Paul Palmer, proud to be a pisces man

The only way to live a happy, prosperous, successful and fulfilling life is to learn to express the love that is within you. When you meet yourself, others, and the life that you express with love, then you will change everything for the better.

Who you are is an incarnation of love because what you seek, above all else, is to be well, safe, and happy; and that is what love provides, an assurance and promise of well-being.

The absence of love, the varying degrees of hatred, create conditions of distress that destroy the cells of the body and ruin the structure of a life, causing only illness, aging, stress, and destruction.

The human condition as we know it, in all its distressing dilemmas, is made possible only because of this denial of love.

Apathy, grief, fear, lust, anger, and pride which lead to poverty, illness, and loneliness all arise out of a denial of the love that is your very nature.

Love does not have to be invented. It is fully manifested in a new born. However, with social conditioning, it gets covered up quickly, as the little person is consistently denied assurances of well-being. Criticism, punishment, expressions of coercion, cause love to hide, become distorted, and retreat from full expression.

Even when avatars come to teach love, pointing out that your real nature is only love, they are met with various levels of resistance. Those who oppose them have a lust for power because they mistakenly believe that only force creates favorable conditions.

Yet if you look at the history of this world, you will always see that force only destroys, both the enforcer and the enforced. It does not replace what love does; it does not assure well-being.

All the disasters in our own lives and the world as a whole is a result of this substitution of force for love. We force ourselves, we force others, and we create institutions that assure the expression of force.

Yet force does not create safety, and enforced compliance does not create a better world.

Ironically, it is very simple to change everything to start working for you. In all cases where you want to apply force, apply love.

Within a week, your life will be much better. Within a year, you will not even be able to recognize your life.

As you learn to be more loving, you will not only affect your own life, but the lives of all those whom you touch. They will, then, pass on your blessing to others.
You will literally be changing the world; not by doing anything special, but just by being more yourself, the self that is naturally kind, loving, and nurturing.

A return to love is the answer to discover the life that you really want to live.

Love, like sunshine, can light up all the dark places in your life and heal the wounds of the world.

We are all in this life together, all hoping for some miracle that will right wrongs and make the crooked places straight; but the power that we seek to do good is our own lovingness. All we have to do to change everything for the better is gradually build up our courage to express it.

The great wisdom of life will not be discovered by your mind but by your heart. You, in your own divine splendor, are the light of the world, the promise of hope, and the assurance of better things for all beings everywhere.

If you ask for the happiness, prosperity, success, and fulfillment of the world, this is what will come back to visit you in your quiet hours. At every moment you have the choice to turn the mundane into the magical.

Saleem Rana
http://www.articlesbase.com/religion-articles/how-to-be-safe-well-and-happy-66971.html

Do you ever stop and look around. I know it can be hard in these trying times in life. I wanted to bring to light a lot of thinking I have been doing, transform it to text so that someone else out there might be able to benefit. I have been locked in life lately myself, much like the rest of us out there. I have been pondering great things to come and wondering just how would be the best way to get those thoughts out of my head onto paper for the “rest of us” to share with one another. I had the great opportunity of being able to sit down with a gentleman that ran for the Mayor of LA a few years back. We sat and spoke recently and talked back and forth about the economy, and what’s driving us out there. He was talking about projects he is trying to become involved in, multi-billion dollar projects providing the highest degree of technology and state of the art design engineering. After our discussion we had which was the least to say pleasant, he left with his wife. He was attending a seminar here in Las Vegas and we agreed to meet and follow up the following week. That was that.

I remember it was about an hour after they left I was caught up in thought on what had just happened. Had this been another opportunity for me? Was I really right in that spot, almost as if either fate or destiny had run its course yet again? Could you really keep getting all these opportunities thrown at you, does it really work like that? I think back in awe at so many times in my life and travels had I seen the wrong side of the coin so to speak folks stuck either by choice or not in the most depressing situations. I can’t help but stop and think about how awful I feel inside, the hurt for another human being the compassionate feeling I get knowing we all came from the same place. Just some less fortunate, makes me sad. I brought myself back to my thoughts and realized I had this time at hand, I wasn’t stuck there I had been given a chance and just had to do something with it. I had to seize.

I came to the realization that we all have at one time or another been given or will be given that chance, the knock on the door. We have to be prepared to handle that time when it comes. What you do with the opportunity when it arrives will define you not only in character but as a persona as well. I have seen those times come and go to not only my closet dearest friends but I too am guilty of not taking the chance or the risk when I saw it coming let alone when it was right in front of me. I had to asses my self situation, where was I at in life. Did it matter as long as the road traveled was moving forward? I came to find in me it did matter, who was I after all?

Did you ever feel like it was you, you were the one. Not the end all be it all of course but that person? It’s funny in life how we all go through our own trials and tribulations and at or in those times of despair we feel drawn closer to a higher power some call it or in my case I feel closer to my God. Where are we really at in our life? That has been my biggest question from my clients. It’s hard to know where you are driving the vehicle if you are lost in the fog, or riding in the back seat right. How can we expect to have a well balanced Personal life and Business life if we aren’t centered ourselves? I feel it now more than ever for me to reach out this message to those that need it. Find your self; it’s never too late to turn it all around. I want to leave you with this, find your self and the rest will fall into place. Find inner peace within YOU, then you wont have to worry about spreading it around…it will be radiating from within you out to the world around thus making it a much better place for all of us. The times are drawing to a close for mankind and time is now of the essence more than ever and for some you are running out. Don’t let it be to late! Thanks for the reads; I will try to write this year more about personal development and Business development hoping to make our lives much more comforting. Remember as they change, we change. See you real soon!

Hazen Martin

Director Business Credit

Business Credit Solutions Inc

Nevada State Corporate Network Inc

www.fasttrackcredit.com/buscredit.asp

Hazen Martin
http://www.articlesbase.com/entrepreneurship-articles/where-are-we-really-at-751529.html

For many people, obsessive-compulsive disorder responds well to a combination of antidepressant medication and cognitive therapy. Most people with OCD appear to be predisposed to the symptoms. Usually you can find other extended family members who share a similar pattern of ritualistic behavior. Therapeutic treatment involves the following process: relabeling, reattribution, relaxation techniques and refocusing strategies.

Relabeling and reattribution techniques are designed to assist in objectifying the disorder and realizing that people are more than their obsessions. For example, I teach people to internally respond by saying, “A part of my brain works in ways that make me repeat things continuously. This is merely my disorder speaking; I am more than my disorder.” This way of perceiving one’s obsessive features helps people to detach the nature of their problem from their sense of self.

Relaxation techniques may involve exercise, music, message, meditation and vacationing in a soothing environment. These strategies slow down the sympathetic nervous system minimizing anxiety and making it easier for people with OCD to manage their thoughts and behavior. One’s level of anxiety is directly related to the impact of compulsive behavior.

Refocusing techniques refers to assisting patients to shift from obsessional thinking and behavior to other more self-rewarding activities. A change in activities lessens the impact of the OCD thinking and behavior. For example, a child may have a ritualistic pattern of continuously changing the television remote control in a certain order. A therapeutic goal might be to get the child to leave his obsession by getting up and leaving the room, possibly departing the house for a brief walk. I have people track the intensity of their anxiety during the time that they are away from their ritualistic behavior. When removed from an obsessional behavior, anxiety initially becomes worse and then dissipates in strength over time. Once the child returns to the obsessional pattern after voluntarily leaving it, it usually has decreased in its impact and intensity. The child may say, “I was able to keep from repeating the pattern continuously. I only did it twice!” Reinforcement and encouragement are important for people attempting to minimize obsessive patterns.

Those who experience OCD are typically anxious about their symptoms and fight to get rid of them. It is essential that those who suffer from OCD learn to accept their symptoms rather than struggle with them. Acceptance of any form of anxiety helps one to minimize the symptoms. For example, one might say, “Here come those “crazy feelings” again. They sure are annoying but they won’t hurt me. If I learn to “let them be” they will eventually dissipate in their effect on me.”

It is important for those who experience OCD to share their problem with a close friend or therapist. Expressing one’s feelings about the pattern may help in dealing with any feelings of shame or embarrassment. For the OCD sufferer, it is significant to remember that most people experience features of the disorder. All behavioral problems lie on a continuum. Struggling with OCD is no exception. When we share our problems with others, we realize that we are not alone in our difficulties. It takes courage to admit that we are less than perfect and to allow ourselves to share our humanity with others. When we learn to quit fighting with our imperfections, the issue eventually seems less troublesome.

James P Krehbiel
http://www.articlesbase.com/wellness-articles/cognitive-therapy-and-obsessivecompulsive-disorder-74200.html

Alternatives
Today, let’s talk about how important it is to have alternatives, and how our thoughts can keep important alternatives out of our reach.

How would you feel if only one candidate was running for president? What if, when you got sick, there was only one doctor you could see? You’d feel very uncomfortable, right? Because these are areas in which most of us are used to having alternatives.

When you have options and the opportunity to choose, you have power in your life. But sometimes we develop blind spots, or scotomas, and we lock-on to one idea, one way of looking at a problem or solution. This may be because we were raised to think a certain way, or because we prefer the security of the known to the uncertainty of the unknown. Now when we lock-on to one idea, or a singular way of doing things, we automatically lock-out other alternatives, and in the process, we rob ourselves of power.

The more alternatives you can see, the more power you have. It helps to expose yourself to different ideas and other points of view. There is no need to feel threatened by differences, because you are the final authority about what is best for you, whether it is treating an illness, dealing with a difficult relationship, or deciding on a career move.

Paul Palmer

Give yourself lots of options, and you increase your personal power.

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What happens when part of you wants to do one thing and part wants to do another, internal conflict.

When two desires of similar power come into conflict, a great deal of inner turmoil and stress can result. I was talking to a young, single mother recently, and she said “Lou, I want to go back to night school and get my degree, but I also want to spend as much time as possible with my kids while they’re little. I just don’t know what to do.”

Now, it’s not my role to solve her problem, and it wouldn’t help her if I did. For her own sense of efficacy and personal power, she needs to work this out herself. She needs to “own” and be accountable for her decision.

But here is something very important. Whatever she decides, she needs to commit to it as fully as possible, without regrets, for as long as it takes. If she decides to go to school and feels guilty and wishes she were home the whole time, she will make herself miserable and won’t do her kids any good, either. If she decides to stay home until her kids are older, and if she resents this and sees it as a “have-to,” her anger and bitterness will find their way to the surface one way or another. Everyone will lose this way, too.

Paul Palmer

Sometimes professional help is needed to sort out these dilemmas, but make sure it’s the kind that helps you discover your blind spots and empowers you to make your own decisions.

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Acknowledging Our Feelings

What happens when you feel an emotion but refuse to admit it? Maybe more than you think.

From the time we were children, most of us have been taught that it’s OK to express certain feelings but not others. We learned to hide emotions that made other people uncomfortable or that somehow put us in a less than favorable light. It was OK to feel grateful but not angry, OK to feel confident but not scared, OK to defer to our parents but not to question them, etc.

Sometimes we even learned to hide these unacceptable feelings from ourselves. We feel frightened of social contact, but deny it and pretend boredom. We feel hurt and rejected, but deny it and call it anger. We feel resentful of abusive behavior but deny it, and call it a successful relationship because we believe we need it to survive.

But unacknowledged feelings almost always cause trouble. We may be able to stuff them down inside temporarily, but they invariably find another escape route. Unacknowledged feelings will often manifest themselves in physical ways – in backaches, headaches, ulcers, or other more serious illnesses.

What were you taught about feelings as a child? Now that you’re older, perhaps you’d like to learn what others have to say. Try reading John Bradshaw on shame, or Martin Seligman on depression and optimism, or Harriet Lerner on anger, for starters. There is an abundance of treatises on the effects of suppressed anger. Then, make up your own mind.

Paul Palmer

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When you are learning something new, what helps you learn more easily and what interferes with the process? Today, let’s talk about learning styles.

There are different styles of almost everything you can do or buy, from playing a guitar to picking out a new car. But, did you know that there are also different styles of learning? Some folks are visual learners; they literally need to see relationships with their eyes before they can understand. Other people learn best when they can hear new ideas.

Some people like to think a problem through before they try to solve it, while others feel more comfortable with a trial and error approach. Some people, like me, like to see an overview of how what they’re doing fits into the big picture before it makes sense. Others feel just fine working on one isolated area of a larger project, as long as they understand how their particular part works.

You see, there is no one best way to learn or to teach. The best teachers adjust their styles to suit individual learners, and the best learners learn to make their needs known, or they set up circumstances that facilitate their own unique style. Remember, your child may not have the same learning style that you do, and two kids in the same family may learn equally well but by very different methods.

For best results, honor these differences. Find out all you can about your children’s learning styles, and refrain from trying to force square-peg-learners into round-hole-experiences. You’ll both be happier. And you might just learn something new about yourself.

Paul Palmer

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It’s simply amazing that ten years into the digital revolution, Eastman Kodak is trying to figure out what business they are in. For decades Kodak dominated the chemically based photographic process. You shoot a roll of film, and then you physically took the roll to a developer, and made a second trip to pick up the finished prints. Their only competition in the industry was the Japanese company, Fuji. The upstart would just eat away each year at Kodak’s market, but never becoming a real threat to Kodak’s dominance.

Meanwhile from outside the industry, Polaroid back in the late 1950′s invented a camera where the chemical based development of the pictures took place inside the camera. The picture was ready in about 60 seconds. Polaroid developed a wonderful business and made a fortune for both its shareholders and its genius creator, Dr. Edwin Land.

What happened next was a business disaster, and Kodak should have learned from Polaroid’s mistakes. Dr. Land came up with a moving picture development system. They poured hundreds of millions of dollars into a chemically based system. It would allow users to take moving pictures. The movies would be developed chemically inside the camera system, the same as the still picture system then utilized.

What Polaroid not only didn’t plan for, but couldn’t even imagine was that a disruptive technology would be created from another industry that would basically destroy Polaroid’s business model. Japan would create digital photography. The first Japanese VHS and Betamax camera systems became available. The electronic based technology made so much more sense than Polaroid chemically based system. It forced Polaroid to shut down its movie system products. It also resulted in the immediate write off of hundreds of millions of dollars (equivalent to billions today) that it would never recoup.

Now I ask you, Kodak was in the business, we know that. They saw what this new technology did to Polaroid OVERNIGHT. Couldn’t they imagine that it could happen to them? The answer is apparently not. The management team at Eastman Kodak has been brain dead for at least 20 years. The management team and the Board of Directors should have been dismissed more than a decade ago for gross incompetence. They took a magnificent cash generating machine, and allowed it to turn into a boring, mundane second class company.

They simply chose to ignore what was coming, and what was coming was a TIDAL WAVE, that would sweep away Kodak’s traditional business. Kodak could have chosen to lead the digital revolution. They could have chosen to take the billions of dollars of cash generated by their traditional chemically based systems, and redeploy in other high end technology driven businesses like digital imaging in the medical industry. No, neither choice happened. The company chose instead, to DO NOTHING. Try to maintain the status quo was the order of the day.

Now Kodak is faced with a “what do we do now” decision? It is just a question of how many years it takes before the Kodak way of doing business (chemical processing) completely evaporates. There are a number of lessons to be taken from this example of a formerly world class company going belly up because of an inappropriate business model. Among them are:

• Every company must absorb the central thesis of Clayton Christensen’s two books, “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, and “The Innovator’s Solution”. Harvard professor Christensen was the individual who coined the term, disruptive technologies, or what happens when a new innovation comes in and completely blows away a company’s formerly dominant technology.

• No company has the luxury of sitting on its rear end, and counting on its cash hoard to keep it in business forever.

• Theodore Levitt of Harvard always talked about “What business are you in?” You’d better make sure that you are constantly thinking about how to obsolete your own business, because your competitors are thinking about it all the time.

• Every company should have an internal team that is separate and apart from the company. The sole function of this team would be to come up with ways to destroy the company by developing better products, or better yet technologies that would obsolete the company’s current technology. Xerox decades ago created Xerox PARC (the PARC stands for Palo Alto Research Center) in 1970. They intentionally put it in Palo Alto, California because they didn’t want to have their thinking contaminated by the atmosphere in Rochester, NY, a dead town. The same town as Kodak’s corporate headquarters by the way.

You want to talk about accomplishments; Xerox PARC came up with the mouse that we use on personal computers. They also created the graphical user interface that you use on your PC, and the basic design of the personal computer was taken from Xerox PARC by Steve Jobs. Xerox completely failed to cash in on any of these creations. The guys in Rochester were just as asleep at the switch as the guys at Kodak. There must be something about the air they breathe in Rochester that lulls them into a sense of complacency.

• Companies need to buy smaller companies who are creating the innovating technologies that will put them out of business. If they wait until the technology enters an actionable phase, it is too expensive to purchase. Examples are Yahoo and Microsoft, both of whom had an opportunity to buy Google for millions of bucks. Google now has a market cap of $150 billion, and is virtually untouchable.

Is it too late for Kodak to save itself? The answer is probably yes. Very rarely can a company in such a downward spiral find the managerial talent, and more importantly COURAGE to transform itself internally. The current management team is too interested in continuing its own benefit package and retirement benefits, to make the hard, tough, and necessary decisions to be transformative. Hopefully, other American companies, and investors can learn from the bitter story that Kodak has to teach us. Good luck.

Richard Stoyeck
http://www.articlesbase.com/advice-articles/stock-research-eastman-kodak-and-the-power-of-disruptive-technologies-80161.html

Leadership is a quality that cannot be taught. Either you have it or you don’t. Some people like to take charge, be their own person and follow their own path. Some prefer to take direction from others. Leadership is not a quality that can be found outside of yourself, you need to develop it from inside yourself.

Here are five suggestions that will help you cultivate your own leadership skills:

1. Don’t feel like you have to prove anything to anyone, anywhere.

If you’re in class, and someone wants to make a speech that’s rife with inaccuracies, bias takes and general nonsense, let them. You do not have to display your intellectual prowess in order to prove that this person is an idiot. You don’t have to feel obligated to set the record straight. Likewise, you shouldn’t feel pressured into abandoning an unpopular belief, just because the majority of people around you claim that it’s false. Don’t feel pressured into being anything for anybody. This is your life, you can live it they way you want.

2. Talk the talk and walk the walk.

Don’t be a hypocrite. Don’t flip-flop or flake. If you say something, mean it. If you promise to do something, do it. Be true to your word in every situation.

3. Let your actions speak louder than your words.

Deeds have more weight than words. You can pay lip-service to hard work and achieving your goals, but if you never act upon these declarations, you’re just talking. People respond to bold action. Figure out what it is you want to do, and set your plan in motion immediately.

4. Don’t be intimidated by any person, place, thing or idea.

Develop thick skin. Learn to take emotions out of the equation. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad. There’s not enough time for self-doubt, you have too much to do. You will be faced with awkward situations where you will feel challenged in some way. Stick up for yourself and your ideas. Don’t let your environment dictate how you react. No one can say anything that’ll phase you, if you refuse to let yourself be phased.

5. Feel like you are in control of any and every situation.

Leadership is about controlling difficult situations. You have to feel like you are master of your own domain in every possible scenario. Sure you will face overwhelming incidents in life, but when you do, stand up and accept it. Push forward. Get past your problems, free your mind of all restrictive doubt, and execute a solution.

Leadership cannot be taught from without, but it can be developed from within. Be confident in yourself and your abilities. Don’t let anything get under your skin. Follow your word, take action, and no that you are in control of your own life.

Chris Stout
http://www.articlesbase.com/college-and-university-articles/five-ways-to-become-a-leader-84726.html

How would you describe your own character? What do we mean when we use that particular word? Historically the term character was often used when referring to someone you know.

If I were to describe someone to you by saying he or she has a fine character, would you know what I mean? My guess is that you would. You’d probably understand that I was talking about moral or ethical strength – what some people call integrity.

But how do you know when someone – even yourself – has good character? Well, for one thing, you can see the evidence. Character is revealed in our actions, in the values that we live by. It begins building in early life, in our family. If we are loved and accepted, if we are consistently treated with respect, we grow up free from the burden of trying to prove our worth, free to develop integrity of character. Schools, churches and workplaces can help build character too – positively or negatively.

I firmly believe, as do many others, that people also shape their own character. If you would like to do this in a more conscious way, you can start by asking yourself: “What are some qualities I value?” Do they include honesty, compassion, discipline, perseverance, kindness, courage, forgiveness, and enthusiasm? I know you will think of others, as well. Now, what are some actions you could take which would demonstrate those qualities? What could you do to build these qualities into your own character, so that behaving in these ways becomes second nature?

Paul Palmer

Character could be defined as, “who you are when no one is looking.”

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