RECHARGE! Sep'2012

RECHARGE! Positive – Powerful – Practical

Issue #10 September 2012

Real Relationships in the Virtual World

Protecting Children on the WEB

Is Coffee HEALTHY?

Q&A with Dave RAMSEY

p. 44

p. 20

p. 32

Kimanzi Constable shares how social networking can help your dreams come true р. 38

Improve Your FINANCES in 30 Days p. 26

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Founder of RECHARGE365.com and RECHARGE! Magazine John Von Achen Editor-in-Chief Helen Bereschinova Copy Editor Oleg Vetoshnikov Designer Lubov Karmanova Cover story: Kimanzi Constable Contributors:

Facts&Numbers Tina Barseghian Mindset Robert L. Bailey, Tina Su, Dean Mehrkens, Steven Aitchison Health Healthy Lifestyle News, Jennifer Gibson Wealth Donal Suter Social Kimanzi Constable, Kate-Madonna Hindes, Anne-Sophie Reinhardt, Amanda Gore Career Jason Seiden, Jon Elder, Dana Lightman, Matt See Performance Armen Shirvanian, Paul H. Burton, Michael Hyatt COLUMNISTS:

Anne Bachrach, Dr. Kem Thompson, Shirley Garrett, Karen Jenkins, Dave Ramsey, Ellen Rogin Owned and Operated by CENTE MEDIA, LLC. Address: 1800 Pembrook Dr Ste 300 32810 Orlando, Florida

2012 SEPTEMBER І 3

September 2012 Mindset 08 Laugh Your Way to Success 11

How Far Off Are You From Achieving Your Dreams?

12

How to Stop Negative Self Talk

15

Deflating Self Esteem

Health 16 Paternal Guardianship Might Be the Reason of Frequent Illnesses of the Child 20 Coffee Every Day Keeps the Dementia Away 22

Positive Directions for Life.

Be Careful What You Swallow

24

Doctor’s Diary. 10 Tips To Help You Finish Strong This Year!

Wealth 26

30 Days to Turn around Your Finances and Achieve Your Life Changing Goals

32

Dave Says. Q&A with America's Leading Personal Finance Expert

34 Think Right about Your Money. Prosperity Minded Kids:

10 Keys to Raising Kids with Positive Money Habits 36 Women, Wisdom & Wealth.

5 Steps to Living within Your Means

Do you 4 І SEPTEMBER 2012

to move forward?

RECHARGE! Content

Social 38 We All Need Someone

to Lean On 42

Social Media and Friendships

44 Protecting Your Children

in the Digital Age 47 A to Z of Relationships

Career 50 Screw Your Career Path

Live Your Story 55 How to Handle the Inevitable

Negative Co-Worker 56

Do You Plan to Work in Retirement?

58

10 Job Hunting Secrets from a Hiring Manager

Performance 60 Words of Wisdom for Those Starting University in the Fall 62

How to Better Manage Email on Your Next Vacation

64 The Second Hardest Thing - Finishing Up 66

Accelerate Your Results! 10 Principles to Eliminate Distractions and Increase Success

More than just tweets Follow @Recharge365 on 2012 SEPTEMBER І 5

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RECHARGE!

Mindset

Laugh Your Way to Success

8 І SEPTEMBER 2012

RECHARGE! Mindset Positive people have greater opportunities for personal growth. Positive people have expanded employment opportunities. Positive people consistently succeed while negative people often fail.

W

ith the countless benefits of being positive, why can’t more of us see the glass as half full instead of half empty?

I’m convinced that being positive is a skill – a learned skill. We can learn to be positive just as we learned to walk, talk, ride a bicycle, drive a car or play golf or tennis.

It’s doubtful that very many of us could do any of these things when we were born (and some of us can’t do some of these things very well now). But through practice and trial and error, over time these skills were sharpened.

Each of us starts life with two skills that are not learned. These skills are instinctive. Babies can cry immediately after birth. They let us know quickly when they want a bottle, need a diaper change, or are uncomfortable. Within a few weeks they have developed a second skill. They can smile. Before long, they are laughing out loud.

On our way to maturity, we somehow retain the crying skill but forget how to smile and laugh. We get caught up in a spiral that pulls us downward. We cultivate negativism that damages our ability to deal with day-to-day problems that are a normal part of life. We become so pessimistic personal growth is hindered; expanded employment opportunities evaporate; the road to success vanishes.

How can we get back on the positive track? Start by re-learning a skill we had as children – the ability to smile and laugh. Laughter defuses the frustrations and the negative experiences that are a part of life.

There are positive dimensions to everything that happens. Look for them. When you experience frustrations – and all of us do – look for the humor. Funny things are happening all around us. When you see it, life’s frustrations tend to dissolve.

When your kids get home from school, chances are you ask, “What did you learn today?” The answer is always the same – “Nothing.”

Instead ask, “Did anything funny happen at school today?” Kids have a way of seeing humor in nearly any-

thing. They laughed in the hallway between classes; they laughed in the classrooms; and they laughed on the way home from school. Can they share with their parents some of the things they laughed about?

When you arrive home from work you probably ask your spouse, “How did things go at work today?” Every day the answer is the same – “Fair.” Or, “OK, I suppose,” with the enthusiasm of someone who had just been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Instead, ask, “Did anything funny happen at work today?” Humor is there if you look for it. And when you recognize it, the negative influences of the day are overcome.

For more than 50 years my work schedule required considerable travel, which can be a maddening experience. How do I overcome the frustrations of travel?

I look for the humor. I often ask taxicab drivers, the world’s most interesting people, “What’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened to you as a cab driver?”

About 80% of the time the cabbie says, “Nothing funny ever happens to me.” But the other 20% tell me a funny story. Like the cab driver in Washington, D. C. who said his fare jumped out of his cab at a stop light without paying. The driver chased the non-paying rider and caught him. When he got back to his cab, it had been stolen.

That probably wasn’t funny to the driver at the time, but it’s funny now and he delighted in telling the story and laughing about his experience. That story helped offset the negative experience of my flight being two hours late.

I arrived in Boston during the morning hours for a speech that evening. As is often the case in Boston, the traffic was horrific. “I have a flight at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow,” I said to the driver. “What time should I leave the Weston Hotel for the airport?”

The driver told me that the traffic that time of morning wouldn’t be severe, and he told me the time I should plan to leave the hotel. “As a matter of fact,” he continued, “I’ll pick you up at the hotel at that time.”

I didn’t think he would follow through with his offer, but the next morning I checked out of the hote0l, took 

2012 SEPTEMBER І 9

advantage of a coffee urn in the lobby and poured myself a cup of coffee in a Styrofoam cup. As promised, parked at the curb on the street was my cab driver waving for my attention. “Sit in the front seat with me,” asked my driver, since we were old friends at this point.

We started for the airport, came to a red light and he dashed through. After a few more blocks, we encountered another red light, which he likewise whizzed through. “Did you know you’ve run two red lights?”

I asked my driver. “Yes, I know,” he answered. “I didn’t want to stop and spill your coffee.”

I still laugh about that experience which helped me forget that some audience members didn’t laugh at my attempt at humor.

The newspapers are full of funny stories. There are stories about nude park ranges and airline pilots, and the guy who robbed a bank because he told police he was too ugly to get a job. And you think you’ve got problems.

Bank robbers jumped into a sheriff’s car after a holdup, thinking it was their getaway car.

Three guys went streaking through a Denny’s restaurant. When they got outside where there car was to have been waiting with the engine running, someone had stolen it. Police arrested the three men in the parking lot minutes later. They were wearing only shoes and hats – in 20 degree temperature.

A man in Tampa, Florida, robbed a bank and left his resume. Actually he dropped it, along with his photo, when the bank dye packet exploded. That’s not the way to get a job.

“How can I laugh,” you may ask, “when my boss is such a jerk? This guy is not fun to work for.” First, look for the positive traits of the boss. Everyone has certain positive characteristics.

Second, laugh about the negative characteristics – not while you’re at work but with your spouse when you get home.

I once had a boss who was anxious to tell you how hard he was working. I called him my “sound effects boss” (although not to his face). “Whew, there’s so much to do. Jees, I don’t know how I can keep up this pace. Wow, I’m going to have to take some time off.

Gosh, the work load is killing me.” The less he worked, the more sound effects he produced.

Another boss had the “I disease.” “I finished this project. I got this done on time. I came up with this solution.”

He took credit for everything that was good and blamed others when things didn’t go according to plan.

How can a person remain positive with bosses like these? Keep in mind that no job is a life sentence. Also,

10 І SEPTEMBER 2012

the boss’s boss probably already has it figured out and is looking for a replacement. Over your career, you’ll have many bosses. Although at times frustrating, there are things you can learn from all of them.

Not only does laughter contribute to a positive attitude, laughter heals. Laughter produces endorphins which can cure many diseases. Scientists say that even cancer can be cured with laughter. Stanford University researchers have found that humor activates the same portion of the brain that is stimulated by acquiring a huge sum of money or by a dose of cocaine.

They call it the brain’s “reward center.”

If laughter can cure cancer, just think of its positive effect on the common cold, or a common problem, or a common bad attitude.

Productivity in the workplace is always higher when people have fun. Nearly any mission is more effective when people have fun. When people have fun together, morale is higher and personnel problems are fewer. When people are having fun, they are more likely to pull together as a team when they’re facing a big challenge.

That’s true for a family unit. And it’s true in the workplace. Laughter can break the monotony of a ho-hum, get up, go to work, work, go home, got to bed, get up and go to work cycle in which many of us find ourselves.

Laugh together and life will be much more interesting. Erma Bombeck once said, “If we can laugh at it, we can live with it.”

Laughter can overcome the negatives of life and can help create the positive attitudes critical for success.

by Robert L. Bailey

Robert L. Bailey Robert Bailey is the retired CEO of a major company. Under his leadership the company he headed became one of the top performing property and casualty insurance companies in the United States.

Now he is the author of six books, writes columns for several magazines, and is a professional public speaker. This article is a condensation of one chapter of his book What Do You Do When You’re Having a Bad Day? For additional information about the author, visit www.bobbaileyspeaker.com or contact him at bobbailey1@comcast.net or 941-358-5260.

RECHARGE! Mindset

How Far Off Are You From Achieving Your Dreams?

I’d like to share a story that I heard from Tony Robbins, and I heard someone at my toastmasters group sharing it with the group the other night, and thought it would be a great story to share with you.

I’ve changed the story a little, but the message is exactly the same.

The Golf swing

Whilst out with a group of friends, Sharon, took up the challenge of learning the game of golf. She’d always wanted to play, but never really had the gaul to go out and join a club.

One of her friends was a member of the local club and invited her for a round of golf, and Sharon was delighted to accept. That was it! Sharon was hooked and duly joined the club and got right into the game of golf.

A few months later she was still playing, but just couldn’t get the ball to go straight down the fairway, no matter what stance she used or how much she changed her swing, the ball would always go 50 ft to the left, or 50 ft to the right, it just wasn’t happening for her.

Being a bit of a perfectionist she was ready to give up the game of golf.

Whilst playing one day, one of the clubs golf coaches happened to see her playing, and noticed her frustration at not being able to hit the ball straight. He spoke to her about this. She advised she was so far off being able to hit the ball straight that she was ready for giving up. The golf coach advised; ‘You’re only 2 millimeters away from hitting the ball perfectly.’

‘2 Millimeters! That’s impossible! How can I be 2 millimeters when the ball is going left or right 50 ft?’

He advised all it took was a slight adjustment to her swing, which would enable her to hit the ball right in the middle, whereas right now she was 2 mm to the left or right of centre.

It only took a very slight adjustment for Sharon to reach her goal of being able to hit the ball straight down the fairway.

How many millimeters are you away from reaching your dreams in life?

Sometimes all it takes is a slight adjustment to see a big change

Sometimes all it takes is a slight adjustment to see a big change, and sometimes we are much closer to reaching our dreams than we think and all it takes is that

slight adjustment.

So, I want to ask you again:

How many millimeters are you away from reaching your dreams in life?

RE

by Steven Aitchison

Steven Aitchison Steven Aitchison is the creator of Change Your Thoughts (CYT) blog, he loves writing and speaking about personal development. If you want to learn more about his products you can check out CYTGuides.com or check out his books on Amazon.

2012 SEPTEMBER І 11

How to Stop Negative Self Talk

Do you know what makes life difficult?

The answer is simple: it’s us.

It is us, and that large and complex brain of ours that seem to seek out drama, repeat negative self-talk, create false illusions of fear, and generally makes our life difficult in almost all situations. Seriously.

E

very single struggle we experience on a daily basis; every complaint, every dissatisfaction, every problem can be drilled down into a single source of root cause: our brain and the stories it tell us.

Because our brain’s job is to keep us safe, it is constantly acting from a place of fear. Its job is to

12 І SEPTEMBER 2012

ensure our survival. As such, its job is not to ensure that we have a blissful experience while we are alive.

Even when everything is going well, a little voice in our head will say, “Watch out! Something bad is going to happen.” Then panic sets in, and we experience that unnerving anxious feeling of possibly losing all the good we have going for us. 

RECHARGE! Mindset Our brain is exceptional at telling us engaging stories that are so convincing that it’ll influence us to also act out of fear and irrational anxiety. Additionally, it will vividly replay the emotional story in our mental theater over and over… over and over… over and over.

It’s torture, really.

Before you know it, you’ll start to believe in the story and trusting it to be true. It becomes solidified in your mind in the form of a belief – even if it wasn’t true. We then continue our life’s journey and take action from that place of false belief.

The problem is…. we end up suffering.

Sometimes, we suffer a lot. Sometimes, we suffer for a long time. We suffer because we don’t realize that we are the problem and that we are also the solution.

My Story of Negative Self Talk

For the last year or so, I have been carrying with me the repetitive thought and heavy belief that “I am a bad mom.”

Like many of our self-defeating thoughts, it whispers quietly in our ears and its toxin spreads insidiously. We realize that it is there, but because it’s difficult to separate it from reality, we let it stay. Because our brain speaks with our own voice, it feels real and it feels true.

Anyway, in my example, I had believed it. I had bought its story. Feeling completely incompetent as a parent, I did what I could to stay busy and to stay away from my little boy. It was heart breaking.

I kept this secret silently tucked away in the privacies of my mind (and now you know it too).

Externally, people saw that I was focused on work – after all, lots of kiddies go to day care. Internally, my heart was crying. Truth was: I had buried myself in work because I didn’t think I could handle it. I was scared.

The more I stayed away, the more time I spent focused on work the worse I felt and the more my actions confirmed the affirmation that “I am a bad mom.” I was literally torturing myself.

Can you see that it’s a downward spiral? In these private mental wars we battle, no body wins.

Having gained the conscious awareness that this little thought was the reason why I had put my son in day care and why I suddenly felt compelled to focus on my career, it felt like waking up from a bad dream.

Looking at my precious little boy (almost 2 years old now), who radiates life so fully and with so much joy,

I feel a surge of emotions–a mixture between feeling guilt for having “missed” a year of his life and feeling deep appreciation for having learned this valuable lesson.

I put my forehead against his soft little forehead, his light brown eyes looking straight into my soul and I gently whispered, “I love you Booboo. From now on, I promise to enjoy EVERY moment with you.

Mama understands now.”

With that, I decided to stay home with my son once again. I decided to work out my schedule such that I can be a full-time mom again. No more drama.

No more (mental) lies. No more (self) abuse.

I get another chance at this important “job”, except this time without illusions, without guilt. Through its ups and downs, I want to be there, fully. ~~~ Even before I was a mom, there was always something non-supportive running through my head, and often I would believe it. And this belief into a false statement about myself would cause so much pain and zaps much of my vital energy. I would feel cut off from life and it significantly limited my ability to feel happy.

I think the last thing before “I am a bad mom” the limiting thought running in my mind was “I am not lovable”. Even just a few weeks ago, while standing in a room of strangers at a conference in New York, feeling alone, the thought that kept running in my mind was “I’m such a loser. No body likes me.”

It doesn’t make sense, and it even sounds silly when we talk about this openly. But I genuinely believe that thoughts like these hunt each and every one of us to some capacity. Whether we are conscious of these thoughts or not, they do affect us. 

Because our brain’s job is to keep us safe, it is constantly acting from a place of fear 2012 SEPTEMBER І 13

Everyone has certain positive characteristics And they do hurt us.

Now, I don’t think these thoughts will ever go away, which is ironic, since this article is on “How to Stop Negative Self Talk”. While we can’t completely stop the negative self-talk, we can work towards a new reality where we stop believing in all this negative self talk.

We can do our best to practice awareness in recognizing when these thoughts are happening, and choosing to not buy into the abuse.

We can say, “Thank you for sharing.” Or “Cancel.”

Or simply recognizing that our brain is like a crazy, drunken monkey that says really stupid things, and that we really shouldn’t take it seriously.

What about you?

What unsupportive thoughts are you hearing on repeat in your mind? What self-defeating, abusive and limiting statement is your brain trying to convince you (or have convinced you) to be true?

Stop for a minute from reading and reflect. What were you worried/stressed/anxious about recently (or right now)? What thoughts have been racing on repetition in your head?

Take inventory. Take notice. Then shine the light of awareness upon it. When we are facing the light, the shadows must fall behind us.

Here are some common thoughts:

I’m not good enough.

I’m stupid.

I’m ugly.

I’m too fat/tall/ short/young/old.

He/she’ll never love me.

I am a horrible person.

I never have enough time.

I can’t …

I am not lovable.

I am a bad parent.

There is something wrong with me.

I don’t deserve …

All of these (and more) are illusions fabricated by our mind, which significantly limits our capacity to fully enjoy life. When we get lost in the story, we miss the gifts nestled only in this moment.

This moment, after all, is all we have. Once we lose it, it’s gone forever.

So savor it.

Drop the story. Be here now.

by Tina Su

Tina Su Tina is the CHO (Chief Happiness Officer) at Think Simple Now. Think Simple Now was created in late 2007 as part of her personal mission at the time to bring more fulfillment and happiness to the lives of others. Over the past few years, through the Think Simple Now, she was able to explore various issues in her personal life, which have allowed Tina to grow tremendously on her own path to self-leadership and personal mastery. In 2007 and prior, she was a confused, over-worked, ambitious but tired success chaser. She was obsessed with the concepts of motivation, financial freedom and anything on self-improvement. She attended numerous seminars, read countless books, started businesses, and put many of the learned success principles into practice.

14 І SEPTEMBER 2012

RECHARGE! Mindset

Deflating Self Esteem I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but I have tuned in to a few episodes of American Idol over the years. I, like most people who watch that show, love the first few episodes the most.

For those who aren’t familiar with the show, the first few episodes are filled with people who think they can sing only to find they are so sadly mistaken.

So why is that show a hit, year after year, no matter who happens to be hosting, singing, or judging? It’s because we don’t tune in to watch any of that. We tune in to laugh at your kid.

Standard parenting practice is to tell our kids from an early age how special and great they are at everything they do. Every picture they draw is the greatest ever. Every coffee mug that looks like an ashtray belongs in a museum. Every kid gets a soccer trophy.

And I get angry.

The idea is that if our kids believe they are incredible, they will become incredible. That all they’re lacking is the self-confidence, which is different than selfesteem, to reach their highest potential.

And again, I get angry.

I think this does a disservice to our kids. If our kids are terrible at soccer, they shouldn’t get a trophy. They should get a clarinet. None of the other kids are fooled.

None of the other parents are fooled. Everyone knows the kid is the worst one on the team.

Fifteen years later they’re auditioning for American Idol because nobody had the courage to be honest with them and let them know their singing sounds like a cat in a blender. And we all take turns laughing at them from the comfort of our sofas.

I understand part of this thinking is in response to sullen kids who think so little of themselves they don’t try, and therefore don’t accomplish, anything.

I think we all agree this isn’t a good thing, and something can and should be done. The problem is what we’ve chosen as our tool of correction (self-esteem) won’t get us the result we want. Just watch the exit interviews with the Idol wannabees as they’re broken and humiliated because their parents bought into a false system.

Now what?

The first step is to correct a misunderstanding.

When most people think of the opposite of self-esteem, they think of self-loathing. Those are not opposites. They actually share the same center point. They both revolve around self.

The opposite of self-esteem is “others-esteem”.

It’s not thinking of self first, but of others first. Service.

Servant leadership. Self-sacrifice for the good of others. You know, all those things we claim to value in our society.

I’m not sure how we can claim to value those things, and want our kids to demonstrate those traits, then raise them with a self-esteem model that puts that kid at the center of their universe (a weight they were never meant to carry). It seems to me it doesn’t work that way, and we all know enough bratty kids to cement this conclusion if we’d be honest with ourselves and look around.

Nobody can escape the self-esteem culture. How has it influenced your parenting? How has it influenced you?

RE by Dean Mehrkens

Dean Mehrkens Dean is a husband and father of eight who is dedicated to helping families identify, clarify, and achieve their goals of lasting happiness and fulfillment. His passion for family success drives him as a life coach, author, and human being.

2012 SEPTEMBER І 15

RECHARGE!

Health

Paternal Guardianship Might Be the Reason of Frequent Illnesses of the Child 16 І SEPTEMBER 2012

RECHARGE! Health In a well-to-do family a child is often taken thorough care by parents and grandparents. However, they do not suspect that by creating almost sterile, hothouse conditions for their child, they play a dirty trick on his or her health. You can notice that in a prosperous, problem-free family the child is often ill. The kid is a frequent visitor to clinics and hospitals, while neighbors’ children living in much worse conditions, not getting all the best, are ill very seldom. What is the reason?

I

t is very simple. All secret hides in our immunity. Let’s take for an example such a simple, but mass disease as cold. As it may seem the reason is obvious: it is viral respiratory infection, exposure to cold, walking in wet weather, etc. However, everything is not so easy. Today we can find a lot of baby food jars on the shelves: from cheap ones up to very expensive products. Parents start stuffing the baby with these juices, purees, adding syrups, vitamins, but the result is far from the expected one. It is clear that any product gone through the heat treatment, conservation, is not the best food. A baby needs natural products, it is much healthier to cook fresh juice or puree from raw fruit and vegetables. Of course, baby food in jars is very comfortable, but it is not the most useful.

Nevertheless, we use it to save the time needed for cooking.

It does concern meat products too. It isn’t difficult to cook some pâté from fresh meat for your kid, a meat grinder has not been a luxury good for a long time. You self-made food for sure will be of the better quality than any other preserved one. You should remember that by stuffing your children with such things as chips, sweets, soft drinks, you

definitely undermine their health. None packaged or bottled juice can compare with fresh-made juice from raw vegetables and fruit. In real a child does not need any supposedly useful syrups, it is nothing but the advertising. Doctors will help you to make the diet for your child sufficient to give everything she or he needs. Children do not need any additional syrups or dragées, do not listen to commercials!

In general, these products are given as additional medicines when the health is poor. Do not forget that manufacturers do not care for you in the final analysis, they are interested in the profit most of all. That is why new products are launched, new vitamins, etc. all in the fight against competitors and for profits. Commercials influence you with low-pressure, assuring that your child can’t live without this new vitamins. In fact, all necessary vitamins can be taken from good nutrition. Many doctors think that additional vitamins are needed only as treatment of some diseases, everything other depends on food.

By the way, you shouldn’t be carried away by exotic fruit; doctors often blame them for diathesis development. Trying to feed your child with the most expensive and, at your opinion, most useful food, you can damage his or her body seriously. It’s not a seldom thing to see 

2012 SEPTEMBER І 17

change drastically, as result of any change a cold is caught. Also some parents tend to limit kid’s activity.

What would be if the baby falls? …if he or she sweats?

Of course, he or she will, if you wrap the baby up so warmly! Even slow walking will become a workload which will lead to overheating. Children’s clothes should not hinder movements. Remember! Kid is active, moves all the time outside, and it should not be a problem if he or she will fall in the snow with naked hands. Young body will manage it easily.

However, you should know the limit. Having noticed that your kid is tired of running about, of jumping in any weather, you should bring him or her home. The child will sweat whatever you will put on. Of course, there is no need to pull the child outside in a snowstorm or severe frost. It’s good to draw the line at everything.

Downpour is also not the best time for walks. Meanas children are fed by sausages, frankfurters, salami, smoked, pickled food, thought to be delicacies. But if we read the content of sausages, for example, we can see lots of spice and flavorings. With these ingredients only children of 12 can eat such food, but not the 3-years-olds. These foods will not be useful for a little kid. You can include in this range all kind of sausages, salami, and it is better to forbid all smoked food. The same situation is with drinks. More natural is the food healthier it is.

The second factor influencing our children is walks.

Parents sometimes walk their kid, having put on him or her too warm clothes that the poor child looks more like a spaceman in a heavy, uncomfortable spacesuit, hindering movements. This kid would fall flat on its face, as a spaceman on the Moon. When you see sometimes as a mom undresses her child, you will notice that the kid sweats as after a sauna. This mom would say you that all these clothes she put on because her baby is often ill, but she does not understand that overdressing leads to all these illnesses. Every change of temperature, every little draft will bring this child to the cold.

The case is that you walk with your child only in a good weather; you keep him or her almost in the same temperature of the environment. The child’s body does not know that temperature can

18 І SEPTEMBER 2012

By limiting the child, you do not prevent troubles, but push him or her to it while, you should remember that it’s better to cut the time of walk up to the minimum than to refuse it at all, it will be a peculiar resistance to the cold. That is why some children stay at home and get ill, and others are running in the rain, walking in the puddles and do not get any cold. Outside the child moves and the body gets to be more resistant to the cold. Not the same with the “home” child that takes cold only by having wet feet.

You should pay attention at the education of cleanness and excessive passivity of the child. The passivity comes from our constant punishments and calling up to order, when he or she is active. It is easier for us to seat the child down in front of 

RECHARGE! Health a TV or PC and to show a cartoon. The child reaches everything, breaks it down, tear it. But his or her mind needs activity, to know the world. By limiting the child, you do not prevent troubles, but push him or her to it. You turn the interest to knowledge to TV or computer. It is a separate conversation. The subject of excessive cleanness is more critical. For example, a child in a village, in the country will not get some infection on picking up berries from some bush in a clean forest or an apple from the tree. The only question is if the hands are not dirty. An apple from a shop, brought from the place far from cities, hardly has enough pathogenic bacteria to cause any acute intestinal inflectional disease. Meanwhile some parents wash everything, scald with the boiling water, and give it by small pieces as from a sterile spoon. As result the child body is not acquainted with many infections, bacteria, microorganisms. This body does not know how to fight them, and immunity is weak.

As usual, it’s better to draw the line. While going to some exotic countries where there are lots of different pathogenic microbes, well-known to the bodies of local people, but not for yours or your child’s one, you should be careful. By the way some part of immunity the children bodies get from mothers. All the measures would not be excessive. It is not a secret that coming to a holiday from northern or western countries to Egypt, Thailand, Mexico or anywhere else, many healthy people catch some unpleasant intestinal disorders. The reason is that the set of pathogenic microorganisms differs from that one in the place of your origin. Nothing might happen if you take up a fruit from the floor in your habitat and eat it. However a fruit just washed under running water, bought, let’s say, on an Oriental bazaar, can easily bring you to a hospital. That’s the reason doctors advise to process fruit bought on markets. You don’t know where they came from, whose hands they were taken by. Anything could be on these fruit.

You should always remember the child knows the world by his or her own mind. The child’s body also discovers the world; learns to adjust to the environment.

And if the kid grows in a sterile box with constant tem-

perature, no vitamins will help him or her to get a strong immune system.

If to say it in simpler words, vitamins and microorganisms coming in sufficient quantities in the body are the weapon against illnesses.

Our immunity is responsible to fight against the illness, to win in with the help of this weapon, but if the immunity is not acquainted with this process, no weapon can help.

Well, the reason of many diseases should be found not in the heredity, there is no need to look for the guilty person and blame the family members. The reason could be in your love to your child. By wishing him or her only the best, you can damage the kid in the worst way. And as it’s known childhood illnesses can badly reflect on the heath of the person when he or she becomes adult. That’s why doctors are so worried that almost 90% of six-seven year olds have some chronic diseases. The sad thing is that in the majority of cases the guilt lays on parents, who try to do their best for the children in their own way. But they are wrong.

by Healthy Lifestyle News

Healthy Lifestyle News Healthy life – happy life. Here you will find tips to preserve and improve your health, healthy food recipes, news of medicine and pharmacy, safe cosmetics, and more. Healthy news – everyday. Learn more at www.healthy-lifestyle-news.com

2012 SEPTEMBER І 19

Coffee Every Day Keeps the Dementia Away C

offee is a daily ritual for many Americans, providing that extra get-up-and-go before starting their routines. But, coffee could be more than just a good way to start the day for older individuals at risk for dementia; daily coffee consumption protects against the development of dementia, according to a new study.

The study, completed at a Veterans Affairs Hospital in Florida, was a retrospective evaluation of 124 people aged 65 to 88 years. At the beginning of the study, all patients underwent a battery of neurologic and cognitive tests and were categorized as having normal cognitive function, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), or dementia. Fasting blood samples were also taken at the beginning of the study. The researchers assessed the participants’ cognitive functions annually for the next 2 to 4 years. At the end of the follow-up period, the participants were categorized into five groups based on cognitive function: initially normal function and remained normal, initially normal but converted to MCI, initially MCI and remained MCI, initially MCI and converted to dementia, and initially dementia and remained dementia.

The researchers assessed caffeine levels at baseline and compared them to the cognitive function of the participants over time. At the beginning of the study, patients with MCI and dementia had lower plasma caffeine levels than those with normal cognitive function.

Over the course of the study, patients with normal cognitive function who converted to MCI had lower caffeine

20 І SEPTEMBER 2012

levels than those who remained normal. Similarly, patients with MCI who converted to dementia had lower caffeine levels that those who remained MCI. Of the patients initially classified as MCI, none of those who converted to dementia had plasma caffeine levels above 1200 mg/mL. Half of the participants with stable MCI had higher levels. The authors suggest a protective effect above the threshold of 1200 ng/mL 

RECHARGE! Health of caffeine – the equivalent of consuming 500 mg of caffeine or 5 cups of coffee daily.

Caffeine is not the only factor that contributes to the development of dementia. Coffee itself is rich in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds that reduce the risk for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Also, lack of physical activity or cognitive engagement and hypertension also

fects on cognition, while regular, caffeinated coffee did, suggesting that there are other components in coffee that synergize with caffeine to ward off dementia.

No study on the effects of caffeine on dementia has proved cause and effect, but the studies are observing increasingly quantifiable results regarding caffeine consumption, and future studies are likely. For now, older adults at risk for dementia should not replace all other drinks with coffee (there are other health risks associated with that much coffee consumption!), but an extra cup o’ joe with some friends could do more good than harm.

References

Arendash GW, & Cao C (2010). Caffeine and coffee as therapeutics against Alzheimer’s disease. Journal of Alzheimer’s disease : JAD, 20 Suppl 1 PMID: 20182037 Cao C, Loewenstein DA, Lin X, Zhang C, Wang L, Duara R, Wu Y, Giannini A, Bai G, Cai J, Greig M, Schofield E, Ashok R, Small B, Potter H, & Arendash GW (2012). High Blood Caffeine Levels in MCI Linked to Lack of Progression to Dementia. Journal of Alzheimer’s disease : JAD, 30 (3), 559-72 PMID: 22430531 Cao C, Wang L, Lin X, Mamcarz M, Zhang C, Bai G, Nong J, Sussman S, & Arendash G (2011). Caffeine synergizes with another coffee component to increase plasma GCSF: linkage to cognitive benefits in Alzheimer’s mice. Journal of Alzheimer’s disease : JAD, 25 (2), 323-35 PMID: 21422521 Ritchie K, Carrière I, de Mendonca A, Portet F, Dartigues JF, Rouaud O, Barberger-Gateau P, & Ancelin ML (2007). The neuroprotective effects of caffeine: a prospective population study (the Three City Study).

Neurology, 69 (6), 536-45 PMID: 17679672

by Jennifer Gibson

Jennifer Gibson contribute to the development of dementia.

This is not the first study to suggest that coffee may have therapeutic potential for cognitive function. The psychostimulant properties of caffeine have demonstrated reduced or delayed cognitive decline, especially among older people. But, it is still not clear if it is coffee, caffeine, or a combination of the two that provide the protection. In one study, caffeine solution (not coffee) and decaffeinated coffee did not show protective ef-

Dr. Gibson, PharmD, is a practicing clinical pharmacist and medical writer/editor with experience in researching and preparing scientific publications, developing public relations materials, creating educational resources and presentations, and editing technical manuscripts. She is the owner of Excalibur Scientific, LLC. Reprinted with the permission of BrainBlogger.com

2012 SEPTEMBER І 21

RECHARGE!

Positive Directions for Life

by Shirley Garrett

Be Careful What You Swallow

H

ave you taken your vitamin today? Natasha Turner, ND reports, “More people are taking nutritional supplements than ever before. It is estimated that over 100 million Americans take vitamins on a regular basis.”

Most people are unaware there is a difference between pharmaceutical grade and regular grade supplements. Pharmaceutical grade vitamins fall under the same stringent FDA guidelines as pharmaceutical drugs. The others fall under the FDA guidelines for food, which means they are fit for human consumption. Quality control is an important factor in the safety of the products you consume.

In 2003, I began taking Total Body Liquid Vitamin, which I purchased from my local health food store.

I used this vitamin for five years with great results.

I trusted this product completely.

In 2008, I became ill with gastrointestinal flu-like symptoms. I sought treatment at an urgent care facility near my home, after my fever spiked to 103-degrees and I developed a rash. My flu test came back negative. The doctor told me, “It must be a virus.”

The symptoms continued for weeks. In addition, I would wake several times a night with painful leg and foot cramps.

The Saturday before Easter of 2008, I became violently ill. I was on my knees once again paying homage to the porcelain throne. When I could muster the strength to stand, I walked to the garage on trembling legs and told my husband, “I think I’m dying. Take me to the emergency room.” I felt as if my insides were shaking apart.

Six hours later, after numerous tests, the emergency room doctor told me I was the “sickest, healthy person” he had ever seen. He admitted he didn’t know what was wrong, however I felt better, because he treated my dehydration.

My sister-in-law Betty saved my life. She told me to check the FDA website for recalled products. The liquid vitamin I was taking was on the recall list, because it contained “200 times the label value of Selenium per dose and 17 times the label value of Chromium per

22 І SEPTEMBER 2012

dose.” Both of these trace elements can kill a person if consumed in higher than normal amounts. I stopped taking the vitamin immediately and made a report on the FDA website. I hoped this would be the end of the ordeal and I would have a full recovery.

The vomiting, diarrhea, and leg cramps subsided about the time that my hair fell out. Due to my baldness, I chose to wear a wig. My energy level remained low. A friend once described me as the “Eveready Bunny on a happy pill.” Now I was moody and needed a nap several times a day. I was too ill to consistently run my counseling practice. When you own your own business if you don’t work, you don’t get paid.

While I was still grieving the loss of my hair, my fingernails fell off. The tender, rough skin under the nails would catch and pull on surfaces causing a raw, stinging pain. I coped by wearing bandages on every finger.

Eventually my hair and nails grew back, but my hair was now primarily gray. When my hair was about an inch long, I stopped wearing the wig. Due to my short hair, cancer survivors wherever I went, offered hugs and empathy.

When my fingernails had nearly grown back in, my toenails fell off. Weeks later my nails grew in, but they had ridges. Any attempt to grow my fingernails past the nail bed, would result in a painful split up the nail.

I have accepted reality; I will have deformed nails the rest of my life.

Once again, I thought the ordeal was over. However, three years later, in 2011 my doctor told me I had Type 2 Diabetes. My overnight fasting blood sugar results were elevated. I was not overweight, ate right, and exercised regularly.

In an article in the Journal of Nutrition, 2009, Dr. Saverio Stranges of the Warwick Medical School in England, reported that his study findings suggest a correlation between elevated blood levels of selenium and an increased risk of Type 2 Diabetes and high cholesterol.

My doctor prescribed Metformin for three months.

Miraculously, the medication gave my body a chance 

RECHARGE! Positive Directions for Life to heal. I now have normal blood sugar levels without the use of medication, but I still monitor the situation on a regular basis. Who can predict what future health problems will develop from this Selenium and Chromium poisoning?

I am not alone. There were over 197 cases of poisoning reported due to this product. Total Body Essential Nutrition, Inc. distributed Total Body Liquid Vitamin to 16 states and sold its products over the Internet.

My advice to the public:

 Use pharmaceutical grade vitamin products when possible.  Check with your doctor or pharmacist about interactions between prescribed medications, vitamins, and herbs.  Natural doesn’t mean a product can’t hurt you.  Don’t assume if a little is good, more is better.

Keep in mind that you are consuming nutrients in the foods you eat, so don’t push the maximum levels on a supplement. Your liver and kidneys have to filter this overload.  Be wary of supplements that come from countries known for poor quality control standards.  Check the FDA website weekly for lists of medications, supplements, and food items that have been recalled. www.fda.gov

To the people who work in the vitamin and pharmaceutical industries, I applaud you. You are in an industry that requires precision and high quality control standards. Most of the time, you do your job well. Your products improve the quality of people’s lives across the globe, just as Total Body Liquid Vitamin did mine for five years. I hope my story inspires the pharmaceutical and vitamin industry to maintain high quality control standards in the future, so the people who trust their health to this industry, won’t suffer needlessly. As for me, I am just happy to be alive to share my story. I am grateful for each day.

Shirley Garrett Dr. Shirley B. Garrett, Psy,D, LPC, DAC combines her experience in marketing and sales with over 25 years of experience the field of psychology, to offer insights to the business community. She is interested in the people factors that affect productivity and quality control. She is available for keynotes, breakouts, consulting and personal coaching. Contact her at DrGarrett@PositiveDirectionsLLC.com. Visit her website: www.PositiveDirectionsLLC.com

2012 SEPTEMBER І 23

RECHARGE!

Doctor’s Diary

Health advice from Dr Kem Thompson

Tips To Help You Finish Strong This Year!

T

he year is almost up.

Decide right now to finish STRONG. Here are 10 tips to help you do just this.

1

Set and Write Down your 90 day goal Now

What is your big picture goal?

Where do you see yourself in 3 years?

Where do you see yourself in 1 year?

Where do you see yourself in the next 90 days?

It is this 90 day goal that you will focus on for, well, the next 90 days.

Get crystal clear about this goal because clarity pulls you to action.

Write down what it means for you, to achieve that goal in the next 90 days.

Why do you want to be, have or do that goal? Keep asking yourself 'why', until you get to the core reason you have for wanting that goal.

This is so important because once your 'why' is clear, the 'how' or the 'what to do' will become even clearer.

So get clear, get writing.

2

Believe you can do it

3

Plan Your Winning Strategy

Whatever you've written as your goal, you must cultivate a strong belief that you can do it.

Regardless of your past record, regardless of what others say, you CAN do it. Your desire to do it proves this.

Believe you can achieve your 90 day goal and stick to that story! It will happen according to your faith.

Come up with a plan of action for achieving your goals. Break this down into weekly action steps then daily ones. This way you can measure your progress on a daily then weekly basis. Remember, days add up to weeks, and weeks add up to months.

24 І SEPTEMBER 2012

So set time aside to plan this just as diligently as you would plan a family vacation, say.

4

Start a Tracking Journal

5

Commit, be dedicated, be persistent

6

Take massive action

The best way to assess your progress is to track it.

So get a notebook and start keeping record of your daily actions.

What areas are you focusing on in the next 90 days?

Start keeping tracking journals in each of these areas.

This will expose the time wasting activities you're doing, and motivate you to get back on track before it's too late.

This is a powerful tool yet so simple to implement. As the last Mr Jim Rohn would say – that's the trouble with it: it's also easy to neglect.

This speaks to that power within you to stick to the plan no matter what.

Tolerate no excuses or time wasters This is your life, your goal you're working on. Nobody else can do this for you.

Eliminate or at least minimise distractions: be brutal in protecting your time.

Daily remind yourself of your commitment, and your reason for being thus committed.

You WILL reach your 90-day goal, no matter what. That should be your attitude.

Then stick to the plan no matter how you feel.

Be a winner: take appropriate action whether or not you feel like doing it.

You've written your goals. You've got an action plan.

Now go TAKE ACTION! Massive action means going beyond what you've written down as being necessary to reach your goal. 

RECHARGE! Doctor’s Diary It implies going the extra mile in everything you do, pushing yourself just that little bit extra each time.

Within 24 hours of writing your plan of action, BEGIN acting on it. Get the momentum started and going.

Remember, your aim is to finish strong this year. so give it your all out effort.

7

Reward yourself for each successfully completed action step

Don't wait til the end of the 90 days before you reward yourself for your achievement.

Begin with the first baby step on your action plan list: Each day you accomplish all baby steps, do a little something to celebrate – or you could give yourself points then reward yourself for the points at the end of the week.

The reason for this is that each action completed is a step closer to the 'big goal'. Without these baby steps, you've got no 90-day goal accomplished.

So you've got to celebrate each baby step. This not only keeps you motivated and encouraged, it makes the process fun.

8

Cut out all distractions

Your tracker will expose these.

A distraction is an activity that does not directly or indirectly contribute to your goal.

MIndless net surfing, FaceBooking, Tweeting, chatting with anyone that crosses your door, answering every single phone call, checking your email a hundred times per day, ...these things can steal your time and kill your dream. They can also grow into the big dream killer: procrastination.

So avoid these and be focused on your goal, advancing in its direction in all you do.

9

Aggressively manage your time

Time is one of your greatest assets, and it's lost once it's gone.

Every minute you spend either pulls you towards your goal or away from it.

Therefore make every minute count.

This awareness empowers you to say 'no' to things or people who don't fit in with your desired goal.

Just for the next 90 days, be brutally disciplined about what or who you give your time to.

10

Be thankful

Gratitude is a powerful mental state to be in because it causes you to attract more

Daily remind yourself of your commitment, and your reason for being thus committed things to be grateful for. It also is a conducive state for massive action. Refuse to dwell on things that have gone wrong or don't seem right in your life.

Rather focus on the things that ARE going right, and be grateful for them daily.

Also, remember those baby steps? Be grateful for each one you successfully accomplish. Be thankful for the ability to even do them.

Starting a gratitude journal is a great way to keep you thankful: you could at the end of each day, write down at least 5 things you've been thankful for in the past 24 hours. Look at your list first thing in the morning, and give thanks.

Your gratitude will also keep you focused on your goal, and on the good things happening on your way to achieving it.

11

Speak It Into Being!

I love giving bonus tips!

So here's one: affirm your goals as having been accomplished. This helps you stay focused on the goals, and trains you to keep thinking about the goals. This in turn helps you stay on track.

Refuse to speak ill of your desired goal. Engage your mind, your mouth and your actions so that they are aligned with your purpose.

Do the above and you WILL finish strong this year!

Dr Kem Thompson Dr Kem Thompson (MBBS, Dip. Performance Coaching, MRCGP) Family Doctor, Author, Speaker.

Learn more at: www.doctorkem.com

2012 SEPTEMBER І 25

RECHARGE!

Wealth s y a D n r u T to r u o Y d n u o r a d n a s e c n a n Fi e f i L r u o Y e v e i h s l Ac a o G g n i g n a h C

30

26 І SEPTEMBER 2012

RECHARGE! Wealth Do you want to:  Become debt free  Buy a house  Pay off your mortgage  Take a break from work to travel, work on a volunteer project or learn a new skill  Afford your dream wedding All this and more can be achieved with the Money Saving Challenge – a simple 30 day programme for turning around your finances and re-structuring your life – enabling you to afford the things you really want.

Perhaps you thought you would never become debt-free or that owning your own home would always be a distant dream? The aim of this challenge is to provide you with 30 straightforward steps towards restructuring and streamlining your life, so that you can achieve your dreams and ambitions.

Start The Challenge Today

If you are feeling properly motivated to be able to afford the things you really want, you won’t want to waste any time – so let’s get started.

Day 1 – Set a Single Goal

Decide what you want to achieve. Maybe you badly want to get out of debt, perhaps you are renting and want to save a deposit for a house, you may even be bored of work and want to take a few months off to travel or you have a burning desire to start you own business.

Each of these wants and needs can be defined as goals, but trying to achieve all of your goals at once is impossible, so instead prioritise what is most important to you and focus on achieving one single goal at a time.

The goal you choose will be the focus for your first Money Saving Challenge.

To help put this into perspective, my wife and I want to buy a larger home. There are other things that we want to do, but for the time being our focus is saving to afford the place we really want.

Knowing that there is a reward for all our hard work and saving, gives us the motivation to make the shorter-term sacrifices.

Without a tangible goal or any clear knowledge of what you want to achieve, it becomes very difficult to motivate yourself to save.

Here are two useful posts to help you with your goal-setting:  How To Set (and Achieve) Challenging Financial Goals

 Savings Goals – How To Ensure You Get Want You Want!

Day 2 – Create a Budget

With your goal defined you’ll know where you want go, but without a budget you won’t know where you currently are (financially speaking) or be able to track your progress to your goal.

Budgets enable you to do a bunch of other useful things too, such as:  Understand what you earn each month  Clearly see what you spend each month  Determine whether your monthly spend is greater than what you earn, and if so, by how much  Calculate your total savings and your total debts  Identify ways to cut back on your essential and non-essential spending To help you create your own budget, here is a free budget template and a guide on creating a budget that actually works.

Day 3 – Create a High Level Plan

Hopefully you have set yourself an ambitious goal for the challenge. If it is ambitious, then it will probably take some time and effort to achieve.

Breaking big challenges down into smaller chunks helps to make them much more achievable and setting dates or milestones for when those chunks need to be completed, provides a plan to work towards.

If the goal is to buy a house, the milestones may look something like this:  Save 20% deposit (as this is such a large part of the process, you could break it down into submilestones by value – e.g. save £5,000, save £10,000, save £15,000, save £20,000, etc)  Save 3% stamp duty  Save 2% buying costs (solicitors and search fees, etc)  Search for property  Secure mortgage  Make an offer  Complete the sale  Move in Try to keep the plan in a nice and simple format:

Milestone and date Milestone and date Milestone and date



2012 SEPTEMBER І 27

Anything more complicated, just becomes a pain in the backside to create and maintain.

Day 4 – Set Your First Monthly Savings Target

Use your budget to determine what you can realistically afford to put into savings each month and set this as your initial savings target.

Don’t be too disillusioned if you can’t afford to save much to begin with, as there are a number of financial tactics in this challenge to help boost your savings.

Day 5 – Begin Tracking Daily Spend

Most of the spending information required for your budget will come from your bank and credit card statements, but keeping a spending log for a couple of weeks will provide a useful insight into your small day-to-day spending and may reveal some excellent money saving opportunities.

There is a spending log attached to the free budget template that can be printed off.

Day 6 – Start Reducing Your Essential Costs

To boost your monthly savings target it is now time to get all business-like and begin slashing costs.

Use your budget to identify your essential monthly costs. These will include mortgage repayments or rent, council tax, food shopping and commuting.

Starting with the most expensive monthly cost, look for ways to reduce it and then move onto the next highest cost to try and reduce that and so on.

Here are some money saving ideas for inspiration.

Cutting your big costs will involve a bit of work and may take you out of your comfort zone, but the potential savings from reducing mortgage repayments or spending less on commuting will greatly out-perform the small, frugal savings that many people waste their time with.

To find out more, read this post on achieving more from your money saving ideas.

Day 7 – Start Reducing Your Non-Essential Spending

Non-essential spending goes beyond rent, bills and groceries. It covers hobbies, holidays and other fun stuff. Technically you could live without it and save a lot more money, but life would pretty grim then!

Instead, try to achieve a balance between having fun and saving.

28 І SEPTEMBER 2012

So if you are spending a large proportion of your money on clothes or socialising, try reducing the amount you spend by half for one month and find alternative, no-cost ways to have a good time.

Another good approach is to use the envelope budgeting technique. Set yourself a monthly allowance for your fun money and just after pay-day withdraw one month’s allowance from your bank and keep it in an envelope. As you spend you will see the tangible scarcity of your cash and will only want to spend it on the fun things you value the most.

Day 8 – Learn The Basics Of Wealth Creation

Start broadening your financial knowledge by reading The Wealth Creation Pyramid.

Day 9 – Cancel Unused or Unnecessary Monthly Subscriptions

Paying monthly subscriptions for different services, such as Sky, Love Film, mobile phone contracts and the gym can eat up a large proportion of your available cash.

Often they can be easily substituted by much cheaper alternatives, for example:  Sky = Freeview  Love Film = the local library  Mobile phone contracts = pay-as-you-go phones  Gym = running or cycling Unless you honestly believe you are making the most of the service you are paying for, cancel it and instead put the money towards your savings goal.

Day 10 – Gather Together Your Online Money Saving Tools

Bookmark a selection of comparison, cashback and voucher code websites into your web browser. Then use the sites as part of your search for better deals on utilities, insurance, travel and shopping.

Here are some more resources to help get the most of these money saving sites:  Voucher Code Websites – Do They Really Save You Money?  How to Find Cheap Car Insurance  Gas & Electricity Comparison Sites

Day 11 – Find Out What Financial Freedom Is

Take another break to improve your financial knowledge.

This time read The Rules of Financial Freedom. 

RECHARGE! Wealth Day 12 – Progress Review

We are nearly half-way through the challenge, so it is probably a good point to stop and review progress so far.

By this point you should have:  set a goal  created a budget  produced a high level plan  set a monthly savings target  started collecting information on your daily spending habits  started to reduce your essential costs  started to reduce your non-essential costs  cancelled any unnecessary subscription services  learnt the basics of wealth creation  gathered a collection of online money saving tools  found out about financial freedom Make a note of the savings that you have been able to make so far from the money saving ideas you have implemented and from the subscription services you have stopped.

Remember regular progress checks are a great way to ensure you stay on track to meet your goal, so get into the habit of regularly checking your bank balance and updating your budget.

Day 13 – Sort Out Your Paperwork

Buy yourself a simple lever arch folder and a packet of ‘polly pocket’ plastic sleeves. Then gather together all your financial documentation from under the bed, behind the sofa, in the kitchen drawer and everywhere else that paperwork gets left for want of a better place.

Sort your paperwork into two piles:  One pile for keeping  One pile for documents that you don’t need Then simply start putting the pile for keeping into the plastic sleeves in your lever arch folder. Shred anything in the other pile that has confidential information on it.

Then put your folder in a safe place, ready to access next time you need to look at your car insurance, mortgage details, P45, etc.

Day 14 – Review Your Insurance Coverage and Warranty Policies

With your freshly sorted folder of paperwork, review your insurance coverage to ensure you have ade-

quate cover to match your lifestyle. You may want to consult with an independent financial advisor to run through the options and pro’s & con’s with you.

Next, if you previously took out some sort of gadget insurance for something like a new phone, consider whether you still need it. If not, cancel it and save the £7 or so quid a month instead.

The same goes for extended warranties on electrical goods around the home. Do you really need five years extended warranty on a £90 hoover? All of these small insurance and warranty policies start to add up, so try to streamline what you can.

Day 15 – Get a Dose Of Saving Inspiration

Read the blog post How We Paid Cash for Our First Home. This story took place in a part of the US where house prices are proportionally cheaper than the UK, but still provides a great target to work towards.

Day 16 – Create a ‘Get Out Of Debt’ Plan

Getting out of debt may actually be the goal you are trying to achieve in this challenge or it could be one of the steps you need to take to reach your goal.

People often talk about good debt and bad debt.

Good debt being money borrowed to buy something that will either retain or grow in value – for most people this will be a property.

Bad debt is money borrowed to buy things that will lose their value – such as cars or televisions.

Your own personal circumstances and goals will determine whether you want to pay off your mortgage as soon as possible or focus on other financial priorities – there are pro’s and con’s to both choices.

However paying off all other debts (such as credit cards, car loans and overdrafts) should be a major priority – simply because the interest charged on debts heavily outweighs the interest that can be earned on savings.

To find out more about creating a ‘get out of debt’ plan, read the three step approach to clear your debt.

If you don’t have any debts (excluding your mortgage), simply jump to the next step in the challenge.

Day 17 – Open a Savings Account

If you don’t already have one, open up a savings account or a tax-free savings ISA and use this to store all the money that you save from streamlining your spending. 

2012 SEPTEMBER І 29

Keeping your savings in a separate account from your day-to-day current account, makes it easier to manage your money and reduces the temptation to spend.

If your goal is to clear your debts, then skip this step for the time being and simply focus on putting as much money into your monthly repayments as possible.

Day 18 – Automate Your Saving

start a part time business. Read these articles for some ideas:  Who Else Wants a Profitable Sideline Business?  Weekend Business – How To Create An Incredible Product To Sell  Weekend Business: How Louise Is Growing Her Niche Guinea-Pig T-Shirt Business

Once the savings account is set-up, create a standing order to automatically move the sum of your monthly savings target from your current account to your savings account just after pay-day each month.

Day 23 – Get a Dose Of Earning Inspiration

Day 19 – Review Current Savings and Investments

Day 24 – Progress Review

If you already have savings and investments, check that you are getting the best value in terms of fees, returns and tax efficiency.

Often new financial products come onto the market with better deals to entice customers from their existing savings accounts and ISAs, so you could be missing out on an opportunity to make your money work harder for you.

Day 20 – Ask For a Pay Rise

Slashing costs to create more money for your savings goals will only take you so far. So if you want to really boost your savings, you will need to start earning more money.

Asking for a pay rise is the first step towards increasing your income, but before you ask read this blog post: How to Convince Your Boss that Giving You a Pay Rise is an Absolute No-Brainer!

And if your boss says no, then it might be time to start looking for another job. A couple of years ago, I moved jobs and managed to increase my salary by 20%. There is no reason why you couldn’t do the same.

Day 21 – Discover The Skills Employers Are Looking For

Have you got the high demand skills that employers are looking for? The ability to demonstrate the right skills to employers will have a direct impact on your salary.

Read this blog post to find out what employers are really looking for in their potential recruits.

Day 22 – Investigate Ways of Earning a Second Income

Another way to boost your income and provide yourself with some protection from redundancy is to

30 І SEPTEMBER 2012

Read this article by Paul Graham on how to create wealth.

As we approach the last few days of the challenge, it is worth having a final progress check.

By this point you should have:  set a goal  created a budget  produced a high level plan  set a monthly savings target  started collecting information on your daily spending habits  started to reduce your essential costs  started to reduce your non-essential costs  cancelled any unnecessary subscription services  learnt the basics of wealth creation  gathered a collection of online money saving tools  found out about financial freedom  sorted out your paperwork  reviewed your insurance coverage and cancelled any unnecessary policies  got a dose of saving inspiration  created a ‘get-out-of-debt’ plan (if relevant)  opened a savings account (if relevant)  automated your savings (if relevant)  optimised and savings or investments your currently own  asked for a pay rise  discovered the skills that employers are looking for  investigated ways of earning a second income  got a dose of earning inspiration Update your notes on the savings made from your money saving ideas and any subscription services, insurance policies or warranties that you have cancelled. Modify your monthly savings target to reflect these changes. 

RECHARGE! Wealth Day 25 – Have a Good Ol’ Clear Out

Day 29 – Make a List Of All Your Other Goals

Day 26 – Create a Visual Reminder Of Your Goal

Day 30 – Subscribe To The Money Saving Challenge Blog

Less is more as they say and whilst the amount of stuff you have in your home is not directly related to your finances, a clear out will give you more space, make you feel better about yourself and could even earn you some money on ebay or at the local car boot sale.

Once you have had your clear out, you could even introduce a ‘one in, one out’ rule to keep a tab on impulse buying. For example, you can only buy a new coat, if you get rid of an old one.

If your goal is ambitious, it is likely to take a while to reach it. So it is important to keep yourself motivated in the long-run.

One way of doing this is to produce a visual reminder – maybe a scrap book containing pictures of particular homes and furnishings that you like, or a collection of pictures to depict how your wedding should be.

Alternatively it could be a ‘debt-free barometer’ that you stick to your fridge and update as you pay off your debts and get closer to your goal.

Day 27 – Find Out About Long-Term Saving

As it is the last knowledge day of the Challenge, there are two articles to read about saving for the long-term:  Why I Have a Pension  Save a Million Pounds

Day 28 – Stop Worrying About Perfection

I’ve written before about the 80% rule of perfection.

Better to start something and only get it 80% right, rather than failing to start at all for fear of getting it all wrong.

Take opening a savings account. Yes you can scour the market looking for the best rate of return and weighing up all the other buying factors, but this is time consuming and most people have got better things to do with their lives.

So have a look around a few option, but then just pick what looks like the best and start saving into it.

There it is done – you now have a savings account set up, which you can always change in the future if a better deal comes along.

Perfection prevents productivity and getting things done. Instead, create your system and then continuously improve on it.

This challenge focuses on saving towards one goal at a time. At some point you will achieve that goal and need to know what to work towards next.

People tend to have lots of goals, both short and long-term and it is good to get them written down, so that you can begin planning when to meet them.

This does not need to be a big strategic exercise, just some estimates (nothing perfect!). Some of my goals are 30 years away and are just one or two words, but it is nice to have them written down.

Written specifically for young professionals in their 20s and 30s, the Money Saving Challenge will keep you enthused and informed as you charge on through to meet your life changing goals.

So make sure you get all the latest updates: Click here to subscribe by email Click here to subscribe by RSS

30 Days Closer To Hitting Your Life Changing Goals

The excellent work you have done over the last 30 days will set you in good stead towards achieving your life changing goals.

With streamlined spending, automated saving, increased earnings and a ruthless focus on achieving your goal, you could be buying that house, boarding that plane or walking up that aisle sooner than you think!

Remember to keep on working through your budget to find money saving ideas, keep regular progress checks and keep out of debt.

Here’s to your financial freedom!

by Donal Suter

Donal Suter In between running his project management consultancy, Donal Suter is busy writing for the Money Saving Challenge, a personal finance blog that focuses on gaining control of your finances, boosting your income and saving for big, life-changing goals and experiences.

Learn more at www.moneysavingchallenge.com

2012 SEPTEMBER І 31

RECHARGE!

Dave Says

Q&A with America's Leading Personal Finance Expert

Fix it or sell it?

Dear Dave, My old car has been having lots of problems lately. Do you have any advice on how to decide when it’s best to just fix an old car or get a newer one instead? ~ Kristin Dear Kristin, This is a good question! Mathematically, the first thing to look at is the car’s worth if you don’t make repairs.

Should you spend $1,000 to increase the value of the vehicle $500? Dumb question, right? At that point, you sell the car as-is and put the $1,000 it would take to fix it toward something newer.

On the other hand, let’s say you’ve got a little hooptie worth $1,000 but by putting $500 into it, you can have it up and running again. Suddenly it’s worth $2,500. That’s money well-spent, because what you’ve done has significantly increased the value.

The other side is that at some point, the hassle factor of an old car can turn it into a money pit. If you can’t get anywhere because the car’s always busted, then you need to find something else for the sake of safety and reliability. If this happens, though, you should still pay cash for a better car. Even if you’re not taking a

32 І SEPTEMBER 2012

step up in price or fanciness, it’s still better than taking on a car payment. I’d walk or ride a bike everywhere before I did that! ~ Dave

You lacked clarity

Dear Dave, About 17 months ago, my wife and I allowed a lady who had lost her home to a fire to move into an empty house we own and had thought about selling. During that time she’s made no effort to pay rent. My wife wants to write it all off and just give her the house and title, but I think she owe us something for putting a roof over her head.

What do you think? ~ Thomas Dear Thomas, Honestly, I think you handled this situation poorly from the very beginning. From what you’re telling me, you put her there originally on a charity basis, and now you want to change the deal. You didn’t say anything about giving her a house, but you didn’t set up a rental agreement either. And now you’re acting like she owes you 17 months of back rent. I don’t think so. I think that’s on you.

RECHARGE! Dave Says Now, you have some decisions to make. Were you providing free housing to someone who was struggling, or were you providing a free house to someone who was struggling? I understand this lady has experienced a terrible tragedy, but even with that, I’m not hearing lots of evidence that she’s moving toward gaining control and getting her life back together. You may be giving a drunk a drink, if after 17 months of this situation she’s not back on her feet again and out on her own.

If it were me, I’d sit down with her and have a gentle talk. Let her know the last 17 months were a gift, but you want to see her making her way and winning at life again.

Set a reasonable time limit, whether it’s six months or even a year, and tell her you’ll be selling the house at that point. This is fair to her and to you guys as well. ~ Dave

Is accountability the key?

Dear Dave, I’ve been working the Baby Steps and doing a budget most months. But how does someone who is single stay motivated and focused with something like this? It feels sometimes like it would be easier if I had someone holding me accountable. ~ Rick Dear Rick, The first thing is to make sure you do a written budget each month. Not once in a while, not most months—every single month. If you don’t draw the out-of-bounds markers, there’s no way to know when you’ve stepped over the line, right? A monthly, written budget becomes your self-accountability tool, especially when you’re single.

Still, there’s nothing wrong with introducing a little accountability into your life. You don’t have to be married to be accountable to someone other than yourself. Ask a good friend or maybe even your pastor to have a look at your plan and see what they think. Just make sure this person is someone who knows a little something about money and finances.

Honestly though, Rick. I think doing the Baby Steps and following my plan can be easier for sin-

gle people. Think about it this way: You don’t have to talk someone else into coming along for the ride.

You also don’t have to come to an agreement with someone else on everything financial. All you have to do is get serious, look in the mirror, and say, “Quit being stupid with money!” In other words, you just have to do it.

Admittedly, you don’t have the built-in accountability in a singles situation. But on the other hand, you don’t have someone calling you a doofus when you mess up! ~ Dave

Don’t pay it!

Dear Dave, My brother was killed earlier this year, and my mom is finalizing his estate. He had a couple of federally insured student loans through Sallie Mae totaling $8,000 at the time of his death, and the attorney probating the estate says mom now has to pay off those loans. Is that correct? ~ Callie Dear Callie, I’m so sorry to hear about your brother. But no, your lawyer is not correct. Payment for federally insured student loans is not due upon the borrower’s death.

They are waived.

I’m going to give you two pieces of advice. The first is to fire your attorney. We’re talking about basic knowledge when it comes to probating an estate here.

If he got that wrong there’s no telling what else he’s told you that’s off the mark.

Second, you can take care of this by sending a copy of the death certificate to Sallie Mae. I’ll warn you ahead of time that it may take a while to jump through all their hoops. I mean, you’re dealing with the federal government. They’re not exactly known for getting things right the first time. But once you’re declared permanently disabled or you pass away, federally insured student loans are discharged and not held against the estate. Don’t pay it! ~ Dave

Dave Ramsey Dave Ramsey is America’s trusted voice on money and business. He’s authored four New York Times bestselling books: Financial Peace, More Than Enough, The Total Money Makeover and EntreLeadership. The Dave Ramsey Show is heard by more than 5 million listeners each week on more than 500 radio stations.

Follow Dave on Twitter at @DaveRamsey and on the web at daveramsey.com.

2012 SEPTEMBER І 33

RECHARGE!

Think Right about Your Money

by Ellen Rogin

Prosperity Minded Kids: 10 Keys to Raising Kids with Positive Money Habits

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hat if your kids could grow-up having a healthy relationship with money? Imagine the benefits for them if they did not have any of the baggage that most adults have when it comes to money, investing and financial decision making. Would they choose careers that they love as opposed to ones that they think they should be in? Would they fight less with their spouses about money? Would they be generous, charitable and financially responsible?

Here are ten keys to bringing up financially well-adjusted and prosperity-minded children:

Share your values with your children.

Help them to understand the link between identifying what is important and spending. For example, if education is a value in your home let your kids know that you are deferring spending money today so that you can put money away for their education down the road. Or, if you are planning a family vacation (in alignment with the values of travel and time together) find an example of not spending money today (such as going out for dinner) so that you can use this money instead on your up-coming vacation. When money is spent indiscriminately kids will learn to be unconscious with money. Instead, teach them to be deliberate.

Stop whispering; money doesn't need to be such a secret. People are so terribly secretive about money. I'm not suggesting that you need to divulge every little detail about your financial situation or financial woe, but open up the conversation about money with your kids. Let them know when you are investing. Explain what's happening in the economy today and how this affects you. Now, more than ever, your kids are picking up

34 І SEPTEMBER 2012

money messages. Instead of letting them overhear a conversation (and possibly get too worried or concerned) use what is happening as a way to educate them.

Express Gratitude. Even in the most difficult of times there are things we can be grateful for. Teaching your kids, no matter their age, to focus on what they are thankful for is a wonderful way to put money in its place. Most nights before we go to sleep we share with our kids 5 things that we are grateful for. Rarely is what we share material in nature. Instead our kids often list things such as: I am grateful that we are a family; I am grateful that we are happy, healthy and safe; I am grateful for my friends; etc.

Teach your kids to be willing to do what it takes to get what they desire. Are your kids willing to take action to meet their dreams and goals or do they expect things to just come to them? In our efforts to make our children happy sometimes we have failed to teach them that often you need to work for what you want. I believe that when we are clear on what we desire in life, what we desire often comes to us easily; it doesn't mean that we don't have to be willing to do what it takes to accomplish our goals.

Show them that having fun doesn't always involve spending money. Does all of your family entertainment have a price tag associated with it? Instead of going to sporting events, movies, plays or shopping as a way to spend family time together find ways that don't cost anything. Playing board games, going for walks or playing games outdoors are ways to spend time together, have fun and they don't typically have a financial cost associated with them. These are often the activities that, no matter what age your children, they will value and remember the most. 

Right aboutPerformance Your Money RECHARGE! ThinkRECHARGE! Be dedicated givers. Giving to others is one of the best ways to not only share our values with our children, but also to help them focus on their blessings. Whether you volunteer as a family or make decisions on charitable contributions as a family you are helping your kids realize that one of the blessings of money is being able to help others.

Guide them to become life-time learners. Learning throughout our lives keeps us growing and contributing. In the areas of money, show your children that you are still learning and share with them ways to learn. This may involve reading newspapers, magazines or books. Or, it may mean attending lectures or periodically watching the financial news. The world is always changing and we should all be constantly learning about new opportunities.

about the allocation of this money. A portion goes into their piggy banks for long term savings (later to be brought to the bank for deposit into their accounts), a portion goes to help others who are less fortunate than we are, and a portion is for them to spend. Over time, I have seen them learn about saving for larger purchases. My daughter enjoys counting the money she has saved for spending, and accumulating enough for a big purchase. She has learned that the more she saves, the more choices she has when she decides to spend this money. We talk about spending money on things that she truly values. (Which is not always on things that I value, but this is part of the learning for both of us.)

Be aware of the messages your children are picking up and the words you use when talking about money. Children are amazing at picking up on the messages, even those that are not verbalized. What are you really teaching your kids about money? Are you teaching your children that money is scarce, rich people are bad or financial decisions are frightening? Do they see you arguing about money with your spouse? Be aware and deliberate on how you discuss money with them and around them. You are incredibly influential in forming their future beliefs about money. Do your best to make sure the messages they are picking up are healthy ones.

By being conscious of what we say and do with our children regarding money, we can help them form positive money habits they will have for their entire lives.

Does all of your family entertainment have a price tag associated with it?

Train them to use their minds to picture the results they desire.

Our minds are amazing tools. We have the ability to mentally rehearse the results that we desire and substantially improve our ability to realize these outcomes. Athletes have used visualization techniques to enhance their performance for many years – teach your children to do this as well for any goal that they have, including financial goals.

Consider giving your children allowance. Allowance is a great place to start teaching your children practical lessons about money management. Each family has to make a decision about what age to start giving allowance and how much money to give. Our children started receiving allowance in kindergarten. We set very specific guidelines for them

Ellen Rogin CPA, CFP® Ellen shows people how to be great with money. Through over 20 years as a successful entrepreneur in the financial services industry and as a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM professional, Ellen understands that many people have an uneasy and complicated relationship with their money. People undergo great anxiety as well as great joy in their financial lives.

Ellen is hired by corporations, women's initiatives, organizations and associations to take the complex area of money and make it easy. Learn more about Ellen at www.ellenrogin.com

2012 SEPTEMBER І 35

RECHARGE!

Women, Wisdom & Wealth

by Karen Jenkins

Steps to Living within Your Means

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1

Create a budget. Budgeting is by far the most important and most effective step you can take to control of your finances. It’s a simple process of making a list of all of your monthly expenses and projecting what you will spend each month. Base your spending on the amount of money that you have coming in each month. As you make decisions on what you will or will not purchase during the month, refer back to your budget. If an item is not listed on your monthly budget, you may not be in a position to purchase it right now.

iving within your means was a practice that was not difficult to achieve in the early 1900’s. Families based their spending on a cash basis which meant they could not spend more than the cash they had on hand. If they needed to purchase a high priced item, they were required to SAVE up enough money to purchase the items in cash.

Although invention of credit cards can be traced back to the 1920s, the concept of the credit card as we know it today was just being introduced in the United States around 1946 when a bank began the first bank issued credit card program. Since that time, the credit card industry has grown tremendously. The introduction of credit cards to the masses allowed individuals to spend more money than they earn on a monthly basis and repay the money over time. Add to this new credit card phenomenon the shift towards consumers that practice “immediate gratification” spending and you can easily see an entire country that is living well beyond their means.

With the recent economic crisis, it's more important than ever that we begin practicing personal fiscal responsibility. The days of “Keeping up with the Joneses” has come to a screeching halt as we saw the financial trouble the Jones got themselves into.

Anything from maxed out credit cards, being laid off to possibly facing foreclosure, the Jones have taught us that we need to go in another direction financially.

The Credit Card Act of 2009 provided regulations to protect the consumer; however it is up to the individual consumer to educate themselves and take measures to ensure they are not falling into the notorious debt trap.

Save up for large purchases. Instead of placing a large ticket item on your credit card account, see if you can delay the purchase until you can save up enough money to pay for it in cash. You can also find out if the company offers a layaway plan.

This program is becoming popular again and allows you to make payments on the items before you get them from the store. The great thing about a layaway plan is that when you pick you your merchandise, it’s paid for in full.

Here are 5 basic steps to assist you in being able to “Live within Your Means”:

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2 3

Practice the “Shop for 24 hours rule”. If you are shopping and run across an item that you would like to purchase (especially a large ticket item), determine if it is a need or a want. Do not make the purchase at that time. Give yourself 24 hours to help you determine if it is something that you truly NEED right now or if it is something you want. If it is a NEED and will not require you to purchase it using a credit card proceed with the purchase. If not, do not make the purchase right now. Add it to your budget and save up to make the purchase in cash.

Practice moving away from “immediate gratification”. As a country we have been hypnotized by the marketing advertisements on television, 

RECHARGE! Women, Wisdom & Wealth radio and the internet. The commercials are impactful and if you are not careful, they will convince you that you need to buy the product they are selling, rather you need it or not. Take control!! You make the determination as to if you really need the item or not.

5

Teach your kids. One of the most challenging things for parents is trying to teach their children that money does not grow on trees.

Keep in mind that children are some of the best sales people in the world. As they rarely take no for an answer the first 5-7 times. That’s why you find many marketers targeting your children in their advertisements. They know that if they can’t convince you that you need an item, your child surely can.

Typically your children will try to wear you down, until finally you decided to give in. Don’t do it!! Work with your children and help them understand the concept of savings. Show them how to earn money around the house doing chores and save their own money to buy the items they want in cash. You will be surprised how much pride they will take in themselves and in the items that they were able to purchase with their own money. This practice also teaches them patience and will hopefully get them

Karen R. Jenkins

away from the “immediate gratification” syndrome that most adults face today.

By applying these basic tips you should be in a position to live comfortably within your means. Remember, it isn’t how much money you make, its how much money you get to keep out of what you make.

For a free copy of a sample budget form and more helpful tips on living within your means, visit: www.NobodyToldMeOnline.com.

Karen R. Jenkins, Speaker, Author and Financial Consultant Karen R. Jenkins is a speaker, consultant and author of Nobody Told Me! The Path to Financial Empowerment. She is the principal of KRJ Consulting, Training and Development, providing solutions to increase effectiveness, productivity and retention. For more information or to book Karen email info@KarenRJenkins.com.

Consultant

•

Speaker

•

Trainer

professional speaker • expert in the financial services industry • author of Nobody Told Me! The Path to Financial Empowerment •

KRJ Consulting, Training and Development Providing solutions to increase effectiveness, productivity and retention Improve your team's overall effectiveness and develop a satisfied, productive and sustainable workforce!  Management/Supervisor Training  Communication Skills Training  Sales & Marketing Training  Train-the-Trainer Visit www.KRJConsulting.com to begin mapping out solutions for YOUR success!

 Core Essentials for Business Professionals  Career Development Skills  Workplace Essentials  Information Technology info@KarenRJenkins.com www.KarenRJenkins.com (803) 386-8028

2012 SEPTEMBER І 37

RECHARGE!

Social We All Need Someone to Lean On

38 І SEPTEMBER 2012

RECHARGE! Social

Since this will be a monthly journey for you and me it’s probably a good idea for us to get to know each other. My name is Kimanzi Constable and for the last twelve years I have delivered bread.

I

have to be honest and tell you that I’ve been miserable at this job for at least ten of those years. I wanted out and badly but I don’t have a college degree or any special skills, so I felt stuck.

I bought into the belief that you can separate what happens to you at work from the rest of your life.

I would have a miserable day at work and come home and my wife would say something that wasn’t even that bad but I would get mad. My kids were just being kids and played a little loud and I exploded.

I realized that when you spend forty hours (more for some people) of your week at work, it will affect other areas of your life. So I told myself enough was enough, I’m moving on to something better.

You know how that goes, right? I was all fired up for about two weeks then I made a lot of excuses to myself why nothing could change. It was about a year later when enough was enough and I finally decided to take action.

The company I worked for had gotten purchased by a larger company and the rules started getting worse.

I wanted to vent about what was going on so I turned to what I had loved when I was younger, writing.

As a side note, an ex-girlfriend told me she knew I was going to be a writer because I would write her love letters that were twelve pages, front and back  We still have a good laugh about that one.

I kept a journal and wrote down everything I felt, I would write and write, one day I looked at my journal and realized I had a lot of material. I just didn’t know what to do about it until I read a great article. I read a lot and came across the story of Amanda Hocking.

She was a C.N.A. in Minnesota who hated her job and loved to write. She wrote three novels and pitched them to agents and publishers, all of them said NO. She saw the success of Amazon and self-publishing so she decided to go for it.

She didn’t know what to expect so she put the books out to the world, got some book reviewers to look at the books, and promoted them through social media.

The first day the books sold something like eighty copies, the first week was over four hundred. After one month word started spreading and she sold over ten thousand copies of her books.

Before she knew it she had sold over one million copies of her eBooks and I thought if she could sell one million, I could sell at least ten thousand. I was pumped and ready to make my book an instant best-seller so I could quit my job that made me miserable!

I signed up for every social media outlet available and I think I even invented a few  I put the book out to the world and I called everybody I knew plus a bunch of random strangers and told them to buy the book.

I went through work that day as fast as I could (I don’t get paid by the hour) so I could get home and see how many copies the book had sold.

When I got home and logged on to Amazon I was shocked when I saw the number ZERO, what happened? I thought maybe Amazon didn’t update their numbers in real time, I researched it and found out they did, so now what?

I was confused because as I was getting ready for the book to launch a lot of people told me as soon as the book came out they would buy it, where were they?

I would check the numbers every three hours and it was the same result, no one bought the book. After a week I had three sales, after a month I sold eleven copies of my book, I was completely dejected and ready to give up.

This brings me to one of the two things I want to talk to you about this month, I was ready to give up on my dream, and the disappointment was too much. The only thing that kept moving forward was the support from my close group of friends.  No matter how strong you are as a person, we all need someone to lean on every now and then. Life can get overwhelming and we can encounter circumstances that are beyond what we can handle, it feels good when we can vent to someone we know and trust.

I’m blessed to have a group of three friends (one of them is my brother) that I can tell anything to, that no matter what they’ll be there for me. The good thing 

2012 SEPTEMBER І 39

about this group is that they’re honest, they’re actually brutally honest.

When the book didn’t sell and I was making every excuse in the world to give up, they called me out. When I was depressed, they cheered me up. They were the first three to buy the book, they are my biggest fans.

Do you have relationships like this in your life?

If you don’t or they just aren’t as strong as you like, then it’s time to get to work (easier said then done I know).

You may be strong but friends like this will only make you stronger, trust me.

After this initial failure and after my friends talked me into not quitting, I regroup and refocused. I figured out if anyone was going to buy this book, they would first have to know I was alive.

So to get some exposure I started doing the second thing I want to talk to you about this month: networking, especially through social media.

I didn’t have a big readership and I figured the best way to get noticed was to be featured on a larger website. So I started interacting with the owners of those websites and building relationships with them.

I met an awesome network of bloggers that talked about a lot of the same things I talk about. It started with a mutual interest and mutual goals then grew to more. As the relationships grew they would ask me to guest post or feature something they were doing and I would ask them to review or promote the book.

As they helped me get the word out and when I stopped spamming people about my book, a crazy thing happened: the book started selling! I went on to write a second book and from the beginning of this year until today the books have sold forty-five thousand copies and counting.

I owe it to that group of friends that didn’t let me give up and to the connections I made online and offline. Social media has been very kind to me and in turn I’ve done everything I can to help people get through what I went through.

It’s crazy how things work out because I started this journey to make enough money to get away from a job that I absolutely hated and that’s all I focused on. Once I crashed and burned I asked myself what I really wanted.

I started focusing on helping people get through their miserable jobs; I made real connections through social media and the web. I have gone on to start coaching people; I have consulted with companies on how to connect with their customers through social media.

I have started speaking literally all over the world;

40 І SEPTEMBER 2012

I have spoken in Australia and will be speaking in Germany, and Kenya, not to mention a lot of different states. When I go and speak at these conferences, do you know what I keep doing? I keep networking and making all sorts of new connections.

I know you’ve heard the expression “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” and that is absolutely true. So how have you been spending your time online and on social media?

Social media can be fun and it’s great to catch up with people but could you be doing more? You might have already made some connections that could help you get to the next level, tap into those connections.

So now you know where I am and how I got here. If you are in a situation that makes you miserable I want to give you this hope: you can find or create something that gives you freedom and provides value to your life.

I’m not sitting here telling you that once I made those connections that people automatically started buying the books, it took a lot of hard work and a lot of hustle.

If you are committed to not settling, working hard and reaching out to others, you can make a difference.

I hope that you’ll keep coming back to my column every month and I hope you’ll get tips and tricks that will help you better your life and this world. I started out wanted to be a writer but that desire has grown to something more.

Writing is the method I use to get to my bigger mission, truly helping people. If there is anyway I can help you, don’t hesitate to let me know! You can always email me at Kimanzi@talesofwork.com and I’ll do what I can.

So in closing I have to ask: who will you turn to for support? Are you building relationships and making connections through the social networks?

by Kimanzi Constable

Kimanzi Constable Kimanzi Constable is an author who has self-published two eBooks and sold over 45,000 copies. His first published book will be out this February. For twelve years he has worked at a job he has absolutely hated, last year he decided to do something about it.

He is an international speaker, coach and consultant.

His mission is to help people live the full and abundant life they deserve. You can find him at talesofwork.com.

Are you living the life you truly deserve? We're not guaranteed tomorrow so don't waste today, start claiming that life you always wanted. Before you take this journey, you need a road map, let this book be that road map! This book is the playbook IÂ used to quit a job I hated and started living out my dreams as a writer and international speaker, I wrote this book to show you how to do those things you've always wanted to do.

I’ve been a social media butterfly for many years now and even though the level of acceptance of these once so foreign networks has improved, there’s still one question being raised on a far too consistent basis: Can you really find true friends and build profound relationships using social media?

In the early days of social media, whenever we’d talk to “real” people about our online friends, we’d refer to them as our “imaginary friends”. It was a running joke among us early adopters, but a serious issue for most people.

The common conception was -and remains to this day- that relationships built online are superficial, weird and, well, imaginary.

And yet, those friendships saved my life. Twice. It doesn’t get any more real than that, does it?

So, to make a long story short: Yes, you can build profound relationships using social media. However, there’s one catch: You. You’re the one who is the driving force behind every action in your life (if not, we’ll have to have a completely different conversation) and with that, it’s in your responsibility and your hands to make the relationships you build online meaningful and worthwhile.

But how can you do it? How can you actually take a conversation that starts online and build a real, lasting and trusting friendship?

There are several ways you can go about it.

1

Be real

The most important thing in life, whether online or offline, is to be authentic and always congruent with who you’d like to be. If you want to make lifelong friends using social media, you can’t pretend to be someone you’re not. Not only will people notice, but you can’t keep up the game for long. So, don’t even begin it. Be the person you truly are and don’t think

42 І SEPTEMBER 2012

that because you’re hiding behind a computer screen, new found friends won’t eventually notice that you’re not who you’re claiming to be.

2

Be strategic

I realize that this may sound cold and overly business-like. What does having a strategy have to do with building lasting relationships? You’re right, on the surface it doesn’t make sense, but because social media gives us access to millions of people, finding true friends is done best by using a method instead of mindlessly surfing the web.

I have gotten to know most of my closest friends through one common denominator: a TV show.

I searched for people who shared my crazy obsession with Lost and found a loving community that welcomed me with open arms.

More recently, I’ve gotten to know friends through my passions for blogging, body image, entrepreneurship and traveling.

Naturally, it’s most likely that by simply engaging in your passions, you’ll end up finding people with similar interests anyway. But if you don’t, go out there, use forums, search for Facebook groups or Google+ circles that are based around your area of interest and start having real, passionate and fun conversations.

By having a common quest, worldview or passion, it’s so much easier to build a strong foundation for your future friendship. A shared hobby is not only a great conversation starter, but it also creates an ongoing base for interactions.

Of course, interests can change, but once the foundation is build, it doesn’t matter. You’ve dearly embraced the person and your friendship is so strong that it goes far beyond the surface level it once had.

3

Get personal

Once you’ve found some people who you feel comfortable with, it’s up to you to deepen the conversation and spark a friendship. If you feel like 

RECHARGE! Social you’re really connecting with a certain person and you’d like to get to know him or her better, simply write an email, a direct message or a private note.

Take your interactions from your hobby to more personal topics. You don’t have to reveal everything right away, but if you have an ongoing private conversation with someone, you can slowly get to know each other better. However, don’t push too hard and try to force a certain outcome.

Friendships take time to build and by slowly and steadily working on them, you can really create something valuable.

4

Take it offline

This didn’t happen overnight, nor did it happen by simply sharing what we had for dinner or which movies we’d seen lately. While this chitchat certainly was going on, we regularly had much more profound conversations.

At the same time, there have also been a few casualties along the way and I haven’t stayed in touch with everybody I connected online.

But that is the case in “real” life just as often as it is in the online world.

You get to know someone, share an interest with him or her and then share a few months or years hanging out, but it never really gets any deeper than that. After a while, the relationship ebbs away, no hard feelings, no special occurrences, just the simple way that life goes.

However, then there are the real jewels, the friends that stay around even though a shared passion might come to an end. Those are the ones worth digging for and those are the ones that make social media so very special.

by Anne-Sophie Reinhardt

One of the most effective ways to deepen and seal a friendship started online is to take it offline

One of the most effective ways to deepen and seal a friendship started online is to take it offline. Whether you choose to talk on the phone or meet in person is up to you.

While the concept of meeting friends you’ve made online may sound foreign or awkward to you, I can assure you that it is one of the most pleasant experiences ever. You know so much of each other, you’ve spoken with each other so many times, you’ve laughed with each other, maybe even cried with each other and you’re more than current on most of your friend’s life that meeting is like meeting your best friend for your regular cup of coffee.

I recently met a friend whom I’ve known for 6 years for the very first time. Hugging her, seeing her and actually connecting with her physically was an amazing experience, but at the same time, it was like we had met a million times before. It felt completely natural and easy.

The conclusion: I have certainly found friends for a lifetime by hanging out in online forums, listening to podcasts and interacting on twitter.

Anne-Sophie Reinhardt Anne-Sophie Reinhardt is an anorexia survivor, body image expert and the owner of aMINDmedia.

She empowers you to achieve a healthier and more successful life by returning to your true purpose and values. Learn more at www.aMINDmedia.com and subscribe to the newsletter at www.amindmedia.com/empoweredliving

2012 SEPTEMBER І 43

Protecting Your Children in the Digital Age

www.enough.com https://facebook.com/ help/safety http://www.internetsafety101.org

7 out of 10 children have come across pornography online Establish boundaries with your children and don't be afraid to check the internet history. When you notice a site that isn't on your, "approved" list, make sure to not immediately put your son or daughter on the defensive. Simply say, "I noticed X site in the timeline, do you have any questions about what you saw?" Allow your child to ask questions and increase dialog, this builds trust both ways. Remember – your house, YOUR internet rules.

http://www.safeteens. com

Online bullying is at an all-time high

http://kidshealth.org/ parent/positive/family/ net_safety.html

They call it, cyberbullying. Do you know what happens on your son or daughter's social networking sites? If you notice that your child has become withdrawn or angry, they may not be ready to talk about what's going on. As a parent, it's our job to step in and find out the true story, especially when their lives are at stake.

http://www.safewave. org http://www.usa.gov/ Citizen/Topics/InternetFraud.shtml

44 І SEPTEMBER 2012

Social networks aren't all to blame Social networking isn't the cause of today's internet problems.

It's merely an extension of the original problems. The original problem? Lack of dialog and support from parents and those children can trust. We are fully in control of our social networking profiles. Learn how YOU can lock down your settings and disable others from getting your personal information. 

RECHARGE! Social

F

acebook recently announced to the Wall Street Journal that the social networking giant is developing new software to monitor children under 13, allowing the smaller set to join the social network, (with limitations.) According to Consumer Reports, "5 million Facebook users are 10 and under." This practice currently goes against Facebook's TOS, citing that children must be 13, or older to use the website.

What exactly is up Facebook's sleeve?

Mechanisms being tested include connecting children's accounts to their parents' and controls that would allow parents to decide whom their kids can "friend" and what applications they can use, people who have spoken with Facebook executives about the technology said. The under-13 features could enable Facebook and its partners to charge parents for games and other entertainment accessed by their children, the people said." ~ (Source: WSJOnline)

Parents, have no fear… Facebook has a plan to dip into your pocketbooks and find out even more about your children than they already know. When you hear about this announcement, consider the recent rise and immediate fall of Facebook's stock.

What advertiser wouldn't want information about what games children are playing, what they are "liking" and their daily habits? It's truly a marketing dream come true! The bullying and risk of pedophiles aren't nearly as great as Facebook selling off your children's personal data to the highest bidder.

But... they wouldn't do that, right? Gone is the old disclaimer that Facebook never uses your image in advertising. This is now in its place:

Want to turn that off? Sadly, Facebook makes online privacy very, very, complicated. Did you know Facebook offers an "Account settings" and a "Privacy Settings" feature under your personal profile? To turn off advertisements and the use of your image, select, "Account Settings," then "Facebook Ads."

By selecting, "Edit third party settings," you will no longer allow third-party applications, websites and ads to use your content and likeness. Once you select, "Edit social ads setting," you'll turn off Facebook's "social ads," which will use your face, likeness and statuses with advertiser messages. But what about the content that seems to magically just show up in your stream like those pesky status updates showing the websites you're visiting and which articles you've read online? To turn off outside applications, select, "Apps" from the drop-down in "Account Settings." Like this:

I run very few applications with my Facebook. See the "x" located to the right of "Edit" on BranchOut? This means you can remove the application at any time. It is our job to monitor what applications we are allowing our personal information to stream to, not Facebook's.

Remember, Facebook isn't concerned about our privacy, it's concerned about its IPO. The more money Facebook makes off our personal information, the more profitable the team can become. I don't mind that Mark 

2012 SEPTEMBER І 45

Zuckerberg is a billionaire. He toiled over a cutting-edge product and make it adaptable to the masses. What I do mind is that he is now getting rich off my personal information. You can bet that until I am completely convinced that I know Facebook's privacy inside and out, I won't allow my young child on their website, not because she isn't trustworthy, or because I don't have the time to monitor her, but because of Facebook's track record with violations. In fact, just recently, the FTC sued Facebook over alleged privacy violations. Mark Zuckerberg even issued a Mea culpa over the violations and Facebook's determination to stay transparent. If you're a Wikipedia fan, head over to their page, "Criticism of Facebook."

Is Facebook an evil overlord? No. Do we have a right to be cautious? Absolutely. When we leave our houses, we lock our doors. Consider the fact that when you don't take the time to understand what platform you are using and how they are making money, alike to leaving your doors wide open for anyone to peek in and take whatever they'd like. Simply by using Facebook's platform, we are acknowledging that we have to play by their rules and their rules, alone.

Protecting your children and yourself in a digital age is no easy feat. Consider this scenario, since Facebook is going to allow children on its website, will you immediately publish your children's photos, their personal information and allow them a free-for-all?

Probably not. We don't give teenagers the keys to a car without first teaching them to understand the risks and safety precautions. Actually getting behind the wheel is the last part of the teaching process.

Would you allow your child to get in your car without a seatbelt? No Way! If you choose Facebook as an option for your family, make sure you have safety guards in place. Trust goes a long way with children. Create a Trust sheet with family passwords for Facebook and post in the kitchen, or in a place where your child and you both know about. Their seatbelt is the fact that mom and dad can create dialog about Facebook anytime. Just remember, it's all about how the question is asked. If you notice something inappropriate or unsightly on their page, although it might be difficult, always give your child the benefit of the doubt and state an open ended question.

"Sarah, I was doing the weekly Facebook check-in and I noticed one of your friends posted a picture of herself on your page. Was that embarrassing? Or is that the norm?" While your child may say, "Oh mom, that's nothing," it gives you an opening to express dialog about sexting, photos and healthy body image.

If you said instead, "Your friend Sarah is acting inappropriately. Delete that!" You might find a much less talkative daughter.

Wow your children with your knowledge and skill online

Protect your children online in these 3 easy, steps It's to realize the "cool" parents are usually not the best examples. When your child claims that another parent allows the use of Facebook, ask them, "Do you know how to protect yourself online?"

Tell your children that it is your job to educate and inspire them to make good choices. Visit FacebookForParents.org or connectsafely.org together and keep an open dialog. You might learn something from your child and they will surely learn something from you.

46 І SEPTEMBER 2012

Your house, your rules. Stop accepting that we need to conform to be a part of today's world.

Plenty of children do not use social media and I promise, they'll turn out just fine. By creating firm boundaries, educating yourself about privacy and Facebook's TOS, you'll be an even more amazing parent than you already are. Wow your children with your knowledge and skill, online. They'll grow up in an environment where mom or dad is comfortable and capable of empowering themselves online, you'll see more respect and dialog from your children about the evolving world of digital media..

by Kate-Madonna Hindes

Kate-Madonna Hindes Kate-Madonna Hindes is an industry leader, national author and keynote speaker on emotional Integrity, privacy and authenticity in today's online media.

361.geekett | (612) 501-8159 | www.girlmeetseeek.com | @girlmeetseeek

RECHARGE! Social

to

of Relationships There seems to be an A to Z of everything else – so why not relationships! Here we go...

A is for feeling alive yourself, so you add life to any relationship you are in.

For being amorous, adoring and letting go of anger. Think about how your Father and Mother reacted when they were angry and then look at your behaviour. Notice similarities?! Admire each other and yourself.

B is for your beliefs and behaviours.

What are your beliefs about relationships; and people of the opposite sex; about conflict and arguments; about money; fidelity; honesty etc etc. All the things you need to understand about yourself that might be driving your Behaviour at a deep level. It's also for your background – who you are and who is the other person.

What made them who they are?

C – how do you Communicate? Clearly? Honestly? Do you listen more than you speak – or listen before you speak?

Are you into Commitment? What are your feelings about commitment? Do you have Confidence in yourself and the other person? Are you their Champion? How do you handle Control? Is it an issue in your relationships? Be Compassionate with each other and love them in difficult times as well.

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" doesn't work in relationships! They want you to do unto them what they want you to do unto them! So ask 'what do I do that makes you feel I love you?' And what about our relationships with dogs! We unconditionally accept our dogs as dogs – we don't

look at them and scream 'I wish you were a cat!' – so can you love your partner like you love your dog? And have regular Dates – even after you are married!

How much Energy and Enthusiasm do you have? They are reported to be important components of sex appeal. How Exciting are you and how much excitement do you put into your relationship?

Does your Ego get in the way of love? How much Effort do you make to keep your partner interested in you – or have you become blase and take them for granted?

Be Friends First! Friendship keeps us in relationships far longer than lust!

Learn about each other, ask millions of questions; spend lots of time together.

Recognise your Fears and deal with them. Have Fun in a big way! And as much of the time as you can. The Fun Factor often flies out the window when financial pressures, children and mortgages take hold of our lives!

Focus on the good in your life and relationship rather than wasting hours dwelling on the not so good.

Generosity and goodwill will tide you through tough times. Give them the benefit of the doubt – and be generous with yourself – be generous with your spirit and your heart, not just your money. Grow together. As your life progresses, explore new dimensions, be adventurous and share new experiences.< Be Happy! In yourself and with life and show others you are happy. Be Honest – with yourself and others and give the ones you love in your life lots of Hugs – it boosts everyone's immune system. 

2012 SEPTEMBER І 47

Intimacy is an integral part of a lifelong partnership. Intimacy in many ways – not just physical. Make it safe for you and the other person to share their innermost secrets. Keep a part of you just for the other person – so they feel special. Be Interesting – keep active and have an eventful life so you feel and are – interesting company. Nothing worse than someone who bores you silly at the end of a day. Live with Integrity – to yourself and others and stick to your values.

J is for Joyful. Go through your day being joyful about life – even if it's not as perfect as you would like – you're still alive and the sun shines! Joint activities help keep you together – play sport together, learn to sail together. Do them!

Be Kind to each other and yourself!

We often travel through our days being kind to complete strangers and when we arrive home we turn into monsters! Because now we can 'relax' and in the process we forget basic gentleness and kindness.

Listen to each other – really listen, don't just wait for a gap in someone else's conversation to say what you want to say! Ask yourself 'what does this person really want from me' and as Stephen Covey says 'listen with your eyes for feelings'.

Laugh lots! Lighten up and don't take yourselves too seriously – life's too short! Love yourself and each other unconditionally. Keep Learning – it's the purpose of life. Learning helps you grow and develop; keeps you interesting and interested; fills you with wonder.

Magic Moments pass us by each day and we forget hundreds of them. Keep a book in which you write all those precious moments. In times of difficulty you can open it up and relive those moments and your body chemistry will change so you feel better. Have a massage once a week to eliminate stress – massage each other as well!

Make Memories! Create situations that will be special events in your life – times that will become treasured memories of wonderful times. Live out your and your partner's fantasies!

48 І SEPTEMBER 2012

Non verbal communication is much more powerful than you can imagine! Words account for 7% of the message being delivered to another. Be very careful of what you are thinking – or saying to yourself – when you speak because whatever you are thinking is being 'telegraphically transmitted' to the other person! You think you are hiding the fact you think they are an idiot or at fault – but you're not! They know!! Nurture yourself and your partner AND the relationship – it needs special nurturing to keep it alive.

Be Optimistic. It makes you more fun to live with; boosts your immune system; reduces stress; and generally makes life easier. Openness in your communication reduces misunderstandings and conflict. Have interests Outside your normal routine – hobbies, sport, history, archaeology etc.

Politeness is often forgotten once we are in a relationship! We are polite and delightful to complete strangers all day long and then we come home and become pigs! Play together – it's critical! Don't be too mature all the time – be silly and play sport or games (as in cards, charades etc) as a family and notice the bonding.

Where are your priorities? Work or home? Do you have time for a relationship at the end of the day? Do your hobbies absorb all your spare time with none left for the relationship? Patience will help you travel a long way on the path of contentment. Patience with yourself and others.

Give each other Permission to be who you really are and to live according to his/her own values and beliefs.

Have Quantity time – not just quality time. Quality time is a euphemism for no time! Any relationship needs time when we both or the family just mooches around together. It's during these times that special, unexpected moments occur.

Respect and successful relationships go hand in hand. We must respect ourselves first and then respect our partner (and/or children). It's a basic human need. Find qualities that you respect in another – look for them and then remember them in tough times.

Where would we be without romance? Make an effort to be romantic – it doesn't just happen. Plan for romantic weekends four times a year! Buy massage oils! 

RECHARGE! Social Stress causes more disruptions to our relationships than we realise. How do you handle stress? Are you allowing it to store up and kill you and your relationship? Do things to relax – daily and weekly. Make each other feel special (not to mention yourself) in whatever way the other person likes to be made to feel special. Support each other and stand up for each other in public and in private – not many people realise how important this little act is for your bond.

Be Thoughtful – do little things that let the other person know you are thinking about them. A quick phone call to say 'I love you'; flowers; take out the garbage without being asked; if your partner looks tired help them.

I'm sure you have many ideas that will spring to mind! Be True to yourself – listen to your 'inner oracle' (that means wise person inside your body!) and follow what it says.

Unconditionally accept each other! It's one of the BIG lessons in life – and very hard to really unconditionally love and accept each other. We can do it with our babies and toddlers and somewhere, somehow it disappears! Perhaps we can try looking at how we relate to our pets (especially dogs) and apply the same principles to our partner!

Value each other. Recognise the great things about each other and be aware of your own values. It's not easy to identify our values because no one really teaches us – we absorb most of them from our parents and they are such deep parts of us that we are often unaware of what they are. Be Vulnerable with each other – it's allows real intimacy. Respect and treasure that part of each other because it's a gift – that's what being vulnerable is – a gift from the other person. They are saying "I love and trust you enough to expose my most vulnerable bits'!

Being Wise selfish is something that Dalai Lama suggested we all practice. Whilst there are things we need to do for others – our partners, parents , children, friends – and some things we need to do for our relationship as an entity, there are also things we need to do for ourselves. To keep our energy levels up and to nourish ourselves so we can continue giving to others. Let the 'Winds of heaven' dance between you as

Kalahl Gilbran said in one of his poems – that is be together without collapsing into the relationship and losing all sense of self. Andrew Matthews, author of 'Being Happy' reminds us to focus on the Widow's list not the Wive's list. After someone dies or goes from our lives, we tend to remember only the good about them; but we focus on the other than good when they are around!

X – this is a hard one! Other than saying do X rated things – I could only come up with bathe yourself in an Excess of loving and happiness.

(Perhaps some alert readers can write and give us ideas on this one!)

Youthful zest is attractive and engaging – we grow out of it as we mature and think we have to be more grown up! Stop it immediately – and grow down. Y is for you – you are the most important person to have happy, healthy and contented; because when you are all those things, it radiates out of you and casts a warm glow on others.

Zing, Zing, Zing – that's what we need more of in our flings! The Zest, the life, the excitement and all those things I have written about in the A to Z of relationships.

Why not make up your own A to Z – see what you can come up with and make it a source of discussion in the family.

Zooties!

by Amanda Gore

Amanda Gore A communications and performance expert, Amanda Gore uses latest research in neuroscience, positive psychology, epigenetics, and emotional intelligence, to help business leaders achieve the results they need by getting people engaged in, enthusiastic about and aligned with conference and corporate goals and vision. And by creating joyful workplaces that lead to better performance. Amanda Gore© www.thejoyproject.com; www.amandagore.com

2012 SEPTEMBER І 49

RECHARGE!

Career Screw Your Career Pa th

r e Yo o t ur S

50 І SEPTEMBER 2012

y

L

iv

RECHARGE! Career

In my work, I come across plenty of people who stress about their career path. They worry that a recent job change, personal decision, relationship, or the inability to build some relationship may undo all that great career momentum they’d been so carefully building.

N

ewsflash #1: They don’t have career paths.

They never have. Neither do you. There is no such thing as a career path. What we have are career stories. And wrapping your head around that is the first step in having a successful career.

the only things that matter. We collect our gold stars and then ask how to get the next one: “What’s the next step in my career path after this?”

But those “career paths” we follow aren’t us.

They’re not even about us. They’re about someone else’s attempt to make managing us easier. (And what a job they’re doing!)

Career Paths: Pure Myth

In our race to fit the organization’s models, we’ve forgotten who we are.

Career “pathing” is a fiction, invented by HR practitioners and bosses trying to make their own jobs easy – for legitimate reasons – and reinforced by the technology vendors who support them.

Think about it: if you were in HR, responsible for the professional development of every individual in the company (amongst other things!), how many individuals’ “stories” could you keep straight in your head before they’d start to blur together? Inventing career “paths” lets companies cluster employees into a manageable number of groups: high potentials, management track, technical experts, pluggers (for example). Now, instead of managing all those stories, HR practitioners need only concern themselves with maybe four or five paths.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, we individuals forgot that we have the right – nay, duty! – to push the organization to refine its models. Because let’s face it: the average employee is about as real as the average household, with it’s 2.7 people.

But rather than push back, we embraced the idea of the career path and started force fitting ourselves to it. Now, we talk how they talk without giving it a second thought. We get excited about “high profile assignments” and “high-potential programs” as if those are

Instead of pursuing success, we pursue the path. We focus on gaming the system rather than going after what’s important. We blame The Man for not letting us do it Our Way, blind to the tragic reality that we did do it Our Way, and that Our Way was to give up control to The Man and bitch about his dumb rules.

We Suck

Newsflash #2:

You can’t game your career development while following someone else’s rules.

Ever.

You will lose, because in this game, the people who determine your success are the incumbents who get displaced when you win. This isn’t conspiracy theory stuff. It’s human nature. (Even good people who try to do the right thing are still human beings.)

Humans generally do not give up power once they have it. Interestingly, humans generally don’t give up a subordinate role once they have it, either. 

2012 SEPTEMBER І 51

Without any coercion from their superior, people who see themselves as victims tend to stay that way.

I’m not going to get into the (many well known) psychological studies that show this. Instead, I’m going to share a moment from my own life that highlights this dynamic and how difficult it is to break it: I was 17, a senior in high school. The details of my story are unimportant. The short of it is, there was a job to do in the house, my dad and I had very different ideas about the best way to get that job done, and right or wrong, I held firm in my position against him.

Yes, I caught hell for it, and deservedly so, but my defiance also changed our dynamic. Forever.

Looking back, standing up for myself seems like a simple thing, and yet at the moment, it felt like the hardest thing in the world.

Stand up to my dad?!

Surely, that’s not what I was supposed to be doing, right? Had the world gone mad… or just me? In that moment, I was totally off-script. I didn’t know up from down. And despite all the lessons I learned

from books growing up, it’s the lesson from that moment that I remember best.

Despite teasing me mercilessly about it, or maybe because of that, I know my old man was proud of me for making that stand. See, he couldn’t ever tell me to disagree with him. He couldn’t give me permission to fight him. He couldn’t help me fight him. Yet, he had known since the day I was born that such a day would come, and when it did, he’d want to know that as a dad, he’d raised a son who could hold his own under pressure.

Sure, on the issue itself, my logic was a clusterfudge of poor judgment, and he let me know that without pulling any punches (figuratively speaking). But in a different part of his mind, he was busy assessing something else: my ability to make a decision and to have the courage to stand by it. The way in which he tested my reasoning also tested my mettle.

None of this was conscious, but looking back, the test was unmistakable. 

There is no such thing as a career path.

What we have are career stories

52 І SEPTEMBER 2012

RECHARGE! Career Courage: The Missing Ingredient

When we go along with prefabbed career paths, we lose – entirely – this test-your-mettle half of the development equation. Courage only gets tested in the face of doubt, but when everything is organized as it is with a career path, there is no doubt.

Career paths may present tests and choices, but these are bounded. Controlled. They are not the tests that can teach us to stick to our guns in the face of grave doubts, because these paths have guard rails that prevent us from ever failing spectacularly.

Oh, you didn’t hit your stretch goal? BFD. Oh, you bet everything on a new program that didn’t work out and you’ll have to lay off 350 people whose only mistake was to believe in you? Now let’s see you get out of bed tomorrow.

People with power cannot help us with these lessons of courage any more than my dad could help me that night of our fight. It’s not because they’re not rooting for us; they often are our biggest cheerleaders. It’s because they are the incumbents who we must displace.

At the moment of our professional coming of age, their role changes from protector to tester.

They become dangerous adversaries with advantages in both knowledge and experience. And once they switch roles, they cannot take it easy on us. Which is OK: we need to know where we stand when the only thing holding us up are our own two legs. Greatness is not a club that lets us in easy. We have to earn our way in, and those inviting us to apply are often the very same ones guarding the gates.

Of course, all this stuff about courage is almost irrelevant for most people, because by the time they’re on a career path, they’re already living in some fictional version of the world where they can pretend such tests are unnecessary anyway.

Write Your Career Story

It’s time, as individuals, to remember that we are each protagonists in our own stories. Not fictional “career paths,” but real, live, actual, here-I-am-in-the-fleshstories. We are all currently living our own life stories, of which our careers are subplots. For some of us, these are major subplots, for others, not so much. But for none of us should this subplot overtake our bigger life story – especially if the subplot is reduced to a predictable, formulaic, linear path.

In fact, I defy you find any good story in which the main character lives his life start to finish in a predictable, formulaic way, as if led by a guide wire.

Stories don’t start until those guide wires break.

When you’re on a guide wire, you can’t have a story.

You’re nothing more than a supporting character.

You’re a flat, boring, two-dimensional device that exists only to highlight someone else’s excitement. Only protagonists can know surprises, friendship, obstacles, twists, victories, villains, daring, love, temptation, loss, luck, setbacks, choices, laughter, tears… only protagonists can know success.

So screw your career path. Cut your guide wire.

C’mon; let’s write your story.

Start by picking a goal. Actually, do this:  Take a sheet of paper and on it, draw the classic story line curve (known as Freytag’s Pyramid, which I’ve adapted by putting the resolution above the exposition. Because if you’re going to go through all the trouble, the result should be something better than you’re starting point!)

 At the end – not at the climax, but at the very, very end, at the conclusion/resolution – write your ending. This is what you used to call your “goal.” Make it a good one.  Have you written it? Yes? Congratulations: you have now just written the ending to your story. This is not a wish, not a maybe, not a conditional desire. It is the ending to your story. You have scripted the last scene of your movie, so to speak. It is written, and so it shall be. All you have have left to do now is to get there.  At the left side of the page, draw yourself as a stick figure. You have now begun your journey.  Put a dot on the curve where the rising tension starts. This point is called the inciting 

2012 SEPTEMBER І 53

Greatness is not a club that lets us in easy.

We have to earn our way in moment, and it’s where the guide wire snaps.

As with any story, you can’t possibly know what this trigger might be. Often, it’s a small thing you don’t think twice about. Sometimes, it’s even out of your control. Just know that it’s out there somewhere, and that someday, you’ll look back and recognize it. Then stop thinking about it. Seriously. You couldn’t possibly create that moment if you tried (unless you are one of life’s specialists and are living a pre-ordained life a la Owen Meany).In Rocky, Balboa’s moment comes when he gets chosen to fight the world champ in an exhibition fight – out of his control.

In Star Wars, Luke’s story starts when the droid his uncle chooses from the Jawas breaks, and they pick R2-D2 instead – at C3P0's urging. In Charlotte’s Web, a book filled with important moments, the turning point is an innocuous scene in which Fern sells Wilbur to her uncle for $6 – a move the pig knows nothing about.

None of these scenes feels terribly important when they happen, yet these are the moments that unlock the stories as we have come to know them. What unlocks your story will likely surprise you. Don’t fight it. Let your life unfold.  Rising conflict. Look at that slope you have to climb. Have you ever enjoyed a story where the protagonist whined the whole time about the tasks ahead of him? Of course not! Even in Romeo and Juliet, a tragic tale filled from start to end with regret, the characters are always pushing forward.

Rest assured, there must be conflict. No conflict, no story. Be the protagonist who embraces his journey and relishes the obstacles he faces – whatever they may be – as natural and expected parts of the story.

54 І SEPTEMBER 2012

Look, I don’t know if your story has a happy ending.

I have no idea how steep your path will be to your ending, or how spectacular your climax will be.

But I do know this: humans are not meant to follow career paths. We are not built to follow guide wires.

Birds are. Fish are. Ants are.

Humans. Are. Not. We are meant to live our stories. It’s when you let go of trying to control the path and simply live the story ahead of you that – win, lose, or draw – you ensure your own success.

Because when it comes time to walk out of this theater, regardless of whether it was a comedy, tragedy, adventure or drama, you will turn to the people around and say: “Wow. Did you see my life? Now that was one helluva story!”

And you will, at that moment, know what it means not just to have lived but to have loved, too, even if the only thing you loved was your story, and you know sure as you’re sitting there reading this that there is no greater thing you can achieve in life than that.

Here’s to your life story.

by Jason Seiden

Jason Seiden Jason Seiden is Co-founder and CEO of Ajax Social Media, a training company on a mission to help 1 million professionals learn to use LinkedIn and social media to drive business more efficiently. Learn more at www.jasonseiden.com

RECHARGE! Career

How to Handle the Inevitable Negative C-Wrker In just about every workshop I present, someone describes a co-worker with a bad attitude: one who constantly complains, puts others’ ideas down, or just makes everyone else miserable. The comments usually set a buzz around the room – because everyone has had to deal with negative people who bring them down. So, what can you do when other people sap your positive energy?

Let me assure you that you are not imagining the impact of a co-worker’s bad attitude on you. Negativity, depression and unhappiness are all contagious. Several years ago, Wharton (University of Pennsylvania) Management Associate Professor Sigal Barsade conducted an experiment. She had groups of students act as managers trying to agree how to divide up a fixed sum of bonus money among their employees. Unbeknownst to the groups, one of the participants was a drama student named Rick, who had been trained to act out a different mood with each group. In the groups where he exuded negativity, the other participants took on his bad mood, and as a result behaved less cooperatively.

Now for the silver lining. Positive emotions are as contagious as negative ones. Back to the Wharton experiment – it turns out that when Rick acted calm and happy, the rest of the group was pleasant and cooperative. “I was in the room,” recalls Barsade, “and it was palpable: you could just see the emotions being transferred among the students.”

Barsade’s conclusion: the more positive the emotion, the more the cooperation and the less the conflict.

So, how can you apply the findings from this research to your work situation? First, keep in mind that you cannot make anyone else more positive. This would be operating in what I call the “no control zone.” The reality is you cannot change another person’s thoughts, feelings or behaviors.

But what we do know from this research is that you can influence their emotions by being positive yourself. You act from the “influence zone” when you adopt a positive outlook, steer conversations away from complaints and griping and show the other person what’s possible by your

positive attitude. Will your co-worker change? Maybe, and maybe not. When you operate from the “influence zone,” you need to let go of the outcome. Instead of focusing on changing your co-worker’s attitude, focus on keeping your attitude positive.

Finally, remember that it is possible to stay positive in the face of someone else’s negative mood. This is your “control zone.” The trick is to be aware of your own thinking. You don’t have to buy into negativity. When your coworker is complaining, think to yourself, “What’s up with him (or her?) What’s his/ her problem?” Then think of something that makes you feel good. Keep your mood positive inside regardless of what is happening outside.

By staying aware of what is happening, you are no longer at the mercy of your co-worker’s attitude. With awareness, you choose how you want to think, feel and behave.

You are, indeed, a POWER Optimist!

by Dana Lightman

Dana Lightman Dr. Dana Lightman is an accomplished motivational keynote speaker and trainer specializing in the field of optimism and positive psychology. She brings over 25 years of experience as a presenter, psychotherapist, coach and educator to a wide range of audiences at conferences and conventions, corporations, hospitals, non-profits, universities and schools. As the founder of POWER Optimism in 2001, Dana published her first book, POWER Optimism: Enjoy the Life You Have…Create the Success You Want in 2004, followed by the No More Difficult People Series in 2011. Learn more at: www.danalightman. com; www.NoMoreDifficultPeople.com

2012 SEPTEMBER І 55

Do You Plan to Work in Retirement?

W

orking in retirement sounds absurd on the surface – I mean it isn’t really retirement if you have to work, is it?

But there are actually solid reasons to work during your retirement years, at least on a part-time basis.

This isn’t about being gloomy on retirement prospects either – it’s about being prepared for a world where outcomes are uncertain. And even if we can’t know what retirement will look like right now, we can still prepare ourselves to be ready for whatever it might be.

Why you might need to continue working past retirement

There is no shortage of reasons why we may have to work past retirement age. Consider some of these:

1

Statistics and surveys are indicating that most people don’t have enough money saved up to retire The future of Social Security is highly uncertain, but we can be pretty sure that benefits will be less than what they are now Traditional pension plans are hard to come by, and even if you do have one few people stay on jobs long enough to make them work the way they’re supposed to. Job losses are hampering retirement account contributions

2

The financial markets don’t always cooperate with our long term plans Planning some sort of post-retirement career is one way to de-

56 І SEPTEMBER 2012

velop a backup plan in case any of the above become a negative factor in your overall retirement plans. Increasingly, we have to think of retirement planning as having multiple components – and income sources.

Types of post-retirement careers

You can be either employed or self-employed in retirement, and which one you choose will be affected by how you want to live in retirement.

If you opt for a job, you probably will want to consider a part-time job since it will permit at least semi-retirement. Some of the questions you’ll need answered include:  Does the field you want to go into employ senior citizens?  Are there part-time opportunities in the field?  What is the pay level for part-time work?  What are the geographic restrictions (is there work where you want to retire?)  Is it a field that matches your skill set?  Is it the kind of work you’d like to do?

For many people, the best employment opportunities will be to continue to work in the same field they’re in now, but in a reduced capacity.

But again, you’ll need to ask the same question because the job you have now may not suit your future aspirations. Or you may just be tired of it and ready to move on to something completely different. 

Hire m e!

RECHARGE! Career Self-employment is another route. The advantage here is that it’s easier to work a business around retirement, and that you don’t need anyone to hire you. Both open a lot of possibilities.

Still you have to ask a few questions:

 Is it a business that you will like working in?  Can you make enough money doing it?  Will there be any geographic limitations?  How much capital will it require to start?  Do you have the skills to make it a success?

Self-employment can be attractive since most people dream of doing it at some point, and retirement often provides the opportunity. Also, if you’ve never been self-employed before it can be a new adventure that keeps you going for a lot of years.

Why you may need to plan your post-retirement career now

The job market looks a lot different when you’re in your 60s or 70s. When you’re younger you can consider a job almost anywhere, but as you get older a lot of employers won’t want you. For this reason, you can appreciate why planning a retirement career is something that should be done well in advance.

As you see from the questions in the last section, there are fine points to consider in a retirement career.

It will be, most likely, a career change, whether you go into a different field of employment or start your own business. Either will have to be planned for now.

This is especially true with self-employment, since you will probably need to start the business well before retirement that way it will be a ready income stream when you need it.

Also, consider that if you’re making a wholesale change – doing work you’ve never done before – you will need to do some research, get training or even work a few apprenticeships. That last one is especially good since you could work in the field for a short time and find that you don’t like it. Then, you’ll have to look into something else.

Another factor is personal. Many people work in jobs and careers that don’t really like, and it can be a stretch after doing that for an entire career to let yourself go and think seriously about working in something you really would like to do. Some people know what that is right now, for others it could take years to figure out.

Whatever you decide on, you’ll want it to be something you like a lot better than what you’re doing now.

After all, even if you can’t fully retire, you still want to enjoy your golden years.

Being ready for whatever happens

Planning a retirement career isn’t about giving up on more traditional retirement. It’s about being ready for whatever happens. We’ve all heard the saying, “the best laid plans of men and mice go awry”, and that can apply to long term financial planning as well.

The Bible tells us as much. In the book of James we read: Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a littl e while and then vanishes.

Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” – James 4:13-15 Retirement isn’t a magical time when all the cares of life disappear – the unexpected can happen any time in life. Some of what can force you to work into retirement might include:  A stock market crash just before retirement  A stock market crash during retirement  A job loss that forces you to make early withdrawals from your retirement savings  An adult child or family member who needs direct help  A series of bad investments (hey – nobody’s perfect!)

Planning for the future is about planning for uncertainties; that’s what planning a post-retirement career is all about.

Is a post-retirement career part of your retirement planning? What kind of work to you think will be the best fit?

by Jon Elder

Jon Elder Jon the Saver is a personal finance nut who runs a growing blog over at www.freemoneywisdom.com.

He has a passion for transforming people's financial lives and helping Americans stay out of debt.

In his free time, Jon loves to go to the gym and play scrabble with his wife.

2012 SEPTEMBER І 57

The Resume

 Many managers won’t consider someone who has been out of work for more than six months unemployable. Most managers consider the fact that if someone hasn’t offered you a job in the last six months, why would they want to give you a look?  Most hiring managers do not take the time to read a cover letter. Picture a manager’s desk with about 100 resume’s stacked on it. Would you read all 100 resume’s and 100 cover letters?  Think that cutesyboots@xyzmail. com email address really is cute?

Guess what, when it comes to a hiring manager, it’s not!

And as most know, a hiring manager judges a candidate on everything, including an email address.  Your resume does not have to be just one page. Putting your resume on two pages is a lot better than squeezing it onto one page with 5 point type.

seat. Think of it this way, if they were going to judge for having kids and you have them, you probably don’t want that job anyway.

The Negotiation

 Don’t assume that the average salary that you saw on the internet is actually what that company pays. You have to take into consideration that those are reported by employees and not the actual organization.  Some hiring managers may try to lock you into a salary early by mentioning what the budget for the position is. Don’t agree until you have heard all of the details of the position etc. They know if you say, “Sounds great” they have you at negotiation time.  Whatever you do, do not bring your mom or dad along to your interview. This is not high school. If you have a significant other that wants to ride along, drop them off at the mall and tell them to meet you after your interview. The job interview is very important and you need to be 100% focused on you.

by Matt See, OnlineCareerTips staff

10 Job Hunting Secrets from a Hiring Manager

The Interview

 If the hiring manager spends the majority of the time talking about him or herself both professionally and personally don’t stop them. Let them talk as much as they wish without your interruption. They are going to leave the interview thinking you were a good candidate.  Leave your cellphone in the car. What would you possibly need it for during your interview? You mom can wait until after you nail your interview.  Watch out for managers that try to pry too much.

There are some questions that hiring managers are not allowed to ask but some of the sneaky ones will still try to get the answer. Number one culprit here is trying to figure out if you have kids or not. Some managers have put fake pictures of kids on their desk to spark conversation or walked candidates out to their cars after the interview to see if they noticed a car

58 І SEPTEMBER 2012

Matt see, OnlineCareerTips staff

OnlineCareerTips.com provides advice and resources for advancing your career or successfully transitioning to a new one. Content is provided by professionals in the field of education, administration, human resources and of course, recruiting.

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RECHARGE!

Performance Words of Wisdom for Those Starting University in the Fall Hey folks. I try to target my articles at different groups of individuals who I might be able to assist in some way through my words. This article is targeted at those people who are starting their college experience this fall.

60 І SEPTEMBER 2012

RECHARGE! Performance

T

he Way You Start Is The Way You Will Finish

It is important that you start off your college career with energy and academic enthusiasm. You have to treat this experience like the oncein-a-lifetime one that it is (just like most experiences we have, but that is for a different article). You don’t get to do your undergraduate studies twice, so it is key that you set good habits from the beginning. If, in the first week, you make friends with people who have no aspirations, these individuals might slow you down for a long time to come. Our small decisions early on can become game-changers, and sometimes it is tough for us to trace back to where we went wrong. Getting to know some of the go-getters, and looking at the professors as actual people, will go a long way in changing your learning experience.

I mention the start and the learning experience because you want to start off on an academic footing.

You surely can socialize and make friends with many people, but you could have done that outside of the university as well, if you had initiative. You want to set your place in the school as a person who cares about their future, and who understands the opportunities that come with good results and some solid learning.

If you don’t do this early on, the people who do won’t see you as competitive or worthy of their time. Although you don’t need teammates, and can do all your schoolwork alone, it is nice to have people to check with at times when you get stuck.

The energy you bring with you at the beginning of your undergraduate schooling will carry you through the first semester, and once you are in a good position there, you just have to maintain it along the way, which is much easier than trying to catch up or redeem yourself for a bad first semester. Friends can come at any time, but your academic record remains imprinted in concrete. 

Don’t Get Distracted By Nonsense

Whether it is a social group, some video game, a sport you play, or some other activity you will do at college, don’t let it distract you from your main mission there.

You could do all those things outside of college too, but you can’t learn and get solid grades outside of college.

The easiest time to start building your focus is from the get-go, because if you go two months playing games or getting distracted by Facebook, it will become your regular to-do activity.

If you have a goal of not drinking alcohol, or not using certain drugs, or not taking part in unintended copulation, you can maintain that goal during your schooling. No one else will help you maintain that goal but yourself. It will be very easy to make friends if you take part in some questionable activities, but you then have the issue of whether those friends are worthwhile.

Get Involved

This is a key one. There are always things to get involved in during your time at your university. Let’s say you are in science and there is an opportunity to work in a lab. You should take this opportunity because it will be looked at as work experience in the future, and it will set you on another level from the students that didn’t take such a lab. This is just as important as your classwork. If you are in another field of study, find the things you can do to set yourself apart there. There is always something like this. Not only are these things easier to do while you are in college, but they also give you huge advantages later on for your job or for your resume.

If there is a club that seems to be worthwhile, take part in it and find the people in it who aspire to be something. Work with them at times so you can absorb some of their natural abilities or habits. You have to work on surrounding yourself with the right people, because while the wrong people may not actually hurt you, they won’t lead you anywhere, and you will resent them later for their lack of a general goal, though it would have been your fault for sticking around them.

Also, getting involved is easier than you can imagine. The only hard part is committing to taking part in activities with a worthwhile group. You have to commit and follow through. If there is an event, show up. It might seem like this thing or that thing doesn’t matter, but you only get one chance at each event or seminar or whatever it is.

Help Others

There will certainly be opportunities to help others who are confused about anything from class material to 

2012 SEPTEMBER І 61

school building questions to basic life concepts. You can provide your input and be a memorable part of the college experience that others have. This is not to say to become the class helper for a few students to get answers from every week, but that you can guide people in the right direction. If someone lacks motivation, you can’t really do much, but if they have motivation and look to be someone you can have an impact on, why not help a bit?

How Others Are Doing Doesn’t Matter

It doesn’t matter how others are doing in your classes, or if there is a curve, or if there is some “really smart” person, or similar things such as this. Each class comes with a set of things for you to learn or do, and if you do them well, you get a solid grade. John or Ashley who sits four seats away has no impact on your grades.

Comparing yourself to others is always a waste of time, unless it is used for motivation or understanding, but that type of comparison is rarely done, from what I’ve seen. Look at others as people you want work with and learn from, and do your part.

The reason you have to not focus on the success or failure of others in your classes is that time you spend thinking about their results takes away from time you can spend generating your own results. Who wants to get a poor grade because they were spending hours worrying about how others are getting good grades?

That doesn’t even make sense.

Conclusion

When you get a good start in your schooling, you set a solid precedent for your years of learning. You have a great opportunity here that you can only really see after you are done.

by Armen Shirvanian

Armen Shirvanian Armen Shirvanian is blogging at Timeless Information, providing the reader with directly useful information/knowledge that can be applied instantly. The main subjects that are explained and exemplified are social interaction, mindset development, and methods to handle personal issues that arise during your days.

Learn more at: www.timelessinformation.com

62 І SEPTEMBER 2012

How to Better Manage Email on Your Next Vacation Whenever you are about to embark upon a vacation, the question of email inevitability comes up.

Will you remain online, go offline, or try a hybrid of the two? In this post I provide a brief overview of these options and the system I will use on my upcoming sabbatical.

First of all, I have experience with all three of these options: Remaining online. I think this is usually a bad idea. I have done it many times, and I never feel rested at the end of my vacation. So much of our lives happen online today. If you remain online, nothing really changes except the scenery.

Going offline. I try to do this at least twice a year. It is like a digital fast. It detoxes the soul, relieving you from the constant ping of the outside world. It takes courage to do this, but it is well-worth the initial effort it takes to unplug.

Trying a hybrid. For me, this is the best option most of the time. It means that I remain online but set strict boundaries for what I will and won’t do. This gives me the freedom to continue researching and writing, without feeling obligated to reply to every email.

The key to pulling off the last option is intention. You must be proactive, outlining a plan and sticking to it. This is the approach I am taking for my upcoming sabbatical.

The basic premise is that I will continue to blog.

(For me, this is how I process what I am learning.

It is also a creative expression, akin to painting for some people.) I also want to be able to hear from my family and close friends. I also plan to engage in the comments on my blog and in twitter – but to a more limited extent.

For me, the key is eliminating 90% of the emails I receive. That is the part that is taxing. Since 

RECHARGE! Performance Business Associates. This rule tests the message to see if it is from a handful of business associates. If it is, it leaves the email in my inbox. This includes my accountant, the person who handles my speaking requests, and a few key people at Thomas Nelson.

Sweep Remaining. If the message meets one of the above criteria, the program stops, leaving the message in my inbox. However, if it doesn’t, then this rule moves the message to a folder called “After Sabbatical.” If you want, you can also mark the message as read, so the message count does not distract you.

being responsive is so important to me – it is now part of my DNA – this means I have to have a system that gets these emails out of my field of vision, so I don’t feel obligated to read and reply to them.

Here’s the system I am using:

1

Create an out-of-office message that sets expectations. For example, mine says:

Hi, I am on a sabbatical until Wednesday, June 15th.

Unless you are a member of my family or a close friend, I will not see your email until I get back.

If you have something that requires my immediate attention, please re-send your email with the word “urgent” somewhere in the subject line.

Thanks, Michael

I doubt that this will get abused. At the very least, it forces the sender to re-evaluate the message and ask whether it is truly urgent.

2

Use email rules to manage the flow of email. If you haven’t discovered the power of email rules, you are missing out. Most email programs (Outlook and Apple Mail) have this builtin. I place these rules at the end of any others that handle normal processing. Each one is a separate email rule:  Urgent. This rule tests the message to see if the word “urgent” (as per my out-of-office message) appears in the subject line. If it is, it leaves the message in my inbox. (In Apple Mail, I chose the “Stop evaluating rules action.”)

Family. This rule tests the message to see if it is from a member of my family.

If it is, it leaves the email in my inbox.

(Again, using the “Stop evaluating rules action.”)

Friends. This rule tests the message to see if it is from a close, personal friend. If it is, it leaves the email in my inbox. I have a small list of people here, all of whom know I am on a sabbatical, so I know they won’t abuse this.

3

Implement the plan. You might want to notify your family, friends, and key business associates what you are doing and set their expectations as well.

Now simply turn the system on and enjoy your vacation.

This system is not perfect. Your email is still available in folder that you can get to. However, it will be out of your direct line of sight.

The best option would be to redirect the mail to another email account entirely. However, I found that this function did not work reliably in Apple Mail. In researching this on Google, I found others who reported the same experience.

The bottom line is that this system sweeps 90% of the messages I receive on a daily basis, leaving only those message that I intentionally want to see.

Question: What system do you use for managing email when you are on vacation? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

by Michael S. Hyatt

Michael S. Hyatt Michael S. Hyatt is the author of Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World (Thomas Nelson). It is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller. He is also the former Chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the seventh largest trade book publishing company in the U.S. He writes on personal development, leadership, productivity, platform, and publishing. © 2011, Michael S. Hyatt. All rights reserved.

Originally published at www.michaelhyatt.com.

2012 SEPTEMBER І 63

The Second Hardest Thing Finishing Up

M

uch is made of starting; it truly is the hardest thing. We lament its prospect. We've named the behavior of non-starting – procrastination – which many consider a condition or a failing or a personality type.

In "Do the Work," Steven Pressfield's insightful analysis of this difficulty with starting, he names this force Resistance. Resistance, says Pressfield, is the ever-present enemy within us all that must be battled daily so that results can be produced.

Many have addressed starting and its dark cousin procrastination:  Combating Procrastination, published by Carnegie Mellon University  Overcoming Procrastination, published by Mind Tools  Procrastination Tools, published by Oregon State University Techniques and suggestions for beating procrastination and getting started can be found in those works.

64 І SEPTEMBER 2012

Fast Forward to the End

But what of starting's silent partner – finishing? Getting our work to closure is often a struggle too. If fact, behind starting, finishing up is the second hardest thing to accomplish. Whether it's the actual work or its remnants, laying tasks and projects to their final rest can create just as many problems as failure to start can.

Interestingly, doing the task or project is often quite easy and many times enjoyable. It's as if doing is the beautiful valley between the mountains of starting and finishing.

Stated differently, imagine a curved line written horizontally across a piece of paper. If the first uphill portion of that line represents starting a task, then the downhill segment that follows is the doing part of the task. As the project nears completion, we reach the bottom of the curve and begin the ascend the next hill.

Our momentum slows, we begin to lose interest and are easily distracted by other things.

Sometimes we succumb to this repelling force before we finish, leaving the work dangling. Often we 

RECHARGE! Performance shove the completed effort out the door, relieved to be done, and justify not attending to the final steps of closure as our reward for a "job well done."

The Penalties for Failure to Finish

The first failure to finish – literally not finishing – holds obvious penalties. Whether we report to those internally or externally, not getting the work done is a problem.

However, there are also less obvious penalties associated the failure to tie up loose ends. These include: Sense of Disarray. Most of us do not relish clutter. We abide it at work because we are busy and don't have the time to or a process for cleaning up. The unfortunate result is that we regularly view our cluttered workspace as a project that never gets done. This is a negative feeling.

Lost or Missing Information. Organizations spend vast amounts of time and money on capturing information and storing documents. When the work product related to a task is left scattered about, this valuable asset is lost or, at best, difficult to find. This can affect us individually too when we have to dig through our piles for that document that's "right here somewhere."

Lost Revenue. Whether you bill your time or not, failure to close – often a billable activity – represents lost time and, therefore, lost revenue.

This is a situation I encounter regularly with my coaching clients. Closing files is generally billable, so there's a direct financial benefit to doing so. But more importantly, the clutter of old work product has a dramatic effect on my clients' ability to get the current work demands handled effectively and efficiently. In addition, whenever we get something (a) finished and (b) closed up, we feel a great sense of accomplishment … and that's a good thing.

Getting to the End Better

Pushing ourselves all the way to the finish line takes some mental discipline – to focus and to drive ourselves all the way to the end. Developing processes

can facilitate this effort, but understand first that the true "ability" comes from within.

Sequestering. Juries are sequestered – sent away to deliberate on their verdict. We can leverage this same notion to finish up work. Taking one thing to a separate, quiet place and working on it until it is complete keeps us focused and driving to the end.

Specifically Identified Time. Do you do your best work in the morning? Or is it in the afternoon? Slot the work that must get finished into the most productive time of your day. This will reduce the sense of resistance you will experience. See 10 & 2 – The Rhythm of Productivity for more on this concept.

Scheduled Maintenance. Housekeeping is always an administrative task, but we find ways to make it happen at home and for our vehicles. Why not the office? It could be daily – see Closing Time What a Dishwater Can Teach a Professional for more on that – weekly or monthly, but setting aside specific time to close up all that is dangling will ensure it gets done.

A Place for Everything and …

Spend a few minutes identifying where everything should go. Once a spot is identified for everything, everything can be organized. Seems too simple, but it’s a highly effective way to keep work separated from work product and junk. For the work pile, see the first bullet point.

Every End is a New Beginning

The most important benefit to finishing is the accompanying sense of accomplishment. Job performance and greater customer/client satisfaction are also benefits of getting things all the way done and cleaning up the remains. Climbing the hill to get started is hard, but remember these tips whenever you find yourself climbing the second hill of finishing.

by Paul H. Burton

Paul H. Burton Paul is a former corporate finance attorney, software executive, and serial entrepreneur.

As a nationally recognized time management expert, he helps lawyers and legal professionals regain control of their day, get more done, and enjoy greater personal and professional satisfaction. Paul is the creator of the revolutionary QuietSpacing® productivity method and speaks regularly to professionals about making better use of their limited time.

You can learn more about Paul and his practice at www.quietspacing.com.

2012 SEPTEMBER І 65

RECHARGE!

Accelerate Your Results!

Advice from Anne M. Bachrach, The Accountability Coach™

Principles to Eliminate Distractions and Increase Success

W

e're all guilty of allowing the little things to distract us from what we should be doing. Instead of working, we chat with our friends or co-workers, check the latest chain email in our inbox, surf the internet, and do everything we can to avoid working. Why? Because we don't feel like working – we're too busy daydreaming about being on the beach in Hawaii sipping a MaiTai or skiing the slopes. I'd like that too, but the fact is that in order to get where you want to be, you have to do the work required to achieve your goals and experience ultimate success.

Whether you are an employee or self-employed, your income depends solely on you. And the more efficiently you can work the bigger returns you will receive. Take a moment and ask yourself where you truly want to be? Now tell me how many things you did today, yesterday, and the day before yesterday that directly contributed to the future results you want. And then tell me how many things you did today that did not contribute to your success. Those things probably distracted you from what you knew you should have been doing.

So you might be saying, ah – it's OK, everyone does it and shrug it off. Well, not everyone does it – however, most do. So what's the harm in the little everyday distractions? Those distractions are called distractions for a reason. They are distracting you from doing what you need to do in order to get you where you ultimately want to be.

Minimize distractions and you'll reach your goals faster – plain and simple. If you're self-employed and want to increase your monthly income by $3000, that won't happen by surfing the internet or playing solitaire. It's going to come from doing the highest payoff activities that have the highest probability of build-

66 І SEPTEMBER 2012

ing your success. You must minimize distractions and focus on the tasks that have a positive effect on your success.

Whether you are an employee, self-employed, or work at home, all of these ten principles can be applied to reduce and eliminate distractions.

1

Stay off the internet. Just don't get on it – because once you do, you're more likely to get sucked into it. If you have to get your fix, do it at the end of the work day or a set time during the day. Set a time that you honor – say, any time after 4pm and don't get on it before then, unless you absolutely have to.

You can choose to let people know when you will check email so they don’t expect an immediate response, if you want to. Here’s an example of an email I received from someone: “Thank you for your email.

In order to stay focused and maintain my personal effectiveness, I generally check email only once per day (Monday through Friday). If you are a client and need immediate service or attention, please call my office at (555) 778-5623.

Thank you, NAME”

2

Remove computer desktop icons.

All of those things you love doing, like playing solitaire, just remove the icon from your computer desktop. Out of sight, out of mind is typically a good policy. 

RECHARGE! Accelerate Your Results!

3

Remove desktop clutter. Magazines you say you're going to read on your lunch break and the picture of your sweetheart taped right to your computer monitor; these items need to be moved out of your immediate and frequent field of vision. It's OK to have personal items near you; they just shouldn't be right in front of where you look most of the time.

Only keep those items on your desk that you are currently working on. Anything else can cause a distraction and slow you down from getting your work done.

Place only current files needed on your desk, while the others are filed away until you need them.

4

Eliminate noises. Listen to soothing instrumental music if you feel you need to listen to something, but talk radio or lyrical music will distract you from focusing on the task at hand. Even alert sounds from your computer can be distracting; like the sound you hear when you receive an incoming email. Other distracting sounds can be the phone ringing, others talking, outside noise, etc.

5

Discourage walk-in traffic. Granted, if you're a manager it may be more difficult to do this; but if you can set specific times when you're available to talk and accept walk-ins, and times that you don't – it will help you to focus and complete tasks more efficiently. Ideally, scheduling appointments is the most effective. For those who work at home, this rule applies to your family. Establish clear boundaries when you are not to be distracted, unless it’s an emergency like the building is burning down and you need to get out.

6

Screen your calls. It's ideal if you have someone answer every call since real-person response is a vital part of a successful busi-

ness. If this is a resource available to you, establish a schedule of when you are available to accept calls. Outside of those times, you'll need to arrange a screening process to allow only the most important calls to make their way to you. I suggest reserving at least a few hours per day when you do accept any calls. Again, scheduling phone appointments is ideal and leads to working as efficiently as possible.

7

Ask for what you want. There is nothing wrong with asking for what you want. It's appropriate for all situations, but it must be done with tact and friendliness. Busy professionals appreciate concise, focused conversation and you can show them you respect their time by not wasting it needlessly. Clear and concise communication saves time for everyone.

8

Learn how to cut off excessive conversation. Just as I mentioned in the above principle, everyone appreciates productive conversation. If you find yourself in a conversation with someone and it's not progressing to a point or conclusion, wrangle it in so you can get to a solution.

Again, this should be done politely and professionally – but it's perfectly acceptable if

Learn the fundamentals of the game and stick to them. Band-Aid remedies never last. ~ Jack Nicklaus Legendary Professional Golfer

Anne M. Bachrach Anne M. Bachrach is known as The Accountability Coach™. She has 23 years of experience training and coaching. Business owners and entrepreneurs who utilize Anne’s proven systems and processes work less, make more money, and have a more balanced and successful life. Anne is the author of the book, Excuses Don’t Count; Results Rule!, and Live Life with No Regrets; How the Choices We Make Impact Our Lives. Go to http://tinyurl. com/7na68k8 and get 3 FREE gifts including a special report on 10 Power Tips for Getting Focused, Organized, and Achieving Your Goals Now. Join the FREE Silver Inner Circle Membership today and receive 10% off on all products and services, in addition to having access to assessments and resources to help you achieve your goals so you can experience a more balanced and successful life (www.accountabilitycoach.com/coaching-store/inner-circle-store/).

2012 SEPTEMBER І 67

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