Focus on being happy and the rest will follow.

Here’s an example: Imagine its 5pm. The kids are tired and hungry. They’re whining for food, for TV, for juice, for hugs. You’re tired and stressed out. You’re juggling the hot saucepan whilst trying to reason with your eldest who’s throwing a tantrum because you mixed her peas in with her carrots. You’re starting to panic because you’ve got company tonight and the house looks like a bomb hit it. Then your youngest throws his plate on the floor and splatters food everywhere. Pause….What’s your next response?

Throw a tantrum too?

Take a deep breath, laugh, or just relax?

Either choice…..what’s the consequence of each response?

1. By throwing a tantrum or getting exasperated you choose to escalate the tension. You get angry, you huff and puff whilst clearing up the mess, you raise your voice and feel uptight. Your children feel bad, mommy’s angry and it’s their fault, they get whinier still vying for your attention. Your spiral of anger and frustration increases.

2. By laughing, or relaxing you choose to defuse it. You release the tension in your body, your children get to laugh with you “oops, look what just happened, lets be more careful next time, ok?” The tension evaporates; you remember how wonderful your children are. The whining is exchanged for playfulness.

In both cases, you still have to clear up the mess and prepare the house for guests – but it is not hard to see which response will be more fun, and bring more happiness to you and your children. You are not the victim here, you are in control – you choose your response, no one else does it for you.

Happiness is a Habit!

No one says being in control of your response is easy! The key is to keep practicing your response. Simply practicing and choosing to be happy will have an immediate impact on your outlook. Try this exercise…

…think about an event that brings you great joy – a fabulous achievement, a wonderful holiday, the birth of your child, your marriage day….anything that you can remember clearly as being a happy time. Bring up the memory again in your mind, close your eyes and fill your mind with the memory.
Breath deeply into the memory, visualize it as clearly as you can with all your senses – what can you see, feel, hear, touch, smell. Can you feel the same feelings of joy and happiness? Because you can re-create it in your imagination, it means it is always available to you. Feelings of happiness come from WITHIN, not from without!

For the following few days, consciously remind yourself of this happy memory as often as you can (write post-its, pop-up email reminders, anything to keep you constantly changing your thought habits). Don’t just think of a person (eg. child, loved one) but think of an occasion with the person that was a happy one – its easier for your mind to attach an emotion to a particular incident, and easier for you to recall.

Take care to do this at a deeper level than simply thinking ‘I’m happy’! You need to remember the incident with your heart. For some of us it may mean creating ‘quiet time’ for a few minutes every few hours. Try it every time you go to the bathroom!

Watch out for your inner self-sabotage, that voice that says”this is so fake!” and ask your inner voice “Why would you prefer me to feel angry?!” Some days you will prefer to feel frustrated or sad or angry – but this is your choice, even if you have the worst day in the world, you can still choose to remember a happy memory, or to submerse yourself in the negativity of the events around you. These are your thoughts, choose the happy ones!

Elaine Hamilton Grundy, Life Coach and Reiki Master Teacher, has been teaching and speaking internationally since 1995 helping thousands of people through her workshops and personal consultations.

Elaine is teaching and coaching in Singapore. Please visit elainegrundy.com/ www.ElaineGrundy.com for more information on her classes and talks.

I am an Angel artist on a passionate spiritual journey and I would like to share my story of what it is like to work with the Angels. It is a unique experience and very real.

In 1993, I gave over my talent to the Divine to paint Angels. Having a decorative painting business and feeling led to paint Angels I gave that up. One step led to another and so began the journey…”I Shall Paint Angels”

I would like to share with you how the Angel paintings and messages are created and convey the experience of connecting with the Angels.

I start by asking for the name of the person whose Angel is being painted. Then when someone places a commission to have their Angel painted, or places one for someone as a gift, their Angel knows! From this moment forward the Angel makes preparations and chooses a timing to reveal itself and all that it has to share. If you truly seek your Guardian Angel and want to know your Angel, this is the time to reach out to your Angel with all of your heart and soul. Ask and seek guidance! You will be surprised at how much guidance you will receive. The Angels are just waiting for you to ask them and they will instantly respond.

When I call upon the Angel of the name given, and if the Angel indicates it is ready (Angels work in their own timeline), I then proceed.

The voice is like whispers of the wind gently blowing through soft wind chimes, yet very clear. I can feel the Angel surround me with electrifying light and energy that covers my whole body. The whole canvas is surrounded and illuminated with glowing white light. At this point I do not see the Angel, but hear and feel the Angel in and around me. The Angel then tells me what colors will be used and I then paint the background as energy begins to flow down my arm to my paintbrush as I paint. As I finish the final few strokes of the background, the Angel suddenly appears in the painting as an abstract image or impression coming through the painted background. I then begin to paint the Angel…with each and every brushstroke guided by the Angel, only allowing their vibration and that of God to come through the portrait. I am guided on how to do each area and when something has been done to the Angel’s satisfaction I am told..yes! Exactly! Leave it just like that!

You will notice in my paintings the Angels have no faces. I believe “Only God can create their faces. Look closely into the painted brushstrokes and background, and you will see the Angel’s face. It is always there. You may only see a set of eyes, but it truly there

When the painting is finished I am told. I sign my name feeling blessed each and every time. I then start writing, word for word, all that the Angel wishes to share with the one it loves, protects, guides and nurtures every day of their life. Each message is mystifying and personal and above all, touching. I have not met a person yet, who truly sought to know their Angel, not walk away amazed and touched.

The process is the same whether it is for a Guardian Angel painting, Archangel or Angel Painting. I do not need the name for the Archangel , unless I am specifically painting a particular Archangel, then I do ask for that Archangel name. “Angel Messages for Humanity” paintings are left to the Divine’s choice on which Angel wishes to present itself. I just go with the flow. Each and every time I paint an Angel, is like the first time. The excitement and the passion is always there to be the channel for this work.

The belief and knowingness of the Angels is needed now more than ever in this unsettled world. The more contact you allow yourself with the Angels, the more peace you will feel within yourselves and this will begin to reflect in your own lives and create a feeling of self-empowerment to replace feelings that things are out of your control.”

I truly believe we are here to make a difference and if something comes into our awareness it is our responsibilty to respond in whatever way we can. I also believe we are all healers and the talents that come easily and naturally and from the heart are truly what we are supposed to be doing with our lives … responding with the heart.

© 2005 Sharae Taylor

Sharae Taylor is a well known Intuitive Angel Artist whose paintings are in world wide collections and her works have been exhibited with other well known Angel Artists Andy Lakey ,Donna Terody Sheratan,Gary Markowitz, past art editor of “Angel Times” magazine and K. Martin Kuri, Angel Artist and Author. Sharae has also participated in many Angel Expos and Angel Conferences with other well known Angel Authors like Alma Daniels author of “Ask Your Angels” . Her Angel paintings are featured in the newly released “Angels” DVD by Llewellyn and New World Music and was featured in the February 2005 issue of Planetlightworker.com. Sharae is a published author in magazines and ezines. To view Sharae’s Angelic art and for further information visit her website at: angelsbysharae.com angelsbysharae.com

According to the dictionary, “Continuing professional development is the means by which members of professional associations maintain, improve and broaden their knowledge and skills and develop the personal qualities required in their professional lives.” Continuing professional development ensures that professionals keep developing their knowledge and skills, as well as improve their competence.

One can undertake a continuing professional development program through the following modes: home-based learning with the use of audio, video or multi-media resources and other distance-learning material; action-based learning or studying problem solution methods through workplace experience; supervised research; and conferences, seminars, workshops or other technical and professional events and meetings.

Continuing professional development accentuates a person’s education, development and effective professional performance. In the US, professional organizations are also making continuing education mandatory, either as a requirement of membership renewal or licensing retention. Government organizations, professional bodies, employment organizations, individual employees and professional development providers are increasingly stressing continuing professional development programs. A continuing professional development program requires systematic, ongoing, and self-directed learning that would ensure continued competence and an indisputable professional responsibility.

These programs offer courses that can provide the flexibility of a part-time study together with world-class postgraduate education and professional development. A professional can develop his skills through a variety of workshops, seminars, short courses, certificates, diplomas and master’s degrees as well as online courses across a wide range of disciplines. You can also study for short non-accredited specialist courses, which gives a person opportunity to be abreast with the latest changes in his profession.

Continuing professional development is important for the development of one’s career and can be used by organizations and individuals to investigate how learning can be best applied to support organizational objectives and sustain a competitive advantage.

e-ProfessionalDevelopment.com Professional Development provides detailed information on Professional Development, Teachers Professional Development, Engineering Professional Development, Continuing Professional Development and more. Professional Development is affiliated with i-corporateapparel.com Custom Embroidered Corporate Apparel.

Although I have not called this article: “Are Christians going to heaven? – Part 2,” in effect this is what it is. This Scripture is one of the most emotive and uplifting Holy Scriptures in the New Testament accounts, but there is a twist and the twist is a serious flaw in the way that it’s written. Like the mainstream Christian belief in Good Friday afternoon to Sunday morning it makes The Lord Jesus Christ out to be a liar. If you haven’t already done so please take the trouble to read my series of articles on “How did three days and three nights become Good Friday to Sunday morning?”

Here he goes again I hear you say, is there anything that this man Crosby agrees with in the Holy Scriptures. Yes, absolutely, I agree with all the Holy Scriptures but not necessarily in the way many verses have been erroneously translated by men of the Christian religion and Luke 23:43 is no exception to this problem. This verse has been translated without any thought or understanding and the error is so subtle you will be stunned once you understand what they have done. First though, let’s copy all the relevant Scriptures just to refresh our memories:

Luke 23:39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. 40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. 42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. 43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

Ok so what’s wrong I hear you say? Not at lot when it comes to correcting this verse, but what is wrong is absolutely crucial to understanding the Truth of what The Lord Jesus Christ is saying here. More important by far is the acute torturous pain and suffering The Lord is experiencing at this very moment in time as He utters these words to the other man being crucified with Him. As this verse is written it could easily be the utterings of a man holding a normal conversation whilst sitting comfortably in an armchair. “Oh and by the way, today you will be with me in paradise” Just this flippant grammatical interpretation should be enough to make us question this translation without even studying the real evidence that makes this verse a load of nonsense.

So let’s look at it as it’s written and see if it stacks up. The Lord Jesus Christ says to this other man that on that very day he will be in Paradise with The Lord. Hello!? Excuse me!!? This man will be where!? In paradise with The Lord on that very day – how does that work then? If my memory of the Holy Scriptures serves me correctly (and it does) The Lord Jesus Christ dies that very afternoon and He’s lain in His tomb where He stays for three days and three nights and when resurrected returns to His Father in heaven after forty days of assorted appearances to His disciples. No other man has ever done that, only The Lord Jesus Christ and nowhere does it say He went to ‘paradise’ after He died. With this evidence alone we can already see there is a serious flaw or gaffe in the grammar of this verse and all that is required is the correct placement of the comma: Verily I say unto thee To day, shalt thou be with me in paradise.

Is that amazing or is that amazing!? There it is: Verily I say unto thee today!!!! Today as I am dying the most painful of deaths I will give you a place in my Kingdom. Now notice this verse because the other man, who is also dying on a cross, seemed to have more understanding than most of mainstream Christianity: And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. Remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom, and when will The Lord Jesus Christ be coming into His Kingdom? Soon I hope, because watching this world as it deteriorates into an abyss of wickedness, evil and corruption gets more saddening each day. If it is saddening me how much more is it saddening the Godhead?

Ok let’s set the record straight, this other man who died with The Lord Jesus Christ on that day is still in his grave and awaiting his resurrection when The Lord Jesus Christ returns to set up His Kingdom (Paradise) here on this earth. When that happens The Lord Jesus Christ will have fulfilled His promise to that man. If we continue to believe this Scripture as it is written then we make The Lord Jesus Christ a liar, as He most definitely did not enter paradise on that day, He was buried in His tomb. A little question we now have to ask ourselves is this: Was this grammatical ‘error’ an error or a deliberate mistake by those with vested interests? Was it done, as was the Good Friday to Sunday morning thing, to discredit The Lord Jesus Christ and make Him out to be liar, or just an innocent ignorant slip of the pen? More the former than the latter I’ll wager, and I would win that wager too.

The issue of this grammatical error is critical in perpetuating the ‘Christians going to heaven’ myth. I have frequently heard mainstream Christians quote this same verse in support of their fallacious idea; the idea that as soon as we die we go to heaven, if we are Christians that is. As we can see, from the very straight forward evidence, that the other man who died that day with The Lord Jesus Christ most definitely did not join The Lord in paradise. He, like The Lord Jesus Christ, died that day and his body buried. The only difference being The Lord Jesus Christ was resurrected three days and three nights later and other man is still dead in his grave and not in paradise – yet!

Charles Crosby

In his book, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill says, “One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat.” He goes on to tell the story of R. U. Darby who stopped three feet short of finding gold.

Darby, like many others, was caught up in “gold fever.” He went out west in search of gold and after digging in a mine with a pick and shovel, he found it. He quietly covered up the mine and went back east to raise money to buy the equipment he needed to bring the ore to the surface.

His hopes were high as he began dreaming of paying off his debts and making a killing selling gold. But then something happened, the vein of gold disappeared. He continued drilling, but the gold was gone. He finally quit and sold the equipment to a junk dealer for a few hundred dollars and went back home.

The junk dealer decided to hire a mining engineer to take a look at the mine. After doing some calculations the engineer told him that whoever had done the drilling didn’t understand fault lines. He also told him that the vein was just three feet from where Darby had stopped. The junk dealer found the gold and made millions.

We often fail because we stop short of success. In my book, Taking On Goliath, I talk about realizing that I’d never really failed at anything. When I took a good hard look at my “failures” I realized that in every case, I had simply quit.

Have you taken the time to look at your failures in life? How’s your track record when it comes to facing difficulty and disappointment? Have you developed the habit of quitting?

The Old Testament story of David and Goliath is familiar to just about everyone. We all know that the “little guy” defeats the “big giant” with just a sling and some faith. But what we often don’t think about is God’s army and what they experienced.

When we read the story we learn that the army got up every morning, prepared for battle, did their “battle cry,” and then something went terribly wrong. The giant Goliath came out and challenged them to send out their champion.

It was at that point that every man’s heart failed and fear overtook them. This process was repeated day after day for forty days. For forty days they hoped and prepared only to have to face failure again and again. No one had the courage to face Goliath until a young shepherd boy named David came along and said, “I’ll fight him!”

I don’t know how those soldiers felt for those forty days, but I know that I’ve had many times in my life when a giant problem seemed too hard to overcome, and my fear led to a decision to quit, a decision to fail.

But what can we do when faced with defeats and setbacks?

The first thing to do is to think about R. U. Darby who stopped three feet short of gold, and those soldiers who let fear cause them to fail for forty days. And then remember that we can’t give up, there’s too much to lose. After all, our dreams are at stake.

Reaching our dreams will require that we face our fears and overcome our failures. Success may be right around the corner and it will probably come in a way that we don’t expect. Darby didn’t know that all he needed was someone with mining experience and the soldiers didn’t know that a young boy would kill the giant.

Hold on to your hope, continue to pursue your dreams, and know that the answer will come when you least expect it.

Until next time,

Rob

Rob Marshall is the author of “Taking On Goliath – How
to Unleash the David in All of Us.” Learn how you can
unleash your faith and overcome any “Goliath” that may
stand between you and your dreams.
TakingOnGoliath.com TakingOnGoliath.com

Janine Wachowski, a long-time resident of South Elgin, Illinois, drives a school bus and is also a Powerseller at eBay (user id: the_w.a.s_ezone). In one year, her gross monthly sales went from $328 to over $45,000.

Janine began her wildly successful online business because of a chance conversation in late 2003 with a neighbor. Janine’s neighbor, a fan of eBay, noticed her extensive VHS collection of Disney films and suggested she try selling them on eBay. Her neighbor took her online to eBay and pulled up some auctions for some of the very same VHS tapes she had in her collection. Janine was astounded that people were paying almost double what she originally paid for the same films. This was a revelation to Janine since at that point in time, she had certainly heard of eBay, but had never bought or sold there. She caught the “eBay bug” and caught it good!

Because she was anxious to get started, Janine’s neighbor showed her how to sign up for eBay and their online payment system, Paypal. Within hours Janine had her first bids. Within the week, she was ravenous for more to sell. Janine began to research wholesale movie suppliers. She also bought a few “wholesale” lists off eBay that she describes as “mostly junk but a good learning experience”.

Motivated to create a successful online business to supplement her income, Janine continued researching potential suppliers. She finally discovered a major wholesale distributor of movies, games and electronic accessories. Within months Janine was dominating the DVD TV show categories on eBay selling popular titles like “The Twilight Zone” and other multi-disc collectors sets.

Not to be satisfied with the status quo, Janine next opened her eBay store (The WAS eZone). She created customers by using eBay’s “keyword Campaigns”. She also uses effective auction promotion to drive sales to her store. Since Jan 2005, she has sold over 3000 dice games!

As a breast cancer survivor, Janine has brought the same determination she used to defeat cancer to creating a thriving online business. Diagnosed with cancer in both breasts four years ago, Janine went through chemotherapy and other rehabilitation efforts. She is proud to be a survivor of cancer. She is currently working on several products of her own design that reflect her personal experience with that dreaded disease.

Never one to slow down, Janine has recently begun construction on her first Website. However, product aside, Janine is successful because of great customer service. A good example of her dedication to her customers occurred in December, 2004.

Janine had ordered a large shipment of the LCR (Left Center Right) dice game but it ended up delayed. Meanwhile, on eBay, hundreds of orders came in before she could stop her auctions. When the LCR games finally arrived, she was too late to ship them UPS that day. Give up and wait until tomorrow? Not Janine! Janine called the UPS shipping center and tracked down the location of the UPS driver for her area. She finally tracked him down at a local donut shop. She was able to convince him to come back to her house and pick up over 400 LCR games she had packed and ready to go. Why wouldn’t you be wildly successful if you brought the same level of customer dedication to your business that Janine does routinely to hers?

Janine attributes her amazing success within her first year to four key factors. She says, “I truly enjoy the entire process of listing products, selling, shipping and dealing with customers. I work very hard researching profitable products and have found products that continue to be in high demand. I offer personalized customer service and often receive letters from customers praising my service. Last, but not least, I love working with my coach at Online Business Institute Inc., Sterling Brown. He’s the best!”

Janine intends to see her bus driving job through to retirement in a couple of years. So until that time, if you’re driving in South Elgin, Illinois, and see a school bus ahead, a little respect please. You might be in the presence of a cancer survivor and future online business millionaire.

Michele Schermerhorn has over 30 years experience in the business world and over 12 years running her own successful online businesses. She is President of Online Business Institute Inc. ( obinstitute.com obinstitute.com), authors a sassy marketing blog ( imarketblog.com imarketblog.com), and regularly conducts free online seminars. Online Business Institute Inc. exists to “Create Successful Online Business Owners One Person At A Time”.

Are you looking to increase sales locally as a business coach or business consultant? However, every time you look around another business coach has hung up his or her shingle. Maybe, you begin to have these thoughts or similar ones:

I just can seem to make any inroads with those small business owners.
Competition is just too great.
The marketplace is overloaded.

Consider this powerful strategy – speaking at local civic and professional organizations. Now some so called business experts believe that speaking is not worth your time or money. However, as someone who secures one new client with an average value of $5,000 at every speaking engagement, I can tell you those experts do not know what they are talking about or they are just poor speakers.

So how do you become a local in demand speaker? Simply speaking, just ask.

Begin by asking business friends or colleagues who they know. Then ask local chambers of commerce or professional associations if they need a motivational speaker or professional speaker for an upcoming meeting or other event. In many cases, you may receive a yes, but may hear We cannot pay for a speaker. You respond with a big smile No problem because I speak for food. Just watch the smiles on their faces.

Of course, they may think this a little strange especially if you have national recognition. However by speaking locally for food, you demonstrate your ethics and values by giving back to the community. How cool is that?

During the last few years, I have taken the I speak for food approach locally and continue to receive one customer from each speaking event. And what has also happened is that my credibility as a business expert who focuses on business growth and leadership has also grown as well.

So if you are trying to get to where you want to be as a business coach or business consultant, embrace this strategy of freely giving away your expertise locally. You just may be surprised by the results.

Do you want to learn more about how to get to where you want to be? I have just completed a FREE 7 lesson on-line email course. Sign up here and now processspecialist.com/action-plan.htm Building Your M.A.P. (My Action Plan) to Success.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith, M.S. is a speaker and Indianapolis business coach & Chicago business coach who has written hundreds of articles with a focus on improving individual and organizational performance through excellence in leadership to executable strategic plans.

Many people go through their daily lives feeling overwhelmed. There are so many things to do and there never seems to be enough time or energy to do them all. Is this how you feel about your business, career, or life?

Have you promised yourself that this month you are going to make some serious changes but you just aren’t sure what those changes need to be?

Think about laying out a vision, but make it a big vision. One that encompasses your passion in life and the gifts you have come to share. No matter what the focus of your business or career you have a lot to offer. You are unique and only you can contribute your strengths in your special way. Whether it’s staying at home and raising a family, making the best widget there is, the CEO of a company, a manager in IT… Life is not a dress rehearsal so create your vision of what you really want and then take inspired action steps to attract it to you.

Don’t think of creating a little vision for your life, it’s time to stop thinking small. You will also need to let go of the excuse that you don’t have enough time. When that comes to mind think of this quote from Life’s Little Instruction Book, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr. “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”

These are the same steps I take with my clients to help them make the changes in focus and habit that bring them meaningful results. First you must be willing to take action.

Without changing your focus and habits you will never be able to change the results.

Without taking action you will never move forward and reach the results you want. Coaching is about getting results; listening to what the client really wants and working together, setting out the measurable steps to be taken that result in action and success.

You are responsible for the momentum; it will be up to you to take the actions on your own unless you choose to have the support, encouragement, guidance, and accountability that a coach provides.

Without the forward momentum and inspired actions it’s just a good thought. In order for your business to be successful, to be happy and fulfilled in your career, or prosperous and content in your life you need to have one common thread. Vision.

The process of creation starts with a thought, a great idea, a passionate want, or a dream of something magnificent to achieve. These are the intangible sparks that ignite our drive to move forward and turn the intangible into our reality.

Begin by brainstorming on paper, yes you must write it down to bring clarity, to make it real.

The first brainstorming session should be free flowing, don’t edit your thoughts or ideas. If you are working on your personal vision and your work vision to define what you want and how you want to spend your time, start with the personal vision.

This will give you absolute clarity about what is important to you, what you want, what are the things in your life you are passionate about and that make you feel fulfilled.

Then from there you can create the vision of your ideal business or career and take action to bring want you really want into your life.

Focus on what you really want, be very specific. Don’t just say you want lots of money, a nice home and no stress. Create a picture in your mind of exactly what you want down to the color of the carpet and the list of clients, and then using words draw that picture until your vision is clear.

For example:

I want a profitable and fulfilling holistic health practice.

I want to see clients in three different specialties plus passive income revenue streams.

A full successful practice will have 30-40 clients.

I will work five days a week between noon and six devoting the rest of the day to self-care, gardening, exercising, and spending time with family and friends.

I will make 100,000 a year and take 5 weeks vacation throughout the year.

I love to learn so I will spend 3 weeks a year in educational workshops and training programs to advance my career and myself.

I have several tape sets, workbooks, & learning products that fit into my personal and vision statement providing my clients excellent value and tools that help them to get on track with their lives.

These products are very rewarding to me because I can make money without having to be there. Making a contribution and improving people’s lives is very important to me so this is always something I carry out in my business practices and my community involvement.

I have redesigned my home to be bright and airy and laid out the gardens for ease of care, and to provide color and fragrance from my flowers and tastes and aromas from my organic vegetables. I avoid stress by focusing on the positive and focusing my energy on the things that are really important to me and just let the rest go.

You create what you put your energy on. If you concentrate on all the things you don’t want on all the things you don’t have enough of that is what you will create more of. Start creating what you do want.

Start with your vision; clearly lay out your life, career, and business vision and then take the steps to make it your reality. One of the steps might include hiring a coach to make it happen faster for you.

About The Author

©BZ Riger-Hull. in-spiros.com” target=”_new www.in-spiros.com For valuable free articles, assessments, & practical success toolsmailto:A1@smartautoresponder.com mailto:A1@smartautoresponder.com Certified as a Success Coach, “Four Agreements” Facilitator, & Tele-Course leader We help you communicate powerfully, reduce stress, Strategically Attract success, & increase your financial well-being.

mailto:bz@in-spiros.com bz@in-spiros.com

I was once asked, “What did you love as a child?” It made me think back to what made me really happy as a kid. “What did you pretend when you played make believe? What games were your favorites? Were you a creator?”

I don’t know where I got the idea, but I was all about small business when I was a child. I used to draw comics and sell them to other kids in the school yard for a few bucks. I was drawing all the time, in class, at home, anywhere a pen and pad could be found. People were genuinely interested in what I created, so why not make a few bucks off it if I could? Well, my parents really frowned on that idea.

My parents grew up during the industrial era. In that day, you could enter into a good company at a young age, work your way up and eventually become very prosperous or even rich inside that company. Some even gained a stake in the corporation itself. Before the industrial era, small business made up the bulk of the American economy, but at the turn of the century, people flocked to jobs in factories and huge corporations overtook the economic scene. This was not without its consequences.

We all know that day is over now. Job security is but a myth. Companies really caring about and taking care of employees is a rarity. These days if you want to make your way in the world, the idea of small business is worthy of serious consideration. Today we live in what is called the information age and he who controls the information becomes an island unto himself.

I never really lost my taste for enterprise. In the year 2000, not unlike on the schoolyard, I created an animated short film called Understanding Chaos, self published it on DVD and sold it directly from my own website with good results. No venture capital was involved, no investors needed and no major studios played any part in the operation. Just me, just like with a pen and a spiral notebook. This time, though, it was through the magic of the latest computer technology, off-the-shelf software, firewire and DV.

So if you look back into your childhood, what do you see yourself doing? Are the seeds of your future business to be found there? This is one possible road to your true passion, the thing you would do for hours on end even if there was no pay involved. I was drawing all the time and I loved to draw with people and help them draw. I see my passion from my own past. Does your past show you the right track?

Terrence Walker is a published manga author, independent animator and online entrepreneur who helps other creatives realize their visions of digital content creation and distribution. To find out more information, visit:

Over the years I’ve collected scores of comics and cartoons about marriage, families, stress and change. There is just something about a good comic strip that can many times explain something much better than I can.

One of my all time favorite strips in the “Family Circus” – and not just because the little boy’s name is Jeff. It’s also because it realistically captures many of the struggles of day to day living.

A few years back, I cut out a Family Circus that had just two scenes in it.

The first scene shows the two parents, huddled attentively in front of the TV, watching an older and obviously learned gentleman lecturing on The Fundamentals of Having Fun, if you can believe such a title.

The second scene simply shows the kids out in the yard – running, playing, swinging, playing chase, and basically Having Fun!

Now, can someone please explain to me how it is that we go from being kids who naturally know how to have fun to being adults that have to watch a TV program in order to learn how to have fun?

Exactly what has happened to us?

What I notice with more and more frequency, both in my practice and in my seminars, is that many “grown-ups” have somehow forgotten how to do at least two very important things in life: how to rest and how to have fun.

We’ll save how to rest for another time. Today we will tackle a very simple exercise on how to have fun.

Four Simple Steps to Remembering How to Have Fun

Step 1 – Write down 5 -10 things that you like to do for fun. They can be small, just a few minute things or larger more time consuming activities, and everything in between. If you can’t think of at least five things you like to do for fun, call me, we need to talk………….

Step 2 – Looking at your list, do the following:

put a “D” next to each thing you have done in the last day/24 hours

put a “W” next to each thing you have done in the last week

put an “M” next to each thing you have done in the last month

put a 6 next to each thing you have done in the last 6 months, and finally

put a 1 next to each thing you have done in the last year

Step 3 – Review your list. If you find you have lots of D’s and W’s, good for you! If you are like most folks however, you will find you have many more 1’s, 6’s and M’s than you might have expected. That’s the purpose of this little check-up, to give you a bit of a wake up call. Now on to step four and what you can do about this…………

Step 4 – Choose just one activity from your list that you can commit to doing in the next week. Make the decision to do this activity NO MATTER WHAT!

We tend to make things so difficult, when really this can be quite simple.

Then the next week, choose something else from your list and do that one. And so on and so on. In this way, you get 100% improvement each week.

Not bad, huh?

Now if you really want to be radical, you could do one thing from your list everyday.

But that might be too much fun………………

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