments (MTT’s). Events for $5 that have thousands of players where the top winners get maybe 200 times their buy-in are all over the internet. Anyone can get in, no one’s going to lose much money, and a couple of people are going to hit it big.

But for me anyway, without a big score after a few months, I just seem to be pushing that hundred dollars around without much profit. I’m not losing, I’m not winning, and I’m looking for that big score. There are other sites, like Card Player’s Spade Club, where you pay a monthly fee to be an exclusive member. You are never playing with real money, but you risk points to win real either more points, real money, or trips/entries into bigger events.

So, it’s the ultimate risk nothing win big format. It’s not play money, it has a value. Players who do not pay the $20 a month cannot enter in many of the poker tournaments, so they cannot win the big prizes that members can. Every day there are freeroll events for cash money, once a week there is a $5k prize pool event, and once a month is a $30k event. The fields are much smaller than normal, a few hundred for satellites and maybe a thousand for the big guarantees. In tight economic times, sites like these might be a good alternative to playing small stakes on standard gaming sites.