Tag: Expert

  • Finding Emotional Intelligence in Negative Emotions – Positive Purpose in Sadness Anger and Fear

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    Emotional Intelligence is severely undervalued. When you feel stuck, frustrated, stressed, upset, or overwhelmed, skillful emotional awareness is the key to moving forward. Underneath your upset is a specific emotion that can guide you. The key, then, is to understand the messages in your feelings and become skillful in using their energy appropriately.

    Even so-called “negative emotions,” such as sadness, anger, and fear, convey important information and energy to carry out specific actions that can help you and others. Emotions arise with a purpose and when this purpose is fulfilled the feeling subsides. Unfortunately, as a society, we have not learned to understand and sufficiently value emotional energy and information, so we tend to deal with these feelings crudely.

    For example, with an emotion like anger, you might express it explosively or shove it under the surface, because you do not want to act angrily. Either you express your feelings reactively or cease feeling altogether.

    Emotional Intelligence expert, Karla McLaren, describes a healthy third alternative. She says you can facilitate the healthy flow of emotions by consciously “channeling” the information and energy that emotions provide. In other words, emotions contain meaningful messages along with energy to do something related to those messages. This is true for so-called “negative” emotions as well as “positive” ones.

    For example, McLaren suggests that:

    • ANGER arises when you, or someone or something you love, is threatened and you need to take protective action or set a firm boundary.

    • SADNESS arises when you need to let go of what no longer serves you or what is past, so you can move forward.

    • FEAR arises to prompt you to take preventative action.

    • JOY prompts you toward expansive, expressive, creative action.

    • COMPASSION prompts you to care for others.

    So, every emotion has a MESSAGE and ENERGY to carry out a specific type of action. Tuning into your emotions helps you to receive these messages and take these actions.

    Let’s explore the first three of these emotions in more depth. Sadness, anger, and fear are often misunderstood and handled poorly. We tend to repress them, stay stuck in them, or express them unskillfully, with negative consequences.

    So, as you work with these emotions, it’s important to do so Mindfully. Approach them as a curious observer with an attitude of paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment. Know that emotions are simply information about yourself, others, and events, along with energy to do something about this information. They do not define who you are and they will pass as you gather their information and take appropriate action.

    (Note: If you feel overwhelmed or paralyzed by feelings to the point where you are unable to consciously process them yourself, seek the assistance of a counseling professional who is trained to work with intense emotions.)

    The Positive Purpose of Sadness

    The purpose of sadness is to enable you to let go of what is no longer working or what is past and finished. Sadness is a watery downward-flowing energy that enables you to release what no longer serves you, so you can return to fluidity and flexibility in your life.

    By allowing appropriate sadness to flow through you, you’ll make space for new energy and new possibilities. If you do not consciously acknowledge sadness or don’t know how to flow with it, you’ll bury it inside, where it will perpetually cycle, or you’ll get lost in the feeling and be overwhelmed.

    Here’s a practice adapted from Karla McLaren’s book, “The Language of Emotions,” that can help you consciously process feelings of sadness.

    1. When you feel sadness flood into you, take some quiet, private time to center into the feeling. Tune into the sensation of sadness, locate where it resides in your body, and approach it with curiosity to learn what it has to tell you.

    2. Take a deep in-breath as if you are filling your whole body with your breath. As you exhale, make a sighing sound, and feel the energy of your sadness flowing like water down through your body, through your legs and feet, and down into the ground.

    3. Stay centered in your inner space and ask your sadness the question: “What needs to be released or let go right now?” Don’t rush to fill in an answer. Instead, keep the question open. Listen and feel inside.

    Repeat your sighing breath down through your body as many times as you feel the need and keep your question open for your deeper knowing to respond. You may find you know right away what you need to release or you may find it becomes clear later. Either way, tuning into sadness (or any emotion) mindfully initiates a process of discovery and integration that will help you move forward.

    The Positive Purpose of Anger

    Anger arises to create and preserve personal boundaries and safeguard personal space. You feel angry when a personal boundary or the boundary of someone or something you care for is disrupted or violated. When you are able to identify the source of the perceived threat and use the energy available in anger to strengthen your personal space and take appropriate action, anger will recede. It will have accomplished its purpose.

    Here’s a practice adapted from McLaren to gather the information and use the energy in your anger:

    1. When you feel anger rising, focus inside your body and become more in-touch with the felt sensation. Approach the feeling with curiosity to learn more about it.

    2. Take a deep in-breath. As you exhale, imagine and feel as if the energy in your anger travels outward into a sphere about an arms-width around you, your personal boundary, strengthening it with a brilliant color. Do this until you feel a shift in your energy, so you are witnessing, feeling, and working with the energy in your anger without being consumed by it.

    3. Ask your anger this question: “What needs to be protected or restored?”

    4. Then ask, “What action will restore healthy boundaries and protect what is important?”

    These questions help you identify what feels threatened, so you can take appropriate action. Try this when anger arises and see how it works for you.

    The Positive Purpose of Fear

    We’ve been told “Fear is what holds us back” and “The only thing to fear is fear itself.” If we can just overcome our fears, we’ll be able to live full-out and realize our hopes and dreams. But, what if this perennial wisdom regarding fear is missing something? What if fear in its essential form is one of our wise guides?

    Emotions have three primary forms: unconscious reactive expression, a repressed cycling state, and a healthy free-flowing state. It may be that we are only familiar with the first two forms of fear: a reactive expression that makes us cower and a repressed state which creates constant low-level anxiety.

    Fear in its healthy free-flowing form is something altogether different. What if fear can signal intuitive awareness of something that needs attention? What if it can alert you to important action?

    This form of fear is a sixth sense that reaches out through your personal space to pick up signals about what is happening inside you, with others, and in your environment. Fear can alert you to what is happening in your own body. It can alert you to the actions and intentions of the people around you and to conditions in the environment. When you learn to discern this information, it can help you can choose wise actions.

    To learn to use fear as a wise guide, try this simple practice:

    1. When you feel fear arising, take a quiet, private moment to center into the feeling. Tune into the sensation of fear, locate where it resides in your body, and approach it with curiosity to learn what it has to tell you.

    2. Take a deep in-breath as if you are filling your whole body with your breath. As you exhale, imagine and feel that your breath fills the sphere of your personal space about an arm’s width around your entire body. Sense into your personal space and into the wider space around you and search for subtle signals. For example, you might be drawn to an area inside your body or to look at something or someone in your environment. You might feel the urge to move toward or away from something.

    3. Stay centered in your personal space and ask your fear the question: “What action needs to be taken right now?” Don’t rush to fill in an answer. Instead, keep the question open. Listen and feel inside. See what presents itself. You may have an inspiration to take a specific action.

    It can take time to learn to discern guiding signals. As best as you can, be patient. The simple action of tuning into emotional signals is a cultivated skill. You’ll grow your ability to sense inner guidance from fear and all your emotions through mindful practice over time.

    You’ll also learn to discern the quality of signals that represent accurate present guidance from false interpretations based on painful past experiences. There’s a different felt quality to accurate versus false guidance. False guidance may feel alarming, stressful, or rushed. It is fixated on what happened in the past or overly-anxious about the future. Accurate emotional guidance has a matter-of-fact, present, forward-moving quality, that feels like perfect timing.

    So, in summary, as emotions come up, instead of being wary of them, what if you welcome them, become curious, and ask:

    • What is the sensation of this emotion in my body?

    • Exactly what emotion is this?

    • What is the message in this feeling?

    • What is it asking me to do?

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    Source by Kevin Schoeninger

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  • Book Summary: The Millionaire Messenger: Make a Difference and a Fortune Sharing by Brendon Burchard

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    I read this book sitting in a Thai food restaurant on the Oregon coast. The food was outstanding and what was very interesting was the fact that at the cash register there was a book and DVD set talking about going to college for free. The author was a young guy who graduated from Harvard. The whole book series was designed to show college students and parents how to find money to pay for college. Come to find out the author was the restaurant owner’s son. This is a classic example of the Millionaire Messenger in action.

    Why is this important to me?

    I am not doing this summary to waste your time. It is my vision to provide concise action steps that you can adopt right now to enhance your life. The best way to financial freedom is through a business. Now most people cannot simply quit their jobs and to start a new business. Typically you need to work your job and your new business until you have enough sustainable revenue to take your business full time. The Expert Industry is a caring community of people who share their advice and knowledge with the world and get paid for it.

    You may be thinking I am not an expert in anything. This mindset has everything to do with Self-Esteem & Self-Confidence. Brendon addresses these concerns in the book. Think about this – every person has a unique finger print and unique life experiences. Those experiences with additional research can yield you an expert.

    I want to start with a potential example of being an expert in something. I have a good friend of mine that has been doing cement work for over 20 years. He does this with his four brothers. He does not think of himself as an expert. Have you ever considered how successful Home Depot is as business? They cater to the do it yourself community. My friend could simply film different cement jobs and sell them as a do it yourself venture. It would look like this:

    1. Create simple how to videos on the basics and give them away for free.

    2. Create a deeper video series on how to do a full patio, sidewalk or stairs and sell it with a checklist manual.

    3. Offer paid for consulting for job layouts with customers.

    4. Take high priced large concrete jobs that are above the do it yourself community and name your price.

    This is a simple example of releasing 100 years of combined cement expertise that could easily be parlayed into a seven figure business model.

    The Millionaire Messenger is packed with great how to advice. For the sake of time, I am going to chat about the 9 reasons you should consider unlocking your knowledge and passion in the expert business.

    1. Your work is based entirely on your passion and knowledge. This is really important because it no longer seems like work when you wake up each morning doing what you love.

    2. Relating and Creating – Your work activities center around gaining trust and relating to your audience as well as creating useful content that add real value to their lives.

    3. Anytime / Anywhere – Creating information how to products allows you the comfort of working on your schedule from anywhere. I can tell you from personal experience that setting up your business to do this one great step toward personal freedom.

    4. Work with who you want – This is a big deal because stress statistics show that stress related illness is interconnected with who you work with or bad working relationships in general.

    5. Promotions based on promos – The amount of money you make is directly related to the promotional efforts you put into marketing your content. This is all up to you and your work ethic.

    6. Pay equals value – This is the strongest and most relevant point in the book. If you deliver great value, people will pay you for it and you can decide what to charge. You are not trading hours of your life for dollars.

    7. Small Teams – You do not need a big team to do this. You can outsource several of these steps so that your payroll does not spiral out of control. There are information marketers that make millions of dollars a year with very little staff.

    8. Tools are cheap – Technology today really is cheap. There are so many excellent software packages that are free that you can craft your whole infrastructure for next to nothing.

    9. Financial Income can beat that of other industries. There are six ways to market your stuff and each has a different price point. The best business models are summed up in one phrase – “one to many”. Creating something once and selling it over and over is the true key to unlocking the wealth puzzle.

    The Millionaire Messenger is a good book that will give you the direction you need and the questions required to get you on the path to personal wealth and freedom.

    I hope you have found this short summary useful. The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily routine until it becomes habit. Habits form in as little as 21 days. One thing you can take away from this book is one to many. When crafting your business model or tweaking an existing model, remember to leverage the power of “one to many.” In our software business, we create a software module once and sell it many times. This is how Microsoft and Oracle generate billions of dollars each year.

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    Source by Joe Mosed

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  • Benefits of Appointing a Doctor Through the Online Scheduling Services

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    The busy and fast life and the unbridled lifestyle have created numerous negative impacts on our body as well as on our health. As a consequence, medicines and doctors have become the regular necessities of our lives. Medical emergencies are needed to be handled immediately as negligence can provoke harmful results. The instant involvement of a medical practitioner can save the life of your loved ones. But to visit a doctor, we need to get an appointment first, which can be quite a time-taking process and chances is there to get the help late.

    Doctors do have a very busy schedule and it is quite doubtful to get them exactly at the time of your requirement. In such a condition, the online scheduling services can be proved pretty beneficiary for all those who have an urgency to consult a doctor. It is pretty fast and quick and the websites are easily accessible. But most of all, these sites provide a list of doctors and medical practitioners, from where you can simply pick up the right one for you. Below are some of the advantages you can get, if you book an appointment online from these scheduling services.

    Time-saving

    Time is a big factor at the moment of the crisis. A little wastage of time can create an unfulfilled loss forever. The appointment scheduling websites utilize the time in a tactful way. From cardiologists to the general physician, they provide a list of doctors who are specialists in various medical fields, which makes your pursuit quite easy and effortless.

    All-time availability

    A crisis can occur even at the midnight. You don’t know when you will need to consult a medical expert. These online sites offer you the freedom to schedule an appointment according to your convenience, without creating a disturbance to the doctors apparently.

    The contact details in handy

    Finding a doctor is not enough. You need the proper address of the medical specialist and need to acquire the contact information too. An online scheduling service puts all these details on the website beside the names, designation and the images of the doctors.

    Easy to assess

    These scheduling sites provide a detailed profile of the specialists, including their qualification and the previous works they have handled, by which you can compare their expertise. This helps you to pick up the suitable one for you.

    Reliable and convenient

    In case of a manual consultation, in spite of standing for a long time in the queue, chances are high of getting late due to the doctor’s delay or for the lack of time. But if you book an appointment online, these things don’t create any effect at all. You can easily get your work done in an expedient and hassle-free manner.

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    Source by Luther Martin

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  • 5 Ways To Make Money With WordPress

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    If you have ever wondered how to make money with WordPress, then you have just landed in the right spot. As you know, WordPress is the most used Content Management System with more than 30,000 plugins and over 600 million downloads for the latest version of this CMS. It is obvious that it is very widespread and has a unique reputation worldwide.

    Let’s find out how we can make use of WordPress in order to make a decent income in the long term.

    1. Create Your Own WordPress Plugins.

    If you’re knowledgeable about HTML, PHP and CSS, then you can make your own custom WordPress plugins.

    You can imagine that the price of one plugin can reach up to $60 and even more. If you are lucky to get your plugin go viral and sell it like, only, for 1k WordPress users, you would end up banking $60k. You better be up and ready.

    2. Designing And Developing WordPress CMS.

    Should you be familiar with programming languages such as C++, C#, PHP, HTML, CSS, JQUERY, and AJAX, then you can be a WordPress developer and achieve a substantial financial income easily.

    Working in the development of WordPress is highly required due to the potential of WordPress and its fast growth all around the world. You can even start working on the freelance services marketplace like Fiverr or Freelancer or even launch your own website to promote and sell your WordPress service.

    3. Managing The Hosting For WordPress.

    WordPress, in the end, is just a free publishing software which includes scripts containing files of the WordPress program. Therefore, those files need a host so as for this CMS to work and function correctly.

    WordPress Content Management System works on the minimum requirements, and you can profit from the hosting management or the production of hosts for WordPress blogs. Those sites will not use more roughly than 1 gigabyte per month depending on the type of the website and its monthly traffic.

    4. Maintenance And Technical Support.

    This method depends on the second one where which you have to be familiar with the programming languages as well as being an expert in the networks and server systems to solve the customers’ technical problems and difficulties.

    You must have a high expertise in the field of networks and management of both shared and private servers as WordPress fully operates on those hosts.

    It is inevitable that customers would often face multiple issues, and your role as an expert would help solve those problems.

    Having these skills and experience would, certainly, not only allow you to work in a good company but also make your own business which would return you a considerable passive income.

    5. Establishing Of A Hosted Program As A Service (Pro Method)

    It is known by most bloggers and marketers that the use of WordPress is mainly for managing content and blogging, and this is what it does. However, have you ever thought of altering the code in order to make WordPress a program or script capable of hosting other WordPress blogs?

    Yes, it is possible to do that but probably without modifying the WordPress code and make any script but rather through the use WordPress MultiSite WPMS.

    The latter would allow you to create a network of websites on one WordPress installation.

    Eventually, these are the 5 ways which would help you really generate satisfying income online.

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    Source by Sami Ezzine

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  • Weight Loss – How I Went From 340 to 199 Pounds, Part 1

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    I spent two years losing over 140 pounds the old fashioned way: proper diet and exercise. No fads. No pills. No surgery. No crazy machines. I was 30 years old and 340 pounds. With a history of heart disease and obesity in my family, I decided it was time to shed the pounds.

    Almost every day I get people I haven’t seen in years coming up to me saying “Wow! You look great!” and then the next question… “What have you been doing?” That’s why I wrote this article.

    Disclaimer

    Now, of course, as a general disclaimer, I have to say that the tips I’m sharing with you here are just from my own personal experience. I’m not a professional health expert – although over the past couple of years I’ve read dozens of books, and hundreds of articles on nutrition, exercise, and weight lifting. I’m not a doctor. You should, of course, seek your own doctor’s advice before starting any kind of a weight-loss or exercise plan. I firmly believe that with the right diet and proper exercise, almost anyone should be able to lose weight and get fit safely.

    Tip 1. It’s All About Calories

    First, the bad news. Weight gain and loss is directly tied to the amount of calories you eat versus the calories you expend through exercise. What’s a calorie?

    A calorie is a unit of heat energy. Specifically, it’s the amount of heat energy required to raise 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius. How this relates to your body is that when you eat food, the food molecules are broken down chemically and that energy is either used by your body to perform work (like building muscle, or constructing new cells) or is stored (as fat). If you take in more calories than you burn, you will start to get fat.

    Now, in the world of calories, it takes 3500 calories to equal one pound of body weight. So, if you take in an extra 3500 calories in your diet this week without exercising, congratulations… you’ve just gained one pound (probably all body fat). The good news is that you can lose one pound of fat by either removing 3500 calories from your diet, or adding 3500 calories of exercise to your weekly schedule, or a combination of the two.

    What’s 3500 calories? It’s actually not much if you’re eating the wrong kinds of food. You can consume 3500 calories in one meal if you eat two Double Whoppers (1010 calories each), a King Size order of french fries (590), a King Size onion rings (600), and a chocolate shake (440). Don’t laugh… this is what I used to eat for dinner if my family went to Burger King… or something similarly outrageous.

    So the bottom line here is that if you want to lose weight, you have to create a calorie deficit. That means you have to burn off more calories than you eat. You had to eat more calories than you burned to get fat… now you have to reduce the calories to get lean. It’s that simple. In order to know how many calories you’re taking in and burning off, you need to write them down.

    Tip 2. Eat Frequently Throughout the Day

    Think of your body as a furnace. You want your furnace to burn fuel as efficiently as possible. In order for that to happen, you need to let it burn hot and steady throughout the day.

    You need to stoke your fire often to keep it burning. Keep your metabolism running all day long by eating every 3 to 4 hours. My personal tip: I eat on hours evenly divisible by 3. That means breakfast at 9am (if I’m up that early), lunch at noon, a snack at 3pm, dinner at 6pm, a snack at 9pm, and if I’m still up another snack at midnight.

    Now, I personally work late (I usually get most of my “real work” done between the hours of 10pm and 2am) but if you need to eat at different hours, that’s fine… Just take the total number of calories you’re going to eat throughout the day and divvy them up into 3-hour intervals. Keep that fire stoked! If you can’t take a break at work to eat every 3 hours, bring a protein bar with you.

    If you skip breakfast, then you’re extremely hungry by the time lunch comes around. Skip lunch, and you’re more likely to gorge yourself at dinner. Why? Your body is saying, “Hey! I need food badly!” If you feed yourself often, throughout the day, your body doesn’t go into shock, and you won’t get those wild cravings and hunger pangs when it’s time to eat.

    Tip 3. Start a Food & Exercise Journal

    Don’t just dismiss this section. I did! The first couple of times I read about doing this in fitness and weight-loss books, I said to myself, “I don’t have the time to do this.” But you know what – it really works!

    I cannot stress how important it is to write everything down that you eat. All you need is a little notebook. Make four columns: what you ate, how much of it you ate, how many calories were in it, and what time of the day you ate it. It’s that simple. Also write down any exercise or other activities that are more strenuous than just sitting around.

    Taking the time to recognize what you’re eating is the first step to losing weight. A lot of people truly don’t realize how much crap they’re eating. When I first started doing this – and writing down everything I was eating – it really opened my eyes to the volumes of junk food I was eating before. I was a slave to cookies, chocolate, chicken wings, and pizza. When I first took the time to look up the fact that a chicken wing has 150 calories in it (yes, one wing), I was astounded. I used to eat 20 wings and 2 or 3 slices of pizza for dinner.

    Now you can get yourself one of those little calorie counter booklets from your favorite book store. Sometimes you’ll even see them in the grocery store. They’re invaluable. Once you get to know the foods you eat on a regular basis, keeping track of what you eat is really quite simple. You will gain a better appreciation for what you’re putting in your body.

    So please, please, please, take my advice and journal everything you eat. You do NOT have to do this for the rest of your life… just until you hit your goal weight. By that time, you’ll be able to keep a good mental track of what you’re eating, and you’ll be more aware of what you should eat, and how much exercise you should be getting every week.

    Also, you do not have to obsess over every little calorie! Counting your calories can be as detailed as you like. If you want to track every last celery stick, by all means do so. However, you can just round your calories off to the nearest 10, or 20. Don’t worry whether or not something contains 24 or 26 calories. In the end, it doesn’t make that much of a difference… but whether something has 100 or 200 calories does.

    The important thing… and I cannot stress this enough… is write everything down!

    Tip 4. Eat The Right Amount of Calories

    We’re not going to starve ourselves! In fact, proper weight loss is best accomplished by eating more frequently than you’re probably used to! Let me say that again: you’re going to eat more food than you are right now. You’re going to eat better food, more often, but at a lower calorie intake. If you’re like I used to be, you’re probably skipping breakfast. This means that when lunchtime comes around, you’re starving, so you probably overeat the wrong kinds of food (like pizza, wings, Chinese, etc.) for lunch – and I’ll bet it’s fast food or takeout. Then, you don’t eat anything again for six to eight hours, and pack in a monster dinner.

    Now here’s what happens: your body isn’t getting any food first thing in the morning, so your metabolism isn’t getting started. Your “calorie-burning fire” doesn’t get started in the morning, so you’re not really burning as many calories as you should be. Also, your body is saying, “uh, oh – I’m not getting any food. I better hold on to whatever body fat I can because we’re starving!” This is bad. If you don’t eat enough food, often enough, your body will basically go into starvation mode and hang on to whatever body fat it can.

    The key to unlocking your stored fat is to feed yourself enough good food so that your body doesn’t need to store any additional fat, while at the same time getting plenty of exercise and strength training to burn whatever fat you currently have and build muscle.

    There are a bunch of factors that go into calculating metabolic rates and all that jazz, but you can use this chart as a basic measurement of how many calories you should be eating as part of your weight-loss diet. Notice it’s based on your current weight and your gender. Women need fewer calories then do men. Also, if you’re a smaller person, you need less energy than a larger person. Use this chart to determine how many calories you should be eating on a daily basis.

    WOMEN

    Under 130: 1000 Calories

    130-150: 1200 Calories

    151-200: 1400 Calories

    201-250: 1600 Calories

    251-300: 1800 Calories

    301-350: 2000 Calories

    351-400: 2200 Calories

    MEN

    Under 130: 1200 Calories

    130-150: 1400 Calories

    151-200: 1600 Calories

    201-250: 1800 Calories

    251-300: 2000 Calories

    301-350: 2200 Calories

    351-400: 2400 Calories

    Now here’s something that’s vitally important… you want to make sure you get enough calories every day, otherwise your body will go into “starvation” mode. You want to make sure that you eat your meals at least four times a day to keep your metabolism running. If you don’t eat, your body will go into starvation mode. It will realize that it’s not getting enough food, and will hold on to body fat. It’s important to get enough calories spaced throughout the day to keep your fire stoked. Don’t think that by starving yourself you’re going to lose weight. It will be the wrong kind of weight. Remember, your body will eat it’s own muscle tissue first before burning fat if it doesn’t have enough protein.

    Tip 5. Send Yourself to Boot Camp

    Now, if you want to jump start your body on its way to fast weight loss, here’s what you’re going to do. Ignore the charts above, and drop yourself right down to a 1000-calorie-per-day diet immediately. In addition, make sure you get at least 15 minutes of walking (or some other easy, basic, extra exercise) in every day as well.

    You will do this for exactly two weeks… no more… no less. Then, you will go back to eating the normal amount of calories as indicated on the chart above.

    It’s not going to be easy. You won’t be able to eat any junk food for these first two weeks. You can, however, eat plenty of good foods – chicken, salads, whole grain breads, etc. It won’t be easy, but once you get through it, you’ll be able to add lots of calories back in to your diet, and feel more normal again… in fact, after eating only 1000 calories for two weeks, you’ll probably have a hard time bringing yourself back up to 2000 calories (or whatever you should be at).

    Here’s why this works: dropping your calorie intake down to 1000 calories will shock your body into new eating habits. You will cleanse your body of toxins (like those monster grease burgers you’ve been eating) and get some good, healthy food in you. You will notice weight loss after the first couple of days, but you’ll be keeping your energy up by eating good foods at regular intervals. You can stop any cravings you’re having with water, or add some extra veggies in there – you can eat just about as much green vegetables as you want.

    Tip 6. Don’t Think “Fat Free” Means “Calorie Free”

    Everywhere you look, it seems that “low fat” foods abound. While there are certain low-fat or no-fat foods that we are going to eat, you don’t want to restrict yourself to a totally no-fat diet. There are certain fats that are good fats, and other that are bad fats. We’re going to want to eat good fats because they are necessary for proper health. Bad fats, however, will make you fat.

    There are tons of fad “no-fat” diets out there that have promoted the whole “low-fat” mentality. What’s happened? People are still continuing to get fat eating “fat-free” foods. They eat fat-free cookies, fat-free chips, and fat-free dairy products, yet they keep getting fatter. Why? Many fat-free foods have nearly as many calories as their full-fat versions.

    Now, you start eating “fat free” potato chips thinking to yourself that you can splurge… hey, why not? They’re “fat free.” Well, you still load on the calories with fat-free potato chips. It’s the calories that make you fat. In fact, when food manufacturers remove fat from their products, often times they replace the fat with sugar to improve the taste. Guess what… by adding sugar, they’re bringing the calorie count almost back up to where the full-fat product was.

    We need fat. Fat forms lining of the cell membranes in almost every cell of our bodies. Your brain is composed primarily of fat. If you don’t eat enough of the right kinds of fat, your brain will not get the proper nutrition to function. Eating too little fat can also reduce your testosterone levels (equally important for women as for men).

    Tip 7. Know Your Fats

    Saturated Fats are bad for you. They are found mostly in beef, milk, cheese, deli meats, butter, and some tropical oils. Saturated fats increase your risk of coronary artery disease, diabetes, and obesity. Avoid or minimize saturated fat intake. Try to eat low-fat meats like chicken and turkey without the skin, and reduced-fat dairy products. If you’re eating red mean, get the lowest-fat, leanest meat you can.

    Trans Fats are saturated fats that are extremely bad for you. You should completely eliminate all foods with trans fats in them from your diet. These types of unnatural fats are created during food manufacturing processes such as the hydrogenation of vegetable oil. They are usually found in pastries, buns, chips, doughnuts, shortening, and other such foods. If the label says “trans fat” put that product back on the shelf. If the ingredients of any product say “partially hydrogenated” anywhere on it – put it back. One example: margarine! It’s evil. It’s loaded with trans-fatty acids. Avoid it at all costs. Also avoid vegetable shortening, commercial pasties, deep-fried food, and most prepared snacks, mixes, and convenience foods.

    Studies have shown that saturated and trans fats are actually addictive and make you want to eat more. They have also been linked to all kinds of health problems from cancer and heart disease to diabetes.

    Unsaturated Fats, on the other hand, are generally good for you. These types of fats are usually found in nuts, seeds, fish, and grains. Mono-unsaturated fats, such as the types found in olive and canola oil, will actually protect your cardiovascular system from disease. These are the types of fats we’re going to load into our diet.

    – Good fats: almonds, avocado, cashews, flax oil, olive oil, olives, peanut butter, peanuts, fresh fish (salmon, mackerel, tuna)

    – Bad fats: butter, coconut, corn oil, cream cheese, half-and-half, lard, mayonnaise, shortening, sour cream

    Keep in mind that you need fats in your diet, but even the good fats listed above have a good amount of calories in them – so take it easy! A tablespoon of olive oil, for example, as 100 calories. Almonds (which I love to snack on) have 6 calories a piece. Nuts are a great, healthy-fat snack – but just make sure to take a small handful not the whole bag!

    Tip 8. Add Omega 3 Fatty Acids to Your Diet

    Omega fats are unsaturated fats that are not only good for you, but they’re essential for your health. Your body cannot create these fats, so you must get them totally from your diet. Omega fats are helpful for many reasons, plus they are necessary for normal cell growth and development.

    First, Omega fats are an excellent appetite suppressant. Part of the reason why people binge on “fat-free” foods is because fat is what makes your stomach “feel full.” If you aren’t eating any fat in your meal, your stomach never tells your brain that you’re full. Add a little good fat to your meal, and you’ll feel full with less food.

    Eating Omega fats helps your body to unlock stored fat so that you can use it for energy. Omega fat balances your body’s ratio of insulin to glucagon. When you eat sugary foods, your body releases insulin to remove the excess sugar from your system. If you do this too often, the insulin will block the hormone glucagon – which is another hormone that functions to help your body burn fat. Too much sugar = too much insulin = not enough glucagon = little fat burning. Plus, you are at risk for diabetes. Omega fats help to balance this ratio.

    Omega fats help to boost your body’s metabolic rate. This also helps you to burn more calories. Omega fats are the building blocks of your cells. Your cell membranes consist of Omega fats. Since they cannot be created by the body, you must get them from your diet.

    A specific fat, Omega 3 Fatty Acid, is obtained from flax seeds or flax seed oil. This will be the primary fat that we’ll add to our meals. You can use it on salads and in breads, add it to soups and yogurt. Don’t cook with it, however, as the heat will change it’s chemical properties. You will also find good doses of Omega 3 in most seafood, green leavy vegetables, fatty fish (salmon, tuna, trout, mackerel), walnuts, olive, and canola oil.

    Have fish for dinner at least twice a week – and I don’t mean your beer-battered, fried haddock that the local pub serves on Fridays. Pick a fish like salmon, tuna, or mackerel. Bake or grill them – don’t fry them. They have very high concentrations of Omega 3 fatty acids in them. Add flax oil to your salads instead of fatty dressings. Snack on walnuts or almonds instead of cookies and chocolate. You will feel full sooner, and you’ll be adding essential fatty acids to your diet to help burn calories!

    Tip 9. Get Plenty of Protein

    Proteins are the building blocks for your body. You need to eat lots of protein for your body to build, repair, and maintain your muscle and other lean tissues. If you don’t eat enough protein, your body will break down muscle tissue, which is bad, to maintain itself. As a result, your metabolism will slow, and you won’t burn body fat. Unlike fat or glucose, there’s nowhere in our bodies to store protein (aside from building muscle tissue) so you have to get a lot from your diet.

    How much protein should you eat? Most people should eat about 0.4 to 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight. Therefore, if you weigh 200 pounds, you should be eating between 80 and 160 grams of protein per day. This isn’t hard to do. Eat two eggs for breakfast, and an 8-ounce serving of chicken for dinner, and you’re at 60 grams of protein right there.

    What kinds of protein should you eat? I like fish, chicken (white meat), turkey (white meat), soy products, beans, legumes, and eggs (whites only – yokes have a lot of fat). Soy products are a great source of protein… once you get used to the taste. I have totally switched from regular milk to soy milk. It has all the calcium, much less of the saturated fat, and none of the cholesterol of normal milk (even skim milk!)

    Eat fish twice a week, chicken twice a week, turkey once a week, a vegetarian meal once a week, and then on that seventh day, go ahead and splurge with the pork or beef… just take it easy. Just make sure you choose lean sirloin cuts. Trim off any fat. Beef has a lot of saturated fat in it (it’s marbled throughout the meat so you can’t just cut it off). Beef is the worst meat for you – as compared to the other popular meats.

    – Good protein: beans (any kind), eggs (preferably whites – yolks have a lot of fat), chicken (white meat, no skin), turkey (white meat, no skin), salmon (preferably not farmed), tuna (packed in water, not oil), mahi mahi, any shellfish, any soy products.

    – Bad protein: bacon, ham, hot dogs, beef, pork, lamb, veal.

    In part 2 of this article, you’ll read about nine more tips to lose weight.

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    Source by Richard Rost

    Views: 0

  • Does Affiliate Marketing Still Work?

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    Affiliate marketers earn money by selling products created by other companies in exchange for a commission. But things online have become much more competitive than when affiliate marketing first started out nearly 20 years ago. Affiliate marketing is still a good way to make money online, but the rules have changed in recent years.

    Today’s successful online entrepreneurs have figured out how to make affiliate marketing work more effectively so their efforts bring the results they want. How do they do it?

    Make Affiliate Marketing Work For You

    The best way to make affiliate marketing work effectively is to increase the exposure of your affiliate links. These are the links that take your prospects to a sales page or website and which track sales back to you.

    Your Own Website

    One of the most important elements of affiliate marketing today is to have your own website or blog. This is where you produce content relevant to the products you want to sell. You can write general articles and provide links to suggested products at the end of the content. The most important things to remember are that everything you write should be the factual and the truth. This helps position you as an expert worth paying attention to.

    Building an Email Marketing List

    It can be challenging to build an email marketing list these days because people have such jammed inboxes. That being said, knowing your niche and your target audience are two of the best ways to come up with an incentive they will be keen to get and so will be happy to give you their contact information.

    Two good incentives would be an eBook or eCourse on a hot topic related to your niche. Think of the kinds of problems people have in your niche and create an information product which offers real solutions.

    Be Careful About What You Sell

    Don’t promote anything you would not use yourself or are not impressed by. You don’t want to get the reputation of being an affiliate who will pretty much sell any old rubbish just to get a commission. Rather, you want to show you’re in the know, with great deals on products that really work.

    Keywords In Your Content

    Keywords related to your niche will help drive free traffic via the search engines. Your keywords should be related to your topic or niche. They should be words that an ordinary person interested in your niche would search for. Keyword all media files such as images and videos as well.

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    Source by Jon Allo

    Views: 1

  • Direct Marketing – 5 Essential Components of Successful Direct Marketing

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    Direct Marketing produced $2.05 trillion in sales in 2012. That represents about 8.7% of US GDP in 2013. This implies several key points.

    First, competition in direct marketing is stiff. With all those advertisement dollars being spent on direct marketing, you need to ensure your message is getting through and being heard. Second, with stiff competition, you need to craft compelling messages, not once, but repeatedly. You need to do this effectively and efficiently, if you want to do more than just tread water.

    Thus, it’s important to develop a marketing strategy that optimizes your budget spend by employing direct marketing more effectively. Here are 5 essential components of successful direct marketing.

    1) Deliver a Compelling Sales Message

    Several elements go into creating a compelling sales message. Successful sales letters and other marketing content must be relevant, useful, and persuasive. Marketing content that works grabs your prospect’s attention, shows uniqueness, and builds trust with your prospect. Employ these three elements in all your direct marketing content.

    · WIIFM – Tell your prospect exactly what’s in it for him or her.

    · Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – Clearly describe why your solution is the superior one.

    · Testimonials – Let your satisfied customers “sell” for you.

    2) Follow-up Leads Promptly to Attract and Engage Your Prospect’s Attention

    You might have a lead-generating sales letter, but if you don’t follow-up, valuable leads will slip through the cracks. Follow-up a live event with a phone call, an email, or a letter that invites the prospect to take the next step.

    Offer a free demonstration of your product or service. Set up an appointment with a subject matter expert who can go into greater detail on how your company’s solution works, and why it’s better than the competition’s. Then, before the scheduled demonstration, send a white paper that explains your product in detail.

    Follow-up, engage and spark your prospect’s interest in your solution.

    3) Promote Your Brand

    Benefits from branding give companies and edge over competitors that don’t brand. Branding helps position your product or service favorably. It also gives you pricing and distribution power. The takeaway is: never miss an opportunity to brand.

    Direct marketing affords you many online and off-line media to build brand awareness. Online media: (1) Banner advertising; (2) Blogs; (3) Email; and (4) Website. Off-line media: (1) Print advertising – sales letters, postcards, brochures; (2) Press Releases; and (3) Public Relations.

    4) Nurture the New Customer Relationship

    Lead nurturing is just as important as lead acquisition. Most companies want to develop long-term relationships with customers. That’s because they become repeat customers. And, over time, repeat customers generate more sales and profits to your bottom line.

    Outbound marketing provides many ways to build and maintain a thriving lead nurturing program. You can employ email, direct mail, social media, mobile, podcasts, seminars, phone calls, and videos.

    5) Integrate and Synchronize Online and Off-line Direct Marketing

    To optimize your message and direct marketing budget, success lies in finding the right mix of online and off-line methods. One method isn’t necessarily better than another. Instead, the secret sauce to successful direct marketing depends on how you weave these various methods together.

    You can integrate and synchronize these methods along the sales cycle beginning with message delivery. Start with a sales letter, follow-up with a phone call or email. Refer your prospect to your website for deeper marketing content, and don’t forget to brand throughout this process.

    Achieving the right marketing mix produces a “multiplier effect” that helps you close sales faster and easier. Employing different media in a consistent and coherent manner working towards the same goal optimizes your marketing efforts.

    Don’t Overlook the Value of Direct Marketing

    With so much attention focused on inbound marketing lately, it’s easy to overlook direct marketing’s benefits. However, as you can see, it still commands the lion’s share of sales. Therefore, it’s prudent to examine your marketing strategy’s focus and align your budget accordingly.

    Before you undertake a direct marketing campaign, employ these five essential components to compete effectively and efficiently for that $2.05 trillion market.

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    Source by Alex M Milo

    Views: 1

  • Why Are Your Customers Not Buying?

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    The messages you put in front of your potential customer once they first discover your business can make all the difference between a sale and a pass, and between a happy customer and a disgruntled one.

    If your customers are not buying, you may be missing one of these five crucial elements.

    Have You Identified a Problem or Need?

    Take the time to learn about the “pain points” or problems people generally have in regards to your specific niche market. Your entire website should have content material that addresses the needs of your target audience.

    People don’t just want to be sold to. They are busy and keen to find out about solutions that work for their problems. By producing this kind of useful content on a frequent schedule, you are putting yourself out there as an expert worth paying attention to.

    Comparing Solutions Side-by-Side

    Your prospective customer will make side-by-side comparisons with similar products. If you show the value that you offer, it can swing their choice in your favor. Tables, index charts, images, features and benefits, customer reviews and opinions, are just the kinds of information they will be looking for.

    Retargeting will keep your products under consideration as they go around the internet searching for solutions. Many top websites allow for retargeting, so your potential customers will see your product frequently as they use the internet.

    Purchasing

    When a customer buys from your website, make sure the online buying process carries forward from the page into a sales receipt they can keep. Also, send an email to thank them for their purchase. Offer support with any customer service issues and don’t offer other items for sale that they’ve already bought.

    Follow-Up and Customer Satisfaction

    You can also add real value by sending hints and tips or a quick-start guide to using the product, and so forth. These little surprise gifts and add-ons don’t cost much in terms of time and effort, but they can have a huge impact in terms of customer satisfaction, their and their long-term loyalty to your business and products.

    Request For Their Money Back

    If you do get a request for a refund within the agreed timeframe, provide it promptly and with courtesy. Do ask for a reason why they want a refund, but don’t demand it. Leave them in your customer email list, but, personalize their offers by not continuing to promote to them the item they have already decided to return.

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    Source by Jon Allo

    Views: 0

  • A Basic Principle of Healing: First, Do No Harm

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    The Greek healer, Hippocrates, set the first standards for medicine in the form of the Hippocratic Oath.

    A basic principle of that oath was

    “First do no harm.”

    This ethic is meant to be the guide for whatever intervention a physician or healer uses to assist a patient to heal because…

    the actual healing itself is done by the body.

    For example, you accidentally cut your finger. You may clean the wound and put an antiseptic on it, followed by a bandaid.

    None of these things actually cause the cut to heal. That work is done by the physical body itself.

    • Cleaning the wound and using an antiseptic remove bodies that may interfere with the physical body’s ability to repair the cut.
    • A bandaid, or bandage, assists by keeping the cut clean, and may hold the two sides of the cut together, thus making it easier for the body to reconnect the tissues as it repairs the wound.

    This is similar to how Energy Healing helps you recover from an illness or an injury.

    In Energy Healing, the facilitator’s (healer’s) primary responsibility is to support the body’s natural healing processes.

    This is done in a number of ways.

    1. Removing energy blocks that may interfere in the healing process.
    2. Supporting the body energetically so that it has the energy it needs to do the repair work.
    3. Communicating clear intentions to the body so it understands the expectations and goals of the person whose body it is.
    4. Assisting the body to let go of energy patterns that are interfering with the healing process, such as trapped emotions, limiting beliefs, and distorted vibrational patterns.

    A healing facilitator communicates with expert energy healers in higher realms who may be able to see or perceive subtle aspects of damage that are outside the third dimensional reality.

    Full recovery may require that those damaged area be repaired as well.

    A well-known example of this type of situation would be a damaged chakra.

    A chakra is a spinning wheel of energy. The most well known chakras are along the spinal column.

    There are also many chakras of varying sizes throughout the physical and other energy bodies. Some chakras are part if the meridian system used in acupuncture and are called “acupuncture points.”

    When a chakra is damaged or functioning improperly, a complete healing outcome may be compromised.

    Each chakra may be a slightly different size, color and complexity, depending on where it is located in the body and the services it performs.

    Chakras are a basic part of the energy anatomy of all conscious beings.

    Humans and animals have chakras, and so do plants.

    Mother Earth has chakras as well.

    Within the physical body of a human or animal, the various organs and glands have chakras specifically designed to keep each one in balance and harmony by providing essential “life force” to that part of the anatomy.

    When my cat Violet was diagnosed with early stage renal (kidney) failure, I discovered that one of her kidneys had a chakra that was misaligned and wasn’t able to function properly as a result.

    By repairing Violet’s kidney chakra with energy healing, I assisted her kidney to function better. Using muscle testing, I was able to increase the energetic ability of the kidney to function by more than 50%.

    This contributed to Violet feeling more comfortable in her body for a longer time than she might have otherwise.

    In all types of energy healing, “First, do no harm” remains an essential ethical principle.

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    Source by Nedda Wittels

    Views: 0