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10 Tips For Conquering Your Fears
Copyright © 2005 Cari Vollmer
LifeOnTrack ™
http://www.LifeOnTrack.com

Have you ever had a fear that kept you from living life fully?
Perhaps this fear has stopped you from having MORE fun or
experiencing GREATER success. Yes? You’re not alone. I have too.

The fear I conquered in the story below may not be my biggest
fear but with a little reflection I saw how it really stopped me
from enjoying my family and life to the fullest. It also taught
me a valuable lesson of how taking steps to overcome my fear
resulted in increased self confidence.

At the end of my story, I’ll give you tips for conquering your
own fears.

A few weekends ago my husband and I took our daughter Kasie, and
my nephew Zach, to a water park. We all love the water and were
having a blast until my hubby and the kids took off for — the
water slides.

As they enthusiastically ran to the slides I slowed wayyyy down.
In fact, I stopped, found a chair and proceeded to organize our
belongings. As I settled into a lawn chair I saw Kasie and Zach
whoosh down their side-by-side slides and plunge, feet first,
into the cool water. They quickly resurfaced, sputtering and
laughing and ready for more.

As Zach jumped out of the pool to run back up the stairs he
looked at me laughing and said, “Cari’s being a wimp.” He was
right. I was.

You see, even though I love the water I’ve always been afraid of
— water slides.

On this particular day however, the kid pressure was too great. I
decided it was the time and place to conquer my old fear. As I
hurried to the steps my chest tightened and my breathing became
very shallow. Each step I took to reach the top of the slide made
me feel anxious, awkward and scared to death.

I focused my attention on the cute and fearless little girl in
front of me. I motivated myself by repeating the mantra, “if she
can do it, I can do it”. As we reached the top of the slide, I
watched in amazement as she sprang from the last step to a lying
down, torpedo style position in one fell swoop. As soon as the
little girl shot out of sight it was my turn.

The time had come — it was now or never. Copying the little girl
before me, I laid down on the slide feet first torpedo style and
as I did I heard the words: Don’t fight it, just let yourself go.

As I whooshed down the slide I reminded myself I was OK, to keep
breathing and to relax. As I let my body go it seemed to
understand what was expected of it. It conformed to the twists
and turns of the slide and only seemed to tighten in response to
my fearful thoughts. Soon, I could see the end of the ride was
near and as I flew off the end of the slide into the waiting
water, I knew I conquered my fear!

WOW! I did it! I went down a water slide. It was a blast! My
husband told me later, as I was coming down, he could hear me
screaming and laughing. All I could remember was feeling gripped
by fear, exhilaration and pure joy as my body whirled down the
watery, slippery path.

Now, I felt ready for more. Once wasn’t enough. The second time
up the stairs was much easier and I took my position at the top
of the slide with much more confidence. The ride down the second
time was even more fun because now I knew the curves and the
bumps. I navigated the challenge with a bit more grace. I felt
proud of myself for taking action and for doing something I
thought I would never do.

What’s your “water slide”? I bet you have one, or many. We all
do. What fear, if you conquered it, would allow you to have a bit
more fun, experience greater success, or live life a bit more
fully?

Some fears feel bigger to conquer than others. My water slide
fear may not seem like the biggest fear one could have, but
having it caused me to isolate myself from the rest of my family
and kept me from having MORE fun, joy and exhilaration in my
life.

Conquering your fears, one by one, builds confidence and
increases your quality of life. Don’t let your fears hold you
back from living the life you wish you were living.

10 Tips For Conquering Your Fears:

1. Recognize a fear is present

2. Declare you are going to conquer the fear

3. Expect to feel anxious, awkward and scared

4. Consider copying a style you like until you find your
own style

5. Focus your attention

6. Motivate yourself with affirmations

7. Step into the fear with abandon

8. Let go and have fun! Remind yourself to keep breathing

9. Pat yourself on the back when it’s over

10.Notice how much easier it gets

When you have time, take a personal inventory of the fears
keeping you from living the life you want. Then make a commitment
and challenge yourself to face and conquer one them that’s been
holding you back. Use the tips above to guide your way. To get
started, see if any common fears from the list below fit you:

Admitting mistakes or wrong-doings
Adventure
Being inadequate/not good enough
Doing something you’ve never done before
Expressing yourself
Failure
Healing emotional wounds
Health concerns
Money/finances
Never having enough
Public speaking
Promoting yourself
Saying “NO”
Sharing your feelings
Taking a risk, such as starting a business or changing careers
Traveling

———————————————————————
Cari Vollmer is the creative founder of LifeOnTrack.com.
LifeOnTrack.com’s inspirational e-zine, LivingOnTrack,
offers practical success tools, tips and strategies for
getting and keeping your life on track. Sign up at
http://www.LifeOnTrack.com .

What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
Copyright © 2005 Laurie Weiss Ph.D.
The Integrity Course
http://www.theintegritycourse.com/

Everybody has blind spots.

You have certain tendencies that you are not aware of but others
can see. These are your blind spots, and they often cause big
problems.

You may not want to accept that your life style is responsible
for your high cholesterol and that you are courting a heart
attack. You may not want to know that your defensiveness cost you
a promotion.

Over two hundred years ago, Scottish poet Robert Burns (Kinsley,
1968) wrote:

“Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel’s as others see us!”

It can be a real challenge to try to see yourself as others see
you. Sometimes you actually can do so, by watching yourself on
videotape, or listening to an audiotape. Usually, though, this
information is only available when others are willing to share it
with you.

But, you may have a blind spot about being alerted to your blind
spot!

If you do, you try to turn away any feedback that does not agree
with your own self-assessments. You may be blocking the very
information you need.

However, when you learn to accept any feedback as a gift, you can
use it to fuel your own growth and development.

Sometimes someone wants to give you information about something
you say or do that annoys others. You might even be happy to
change it if you only it existed. But you can’t know unless you
are open to their feedback.

Sometimes the information is extremely important to you, because
something you are doing (or not doing) may keep you from career
advancement or interfere with your important relationships.

Although you may not exactly welcome feedback that brings
uncomfortable information to your attention, you may desperately
need it.

When you accept new information about yourself, you can then take
action and make important changes — changes that can make a
tremendous difference to your success or even to your life.

Excerpted from lesson 11, “The Integrity Course.”
Copyright 2005 Laurie Weiss, Ph.D.

———————————————————————
Learn more about asking questions with grace and skill in
“The Integrity Course,” an online, multimedia course to help
you say what you think without getting fired or losing your
friends. http://www.TheIntegrityCourse.com or email:
feedback@laurieweiss.com
Laurie Weiss, Ph.D. is an internationally-known
executive coach, psychotherapist, and author.

Eliminate clutter in your home

No matter how large your home is, you’ve probably desired
more space at one time or another. Managing your clutter is
a wonderful way to create more space and put you back in
control of your life - mentally, emotionally and physically.

When you surround yourself with clutter it makes it difficult
to get things done, enjoy peace and quite, or spend your time
in the way you want. Everything that surrounds you in your
personal space should be working for you in some way. If the
things in your personal environment are not supporting you
and contributing to the positive quality of your life, then
it is time to do something about it!

Make it a point to let go and make some room in your life.
Getting rid of the clutter does not mean giving away all the
things you love. It means creating an environment that serves
you, supports you, and contributes to the lifestyle that you
want.

The Road to Clutter Free is always under Construction.

The de-cluttering process should be a goal you can work
towards.

Make it a point to do a little everyday to avoid spending
precious weekend time “catching up on the housework”.

Start with one drawer, or area at a time getting rid of all
those old, broken and useless items such as Kitchen gadgets,
empty boxes, plastic carrier bags, bits of string, piles of
magazines or clothes you will never wear again.

Decide what can be trashed, recycled or sold and the make
necessary arrangements for disposing of all that annoying
clutter.

Use space effectively to keep your home organised and
functional.

Think multi-function storage solutions where space is limited
and you simply cannot find a home for everything you want to
keep.

Existing furniture can sometimes be used for storage.

- A chest can be used to store blankets.

- A chest of drawers in the living room can provide extra
storage for office supplies, linens or CDs.

Copyright J Black. For more home and garden ideas visit
http://www.netwrite-publish.com

The Importance Of Verbal Communication
Copyright © 2005 Jim Headley
Telecents Communications Inc.
http://www.sendglobal.com

It has been cited that verbal communication is 10% what you say
and 90% how you say it. In today’s technology driven world, you
would not know that though. Today, people across the world have
become so dependent upon non-verbal methods of communication that
the verbal communication methods have been falling by the
wayside.

Take a look at the popularity of text messaging and emails. These
written communications often leave much to the imagination and
create a great deal of confusion for those who are attempting to
communicate with each other. When trying to communicate the
importance of a message to another human being, the reader can
lose the intent or the real meaning of the message.

At particular risk for misinterpretation are those important
messages that are sent at times of high emotion. The tone,
inflection, and the stress placed on individual words can be lost
when using only the written word. This could be disastrous when
trying to tell a loved one your feelings or when trying to close
an important business deal. People often misinterpret the written
words and may take offense to messages that were meant to be
completely harmless or even humorous.

This is why we must always remember that 90% of communication is
how we say what we want to get across to the other party. Emails
and text messages only give us 10% of the communication process,
thus leaving 90% of the communication process up to the recipient
to guess.

If you want to communicate an important message to a loved one or
to a business contact, you may be better off going the old
fashioned route of using the telephone. This eliminates any
confusion in the communication process, and also allows you and
the other party to ask for any needed clarifications. These
clarifications can be made via the telephone, before unintended
interpretations have been made. Using verbal telephone
communication allows you to emphasize the importance of the
message and to communicate the excitement of your words to the
other party.

It often seems easier to simply send an email to someone, but
many people actually prefer telephone communication to emails.
Telephone communication maintains the bit of humanity, which is
lost in emails. Many business people who are not comfortable with
emails don’t even read their emails. I once sat in the office of
a Chief Operating Officer of a major corporation and saw him
inadvertently delete many of his emails. When I asked him about
it, he said that if the messages he accidentally deleted were
important that the senders would call him. He was not a fan of
emails and even though he was often stretched thin on time, he
said that he preferred telephone calls, because he got a chance
to visit briefly with his business contacts.

Many business executives today are of a generation who held jobs
before emails, so they do not rely as much on computers as their
younger counterparts. Many of them ignore emails for the most
part and look for the telephone follow up from the sender and
take the attitude that “If it was important they will call me.”
Taking care of important business transactions over the
telephone, instead of by email, assures that the right person
receives the message and that it is not simply going to an
assistant or worse, to a bulk mail folder where it gets deleted.

If you communicate with people on an international level, be it
personal or business, you may believe that your only choice is to
email because of the expense of international phone calls. While
this may have been true in the past, it is not true today. There
are options in making international telephone calls. One of these
options includes inexpensive international calling cards that
allow you to call overseas at a rate as low as 2.9 cents per
minute. It is well worth the money, in my opinion, to assure that
the importance and the intent of the message is not lost in the
written word of an email.

International telephone calls are not as outrageously expensive
as they once were, and you can be sure that the recipient
understands the meaning and true intent of your communications.

———————————————————————
Jim Headley, (jheadley@telecents.com) VP of New Business
Development, Telecents Communications Inc
Telecents’ SENDGLOBAL brand offers FREE International Calling
Call Free to Europe, South America, Asian, Mexico, Middle East,
India. Visit http://www.sendglobal.com enter promo code “MD8KT”
Want to become an agent/affiliate? Go to
http://www.sendglobl.info login TCI

Time To Play
Copyright 2005 Deborah Carraro
Vascorp VA Services
http://www.vascorp.com/va

One of the biggest challenges faced by solo-entrepreneurs is
scheduling personal time - time away from the business. It’s
particularly challenging when you’re first starting your
business. Your natural impulse is to throw everything you
have into your business - time, money, energy - but that may
not be the wisest course of action.

Spending your entire day living, breathing (and if you spend
that much time in your business - dreaming) your business,
you’re bound to burn out - or at the very least, not be as
effective as you want to be.

Consider these tips:

Out To Lunch: Whether you work in an office or at home, you
need to take breaks and recharge your batteries. You’re not
going to be able to concentrate on closing a sale, writing a
proposal, or crunching numbers if you forgot to eat lunch
and sugar levels are scrambling your gray cells.

Post Your Business Hours: Sounds pretty obvious but
establishing work hours even if you work at home, sets
boundaries and helps you pace yourself. I’ll admit it, this
is the hardest tip for me to follow in my own business. I
love doing what I do and have a strong workaholic tendancies
and probably a slight addiction to e-mail

I’ve learned, however, that it’s crucial to set business
hours and not give in to the temptation of being available
24/7. Most days I can stick to the hours I’ve posted and
some days I can’t - the trick is learning that the to-do
list will always be there and prioritizing your projects and
deadlines.

Take A Break: Don’t be afraid to enjoy the fruits of your
labor. Take a break and make sure you not too tired to play
with the toys you’ve bought with all that money you’ve
earned. I regularly take myself offline for a few hours once
a week and just catch up on housekeeping (invoicing,
billing, writing my newsletter) and schedule time off one
day per month and spend the day singing, or writing, playing
tourist in my hometown or enjoying a day at the spa.

Why not take a mental health day now and then? In school,
you didn’t think twice about playing hookey. Now that you’re
a grown-up, why not take a day off for fishing, surfing,
shopping, or reading.

For some reason, now that you’re the Boss, it’s harder and
harder to get away and take time for yourself. Try this tip:
schedule a regular appointment with yourself. Block time off
in your calendar and don’t make that time available to
anyone else (clients, family, friends).

Remember: Set your hours and take a day off. All that work
will still be waiting for you in the morning!

——————————————————–
) 2005 Deborah Carraro
Deborah Carraro is the Founder and Owner of Vascorp VA
Services. Vascorp VA Services is the virtual support
specialty company for solo professionals and entrepreneurs.
We work late so you don’t have to! Vascorp brings you the
very best in virtual assistant services: shopping cart
integration, affiliate program management, web design,ebook
design, desktop publishing, business consulting services and
more! She publishes a monthly newsletter Vascorp VA
Advantage. To subscribe or find out more, please visit
http://www.vascorp.com/va.

Make Your Event Memorable

I. Understanding Your Audience/Client

The DJ was wondering why there was no dancing or mingling amongst
the audience. Everyone was just standing around holding their
drinks and eating the hors d’oeuvres.

Imagine a supposedly festive company party turning out to be a dud.
Who does the company blame?

You!! The event planner!

The event planner who also happened to be an employee of the company
was in a panic. What to do?

Luckily, there were numerous employees who were requesting music
that was different from what the DJ was playing. So, he quickly goes
to his van and pulls out a crate of CDs. He starts playing music
from these CDs and instantly the mood of the party changes.

Everyone was dancing and mingling. The party flowed and the event
planner breathed easier.

What went wrong in the beginning?

The average age of the attendees was between 49-60. The event
planner had requested Top 40 music including hip hop which is geared
towards a younger age group.

The planner wanted music based upon her tastes. Even when
questioned about the people attending, there was a sense of “she
knows best”.

What every customer of every business wants to know is: What’s in it
for me? Even you, the subscribers to this newsletter, have asked
that question before signing up for this email.

In the above situation, the audience wanted to know: What’s in it
for me? What music would you play that would allow me to have a
good time?

This is the key to all business success: Find out what your
customers want and solve their problem.

Research as much as you can about their wants and desires, only then
can you “Make Your Event Memorable”.

Copyright 2004. All rights reserved

Keith and Rema Smith book entertainers for all special events.
Authors of the “Discover Entertainment”, a FREE monthly newsletter.
mail to: keith@rhkentertainment.com
http://www.rhkentertainment.com

The 6 Characteristics of Highly Creative People
By Michelle L. Casto

Thomas Moore said, ?We are all poets and artists as we
live our daily lives, whether or not we recognize our
role and whether or not we believe it.? Human beings
have an innate need to create. Even you! There is a
continuum of creativity, ranging from being slightly
creative to highly creative.
The good news is that you can learn to be more creative by observing creative
people and modeling yourself after them.
Artists, writers, and creative types seem to have
similar characteristics.
Some of the personalitytraits listed below may seem eccentric, odd, even ?
outthere?—but that is where creativity lies— in the
outreaches of our consciousness, in the depths of our
souls.
If you had the opportunity to speak to
Picasso, Walt Disney, or Jane Austen, you would
probably find out that they are ordinary people, much
like you and I. The difference is that they have
allowed more of their soul to come out and play and
have freed themselves of convention and restriction.

Creativity is essentially the art of discovery and an
act of faith. When you create something— a work of
art, book, software program, dance routine, or role
for a play, you discover parts of yourself that you
never knew existed.
Creative people have a strong need to express more of who you really are and
often have to fight for that right. The character Isabelle in the movie,
Fire and Ice, has a great outlook on
what it means to be creative, she says, ?To create, sometimes you must
rebel.?

1. Unconventional
Creative people do not feel the need to conform to
society?s standards. They often swim against the
current and flow with their own way of thinking and
living. They have original ideas that literally turn
the world upside down and right-side out.
Take for example, the 16th century Italian astronomer,
Galileo, who proved that the earth revolved around the
sun (instead of the other way around), which was
revolutionary in his time.

2. Individualistic
Creative people want to find out what the truth is,
and they have a strong need to decide for themselves
what works and what does not. Often they are ahead of
their time, and much of their work is
appreciated/acknowledged after they are dead and gone.
Many writers are famous for marching to the tune of
their own drum, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote
the book, Self-Reliance, and Robert Frost who penned,
?two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one
less-traveled.?

3. Inventive
Creative people live in the world of ideas, and don?t
always have the best interpersonal skills. Because
they are so highly intelligent, and live in the realm
of possibility, they are constantly coming up with
bright ideas. They also take notice of what is
missing in the world and/or what could be improved.
Take for instance, Thomas Edison, who invented
hundreds of things in his time, his most famous
invention being the light bulb. He saw that there was
darkness and then created light.

4. Driven
Creative people cannot ?not do something??they are
almost compulsive until they can bring their internal
vision into fruition. They have that ?fire in their
belly?—a passion to contribute to the beauty and
betterment of the world. Because of their high drive,
they can produce a lot in a relative short amount of
time.
Talk about drive—the material girl herself, Madonna,
has not let public praise or criticism stop her from
being a super star. She is a modern day Diva,
multi-talented as a singer, dancer, and actress who
has released hundreds of songs, albums, videos,
movies, books— all the while reinventing herself as
someone new.

5.Visionary
Creative people have a guiding vision in their head,
heart, and soul that they are often called to bring to
life. Who else but Michelangelo could look at a large
piece of marble and ?chip away at everything that
wasn?t David?? According to him, ?I saw an angel in
the marble and carved until I set him free.?
One of his best-known works is the immense ceiling of
the Sistine Chapel, which took him three years to
complete, where he often had to work upside down for
hours at a time. If you ever have seen any of his
work, you can easily see that it is a vision to
behold.

6. Intuitive
Creative people are very in touch with their inner
selves. They pay attention to the signs,
synchronicities, symbols around them, and make use of
that information in their work. They often act as a
channel, where ideas and inspiration come from a
higher plane. They allow the work to guide them to
where it needs to go. The work clearly originates in
their soul, not from their ego.
Talk about ideas coming from out of the blue, remember
how the scientist, Isaac Newton ?discovered? gravity?
He was sitting under a tree and an apple fell on his
head! Had he not made a connection with his intuitive
nature, he would have missed a major theory about the
world we live in!

As you read this, do you find yourself relating to
some of these traits? If so, it is time to start
creating. Getting started can often be the hardest
part, because we often limit our creativity by
listening too closely to our negative inner voice.
But so did all of these examples of creators. Even
the famous painter Vincent Van Gogh struggled with
that, but he created a remedy for that, he said, ?If
you hear a voice within you saying, you are not a
painter, then by all means, paint, and that voice will
be silenced.?
Robert Henri says, „When the artist is alive in any
person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes
an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing
creature.‰
Once you have created, you now have to put
yourself out there for all to see. This is where your
faith comes in to support you. Remember that if you
are creating from your soul, it will not matter
whether other people accept your work or not. You are
simply doing what you are called to do as a human
being, create.

Focus
by Catherine Pulsifer

To have a goal is like having a road map. It shows you where to go,
and where not to go. Would you begin a trip to an unknown city
without first looking at a map? Probably not.

Amazingly though, many people conduct their lives without any
personal road map to success. Goals are like a map. They help us
determine where we want to end up, and give us personal direction on
which to focus our energy.

Once you decide what it is you want, set your sights and start taking
action to achieve it. This “action” is the commitment on your part.
And, once you are committed to a goal, really committed, problems are
short term. With your entire “focus” on your goal, you will reach
levels of achievement that you never thought possible.

Without goals, you will end up going nowhere, or, you will end up
following someone else’s map!
Develop your map today - set your goals and focus!

To quote Alan Pariser: “The sun’s energy warms the world. But when
you focus it through a magnifying glass it can start a fire. Focus is
so powerful!”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Catherine Pulsifer is one of the editors of Words of Wisdom 4 U,
http://www.wow4u.com. You will find a collection of motivational
thoughts, stories, quotes, poems, smiles, proverbs, and more at Words
of Wisdom 4 U!

WHAT DO YOU FEED YOUR MIND?
by Catherine Pulsifer

“The mind grows by what it feeds on.”
J. G. Holland

On what do you feed your mind?

One of my major concerns today is that a lot of people feed their
mind with television. We increasingly judge our success and personal
worth by television stories - stories of the rich and famous, those
who have beauty and the perfect body, those who do little work and
still succeed. Yet, this is not reality.

You can lose your job, you can lose material items, but you can never
lose your knowledge. The money we invest in ourselves to further
increase our knowledge is truly an investment in our future.

How many self improvement books have you read over the last year? How
many educational programs have you listened to that have helped you
learn something new?

What have you fed your mind in the last month?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Catherine Pulsifer is one of the editors of Words of Wisdom 4 U,
http://www.wow4u.com. You will find a collection of motivational
thoughts, stories, quotes, poems, smiles, proverbs, and more at Words
of Wisdom 4 U!