Freedom From BigBrother Now!

I usually don’t go on vacation. A vacation takes me out of my house, away from my keyboard, far from my wireless network. I’ve grown to love the little conveniences of my home, the height of my desktop computer, the luxury of using my laptop even while cooking a big meal, the unexpected warmth of my dog’s breath against my leg. Before even packing, I miss my bed, my bathroom, my EVOO.

A vacation poses a leap of faith into the unknown. Aside from my normal apprehensions about going way up in the air on some physics principles and prayers, I wonder about the accommodations which never seem to match the brochure. Furthermore, there are noises I am used to sleeping through, locks I feel secure behind, and small amounts of identifiable dirt I can live with peacefully. And then there is the matter of being idle. Vacationing people are not only expected to leave home and family, they’re expected to leave their work. Needless to say, I had more difficulty with the latter, but I did agree to give it the old college try.

Yellow-belly that I am, I did not brave the trip alone. In addition to members of my immediate family, packets of Immodium, and a big bottle of hair conditioner, I packed a few other writers for company. I packed a modest size notebook. I packed enough pens and pencils to rewrite War and Peace, all of which I carried around in my oversized purse, awkwardly lifting and dropping passports and tickets, removing and replacing the books innumerable times for Tic Tacs and gum, knowing it was worth any inconvenience to be able to read on demand.

At our destination, my family predictably abandoned me to pursue “fun,” and I set up shop. I angled a lounge chair out of the sun on a balcony facing the ocean, and pulled out the first of my books. I grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator in our suite, and sat out there a good thirty seconds enjoying the view, the breeze, the quiet, noting my husband’s position on a sailboat in case he asked the way the kids used to ask if I had seen them doing tricks in the water. Now my vacation was beginning. I was finally going to be able to enjoy someone else’s work, without interruption.

The first ten pages were easy enough. And once I put the towel over my legs to keep from getting one of those sunburns I preached about to my kids, the second ten were bearable. During the next five or so, I finished the last of my peanut M&Ms from the airport, moving directly into my pack of Eclipse. And then I did my best to balance my sunglasses over my reading glasses, which worked, until there was no getting out of the sun on that chair.

As luck would have it, there was also a table and chair set on the balcony, which I could easily position in the shade, so I picked up my water bottle, my towels, my purse, my book, and changed locations. So I was upright. Being upright didn’t preclude relaxation. I methodically noted the position of my daughter and husband now in a yellow kayak, acknowledged the mountains, the palm trees, my son who came to get his bathing suit, the heat of the sun, the strength of the breeze against the pages of my paperback, and then this strange black bird which started yelping insistently. I stood up as if to ask why it was disturbing my newly found peace. It seemed to be cursing me out, again and again, until I knew how Dorothy felt to be so very far from Kansas.

Offended, I clutched the railing of the balcony, mourning my lack of peace, wondering how early they started serving tropical drinks at the bar. The bird was relentless. What, I asked myself, could it possibly want from me? I was a stranger, invisible to the other, nicer birds who didn’t feel the need to keep calling out to me. I stared up at the sky until my eyes watered, watching this bird for any Hitchcock leanings. He was definitely a screamer. Mom? That would be my luck. While the other tourists were bobbing to reggae, I was under attack by the winged ghost of my mother.

Suddenly I seemed to wake up and understand where I was. I wasn’t on vacation. I had traveled into a wonderful new setting! I immediately reached for my notebook and cursed the very resolve that brought me here without my computer, because I was certain I would never be able to write as quickly as necessary in order to capture every sight, smell, and sound for some future story. Six pages later, the ocean still rolled about laughing at me. Bring it on, I smirked. I had towels. I had water. I had a whole new world to imagine.

L. A. Rentschler, author of the newly released novel Mother (amazon.com). Author of Jitters which was produced as a Lifetime Original Movie. Playwright, best known for Deathbed. IWWG. Dramatist Guild of America. http://www.larentschler.com

Billions of dollars worth of international trade is carried out every day, much of it by small businesses, importing and exporting products from and to their counterparts in other nations. As with every type of business an important task is locating people who will lead you to a signed contract - your trade leads.

Traditionally, businesses have found their international leads by attending trade shows in the target country. But this is an expensive and time-consuming way to find leads and besides, attending a show in a foreign country can be quite daunting.

Fortunately there is a great alternative to attending numerous trade shows - a substantial amount of import-export trade is now carried out online via B2B (Business To Business) trade portals.

B2B Trade Portals

These are websites that facilitate the exchange of goods and services between businesses. Our trade portal at http://www.import-export-guide.com/trade is an example of such a site.

All kinds of products are being traded online between people from many different countries. On our portal we have members from Brazil, China, USA, Yugoslavia, Egypt Australia - every continent is represented. And the products they post are just as diverse - shoes, water coolers, gas, fibreglass insect screens, platinized anodes (whatever those are!).

Typically on an online portal you will be able to communicate with the originators of trade leads, submit details of your company and its contact details, upload images of your products and post your own trade leads.

Whilst all kinds are requirements can be posted on trade portals, including those for services, partnerships and others, the two most important types of trade leads are ‘Buy’ Leads and ‘Sell’ Leads.

Buy Leads

These are the posts you place when you have a need for a certain product.

• Make sure you are clear about what you require
• Describe the quantity, quality and size of the products you need
• Mention if there are any shipping restrictions or pricing requirements
• The more information you supply the more targeted will be the response you receive
• Remember you are not obliged to reply to all contacts. But if someone has taken the time and effort to prepare a good proposal then it does no harm to respond

Sell Leads
These are the posts you place to inform buyers of the goods you have available to sell.

• As with the Buy Leads, the more information you give about the products the better and more targeted the response will be
• Use an informative subject heading - if the subject doesn’t seem to apply to a buyer they won’t be bothered to read your lead
• You are dealing with an international market so use clear simple language - no jargon, no exaggeration, no hype
• Respond promptly to all reasonable enquiries
• If the facility exists on the portal to mention your company use it to establish your credibility

Security

Without a doubt many conmen and charlatans frequent online trade portals but there are steps you can take to protect yourself from such people:

• Don’t respond to any suspicious contact or any that is obviously spam - if you show you are willing to listen they will do everything they can to take advantage
• Once you’ve made contact with a potential buyer or supplier, check out their credentials, convince yourself they are a respectable business:
  • Take a look at their company website
  • Find out who they’ve done business with in the past
  • Ask if they have past clients from your own country
  • Investigate their credit worthiness
• Use a Letter of Credit (L/C) - this is issued by a bank and guarantees payment to the Seller when all the terms and conditions of the trade are met. It protects both the Buyer and the Seller
  • The Buyer will only part with money if the terms and conditions are met
  • The Seller will always get his money if the terms and conditions are met

There’s a lot of money to be made in import-export and you don’t have to travel far to make it. Whether you’re looking for novel foreign goods to sell in your country or there’s greater profit to be had selling your products overseas, you can find all the prospects you need simply by visiting an online trade portal.

Rob Henderson, Import-Export-Guide.com

Import-Export-Guide.com is an independent company that provides information and solutions for importers, exporters, trading companies, trading consultants and others involved in international trade. For more information and to register on the trade portal visit http://www.import-export-guide.com/trade.

How or where you host your website may not seem like it’s all that important to the overall marketing plan of your site, but I guarantee that you’ll only think that until your website or email goes down when it matters most. Over the years I’ve used almost a dozen different web hosts providers. In that time, I’ve found only one or two which were virtually hassle-free, and for that I had to pay some pretty sizeable hosting fees.

Web hosting costs have reduced drastically in the last several years; however, you shouldn’t choose a web host based solely on cost. As inexpensive as it might be month to month, a poor provider can cost you thousands of dollars in lost sales if your site or email goes down or simple fails to function properly on a consistent basis.

When researching various hosting companies, look for quality over cost. You don’t necessarily have to pay an outrageous monthly fee, but you do need to find a host that provides you all the features you need with minimal inconveniences and ongoing problems.

Tech Support

A good web hosting company will provide around the clock call-in tech support. Personally, I avoid any provider that only offers email or online tech support. That’s a personal thing for me; you’ll have to make your own judgment on that. If you call, you should not be left on hold for more than four or five minutes before reaching a representative to help you. If you email a tech support issue, be sure your provider responds to requests quickly-within hours, not days-and is able to quickly and competently provide you a solution.

Down Time

Many providers offer some kind of uptime guarantee. Be sure to read the small print in order to fully understand what that means. I’ve dealt with providers which the guarantee was only for the website and not for email. I went a full day without functioning email and the host refused to give me any discount on that month’s service charges.

Many providers give a 99.9% uptime guarantee. This means that the provider guarantees that their servers will not go down for more than 8 hours per year or less than 45 minutes each month. Of course, if you’re in the middle of a big marketing campaign, 45 minutes can be crucial.

If a provider fails to meet their guaranteed up time, you can usually get your hosting charges waived for the month. If it happens regularly, you can literally go months without having to pay fees. Sounds nice, but it’s really not adequate compensation for the amount of traffic, and perhaps business, you lose while your website or email is not functioning as it should. If you are currently with a host that goes down more than a couple times a year, you may want to reconsider who you host your website with.

Server Load Monitoring

You want to choose your hosting plan carefully to ensure that it will be able to handle whatever server load your site might generate, especially during peak times or big marketing pushes. Most web hosts allocate a certain amount of bandwidth usage each month. If you exceed that, you may find yourself paying extra fees, or worse, your site may be inaccessible until you ante up more money.

Be sure to know your bandwidth usage and how much you are allocated. Knowing that, you’ll also want to be aware of the consequences if you exceed that bandwidth. Plan for this to happen in advance so you’re not caught off guard when you get a sudden surge of traffic.

Secure Server

If you are processing credit card information or storing personal data that should not be exposed, it is important that you have access to a secure server. Security is a growing concern with Internet shoppers and many businesses report an increase in conversions just by displaying a secure symbol in their shopping cart area.

Some web hosts will provide you access to a secure portion of their server. In these cases when visitors navigate to the secure area, the URL will actually change and the visitor will no longer be “on” your site (i.e. www.yourdomain.com). In most cases the user probably won’t even notice, however many websites place their entire online store on these external secure areas. The downside to this is that it removes many potentially valuable pages off your site making any potential search engine ranking benefit inaccessible to you. Each of these pages could otherwise be an entry point to your site via the search engines.

The other option is to have a secure area on your own site. You can do this by purchasing a secure certificate for your domain name. This certificate is then “installed” through your web host giving you unlimited secure areas of your site to work withall on your own domain. This is the most professional solution and allows you to keep potential search engine friendly pages indexable with the rest of your site.

I would also recommend keeping as much of your website out of the secure area as possible and only transfer visitors to the secure area when they are in the checkout process. If they leave the checkout to continue shopping they should also leave the secure area.

Free Hosting Services

Free web hosting services, such as Geocities, are not recommended for any business that wants to develop a professional online presence. Leave those free services for hobby and personal sites. If you want your business to thrive on the Internet you need to be able to direct someone to www.yourwebsite.com, not www.geocities.com/~mycoolsite/index.html.

In-House Hosting

Many companies are bypassing the web hosting providers altogether in favor of hosting their sites on their own in-house servers. There are some definite pros for doing this but I don’t recommend going this route unless you have a full-time IT person on staff who is skilled at web server management.

I once flirted with hosting my site in-house. I have a rented in-house file server which comes with ongoing customer support. My tech sold me on the benefits of hosting my site in-house. After moving my site over I quickly realized that there was much more to web hosting than meets the eye. Days went by as I waited for my server tech to set-up proper email functionality and domain redirecting. After about a week with calls to the domain registrar, server tech, and programmer, all saying the problem is somebody else’s issue, I return to using a real hosting provider.

In-house hosting also raises site access issues. When hosting in-house the ability for visitors to access and download your site is largely dependant on your local ISP and the connection speed you receive. Even with broadband DSL or cable, typical connection speeds are much slower than can be provided with a quality web host. This can increase download times and create a more sluggish site if you have many visitors at once.

In-house hosting also does not provide you with any kind of uptime guarantee, and in my experience, excellent tech support. Should your server go down, you temporarily lose Internet access, or power goes out, your website will be unavailable to your visitors.

In my experience, quality web hosting is difficult to come by, but is absolutely essential for any business that takes their online marketing efforts seriously. Be sure to research your potential web host providers carefully. Find out what services they provide for free and what you have to pay for. Make sure they provide sufficient tech support, guaranteed uptime, as well as a good reputation from others. If you need to, be willing to pay more for quality service. A little extra each month can help eliminate thousands of dollars in potential lost revenue if your website or email goes down at an inopportune time.

Stoney DeGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing, a professional search engine marketing and optimization firm providing SEO services since 1998. Stoney is also a part-time instructor at the community College in Reno, Nevada where he resides as well as a moderator in the Small Business Ideas Forum. You can read his SEM blog at (EMP) E-Marketing Performance. You can email him with any questions at stoney@polepositionmarketing.com

As we approach the stretch run of the NBA season, let’s take a look at some overall season stats. What is a more important team statistic: a good offense or good defense? Well, let’s take a look at the highest scoring teams in the NBA: They are, in order, the Suns, Sonics, Wizards, Heat, Nuggets, Raptors and 76ers. What stands out is that there is a mixture of good teams, bad teams, playoff teams, those on the bubble and those out of it. The Suns and Heat are in the playoffs, while the Sonics and Raptors are also “in”: In the draft lottery, that is. They have no shot at the postseason.

Despite this mixture, you can’t look at that group and say offense is what makes them a strong or a bad team, with the exception of the Suns. Phoenix has built its team around a unique up-tempo style and is one of the top teams in the league. Yet, the next highest scoring team, Seattle, has been a disaster all season and is currently working on its second coach. If you like to play totals, note the Sonics are 23-9 ‘over’ the total at home. They are the perfect ‘over’ team, with a strong offense and an embarrassingly bad defense, allowing 49% shooting by opponents, worst in the NBA.

Now let’s examine the teams that have allowed the fewest points in the league: The Spurs, Grizzlies, Pistons, Pacers, Rockets and Mavericks. From that small group you have a collection of the NBA’s elite with the Pistons, Spurs and Mavs, and three other teams that are likely to make the playoffs, with the exception of the Rockets, who just lost star Tracy McGrady for a few more weeks. That’s probably their death knell.

The point is, the better defensive teams are the dominant ones in the NBA and ones that are likely to be in the NBA Finals or, at the least, the semi-finals. It’s no coincidence that last year’s NBA Finals participants are in that group, San Antonio and Detroit. Again, for totals players, the Spurs have been money-makers all season at home at 22-9 under the total! They are also 2-1 SU/ATS as an underdog. Strong defense gives dogs an excellent chance to win and cover.

Here’s a list of the teams that have allowed the most points in the NBA: The Sonics, Raptors, Knicks, Hawks and 76ers. What stands out about that group? They stink! Four of the five have no shot at the postseason and the 76ers aren’t going anywhere with that porous defense.

Perhaps the best indicator of defense is how opponents shoot against them. Here are the five worst teams in the NBA allowing over 46% shooting by opponents: The Sonics, Raptors, Hawks, Bobcats, and Blazers. That’s a lot of easy lay-ups! What stands out about that group? They’re awful AND will be battling for the top spot in the draft lottery!
Some ATS numbers to keep in mind: The Knicks are 37-26 ‘over’ the total, the Raptors are 34-29 ‘over’, Atlanta is 20-11 ‘over’ the total at home, Seattle is 11-21 ATS on the road, and the Blazers are 1-4 ATS as a favorite! Defense is key in the NBA playoffs and down the stretch. It can also show up in great disparities in spread marks. Bad defense can often mean poor spread marks and more games ‘over’ the total than ‘under’ at all times of the season. Good luck, as always…Al McMordie.

Al McMordie is a documented member of the Professional Handicappers League.
Read all of his articles at http://www.procappers.com/Al_McMordie.htm

Creating Customer Loyalty for Your Business

Strategize and Plan For Loyalty!

These four factors will greatly affect your ability to build a loyal customer base:

1. Products that are highly differentiated from those of the competition.

2. Higher-end products where price is not the primary buying factor.

3. Products with a high service component.

4. Multiple products for the same customer.

1. Market To Your Own Customers

Giving a lot of thought to your marketing programs aimed at current customers is one aspect of building customer loyalty.

When you buy a new car, many dealers will within minutes try to sell you an extended warranty, an alarm system, and maybe rust proofing. It’s often a very easy sale and costs the dealer almost nothing to make. Are there additional products or services you can sell your customers? Three years ago my house was painted, and it’s now due for another coat. Why hasn’t the painter called or at least sent a card? It would be a lot less expensive than getting new customers through his newspaper ad, and since I was happy with his work I won’t get four competing bids this time. Keep all the information you can on your customers and don’t hesitate to ask for the next sale.

2. Use Complaints To Build Business!

When customers aren’t happy with your business they usually won’t complain to you - instead, they’ll probably complain to just about everyone else they know - and take their business to your competition next time. That’s why an increasing number of businesses are making follow-up calls or mailing satisfaction questionnaires after the sale is made. They find that if they promptly follow up and resolve a customer’s complaint, the customer might be even more likely to do business than the average customer who didn’t have a complaint.

3. Reach Out To Your Customers!

Contact with current customers is a good way to build their loyalty.

The more the customer sees someone from your firm, the more likely you’ll get the next order. Send Holiday cards, see them at trade shows, stop by to make sure everything’s okay. Send a simple email newsletter to your customers-tell them about the great things that are happening at your firm and include some useful information for them. Send them copies of any media clippings about your firm. Invite them to free seminars or exclusive events. The more they know about you, the more they see you as someone out to help them, the more they know about your accomplishments-the more loyal a customer they will be.

Recommended Tool: Loyal Email

The Loyal Email solution enables businesses of any size to communicate directly with customers via permission-based email campaigns which helps companies save time and money while increasing sales and customer loyalty.

This solution is geared towards companies whom want to harness the effectiveness and cost efficiencies of email communications but do not want the hassles of managing their own program in-house. Loyal Email is a 100% managed service which doesn’t require any additional investment in hardware, software or personnel. They take care of everything so you don’t have to. Get your own custom designed email marketing and customer loyalty program at http://www.loyalemail.com

Wishing you great business success,

Chris Swemba
Kinetica

Chris Swemba is the founder and CEO of Kinetica Media, an internet marketing company that develops and implements affordable internet marketing and website design services. Please visit www.kineticamedia.com for more information on our customer-generating products and services.

Tired of Marriage? Start Dating

When the romance has trickled out of your marriage and each day
seems to blend in to the next, try these easy ways to
re-energize your marriage and your love life.

Start by thinking back to your dating days; if dating was fun,
but marriage has become routine-start dating again. Of course, I
mean start dating your spouse. Think of him as your lifetime
date. Do all the fun things you did when you were deciding
whether to marry him. What did you do for fun? Did you play
sports, go out to dinner, or go shopping? Make dating your
spouse a priority. Fit these activities back into your schedule.

Plan a date night for once a week. If you don’t have any kids,
your schedules are probably pretty full. Schedule date night in
advance, the same as you would for any other social or
professional meeting. If you do have children, hire a babysitter
to come over on the same night every week. This will save you
from having to find a babysitter every time you want to go out.
And, it will strengthen your commitment to date night. For
example, plan to have the sitter come over every Thursday, but
tell her not to call before arriving. This puts the burden on
you to cancel and removes one of your excuses for not keeping
the date. By planning ahead, very little effort is involved in
the preparation of date night. This makes it much more likely
you will get out of the house and keep the promise you made to
each other.

When you go out for your date, do something that renews your
bond. Watching a movie or going to a concert may be fun, but
they don’t give you the opportunity to talk to one another. If
you decide to see a movie, follow it up with dessert or coffee.
There’s value in just sitting alone together, face to face, and
talking. Your date night should be all about you and your
partner so don’t invite friends or family. And definitely leave
the kids at home! Allow yourselves enough time to make a night
of it. If you schedule only an hour or two out of the house, you
will be limited to doing the same thing every date night.
Opening up the evening allows you to try new things and
decreases the stress of having a curfew.

Since you’ll be dating about three or four times a month, make
sure to try new things. Go out to dinner at a new restaurant, go
out for coffee, play a board game, go dancing, go for a picnic,
go for a bike ride or a swim. The possibilities are limited only
by your imaginations. If you get stuck for ideas, try this: each
person sets the agenda for alternate date nights. For example,
your husband plans the next date night. He makes all the
decisions about what, where, when. But, he doesn’t tell you. You
get to wonder all week what the date will be. And then on date
night, let him be your Master of Ceremonies. You don’t get to
complain or criticize-just go with the flow. The following week,
it’s your turn. This keeps some surprise and excitement in the
dates because even weekly date nights can get routine.

What you do on date nights is not important. What is important
is that you are together; bonding, reconnecting, sharing, and
reliving for just a few hours each week, those happy times when
you were single but wanted to spend the rest of your life with
this person. Well now it is the rest of your life. Keep the
romance alive; keep the fun alive. Make your marriage a lifelong
date.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dr. Alan Stafford,
Relationship Results Coach I help Singles and Couples build
relationships that work www.relationshipsuccessexperts.com

Click here to ask Alan a question about your biggest
relationship issue
http://relationshipsuccessexperts.com/askalan.htm

Get our free newsletter for relationship tips and advice
http://relationshipsuccessexperts.com/subscribe.html © 2005 Alan
Stafford/Relationship Success Experts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Imagine for a moment that you are a champion. You are the best in your town . No, you are the best in your country. How does that make you feel? Good yeah? You are a champion. What are you the champion of? What is your major strength? Are you a good leader? A good strategist. A great tactician. A team builder perhaps. A great listener. Perhaps you have the ability to develop and grow the skills of others. Whatever it is, you have the talent to become a champion. All you need to do is to understand what it is that makes a champion. In this article we are going to introduce you to a new awareness. We are going to open up your mind to the invisible world of what makes a champion.

Personally, we think there are four major criteria that make a champion. You probably know what they are: Talent, courage, tenacity and mind set. You have each of them but do you use them?

Guess what! You have the talent to become a champion. But first it is a case of identifying what your talent is. It is easy if you have a talent for running, swimming, cycling, football or any sporting talent but we are talking of a talent that is not readily identifiable but can make you into a champion.
.

Stop for a moment. We want you to take a little time and think about your own talents and qualities. Just let your mind roll back and list all your achievements. All the things never mind how big or small that YOU consider to be an achievement in your life.

Now review your list. Can you see a pattern?

Listen to yourself…… What do you feel is important to you. Be honest.

What are you good at?

What do you like doing?

Are YOU competitive?

Does your pattern and your inside voice show you, you get your kicks from helping others; being useful to society or does money motivate you?

Now you are sure you have talent. Perhaps there is a natural energy about you. A way in which others naturally listen to what you have to say. Perhaps it is an ability to make others follow you. Perhaps you are naturally persistent. You find others naturally do what you suggested. Perhaps you have natural courage. Perhaps it is a talent that is easily recognisable like painting, drawing, playing football or whatever.

Whatever it is you are now able to identify your key core skills, your talents. The skills that you use when you are functioning at your full potential.

But there is a long road between identifying your talents and being a champion. If you want to be a champion you need to harness other talents. Those that have been on idle or haven’t been used at all because you are totally preoccupied with a certain way of living. Those that have, for whatever reason, been pushed into the background and forgotten. In our experience, people often sabotage their own efforts. They are aware they have special skills, abilities and qualities but they keep them turned off most of the time. They go through life only make effort when they want to make effort. Then and only then do they fully utilise their hidden talents. At that time, and that time only, are they at their most alert.

Think for a moment and list your hidden, natural talents that you know exist but are not being fully used.

The point is now you have written down and accepted both your hidden and surface skills, abilities and qualities do you have the courage to use them to reach your full potential.
Do you have the courage to succeed?

Do you have the courage to accept that there is a different life out there for you? A life where you are a champion. A person who lives or wants to live to their full potential.

Do you have the courage to go against the ‘natural’ flow dictated by others? To overcome the dream stealers with their pronouncements of gloom. For example: “you can’t make money out of that”. “You are not good enough”. “Do you know how many people have tried to make a living doing that?” Etc etc etc. All destined to stop you from fulfilling your potential.

If you want to reach your potential. If you want to succeed. You have to have courage. The courage to focus on your skills, abilities, qualities, talents and stay with them and work out how you can best live a full life rather than one you feel you ought to live in order to keep others happy and make a living.

Now you have identified all your attributes and have the courage to move forward do you have the tenacity to be a champion?.
Do you have the determination to keep going when all appears to be against you?
Can you dig deep and keep focussed on your dream when others are putting you down? Tenacity means the ability to keep focussed on your dream.
To be determined to improve your skills, talent and abilities day in day out.
To Practice. For example: A musician has a talent, skills and abilities but is useless without daily practice. Do you have the tenacity, the determination to practice your skills daily? If you are a writer do you write every day? If you are a salesperson do you practice your product knowledge everyday? Are you totally aware of your competitors product? Are you aware of the most likely questions a potential customer is likely to ask? Do you talk to someone everyday about you product? If you are a web designer do you practice every day? Are you a member of numerous forums to hone your skills?

Whatever your skill is, whatever your talent is, do you practice it every day. Do you constantly search the web and other periodicals for information about your skills and abilities to make you better than everyone else? Or are you satisfied with your level of skill? Are you driven to be a champion or do you accept second, third, fourth….place?

What is your mindset? What are the thoughts that run your life? Are they negative or positive? Do you tell yourself that providing you scrape by all is well? If only I can earn $20,000 dollars a year I will be OK. Or do you tell yourself to use your abilities, skills and qualities to the full each and every day? Whatever motivates you; money, prestige, social conscience, whatever, look at your mindset? Do you have the thoughts of a champion or the thoughts of a competitor?.

So what makes champions? Talent, Courage, Tenacity and Mindset. The ability to constantly make an effort. The ability to work at what you want. The ability to believe in yourself. The ability to keep going when others have thrown in the towel. The ability to realise that you can achieve your dream. The ability to keep focussed. Talent and mental strength. The willingness to keep practicing, keep developing your talent irrespective of what others say. You have the ability. You have the talent. All you have to do is believe in yourself.

What makes a champion? The invisible world of Talent, Courage, Tenacity and Mindset. This is what makes a champion.

Good Luck

Graham and Julie

To improve your intuition, initiative and energy levels please go to:
http://www.desktop-meditation.com. It’s free.

When dealing with the refurbishing of facial skin, peels are a popular option. Here is an overview of enzyme peels for your facial skin care needs.

An Overview of Enzyme Peels for Your Face

The enzyme peel is not a new technique at all. It has been performed for a long time ago but often without a deep knowledge on the matter. This is easily confirmed after an overview of those home remedies and cosmetics intended for skin care, such as papaya or green apple facemasks or lotions.

Papaya enzymes are not only good for nutrition but also to peel off epidermal cells, which aids in regenerating the skin. This property is also observed in aloe Vera, pumpkin, pineapple, and other fruits. Restorative enzyme peel is a type of exfoliating non-surgical procedure that uses natural or chemical products to produce exfoliation.

An Enzyme peel accelerates the natural exfoliate process of the skin to get rid of dead skin cells, promote young cell renewal, and visibly diminish scars, stretch marks, aging spots and lines, sun damage, and skin discoloration. Enzymes penetrate the upper layers of the tissue, cleansing pores and improving skin texture, tone, elasticity and tautness.

Although, some enzyme peels work with the aid of acids or mechanical granules, natural enzymes are the most recommended to prevent dryness or allergic reactions. In fact, some strong chemicals used for deep peeling, such as phenol, may cause cancer of the skin or side effects.

In order to obtain the most benefits from enzyme peels, whatever the product you choose or the natural home remedy, you can get the most from it by applying a thin layer to your clean and dry skin, rather than a thick coat. Enzymes work best by rubbing gently in a mild circular motion.

An Enzyme Peel produces results in the short term after begin the application, but you need to perform a routine exfoliation to see good results. Treatments with enzymes improve your skin look and feel, but do not stop aging. Furthermore, you will have to repeat a peeling treatment after a certain period of time to remove new damaged cells and keep your fresh and youthful appearance.

Finding the perfect learning tool for Flash is a daunting task
to any novice web developer. One can find help in a number of
ways through books, friends and private tutors. These methods
are great but not often readily available, nor cheap! The best
and cheapest way to learn anything from the basics of flash to
the secrets of the trade is a Flash Tutorial. Think of the Flash
Tutorial as a mini lesson that teaches a specific part of the
flash.

Flash Tutorials come in many levels of difficulty and quality.
Developers don’t publish their tutorials according to an
established curriculum, they simple publish whatever they please
or think will be useful. That makes finding the correct Flash
Tutorial difficult. Many times the tutorial is too vague and the
information is difficult to understand. Conversely, the concepts
could be easy to understand but entirely useless in the real
world. If a person will examine the quality of the tutorial
before they work through it, they will be able to avoid a lot of
unnecessary frustration. When selecting a Flash
Tutorial, look for these three criteria: examples, clarity,
and usefulness.

Examples

When looking for a Flash
Tutorial, be sure that it has examples to go with it.
Examples are actual snippets of code that actually demonstrate
the principles taught in the tutorial. If the source code is
downloadable as an example file for you to look at and run, that
is even better. Look for examples that are easy to follow and
demonstrate clearly the principle being taught. There is nothing
more frustrating than finding the perfect tutorial and not
having the perfect example to work from.

Clarity

Find Flash Tutorials that are clear and easy to understand. If a
flash dictionary is needed, then the tutorial is not worth your
time. Tutorials should be written clearly and concisely. It is
best when the author has put links to the definition of, or
clarifies a difficult word. Generally, it is also helpful when
the tutorial has visuals. That being said, not all visuals are
effective. The visuals should clarify and not confuse.

Usefulness

Above all tutorials should be useful. They should teach things
that can actually be used. It is great when the tutorial teaches
how to effectively use the feature in a real-life situation. A
good Flas
h Tutorial will be adaptable. The user should be able to
take the examples and adapt them to their application without
having to entirely redo the process. Finally, the tutorial
should teach the entire concept. This can be in one lesson or in
many lessons, but it should teach everything the user needs to
know to implement that concept.

Rumors once flew that red cars were more expensive to insure because they were thought to be driven faster. Today however it is known that car insurance companies don’t really care what color your car is. There have been multiple studies done to see if a certain color car was more likely to be driven faster or to be in more collisions. The results are always mixed however, with no steady results being found.

The color of car you prefer can mean something however. Some experts claim those who like red or yellow cars tend to be more adventurous. Those who prefer white or silver tend to be more conservative. Those who like blue or other vibrant colors are often more creative and those who like black and often considered classy drivers. This may or may not pertain to you.

While these are not scientific observations, there may be truth in them in some cases. Something more viable to think about is how the color of your car affects the interior when it is hot outside. Many people with black cars will tell you that they can never get their car to stay cool inside when the temperature outdoors rises. Making it too hot.