Phloosh Phloosh Phloosh

Different personalities bring us different kinds of result and as a general rule; pleasant and humble personality will definitely give better result. Fate changes if we change our personality. A simple example is a neat haircut can bring better luck than one who keeps long hair for a man. He will definitely stand a better chance to get the job if he is going for an interview while his other qualities remain.

The situations we encounter influence our mental thoughts. Our mind responds to the situation we encounter and can change our mental activities, that is, our perspectives, attitudes, our ways of acting, speaking and thinking and most people will feel uncomfortable in a tense situation.

How do personalities affect our fate? The people we meet always have an impression on us and likewise we have on them. For example, some are humble while some are proud. What do you except their fate to be if they are proud? For those that are humble, their chances are always better in many ways to have a better fate and life. If one is rich, smart and humble, he will always have the respect from people and find himself surrounded with cooperative staff. People will be pleased and willing to work for him as compared with a boss who is bossy and proudly smoking cigar in the office.

Humble people usually will find themselves easier to accept other people’s opinion or criticism. They can benefit from these opinions and criticisms by transforming them into wisdom and experience. Proud people are difficult and not easily willing to accept other people’s suggestions and most likely will feel unhappy and reject them even if they are good. Our situation is actually determined by our own personalities. Who would want to give valuable suggestions to people who thought that they are the best in the world? It is only when we are green and humble that we learn and not when we are ripe and rotting.

Suppose there are two groups of people with different categories of personalities: one is negative and the other positive. The negative one will have characteristics such as critical, jealous, arrogant, selfish and lazy. These people most likely will be irresponsible and careless in their words and actions. The other category of positive personalities would most likely exhibit characteristics such as appreciating others’ success, being encouraging, humble, generous, open-minded, responsible, cool, calm, peaceful, caring and optimistic about life. We can imagine the kind of situations these two groups of people will face in their lives. For the negative group, they would probably have obstacles in their interpersonal relationships. They would become isolated and lonely.

People who are lazy will hesitate to take action and people who are careless will most likely make many mistakes. Their future conditions and fate can be anticipated to be cloudy, dark and unpleasant results. On the other hand for those who are positive, encouraging, willing to take action, thoughtful, courteous, persistent and hardworking will most likely have success in life. Different personalities indeed affect the fate and bring different results to people. ‘Luck’ is actually the functioning of many other unknown factors and we cannot expect to have success throughout our life. Good personalities definitely play a very important part. People can change and if one is willing to change, then the most arrogant person can become the most humble.

Failure can have a positive meaning to us if we can learn from it and understand why we did not succeed. Before Edison invented the light bulb, he had tried hundreds of different materials and he failed more than nine hundred times. It is very discouraging to have failures, however, he thought of every failure as a precious experience. His positive attitude consoled him that he had found one more material that is not suitable for the filament. After hundreds of failures he finally found that tungsten was the best material for the bulb. He changed the fate of his experiment because he had the awakening wisdom to continue and great positive desire to brighten up the world.

This is the advice from my Heavenly Teacher JiGong:

“With whole-heartedness and one-mindedness, take the ancient saints and sages as your model; take the Old Grand Master (Maitreya Buddha) as the model. Take the Teacher’s aspiration as your aspiration. Take the heart of Heaven as your heart and learn from the virtuous nature of saints and sages. It doesn’t matter if you walk or run. As long as you keep moving, there is surely an outcome in the end. Fear not being slow, but do fear standing and keeping still. The worst is turning back. This is like the running race between the tortoise and the rabbit where the tortoise won in the end. Therefore, as long as your goal and aspiration does not change, there would surely be an outcome in the end.”

We can learn from this saying and change our personalities if we have not developed a positive one. Everyone can change and it is not too late to do so. With good personalities, we are bound to change our fate and there would surely be an outcome in the end. Do not let fate determine our life but let our good personalities determine our fate.

Author: T.A Chew

T.A Chew bumped into an old friend after at least 15 years of not seeing each other. The first impression from his friend was, you have changed tremendously (in the positive manner). By looking at his own photographs between his younger days and now, his personality has changed and also his fate. It must be the cultivation of Tao and positive attitude of humbling himself. Website: http://www.white-sun.com

Color is one of the most important but least understood elements of web design today. Whether they know it or not, visitors to a site respond to colors and other visual elements on the site on a psychological level. Color affects the emotion of the audience, and emotion drives decision-making. An intrigued visitor is more likely to engage in the goal of your site — whether it is meant to inform, entertain, or to sell products or services. If the colors are unsuitable, the eye will reject the site and your product may be rejected too, no matter how good it is.
A well-considered color scheme is frequently the difference between an okay web site and a great web site. It can also make a site unusable if the scheme used is too outrageous and hard on the eye.

Keep it Simple.
A color palette that uses three or fewer overall colors contributes to the clarity of a web page. The reader will be able to find information quicker on a simple site versus a complex site that may make them feel frustrated and lost.

Use White Space!
This relates to the previous point of keeping it simple. There are a lot of sites with too much information cluttering up the screen. Your audience will have trouble searching for navigation and the information they need amongst a bunch of clutter. White space balances colors, lets the design breathe and can make a large site feel less complex. If a customer is not overwhelmed, they will stay at your site longer.

Be consistent. Color each element (i.e. links, menu items, instructions etc.) the same on each page so that your audience will instinctively know where to look for information.

Know Your Audience
Designers need to know who the target audience before choosing a color scheme. Before you begin your design, you should ask yourself what colors the audience would find compelling and right for your product.

Different colors evoke different emotions in different cultures. This is important to keep in mind on the web if your site has an international audience. For example, in China red symbolizes happiness and good luck, in India it symbolizes purity and in South Africa it symbolizes mourning.

To complicate matters further, many colors have both positive and negative associations in the same culture. In North America, for example, black can symbolize death in some instances and formality in others.

Web Designers should also use different colors if their target audience is a specific gender or age. For example, bright, primary colors like red yellow and blue are great for kid’s sites, but if you are designing a site for an audience over fifty you may want to use desaturated, softer colors. Younger audiences also tolerate a black or dark background with lighter text better than an older audience.

In general terms, here are the meanings of a few basic colors:
Red Energy, strength, passion, risk, fame, love, -top, take notice
Blue Wisdom, protection, spiritual inspiration, calm, reassurance, gentleness, water, creativity,-Depth quality; large companies often use it for their logos.
Yellow Sun, intelligence, logical imagination, social energy, cooperation, sunshine, joy, happiness, intellect, energy, cheerfulness
Green Healing, monetary success, fertility, growth, personal goals, resurrection, renewal, youth, stability, freshness, nature-Plants and environmental awareness
Grey Security, reliability, intelligence, dignity, maturity, conservative, practical

Temperatures of Colors
Yes, colors have perceived temperatures! The perception of your site will be affected by your choice of warm or cool colors. Cool colors are water and sky colors like blue and purple; warm colors are on the opposite end of the color wheel: red, orange and yellow.
The temperature of a color can affect how your message is perceived. Red text for the word SALE will be perceived as more vibrant and urgent than soft purple text.

If you have a calm and reassuring message you want to get across, (i.e. for a spa) color can affect the tone and mood. For this message, soft browns or deep green would be more calming than an orange or red.

The Importance of Contrast
Contrast between colors on a web page can help draw attention to certain elements.
Contrast between text and its background is a necessity for legibility. Dark text on a white background is more igible than orange text on a red background.

Different elements on your web page (i.e. the menu and body of the page) should also contrast or they will start to blend together. Contrast helps your audience distinguish between the different points on your site and therefore helps them feel less frustrated and gives them a more enjoyable experience when they visit your site.

Color Design Links

Here is a link to a great primer on the color wheel and how colors combine http://www.colormatters.com

Colorscemer at http://www.colorschemer.com is a great color tool. It helps you create color schemes, match colors and determine the color used in graphics.

Colorimpact (http://www.colorimpact.com) a similar tool to colorschemer. Very useful!

Color is a powerful design tool. Strong reactions to color from the audience of a site can assist in such things as brand confidence, sales growth, and readership. The web designer must match the colors they choose to the message and image they want to get across to the web site’s customer.

Colleen Happ designs effective and affordable websites and graphics. Her portfolio can be viewed at http://www.happconsulting.com. She offers free one hour consultations to show how an effective website can benefit your business.

The Hero’s Journey is the template upon which the vast majority of successful stories and Hollywood blockbusters are based upon – understanding this template is a priority for story or screenwriters.

The Hero’s Journey:

Attempts to tap into unconscious expectations the audience has regarding what a story is and how it should be told.

Gives the writer more structural elements than simply three or four acts, plot points, mid point and so on.

Interpreted metaphorically, laterally and symbolically, allows an infinite number of varied stories to be created.

The Hero’s Journey is also a study of repeating patterns in successful stories and screenplays. It is compelling that screenwriters have a higher probability of producing quality work when they mirror the recurring patterns found in successful screenplays.

Mysterious Birth

One critical characteristic of the hero in the Hero’s Journey is his tendency to have a mysterious past. Specifically, there is a high tendency for him or her to be orphaned and / or in some way be dislocated from the family:

In Spiderman, 2002 (US box office $403,000,000), Peter Parker lives with his Aunt and Uncle.

In Star Wars, 1977 (US box office $460,000,000), Luke Skywalker lives with Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen.

In Million Dollar Baby (Academy Award Winner Best Film 2004), Maggie feels separate and distinct from her White Trash family.

Although the hero may not know his or her family, there is a tendency for them to be special in some way. In classical stories, the Hero’s parents are often royalty:

Jesus is the Son of God.

Moses was brought up by the King of Egypt.

Luke Skywalker is the son of Darth Vader.

Harry Potter is the son of famous, gifted wizards.

The hero’s heritage results in an expectation, often termed around “a destiny that he must eventually fulfil:”

Harry Potter must eventually solve the mystery of his parent’s death and right the wrong that was done then.

Luke must one day face Vader and help defeat the Empire.

Moses must return to his people and help the Israelites out of Bondage.

The detailed, complete deconstruction and the Complete 188 stage Hero’s Journey and FREE 17 stage sample and other story structure templates can be found at http://managing-creativity.com/

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

Kal Bishop, MBA

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

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

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

Sometime it’s great to appreciate the little simple things in life and if you live with diabetes, the Accu-Check Compact Glucometer makes testing much simpler and easier to use than most glucometers on the market. You never have to handle strips with the new integrated drum technology.

This much simpler technology is a great convenience and could make a big difference in the life of a diabetic.

Accu-Check Compact glucose monitor has many simple and easy to use features:

**It uses a 17 test drum that eliminates the need for strip handling. You just press a button and the strip is released from the machine automatically. Also offer easy strip removal after testing done.

**7 day average for your results with memory;

**Results usually in less than 8 seconds;

**You can perform an alternative site testing. You can test your fingertips, palm, forearm, upper arm, thigh or calf. Palm testing seems to be the easiest;

**Small sample of blood needed. Not much larger than the tip of a ballpoint pen;

**Pocket size. Small and light – about the size of a cell phone;

**May be the least painful lancet device. The lancing device – Softclix won’t tear your skin by wiggling from side to side;

**Smart data management. Can download test results to your PC with Accu-check compass software or you can use the infrared technology to beam data to your PDA with active cable. These are extra for your Accu-Check compact machine;

**Auto calibration which means the glucometer will automatically code the machine so you don’t have to code the machine manually each time you open a new bottle of glucose meter strips;

**Adjustable Accu-Check Softclix Lancet Device with an 11 depth setting. The higher the depth number, the deeper the lancet will penetrate into the skin;

**Batteries included;

**Small carrying case;

**Accu-Check Compact includes control solutions; user’s manual and also a quick reference guide in English and Spanish. Includes a diary to record blood sugar results.

The Accu-Check compact glucometer kit includes everything you need to start testing your blood glucose today:

Prices for diabetic supplies can often run often high, and if you’re having a hard time trying to pay for the strips, then the price can be a hardship on diabetics.

If you have Medicare, usually Medicare will pay for the strips whether you are on insulin or oral diabetic medications. If you are on insulin and test more than once a day, you will usually be given more than a 90 day supply and covered by Medicare. If you use oral diabetic medications, you may only be covered for a 90 day supply. You still may be eligible for a glucometer even if you are not on any medication at all.

There are companies that will take your Medicare, send your supplies, and bill Medicare directly for you. If you go to a major pharmacy, usually you have to pay upfront first and then send the paperwork to Medicare to get reimbursed.

Since the beginning Accu-Check by Roche has been at the forefront of developing easier and more accurate blood glucose monitors, especially the Accu-Check Compact.

The Accu-Check Compact has definitely become a favorite among thousands of diabetics because you don’t have to handle the blood sugar strips and changing the integrated drum strips means simpler testing.

The Accu-Check Compact Plus Glucometer is soon to be available. What seems to be great about this new machine is that the Lansing device is attached to the glucometer. So you would only need one hand testing. This can be a benefit to seniors who just can’t use both hands during testing because of arthritis or other diseases that may affect dexterity.

My rate on the Accu-Check Compact is an 8 out of 10 because I am not particularly happy with the Lancet Device. The removable top seems to be difficult for some seniors to remove. Most seniors with arthritis do eventually get the hang of this lancet device, but some do not. Some of the other lancet devices from other companies may not have the greatest glucometers but have a simple and easy lancet device. Would like to see Roche make a simpler lancet device for seniors.

On the other hand, the Accu-Check Compact Glucometer itself is one of the best glucose meters on the market today.

Please discuss with your doctor to determine which glucometer will be the best for you.

Copyright 2005

Fern Kuhn, RN

Specializing in Diabetes

http://www.diabetestestingcenter.com

What makes exhibits successful is who are behind the exhibits. These are the people who are aware of the do’s and don’ts in an exhibit.

Some exhibitors tend to be oblivious of the little things that they should consider during their exhibits. These little things actually help a lot in the success of such exhibits.

These following tips will surely make the most of your exhibit:

“Stand up straight”

Stand and do not sit. Always be attentive. Give me that smart look.

“Always smile”

They say smiling makes you younger and it also makes your aura good. If you always bring smiles with you, people will certainly approach you. You should look pleasing to every person that you will be interacting with.

“No drinking, smoking and eating in the exhibit”

Business is business. You did not come to a social gathering.

“Chewing gum is not allowed”

When chewing gum, visitors tend to be distracted that interrupts their concentration that might lead to lost sale.

“Don’t be offensive”

Making fun of your visitors will not help the exhibit. Do not offend other people of their race or their gender.

“Have clean hands”

You hands should be always clean. You use your hands in meeting different people; handshaking is one important factor in the business.

“Know what you are really doing”

Conversing with people would bring you to the edge. You should know what you are talking about. The credibility of your company is on the line, so it behooves you to know what you know, know what you don’t know and find out where the answers are in between.

“Say so if you don’t know”

Do not fool yourself, if you really don’t know the answer, search for the answer and tell it to the visitor in the quickest time possible.

“Do eye to eye contact when talking”

Some people don’t know how to talk to people. Eye to eye contact means paying attention to the visitor. Remember to look at the badge of the person and use his or her name in you conversation.

“Cell phone in the booth is a big NO NO”

Using your cell phone might be a nuisance in the exhibit. Visitors would be irritated when most of your time is spent with your phone.

“Avoid barricades”

The traffic in your exhibit will increase by 25% if you will leave the center open.

“Do not stack give-aways on tables”

Piling up give-aways on the counters will most likely pull towards you bag-stuffers. It would be much better if you will display limited give-aways to generate interest and avoid the grab-and-run effect.

“Do not utter the words “May I help you?”

Visitors usually respond unlikely when ask such like this. The most common reply you would get is “No, just browsing.” It will be more probable to ask your attendees on how they are familiar with your displays or what made him see your product.

“Avoid acting as a security guard”

Do not stand in the exhibit as if looking like a secret service officer protecting the displays. It more congruous to stand 4 feet from your displays to prevent hesitations from your visitors to look at your products.

James Monahan is the owner and Senior Editor of
ExhibitSite.com and writes expert
articles about exhibits.

Often in online forums you will watch those who are guilty of misrepresentation, lack of knowledge and poor self-esteem, self-confidence or even low IQ levels; will attempt to shield them selves by playing victim. It is so interesting to watch this, as people who hold them selves out to be experts in disguise will instead play childish games.

Recently in an online writers forum a gentlemen tried this and accused another of attacking him. The other debater when accused of “personal attacks” and the typical mean-spirited comments, whatever that is suppose to mean stated; “Personal attacks? What on Earth are you talking about? I feel that rather than you defending your position you have instead attacked me, but we are not talking about me here. We are talking about you and your marketing of yourself as an expert.”

In observing this dialogue we can see the person playing victim now gets the other party to defend themselves, rather than discuss the original comments. This stuff goes on all the time in Internet Forums and in this case the original comments were forgotten and instead the person playing victim is on the offense, as the original commenter states; “This is not personal and it certainly is far short of any so-called attack. I truly wish you well in all your life’s endeavors, as God is my witness.”

Wow, can you see why cry babies, weak-minded people those with Imposter Phenomena are so good at Internet Forums. They act like children, cannot back up their statements or facts and go crying to the moderator; “He hit me in the sandbox and took the plastic shovel.” Indeed, and the victimhood seeker needs that shovel too, so they can shovel away all the minutia they purvey.

Buying a car is not like buying a radio; you cannot return it to the store for a refund if you do not like it, or if it has a manufacturing defect. In fact, for many years, if you purchased an automobile that came from the factory with defects, you were just stuck. You could try to get the dealer to repair the problem, but if the problem continued and the dealer could not repair it, you were out of luck.

In 1982, the luck of owners of so-called “lemons” changed for the better, as California and Connecticut passed the nation’s first “lemon laws.”

These laws, spawned by consumers who had waged tireless battles against major auto companies, allowed owners of defective automobiles to seek compensation or replacement with the help of their respective states. These laws swept like wildfire throughout the country, and now all 50 states have some form of the lemon law.

The specifics of the lemon laws will vary from state to state, but in general, they define a “lemon” as a vehicle that:

Has a “nonconformity” that affects the safety, use, or value of the vehicle, and

The nonconformity has not been successfully repaired after a “reasonable” number of attempts, and/or

The vehicle has been out of service for a total of a certain number of days for repair of the nonconformity.

The length of the warranty period also varies; coverage typically runs anywhere from one year or 12,000 miles to two years or 24,000 miles. As previously stated, the specifics vary from state to state, particularly the number of repair attempts that constitute “reasonable” and the number of days that the vehicle must be out of service in order to qualify. In some states, repairs that affect the brakes or other safety equipment need only one repair attempt to qualify as “reasonable.”

Restitution is fairly consistent from state to state; it usually requires the manufacturer to either replace the vehicle with one of comparable value, or refund the purchase price, along with taxes, registration and delivery fees. Some states leave the option of replacement or refund to the manufacturer, but most give the option to the consumer.

What should you do if you think you have a lemon? You should:

Make sure that you document everything relating to repairs of the vehicle, including when and where it was repaired, who signed the work order and what work was done.

You should contact the manufacturer in writing, alerting them to the nature of the problem.

You should consult with your state’s Attorney General’s office to learn how your state’s law affects you directly.

You may have to go through an arbitration process; this involves both you and a representative of the manufacturer explaining your respective situations to a panel that will then provide a ruling. The arbitration ruling is usually binding on the manufacturer; they will have no recourse should the panel rule in your favor. Generally, if you don’t agree with the panel’s ruling, you still have the option of filing a lawsuit in court.

You may wish to hire an attorney to represent you; there are plenty of lawyers who specialize in lemon law cases, and they can probably bring the case to a solution more quickly than if you handle the case yourself. Be sure to contact your state’s Attorney General’s office regarding the specifics of your own state’s lemon law. You don’t want to miss a deadline, or you could be stuck with your lemon for a long time.

©Copyright 2005 by Retro Marketing. Charles Essmeier is the owner of Retro Marketing, a firm devoted to informational Websites, including http://www.LemonLawHelp.net/

“My clients can’t afford higher rates.”

When more than 330 business owners and self-employed
professionals checked off reasons why their income was
not going through the roof, this statement was chosen
more often than any other.

If you’re tempted to agree that what clients can
afford limits you, let me first ask: are you certain
of that? You can’t make a leap from what people say
about this to whether or not they can find the money
if sufficiently convinced that it’s important.

Years ago, someone starting up a new business called
me for a consultation and told me he could pay no more
than such and such. It turned out that the most
convenient place for our meeting was his house, which
I could not help noticing had the size and glitziness
of a small mansion, with a market value of at least
three-quarters of a million dollars. What he named as
his paltry budget reflected what he felt advice on
this matter was worth, not what he had to spend. By
pointing out how much getting his business onto a
sound footing was worth to him and how much in wasted
expenditures I could save him, I’d have been able to
reshape his thinking on what it was reasonable to
spend.

Another time a client launching a catchy new product
wanted to know what kind of publicity services I could
offer her for a couple of hundred dollars. I didn’t
hear from her again for quite a while, at which time
she told me she’d hired a traditional PR firm, paying
a retainer and fees of more than a thousand dollars a
month. I’d gotten the impression that she didn’t have
that kind of money to invest, and I was very wrong.

At the other end of the spectrum, more than once I’ve
been startled to learn that a client who paid
relatively high rates without complaint was having
trouble scraping money together for rent.

In truth, until you confidently raise your rates, it’s
impossible to know who will go along and who will not.
This is particularly so when you do great work and
educate clients on the value they receive.

Remember too that when you raise your rates, you can
lose some clients and still make higher profits
overall from those you retain.

In addition, you can earn more from each customer
without raising your rates by selling them additional
products and services. In this situation, they’re
paying you more but don’t feel they are.

Finally, if you’re in one of those rare situations
where clients truly don’t have money, consider whether
this is the audience you most enjoy serving or whether
you think you’re only worthy of working with them. In
the former case, it’s still often possible to find
outside entities, such as corporate sponsors, to
support your work.

Sometimes what feels like an absolute limit to your
earnings only means you have not yet enjoyed a
freewheeling, creative brainstorming session!

Marcia Yudkin is head mentor for
MarketingforMore.com and the author of 6 Steps to Free
Publicity and 10 other books. As an author, marketing
consultant and coach, she has spent 22 years successfully
turning words into money. By going to
http://www.marketingformore.com/survey.htm , you can
read the full results of her survey and download a
free report, “Charge More & Get It,” that expands on
four other common self-sabotaging beliefs about money.

At a certain point in our lives, nearly each and every one of us have found ourselves in the unenviable position of being cash strapped for any number of reasons such as losing a job, falling ill, having unmanageable credit card bills and so on. When a situation arises in our lives where we find we do not have enough money coming in to meet our expenses or allow us to live the sort of life we desire, we begin to search for solutions. Sadly, our modern culture has taught us to look for an instant resolution to our problems rather than devising a long term and well thought out strategy that will ensure our security.

It is imperative to recognize that fast and easy solutions to financial hardship don’t exist. The above statement is not taking a negative stance. Recognizing that recovering from financial difficulty will take internal organization, resolve, and action that will ultimately set in play a long-term recovery leading to economic security and independence, is taking both a healthy and realistic attitude. Ultimately, the solution to our problems lies within our own capacities as individuals, and if we chose to recognize this, we will find our individual capacities to be infinite. Relying on some external source and simply saying, “fix it” won’t accomplish anything except to further disappoint us.

The concept of a home based business fits the scheme of this topic. Finding oneself in dire economic straits can lead on to grasp at the “home business straw” in hopes of grabbing onto the brass ring leading to an instant wealth and success which in reality does not exist. Yet, if we acknowledge that our internal capacities are indeed infinite, then a home based business can lead us to success and independence down the road IF we form a proper strategy.

If you cannot pay our bills do not rely on a home based business to solve that situation for you tomorrow. It won’t. Period. You must find a source of income for your immediate needs. Excellent employment resources exist on the Internet such as Yahoo Hot Jobs http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/ and Monster http://www.monster.com . Find the solid salary you will need until you can “phase in” your chosen home based business.

If your credit is in ruins, don’t rely on a home based business to fix your credit for you tomorrow, it won’t. Consider, perhaps consulting with professionals to help you sort out your credit issues while you work on your home based business in your spare time.

There is no shame in economic hardship. Yet grasping at non-existent straws to end current discomfort is foolish. Hunkering down and coping with the reality of the situation is admirable and takes courage. If you desire to reverse your situation by starting a home based business, proceed in a well thought out manner to lay the groundwork for your ultimate home business success taking your immediate priorities into consideration and acting accordingly. Ultimately, by tapping into your infinite capacity in a strategic rather than a wishful manner, you may well exceed your wildest home business ambitions!

Jim Kelly resides in Los Angeles, California and is Webmaster of Make Extra Money At Home http://make-extra-money-at-home.com and Nutrition-Vitamins Antioxidants And Minerals
http://vitamins-antioxidants.com

We’ll all been there. Ballplayers call it a slump. Some call it a lull or a funk. These are the times when you don’t seem to have as much energy or passion for your work. You can’t seem to get as excited (or excited at all) about the tasks in front of you. You are less productive, and you don’t feel as good about your work either. Beyond that, the quality of your work you are getting done may be slipping as well.

This situation can be caused by many things and it can affect both individuals and teams. Regardless of the reasons for the situation, there are specific, predictable ways to get past the funk. When you apply these suggestions (and some of them you can apply within one minute of finishing this article) you will lift both your spirits and your productivity, and begin to give you your rhythm back.

Since there’s no reason to wait any longer, let’s get started!

Get started. Action is the most important force we have. Taking action, whatever it is, will make a big difference. Often our energy is drained by procrastination. Lou Holtz, the longtime football coach said, “When all is said and done, there is a lot more said than done.” Stop talking about it or thinking about it and get started. Do something. Do anything. Get started!

Fake it. Dale Carnegie taught us that if we “act enthusiastic, we’ll be enthusiastic.” This is a fundamental truth. If you don’t immediately take action, you can begin by getting yourself excited about the task. If you are having trouble getting excited about the task, get excited about getting over your slump. That will motivate you and help you get going.

Start small. The first actions we take don’t have to be large. We may even feel a bit daunted by what is in front of us. In fact, the size of the project or obstacle in front of us may have been what caused the slump to start with. The size of your actions doesn’t matter. Take a small step right now.

Think big. While you may start small, you can still think big. Having a big vision can help motivate you and get you excited. It can be incredibly helpful to have a big vision.

Set a goal. Of course the “think big” suggestion is related to goal setting. But you can have a big vision without truly having a goal. Again, at this point the size of the goal is less important than having a clear endpoint that is something you really want. I didn’t make this the first suggestion, though you could argue it should be. Why didn’t I? Because sometimes people procrastinate in setting a goal! You need this step, and if you can get that clear focus at the start, all the better.

Get some help. Sometimes a task is easier if you have someone to work with. Get a co-worker to share the load on your project, and offer to help them in return. Ask a neighbor for a hand. Their helping hand or their camaraderie may be what stimulates you, or maybe it is the accountability that comes from another person saying, “I’m ready, where do we start?”

Get some advice. Talk to someone who knows about your project or task. Ask for the benefit of their experience. Get their ideas about how to proceed. Their advice will be helpful, and you will likely feel some support for your actions.

Have a daily plan. Do a little bit more each day. A big effort today is great, but if it isn’t followed up tomorrow you might find yourself right back where you started emotionally and psychologically. Have a daily plan and work that plan. Consistently work on the task or project and you will find your energy and enthusiasm growing. Soon your slump will be a distant memory.

Set a reward. Maybe you will reward yourself with your favorite dinner, or a night out, or a new CD. Pick something commiserate with your task and something that is motivating to you (or your team). It won’t be long until you will be enjoying the rewards you set for yourself.

Johnny Cash wrote and sang a song called “Get Rhythm,” and the last chorus goes . . .

Get rhythm when you get the blues
Hey, get rhythm when you get the blues
Get a rock ‘n’ roll feelin’ in your bones
Get taps on your toes and get gone
Get rhythm when you get the blues

All of these suggestions come back to that musical advice. When we get into a rhythm, we get out of our lull and into greater joy… and productivity.

Go ahead, get rhythm today!

Kevin Eikenberry is a leadership expert and the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group (KevinEikenberry.com), a learning consulting company. To receive a free Special Report on leadership that includes resources, ideas, and advice go to www.kevineikenberry.com/leadership.asp or call us at (317) 387-1424 or 888.LEARNER.