These tips are based on the self esteem building courses I teach. I’m sure they can help you too;

1. Learn how to do something well. Being good at something boosts your confidence and is fun.

2. Realise being shy is OK. Half of us are extroverts and half introverts. There are advantages to both so be proud to be as you are.

3. Beauty does not bring happiness. Happiness and confidence do bring attractiveness. Learn how to make the most of your good points and enjoy them.

4. Set realistic standards for yourself. Perfectionism undermines your pleasure in your achievements. Too low standards give little sense of achievement.

5. Deal with your problems. Unresolved issues undermine your confidence. Decide what needs to be done, do it and move on.

6. Do not criticise yourself. Over time, the bad things you say about yourself make you feel bad. Replace negative sayings with positive or neutral ones.

7. Recognise that what you want is as important as what others want. Ask for what you want and compromise gracefully if necessary.

8. Asking for, and accepting, help is a normal adult behaviour. It shows strength, not weakness.

9. The quality of your relationships has a profound affect on your self esteem. Avoid people who put your down or complain a lot. Find new upbeat companions who are enjoying their lives as their attitude will rub off on you.

10. Smile and stand tall. Behave the way you want to feel. Your facial expression and body posture do affect your emotions.

Finally let me finish with my favourite quote; ‘If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got’.

Helen Miller, of Crossroads Life Coaching, ia a qualified life coach who helps people increase their self esteem and remove self doubt. She coaches people by phone and also teaches self esteem and confidence building courses in Kent, England. To find out more call her on 01795 533688, or visit her website at crossroadslifecoaching.co.uk crossroadslifecoaching.co.uk.

Nearly every business owner and professional service organization I know lacks one major thing, time!

Do you feel like you are always running short on time? Do you feel like time is the one thing you seem unable to control? If you somehow had more time, do you have a list of things that you would do or dreams that you would fulfill? If you were able to better use your time would you feel more successful, less stressed, and overall happier than you do right at this moment?

If I asked you to throw a $20 bill on the ground and walk away you would look at me as though I had a third eye. Yet every time you $pend 15 minutes uselessly and without a conscious decision to do so that is exactly what you are doing, if you are currently earning a little over $160,000 a year. Ok, you say well I don’t earn anywhere near that but if you earn even about $40,000 a year you are throwing a $5 bill away. Would you throw $5 on the sidewalk and let the wind blow it wherever? I seriously doubt it, yet you are easily distracted from something you really want to do for 15 minutes frequently throughout your potentially productive and income generating work day and so are the people who work either with you or for you. According to a new survey by America Online and Salary.com, the average worker admits to frittering away 2.09 hours per 8-hour workday, not including lunch and scheduled break-time.

Research indicates that the internet is a frequently used time waster, but the real question is why do you waste so much valuable time in your work day? One major reason is the attitudes you hold about the value of time. You may currently use, or have used in the past, some form of time tracking system such as Day Runner or Franklin Covey. The system you use isn’t critical just find a system that you like and run with it. The system, however, doesn’t address the true reason that time is such a limited commodity in your life. The truth is you have the same 60 minutes to use each hour as everyone else you just don’t necessarily $pend that 60 minutes in a way that holds the most long-term benefit for you. The reason you $pend your time so effortlessly is that you value your time differently than someone who seems to have time for the things in life that they view as important.

So how can you live your life with the time you want to do the things you want? Start by changing how you think about time. Think of time as a valuable commodity that you choose to $pend rather than an elusive substance that slips away. Recognize that as an adult you choose how you will spend your time at every given moment. Currently you may be allowing other people to decide how you spend your time, if you don’t want to change that then contact me and let me choose how you will spend your money. You wouldn’t dream of doing that so why do you let everyone but you decide how you will $pend your time. Develop a big picture plan for what you want to accomplish, what you will need to do to accomplish it, and what you absolutely must accomplish each day to get there.

Why aren’t you managing your time well now if it’s so easy and you know what you are supposed to do and how to do it? Until your lack of time becomes truly painful to you it is just easier to do what you’ve been doing and keep getting the results you’ve been getting. You may have never stopped to realize just how much a little time here and a little time there is really costing you not only in dollars, but in your ability to fulfill your dreams and reduce your stress. You may have started with some time tracking system previously and found it too difficult to keep up with or you didn’t see an immediate reward for doing all that additional tracking. You may even think that tracking your time is something people who are entirely too anal do and something that a free spirit like yourself wouldn’t be caught dead doing.

When you gain control of your time you feel more successful, you have a whole lot less stress, and your level of happiness increases dramatically. Do you remember those smart kids in elementary school that had time to play after school, time to watch their favorite TV shows, helped with chores, and still got straight A’s in school? If you weren’t one of those kids you probably internally resented them and blamed genes or their natural aptitude for everything in life. Well the hard cold truth is that those kids probably weren’t anymore genetically favored than you were they just had an early role model that helped them to develop time conscious attitudes. As they enjoyed the benefits that those time conscious attitudes provided them they got re-enforcement to continue with those attitudes. This will happen to you once you begin to work on your attitudes as they affect how you use your time. It’s really simple. Your attitudes determine your behaviors and your behaviors determine your results. You really do have that much control over how you will use your time.

So when will you take action to make your time work for you? As you think of how 2 hours that you are currently letting slip away could be used, how would that benefit you? Does 2 more productive hours each day translate into an extra $38,000 of income? Does it mean time to attend your child’s ball game or school event? Does it mean more time to plan your business so that you are working smarter rather than harder? Does it mean working 30 hours a week rather than the 60 you are working now? Does it mean that you are happier and are more relaxed when you are with the people that are important to you? Sometimes we confuse being busy with being important and successful rather than confessing to the truth, being overly busy just means that I am not using my time wisely and I am short changing myself, my organization, and the people around me. Start today changing your attitudes about how you $pend your time. Time’s a wasting.

Business coach Cheryl Clausen will help you to get results in your real estate, insurance, or financial services business. Coaching works and my clients results prove it. If you would like to coachingmegaagents.com/TrialMembership.php/ Give Coaching a Try click here. To find valuable articles, book reviews, and other information visit coachingmegaagents.com/ CoachingMegaAgents.com/ To contact Cheryl directly: call 402-926-1134 or email mailto:Cheryl@CoachingMegaAgents.com Cheryl@CoachingMegaAgents.com

Ideally, good people, with similar values, would always agree. This isn’t always the case, however. Malphurs, author of Value-Driven Leadership, advocates that an organization’s core values signal its bottom line. What happens when a crisis challenges these core values? For example, President Bush has garnished increased criticism for our stay in Iraq. Newly released documents, transcribed from top-level Iraqi meetings, support that Iraq had long ended its nuclear weapons program. Good people on both sides of this issue disagree. Tempers are flared. Personal attacks are launched. How does a leader bring these opposing sides together?

Fortunately, Christian history is filled with such matters. Acts 15 records Paul and Barnabas’ missionary split. No compromised was reached. Barnabas took John Mark and Paul took Silas. Severson, author of Teaming in Ministry, maintains that both men just left it alone and didn’t turn it into a spiritual maturity issue. Clearly, people of God must pray that God intervenes in these situations. We must also be patience for God’s answer. In haste, we often take our gut feeling as God’s approval of our choices.

Therefore, Religious leaders have an obligation to secure disagreement among them. Don’t let division dilute your effectiveness. Build your organization by fostering good values. Start today!

References:

Hanley, C. (March 20, 2006). On tapes, saddam says iraq didn’t have wmd. Knoxville News- Sentinels, A16.

Severson, D. (2005). Teaming in Ministry: The Affinity. Christian Standard. Received on March 31, 2006 from christianstandard.com/articledisplay.asp?id=133.

Malphurs, A. (1996). Values-Driven Leadership. Grand Rapids, MI: Bakers Books.

© 2006 by Daryl D. Green

Daryl D. Green has published over 100 articles in the field of decision-making (personal and organizational), leadership, and organizational behavior. Mr. Green is also the author of two acclaimed books, Awakening the Talents Within and My Cup Runneth Over. He is a columnist, lecturer, professor, and management consultant. Mr. Green has a BS in engineering and a MA in organizational management. Currently, he is a doctoral degree in strategic leadership. For more information, visit his website at darylgreen.org darylgreen.org

Before I continue with Scriptures that are supposed to support the idea that God is one i.e. a mono god, I would like to raise the very important issue of the idea that Jews worship the same God as Christians. I raise this point because there are many Christians that think they do worship the same God but unfortunately they are deceived. The Lord Jesus Christ made it very plain who the Jews worshipped and whom they still worship to this day. I will print those verses here to reveal The Truth of this matter:

John 8:37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.

The Lord Jesus Christ’s Word still has no place in them even in the year 2007.

Verse 38: I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.

Here, The Lord is telling them straight but they just don’t get it and they’re still not getting it.

Verse 39: They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.

Here The Lord is referring to faith and belief in Him but men of religion put their faith in that not in The Lord Jesus Christ. The Pharisees are still with us today.

Verse 40: But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.

There will come a time in the not too distant future when they will seek to kill True Believers and followers of The Lord Jesus Christ who speak The Truth. Those who do this will believe they are doing God’s will, but in reality it will be the mono-god’s will, not God’s will.

41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. 42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. 43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. 44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. 45 And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.”

Notice how these Scriptures paint a very different picture to the one painted by mainstream ‘Christianity’. Some will try to explain it away by saying these Jews were Pharisees not ordinary every day Jews, but it makes no difference. Unless a Jew is ‘grafted back onto the bush’ from whence he was broken off he remains an opponent and enemy of Jesus Christ: Romans 11:23 “And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again.” The Jews denied Jesus Christ in the first century and they still deny Him today. The Scriptures above clearly tell us who the Jews worship, whether in ignorance or otherwise, and they believe in one god, as do those in Islam. Ironically, Jews and Islamics have more in common than they realise – a single, solitary, mono-god and it’s all monotheism.

Here is another take on it. If the god of the Jews is the same God as the Christian God, how come the Jews are not saved? Let’s face it, no one is more devout and committed than a practising Jew in his belief of a god, and yet he does not have salvation, nor can he, until he repents (changes). How can this be if he believes in the same god as Christians? The answer lies in the above Scriptures; they believed, in the first century that Abraham was their father and they still do today, yet look at what The Lord said to them: “If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. 40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.” Jesus Christ was not talking about physical descendancy , but Spiritual descendancy. They didn’t believe The Truth – Jesus Christ then, and they still don’t believe Jesus Christ now.

To sum up the above, we now have concrete evidence to support The Truth that monotheism is the worship of the Devil, for he is the only solitary mono god, he is the only god who is one, an individual and alone, and he is the god of this world (age): 2 Corinthians 4:4 “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” The Devil is also the god of all the world’s other religions, religious organisations and religious systems, including the counterfeit Christian religion – The Whore of Babylon with its HQ in Rome.

We now come to the issue of God being one as part of the trinity. Now is God one or not, for mainstream Christians believe He is one and three at the same time. Nevertheless he has to be one at some time or another or otherwise he is not one at all but rather, three. Now which is it? Which is more confusing, a Godhead that consists of two beings with the Holy Spirit that is their Power or Godhead that can be anything at anytime and leaves a believer wondering whom he is addressing. When they talk to their god who are they speaking to; The Father, Jesus Christ or The Holy Spirit? If they’re honest they will tell you they don’t know or, you will get a different answer depending upon whom you ask – all very confusing. Now who is the author of confusion? Well, we know don’t we, that old serpent the Devil.

Always remember – it’s crucial: Following Jesus Christ is not religion!

I will now finish this article with Scripture from Mark chapter 12 verses 29-30 And Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.” Here again we have concrete evidence that the Godhead is two. Our Lord is verbalising Deut 6:4 in Mark’s Gospel and by doing so proves that Godhead does not change. This verse alone proves that the word ‘Theos’ is one and the same as ‘Elohim’ – more than one.

The Godhead is not one, The Godhead is not three in one and The Godhead is not one in three. The Godhead is two – The Father and the Son who was with The Father in the beginning and The Holy Spirit is their Power.

As always, if you have any further questions please feel free to e-mail me at mailto:yes2faith@yahoo.co.uk yes2faith@yahoo.co.uk

Revised and edited 7th August 2007

Charles Crosby