Bodybuilding, Work, and Life - Finding Balance Friday, May 16 2008 

Life can be rough and sometimes you need to be able to organize your thoughts to make everything better. You can become focused on one thing and forget about the other priorities in your life. I am going to explain the importance of keeping a balance between bodybuilding, work, and life. Your also going to learn a few natural techniques than can be used to keep your life in balance.

Being fit is crucial to being able to handle all the obstacles you come across on a daily basis. It gives you the the ability to perform better at your job and also gives you the confidence to have a good social life. The best way to improve your health is by bodybuilding, but participating in a recreational sport such as basketball, is a step to improving your health as well. This will put you in a social setting that you feel comfortable in and also gives you the ability to make a couple of new friends that share the same interests.

Having a positive social life is one of the most important factors in a person`s life. It makes everything you do worthwhile and makes you realize that others are going through the same problems as you are. You may also find the love of your life when your out with your friends. Nobody wants to be with a hermit so you have to fit some sort of social fun into your busy life or you`re going to live a long, lonely life. What you can do to become more social will depend on your values and who you feel most comfortable around. You only know what type of person you are and what makes you comfortable. A bodybuilder wouldn`t feel right at a golf course. A car mechanic wouldn`t feel comfortable being around a bunch of computer wizzes. Learning who you feel good around takes time and a lot of maturity on your part to realize you can`t be friends with everybody. Its the same way at a job, you can`t just fill out an application somewhere because your desperate for a job. You need to know what the job does, the type of people you`ll be working with, and how well you will fit in with the rest of the crew.

Work can become your worst enemy if you let it. If you hate your job and the people you work with, of course you`re going to have a negative attitude towards your job. Sure making money is nice, but when you start questioning yourself, “what am i doing here,” you have a problem. There are also other problems a job can bring. If you have a bad boss, work around negative people, work long hours, and can`t handle the stress involved with the job, then you need to take a step back and develop a list of ways you can start to feel better. Are you getting enough sleep, are you exercising, are you spending enough or to much time with friends and family, eating right? You can also try yoga or some kind of other meditation practice, which are all good alternatives to seeing a therapist or some doctor who just wants to take your money.

You don`t want to do to much or to little of anything. Everything has a happy medium and you need to incorporate the practice of balancing into your everyday life.Again, you need to write down things you do on a daily basis and decide what things your doing in excess and develop ways to cut back on what is customary. To much of a good thing is just as bad as a repetitive bad habit and is important for you to realize. Life isn`t easy and it takes a lot of time to improve on it but taking small, gradual steps to improvemetn is the only way to achieving anything. Until Next Time, cya!

20 years old hoping to become a writer

Preparation: Your Company’s Best Defense in Case of Catastrophe Wednesday, Apr 16 2008 

You’ve hung out your shingle and are ready for business. But what if something unforeseen were to occur? Is your business truly ready for all that being in business entails? It only takes one catastrophic event to adversely impact a once thriving business. Recent world events: 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon, the tsunami in Asia, along with other natural disasters act as a constant reminder that being well-prepared is often our best line of defense.

What’s that, you say? Your business isn’t located in a city likely to be a target of either natural or manmade disasters. This may well be the case, but this doesn’t take in account that inexplicable chemical spill or train derailment that can happen on your doorstep or public utility failures, such as electrical power outages, brownouts or surges, which can unduly affect the daily operation of your business. Keep in mind, many nature disasters, such as blizzards, tornadoes and earthquakes, can strike with little or no advance warning.

So what’s a business owner to do? Well first, and foremost, you make sure your business has an up-to-date disaster plan. It’s been reported that as many as forty percent of small businesses fail to open their doors again after a major disaster. Many of these businesses were simply unprepared for a disaster; they hadn’t taken the time to prepare a backup plan to better insure the livelihoods of their employees or the continued satisfaction of their customer base.

When you begin to develop your company’s disaster preparedness plan, three areas should be given special consideration: human resources, physical resources, and business continuity. In devising a plan, as a business owner, you must carefully consider how a disaster might impact your employees, customers, the physical workplace itself, along with what procedures and policies would need to be in place to continue to conduct business if that disaster forces you to temporarily relocate to another site.

All Disaster Plans Should Consider the Following:

Human Resources

• Identify staff essential to your business keeping its doors open. Keep an updated list of their contact information: phone numbers (home, work, pager, cell) and e-mail addresses that can be made available from several locations (home, Internet, etc.). This information should be readily available to key staff members.

• If your business has voice mail, select one remote number on which you can record messages to be accessed by employees in case of emergencies. Make sure that your phones can be programmed to forward calls from the main business line(s). This allows to you program the phones to ring at another site if you cannot access your business. Make this number available to all employees.

• Keep copies of personnel, payroll, payables and receivables, and other essential records at an off-site location.

• Leave copies of keys and alarm code(s) with a trusted employee or friend encase you cannot get to your office quickly after an emergency,

Physical Resources

• Install emergency lights that turn on with power failures. Relatively inexpensive, they can be purchased at electrical and hardware supply retailers. Back up computer data frequently; keep a copy of the tape off site.

• Use UL-listed surge protectors and battery backup systems to provide added protection for sensitive equipment and help prevent computer crashes if the power fails.

• Purchase a NOAA Weather Radio with a tone alert feature. Keep it on and when the signal sounds, listen for information about severe weather and protective action to take.

• Stock emergency supplies, including: flashlights, batteries, First Aid kits, tools, and food and water to use during periods of unexpected confinement at your business.

• Install flexible connectors to appliances and equipment fueled by natural gas. Consider installing shutters to protect windows from damage caused by debris blown by hurricanes, tornados or severe storms.

• Install automatic fire sprinklers on each floor of the business.

Business Continuity Resources

• Maintain a minimum supply of the goods, materials and equipment you would need for business continuity off-site.

• Be advised: most insurance policies do not cover earthquake and flood damage. Discuss business continuity insurance with your agent to cover business interruption losses.

• Know how to contact law enforcement and local offices of the American Red Cross, Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies that can assist during a crisis.

• Devise an external/public emergency communications plan that outlines how your business will communicate with the news media, customers, and vendors in the wake of a catastrophe.

• Contact vendors/suppliers to confirm their emergency response plan procedures. Line up alternate vendors for essential supplies and equipment. Have back-up equipment and know its availability during periods of crisis.

Your employees are just one in a line of several defense measures available to you. Everyone on your staff should be prepared for a disaster and know what to do if a disaster occurs. Several organizations including the American Red Cross, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Institute for Business and Home Safety, and the Small Business Administration can provide you useful information about how to stay safe in instances of disaster.

Willett Thomas (willett_thomas@yahoo.com) is a freelance writer living and working in the Brookland section of Washington, D.C.

Magic of Goal Manifestation Tuesday, Apr 1 2008 

What goals do you have for your life? If you have goals, is it just in your head? Or do you have a methodology to manifest them?

A systematic process to think of anything you want, and ultimately acquire it. Sounds like magic, doesn’t it? That is because by using a process, the results are so effective that it seems like something out of a fantastic anecdote.

For the beginner, I recommend the following undemanding two-step process:

First step: Elaborately envision the goal. For example, if your goal is to move into a new house by the middle of next year, then close your eyes and picture the house clearly. Be specific; for example, be exact about the neighborhood.

And the smell… Imagine what everything would smell like! Can you smell your favorite food that you are cooking in your new huge kitchen? Can you smell the faint fragrance of the roses in the backyard through that open window? Can you get the soft whiff of the ocean as it roughly clashes on the rocks a few hundred feet from your balcony?

Can you hear it? Can you hear the ocean? Can you hear the pale, but the unmistakably robust sound of the waves?

Touch the leather on the recliner. Can you feel the abounding texture? Can you see the deep luxuriant color? Can you smell the plush tang of rich leather?

If you have trouble conjuring up images of your own creation, then you must spend more time dreaming about the things, which make you happy. Certainly, if you practice the above exercise again, you will see the difference. You may need some practice in conjuring up your future reality.

Second step: Write it down. Write it down in detail. Write it and read it. Read it every day.

Do not forget those details that make the goals worth living. For example, do not just visualize the house, envision it with the people you feel affection for, and care for, in it with you.

Take one goal at a time, and you will realize that how you acquire your objectives is not important, but the reasons you want to acquire them are. The reasons are the feelings you create in yourself, when you envision your dreams so unmistakably.

There are many paths to the goal. In fact, there are infinite paths, with infinite variables intermingling at every possible junction. We often make the mistake of concentrating all our energies on this most complicated arrangement, instead of the goal itself.

Remember, if you take one goal at a time, then there is only one goal, that one dream. All paths lead to that one goal. Concentrate on that, and everything in your life will be orchestrated to gently deliver you to your goal.

In my most recent book, “If You Row, You Will Not Drift - Perfect Life Management - The Life Wizard”, I take the techniques of management of the fortune 500 companies, and use them to run our everyday lives. So you can finally get organized and row ahead with a purpose. The secret here is the management of your thoughts, and its final direction toward everything that you want.

As I conducted the goal manifestation process every time I thought of having something worthwhile in my life, the stronger my faith got. Perhaps it is the combination of vision, determination, and prayer. Or perhaps it is something so unexplained that the universe throws at us, which the humans cannot even conceive at the present time, but it works.

About The Author

Shaun Ajani is an internationally published author of many books and articles, including, “If You Row, You Will Not Drift - Perfect Life Management - The Life Wizard”, “Extreme Project Management”, “How Real is Your Soul?”. He has worked with aviation, IT, retail, HR, finance, education, and training industries, in companies like Motorola, Dollar Stores, Nation Gifts, Code Factory, Washington Mutual, Boise Cascade, Sears, and Spherion.

http://www.ajani.com