Who would have thought that a plant could be a witness to a crime – and even testify against the perpetrator? Well, it is true! In the early 1970’s experiments were done on ordinary houseplants, by researchers who connected a polygraph machine to a plant.

An interesting thing happened – the researchers discovered that their plants actually recognized their owners, they responded to being talked to and praised, and they also fainted when exposed to negative thoughts or words, or violence directed at them. One experiment involved two plants in a room and an anonymous person was instructed to go into the room and violently destroy one of the plants. Later, the untouched “witness” plant was connected to the polygraph machine and the researchers had several people, one at a time, come into the room where the plant was hooked up to the polygraph machine. When the guilty person entered the room the needle on the machine went crazy!

Plants do have some kind of thought process, and they react to love and hate, and physical violence. But thought also has another vital purpose; evolution.

An example of thought and evolution being connected is the African elephant. The matriarch of the herd has ivory tusks that are highly prized by hunters and demand a large price tag on the black market. The survival and well being of the rest of the herd depends on her maturity and experience to lead them across the African plains each season. In the last fifty years there has been a trend in the female elephant not developing tusks; and a BBC News report dated September 25, 1998 reads,

Elephants ‘ditch tusks’ to survive.

“Experts…say elephants are losing their tusks as a rapid and effective evolutionary response to escape slaughter by ruthless and resourceful poachers who kill elephants for their ivory trophies.”

We don’t know what or where our thought process comes from, but perhaps it is as tiny as the cell itself. It has always been easier to see the results of thought in animals and to believe that only they and us could possibly have this attribute, but we have to be able to think outside the paradigms of ordinary everyday life.

God created everything, animate and inanimate. We are all connected, plants, animals, and even the inanimate objects in our universe. It all came from the same “mixture” that Jesus spoke about in Pistis Sophia and the Bible. It all has “life”. The problem seems to be that we don’t define “life” to encompass all.

Reference has been made to the following book:
The Secret Life of Plants
by Peter Tompkins & Christopher Bird

Cindy DeJager is a free-lance writer living in Calgary, AB Canada. For more article email her at dejagerc@telus.net

In sales, this process is referred to as “closing.” Since “closing skills” derive themselves directly from the sales industry, I’m going to discuss them within a sales context, but bear in mind that these skills are universal in their application and value.

It is typical for a novice persuader to encounter resistance. There are as many different reasons for resistance as there are personalities, so the trick lies in knowing which closing skill to use for which person. A crucial closing concept to learn as soon as possible is that you should actually employ closing strategies throughout your entire presentation. Most people think of the close as the final wrap-up. While this is the sales point where the deal is formally and openly acknowledged as “let’s do it” or “thanks, but no thanks,” the masterful persuader builds the close in stages throughout the entire sales process. The last phase of the selling exchange is only the culminating step of several deliberate but less evident steps that have taken place beforehand. It is crucial, not only for your own good but also for your prospects’ good, to help them through this process. Incrementally moving them closer and closer to agreement is much more effective than springing it on them at the end. There is nothing worse than seeing a shocked prospect with her/his mouth wide open following the close. Waiting to lunge with your close until the very end of your sales presentation could be compared to plunging unprepared into the deep end of the pool versus wading comfortably from the shallow end to the deep end only as you feel well prepared, well informed and well instructed to do so.

The incremental close helps avoid the old hard-close approach of the past. Remember the hard close? Old tactics used such strategies as bullying, pressuring or forcing your prospect into a decision. We’ve all experienced the hard close at one time or another. Unfortunately, some “persuaders” still employ the hard-close strategy, but when they do, they’re really not persuading at all. Even if a prospect succumbs to one of these sales tactics, it is likely with resentment, buyer’s remorse and discontinued business in the future. What’s more, you can rest assured that unbeknownst to the offending salesperson, a prospect who is bullied into a sale will deter all her/his friends and family from patronizing the business where s/he endured such treatment.

Since studies show that how you open a sale is more important than how you close it, think of starting your close earlier on in the persuasive process. Let’s call this “collecting yeses.” We’ll discuss this concept more in-depth later on, but for the time being, what it basically means is that you concern yourself with drawing in your prospects early on. That is, you warm them up in stages until the ultimate conclusion is obvious to them and they decide for themselves exactly what you were hoping they’d decide in the first place.

Because you’re going to focus on closing as a process that begins early on in your presentation, it is important to consider the messages you are broadcasting right from the beginning. Superficial or not, people are going to draw conclusions from their earliest interactions with you, and those first impressions tend to be the longest lasting, too. It is said that the first and most lasting impression is made in about the first four minutes of a first encounter. Hence, be sure those first four minutes are positive ones because the cement dries fast! It is extremely difficult to overcome a bad first impression. Even if you try to make up for it later on, that first impression will linger. The most obvious advice is to be sure you look professional and well groomed in any persuasive situation. In other words, dress appropriately for the setting. Next, exude confidence that is not arrogant but rather is upbeat, positive and encouraging. This positivity in your demeanor will allow your prospects, who hardly know you, to take comfort in your ability to educate them about the product or service they are investigating. Direct eye contact and a sincere smile accompanied by a firm handshake and addressing your prospects by name always help.

I have identified what I call the “Three Rs” for solid closing. After the first impression, your next focus is to effectively weave your close throughout the entire presentation. That is, the three Rs are at work throughout your presentation, aiding your prospect in becoming more and more inclined to buy. These three Rs are reason, resources and representative. Let’s look at the first R. “Reason” must be viewed from two different anglesfirst, from your prospect’s and then from your own. Early on in the persuasive setting, seek to understand exactly what your prospects’ needs are. That is, determine what their reason is for coming to you or listening to you in the first place. Then, you have to give them the reason to buy. Essentially, their problem and your solution match. Do not fall into the trap that many rookie salesmen do of spouting off a laundry list of features, benefits or all the reasons why you think they should buy. This sales strategy is useless because your prospects have come to you with their own reasons for buying already in mind. If you talk too much about what you think the reasons are to buy, you’re going to talk your bewildered prospects right out of the sale. When the sales representative talks too much, s/he sucks the emotion right out of the sale. It is draining and frustrating for prospects to hear a salesperson’s incessant babble about all of a product’s bells and whistles when they just want their own key questions answered.

There is a great story that illustrates the importance of your reason to buy ringing true with your prospects’ reasons to buy. A gentleman by the name of Airman Jones was assigned to the induction center, where he advised new recruits about their governmental benefits, especially their GI insurance. It wasn’t long before Captain Smith noticed that Airman Jones had an extremely high success rate, selling insurance to nearly 100 percent of the recruits he advised. Rather than asking him about his successful track record, the Captain stood at the back of the room during one of Jones’s presentations and listened to Jones’s sales pitch. As he presented, Jones explained the basics of GI insurance to the new recruits and then said, “If you are killed in a battle and have GI insurance, the government has to pay $200,000 to your beneficiaries. But if you don’t have GI insurance and get killed on the battlefield, the government only has to pay a maximum of $6,000. Now,” he concluded, “which group do you think they are going to send into battle first?” The resounding secret to his sales success was that Airman Jones gave the new recruits a compelling reason to buy.

The second R of solid closing is “resources.” Resources cover all those things that factor in to whether or not your product is appropriate for your prospect. Resources would include time availability, financial backing, support from family, physical ability, etc. For example, investing vast amounts of time and energy into selling annual ski passes to nursing home residents would not really be giving wise consideration to such prospects’ resources.

The third R of solid closing is the “representative.” This is where you, as a person, factor into the selling equation. How readily can your prospect feel a strong rapport with you? Is there an instinctive sense of trust? Does your style rub this person the wrong way? Whether you realize it or not, you are a part of the selling package. There have been many times when a prospect walked away from a sale, not because of the productin fact, the product might have been just what s/he was looking forbut because of the rep s/he had to deal with. Be sure you conduct yourself in such a way that your prospect can like you. People buy from people they like. They don’t buy from people they don’t like. It’s that simple.

Kurt Mortensen teaches over a hundred techniques to give you the ability to effectively work with every customer that walks in your door. He teaches that sales have changed and the consumer has become exponentially more skeptical and cynical within the last five years. Most persuaders are using only 2 or 3 persuasion techniques when there are actually 120 available! Where do you rank nationally against other persuaders? Take your persuasion iq test at http://www.prewealth.com/iq to find out today!

Negative credit can be detrimental to your financial standing, in that it gives you an adverse reputation; it can also, at times, be trouble for you if you purchase on credit or get a loan. A low credit rating also results in a high fee being levied, thus increasing the overall debt.
In such cases, people mostly resort to credit repair services, and mostly end up paying high fees to settle bad credit. There are alternative ways to balance bad credit; and they happen to be easy as well as free.

To start with, determine the exact reason of your bad credit. It is not desirable to repair bad credit unless you’re fully familiar with the reason you got into it. A few likely causes for this problem could be a delayed repayment of a loan; maybe some sudden events such as medical bills, job complications, etc.

Once you’ve established the base cause to your problem, work your way towards the centre and focus on a fix that’s practical and effective. Get an idea of your present-day financial status by examining your recent credit reports. Make sure you’re keeping track of existing credits and transactions. Use the latest statements from your creditors and yearly credit reports to assess your financial position.

To actually fix your bad credit and get your financial status back in a good standing, you need to start regulating your expenses and adjust your lifestyle. Don’t delay paying your expenses. If you can, pay them as soon as they arrive. This will avoid held up payment charges, if in case an unforseen situation comes up and obstructs you from paying your bills on time. Cut down your credit card routine as much as you can. To some, this might feel laughable, but if you look back, you’ll understand that the ancient people lived a better life than we do today, and they did not utilize credit cards. Uniformity in bill payments is the vital point here. Slowly pay up all your credit bills and you’ll finally repair your financial standing.

People often suggest that you discuss with your creditors. If you pull the right strings and negotiate wisely, you could get discounts, instead of overcharges. Be positive and conservative. While negotiating with your creditors is not a surefire way of improving bad credit, it surely can be efficient.

Prevention is the best strategy. Instead of having to experience bad credit, why not hold it off in the first place? Pay your bills on time, do not delay credit payments, and cut down on your credit card usage. However, if you do fall into a bad credit position, then follow the tips above. Bad credit can at times impair your social profile and prevent access to loans on beneficial terms, mortgages, etc.

When you make the decision to put your own home lab together for your CCNA and CCNP studies (a very wise decision, if I may say so!), the hardest part is figuring out how to spend your budget. Do you spend it all on the routers and go with a cheaper 1900 switch, knowing that the 640-801 (CCNA), 640-821 (Intro), and 640-811 (ICND) exams now place a premium on knowing the ins and outs of a 2950 switch? Do you buy a frame relay switch? Do you buy an access server?

One factor to keep in mind when you’re starting to put your lab together is that you don’t have to put it all together at one time. With some careful planning, you’ve got a lab that you can use for your Intro studies, perhaps add a router or two for ICND study, and then some more devices for your CCNP study.

Of course, it also depends on your budget. If you’ve got upwards of $500 to spend, great! If you don’t, that’s okay. The key is that you’re going to work with the real deal instead of simulation programs. And remember that you can always sell the equipment when you’ve achieved your certification goals. You’re basically renting the equipment and then passing it on to another CCNA or CCNP candidate.

Let’s take a look at several different toplogies, from basic to more advanced.

One router. You’ll have to keep the configurations pretty basic, but getting started with one router is still a start. You can practice setting passwords (and password recovery, perhaps!) and become acquainted with the hardware. You can practice setting the hostname and working with many global configuration commands. There are obvious limitations, but the big plus here is that you’ve
gotten started working with real Cisco equipment.

Two routers. You can do more with two routers than you might think. Make sure the first two routers you buy have serial interfaces. You can then purchase a DTE/DCE cable and practice working with directly connected serial interfaces. This is a valuable skill to have on your Intro and ICND exams. You can put PPP on the direct connection and practice working with PAP and CHAP, not to mention the vital troubleshooting command debug ppp negotiation.

Two routers, one switch. Your first two routers should have serial and ethernet interfaces. You can connect your routers to the switch via their ethernet interface in addition to the aforementioned directly connected serial interfaces. You can create loopback interfaces on both routers and then practice advertising them via RIP, IGRP, EIGRP, and OSPF. If you can, make sure to get BRI interfaces on these first two routers as well. The cost of an ISDN simulator might prevent you from running ISDN at first, but plan for the future now.

It’s best to spring for a 2950 switch if it fits your budget. That switch has an IOS as opposed to the menu-driven 1900 switches, so the practice will come in handy on exam day. If you simply can’t afford it right now, a 1900 switch is certainly better than no switch at all!

Three routers, one switch. I would consider using the third router as a frame relay switch. If your first two routers each have two serial interfaces, as well as the third one, you can buy a couple of additional DTE/DCE cables and configure your own frame relay cloud. The config for a frame relay switch can be hard to find there is one on my website you’re welcome to.

Four routers, one switch. This setup would allow you to have three routers communicating via the frame relay cloud, two routers connecting through their directly connected serial interfaces, and at least two of the routers communicating through the switch. Quite a setup! I’ve got plenty of labs you can run on such a setup, and you could even create your own.

Five routers, one switch. At this point, you should consider an access server as your fifth router. An access server is a Cisco router with the capability to connect to up to eight other devices via an octal cable. Not just any Cisco router can serve as an access server, so make sure the one you buy for this purpose has the proper async port(s).

An access server prevents you from having to continually move the rollover cable into the console port of the router or switch you need to configure. Once you have one, you’ll wonder how you lived without it!

From this point on, you can add a second switch or an ISDN simulator. The second switch gives you the opportunity to practice influencing root bridge elections and configuring VTP an ISDN simulator will give you priceless practice with ISDN in your home lab. (Don’t confuse an ISDN simulator with a router simulator. An ISDN simulator basically acts as the phone company in your practice lab.) New ISDN simulators can run up to $2000 easily there are many used simulators on ebay and from used Cisco equipment vendors.)

I know exactly what you’re going through when you make the decision to build your own lab I’ve been there myself. I hope you’ve found this article helpful in making a decision on how to get started. If you have any questions about a network topology you’re considering building, please let me hear from you at chris@thebryantadvantage.com. I’m glad you’ve chose to put together you own CCNA and CCNP home lab, and I’ll be glad to help with any questions you may have.

To your success,

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage (http://www.thebryantadvantage.com), home of free CCNA and CCNP tutorials, The Ultimate CCNA Study Package, and Ultimate CCNP Study Packages. Video courses and training, binary and subnetting help, and corporate training are also available. Pass the CCNA exam with Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933!

Electronic Distribution

How Electronic Distribution Works

The Problems of Distributing Prepaid Services with Hard (Scratch) Cards

Introduction

One of the most significant developments in the prepaid telecom industry in the last few years has been the emergence of electronic distribution technologies, such as Prepaid Wireless Direct point-of-sale activaton (POSA) will completely reconstruct the way in which prepaid services are sold.

How Electronic Distribution Works

Prepaid Wireless Direct electronic distribution systems enable any prepaid sevice to electronically transmit their services to virtually any retail location. Prepaid Wireless Direct provides an integrated POSA solution comprised of flexible and compact point-of-sale terminal equipment, proprietary software, transactional communications, protocols, and professional services to assist retailers with implementation.

Once in the retail environment, consumers simply select a product from point-of sale signage or displays and make the approprate payment to the clerk who then inserts a wallet-sized thermal card into the POSA terminal. After pushing a few key corresponding to the desired product, terminal prints a prepaid PIN along with usage instruction on the card. Prepaid Wireless Direct also supports PIN-less delivery whereby the terminal makes a real-time connection service provider. A credit is instantly issued to the customer’s account. Within moments of purchase, customers can use services.

The types of retail environments that are beginning to switch to electronic delivery include wireless shops, supermarkets, conveience stores, check cashers, food marts, university shops, electronics stores, hotels and many more.

The Problems of Distributing Prepaid Services with Hard (Scratch) Cards

Prepaid Wireless Direct has developed electronic distribution services to address the many problems of distributing prepaid mobile and other prepaid services through hard cards. Hard cards are also known as scratch cards because the customer scratches a panel on the back of the card to reveal a PIN or other secret code.

The current and traditional distribution methodology of most prepaid services involves the prepaid services involves the provider printing scratch cards, warehousing them and fulfilling orders to distributors. The distributors purchase large quantities for providers, warehouse them and fulfill retail orders. And retailers purchase the cards from distributors, manage the inventory and sell the cards to consumers.

Each participant in the distribution chain encounters problems with scratch cards.

Retailer Problems. Under today’s traditional hard card distribution format, most retailers struggle on several fronts to offer prepaid products

Retailer have a difficult time carrying the inventory costs of prepaid services. The recent growth and popularity of prepaid wireless intensifies the problem. With prepiad mobile, airtime denominations are much more expensive the phone cards that most retailers are familiar with. It’s common for one prepaid wireless provider to offer 5 or more different airtime denominations that range in price form $20 to $150 each. To make things worse, prepaid wireless airtime is carrier specific, meaning that Verizon prepaid wireless customers cannot top up (recharge or replenish) their accounts with AT&T, Cingular or any other providers’s airtime, and vice versa. This makes it critical for retailers to carry airtime for all of the popular national and regional prepaid wireless carriers or operators in their area, something that retailers didn’t have to worry about with phone cards. Today there is an average of six major carriers or operators offering prepaid wireless in each of the top 20 U.S. markets. Trying to inventory product for all six could mean that prepaid wireless alone could account for as much as 25 percent of a conveience stores total in-store inventory costs. Many retailers simple cannot afford the cash outlay required to successfully sell prepaid wireless services.

Retailer trying to minimize inventory costs often create out-of-stock problems. In general, stock outages cost the average retailer 6% of its sales, resulting in loss of billions of dollars every year and high customer dissatisfaction.

To make thing worse, today’s airtime hard cards, also know as vouchers, scratch cards, replenishment cards, recharge cards, and hanging cards, increase the likelihood of fraud. The biggest problem seems to be at the point of sale where easily concealed, high-value airtime cards can be the target of both retail customers and employees alike. To prevent comsumer theft, retailers often put cards under lock and key but still suffer losses due to employee pilferage. In the conveience store industry, it is believed that as much as 80 percent of the store’s shrinkage is attributable to employees. Retail employess often feel underpaid and rationalize theft as a way to make up for what they’re owed. As prepaid wireless airtime cards often range in denominations from $10 to $150, employees can easily conceal thousands of dollars of product in their pockets or purses. Cards are also attractive because they can be easily converted to cash on the street by offering them for sale at a discount of their face value. Because they’re close cash equivalents, prepaid wireless cards have become tantamount to an underground currency in some places including Europe. Because of the proliferation of theft reduction is the number one investment priority among convenience store executives.

Additionally, each of the supply chain participants lacks efficient inventory controls and reporting while battling fraud. Because of the difficulties they face, and retailers that sell traditional hard cards are in dire need of cost-effective distribution solutions.

Electronic Distribution Solutions

Prepaid Wireless Direct products and services solve the distrbution problems of retailers that sell prepaid wireless (mobile) and other prepaid services.

Retailer. Retailers are increasingly demanding electronic delivery for the significant benefits they derive.

By delivering prepaid products electronically, on demand, with point-of-sale activation(POSA) techniques, Prepaid Wireless Direct essentially allows any retailer to sell prepaid wireless or other prepaid service without carrying any inventory. This eliminates prepaid inventory costs that acted as enormous cash barriers, prohibiting many retailers from selling prepaid wireless or other prepaid services. What once tied up thousands of dollars in inventory, now requires no up front cash from retailers. Now virtually any retailer not only can afford to participate in selling prepaid services, but also can expand their product portfolios to include phone cards, wireless, dail tone, credit cards, internet and more. In addition, they can also afford to represent all of the popular prepaid wireless service providers in their areas.

Also, because products are automatically replenished at POSA terminals electronically in PIN or real-time formats, retailer never run out of inventory. With Prepaid Wireless Direct POSA solution, retailers avoid the heavy costs of out of stocks and resultant customer dissatisfaction.

Once installed in a retail location, the POSA terminal virtually eliminates theft by retail customers and employess. Because only inactive products are on display, retail customers can no longer steal valuable airtime. And because all retail employees are assigned unique passwords required to accesss the POSA terminal, the system creates an audit trail that details all sales activity by date, time, shift and employee. This audit trail provides a monitoring system that virtually eliminates employee theft. With the POSA system, retailer no longer need to count and reconcile scratch card inventory amounts at the beginning of every shift.

POSA also reduces shelf space requirements and simplifies a retailers job by consolidating all prepaid products into one convenient POSA platform. POSA delivers operating flexibility to the retail marketplace that traditional point of sale products fail to provide.

Retailers also have 24/7 online access to reports that show real-time sales activity by each of their locations. Retailers can also print real-time sales report directly for their POSA terminals. Reports can drill down to sales activity at individual retail outlets by product, clerk, day, and time. Reports come standard but may be customized to match the retailers unique information needs. Retailers use sales activity reports can also highlight sudden changes in sales at a particular location. Subsequent investigation often reveals a simple solution to boosting sales such as replacement of signage that has been taken down by a window washer. Timely awareness of problems and simple remedies often make a significant difference to the amount of sales at retail.

Prepaid Wireless Direct is proud to be leading the way in the electronic distribution of prepaid services through retail environment. By delivering unique, industry-first features and benefits, while supporting a growing list of platforms, methods, suppliers, and products. Prepaid Wireless Direct is poised to lead the electronic distribution movement into the future. In addition to its current suite of products. Prepaid Wireless Direct intends to introduce many more electronic product delivery solutions as it continues to leverage the leading technologies to create cutting-edge, customized products for emerging customer segments.

Bill Payment Service & Prepaid For Leading Merchant Retailers: www.prepaidwireless.2ya.com 1-877-947-3577

A rediscovered strategy for protecting against disasters is to use a massive calling system to warn people. It is a strategy called; Reverse 9-11 Calls for Emergencies. Luckily this is exempt from the Do Not Call Lists.

If there is a train wreck leaves a toxic cloud, residents would be warned. If a pipeline ruptures or a levee breaks it might give residents enough time to get to higher ground. In the future if an Earthquake gives off some type of Early Warning ultra low frequency wave, it might give the massive calling system time to call everyone within the area. The systems could be designed to call over 200,000 phones with a pre-recorded digital message.

Authorities figure that instant messaging and cell phones would also help as people called each other. This means if a levee broke like in New Orleans or along a major river people would know what is coming? If a train or pipeline breaks people would be told to close their windows, vents and doors.

In the event of Bird Flu break out people would be told to stay put as authorities bring in supplies but do not allow the spreading by closing off a city? Keeping people informed and isolated until they can get in vaccines would be most advisable. In the future as systems get more robust and can handle such capacities, we can protect our citizens from catastrophe. Think on this.

“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Individuals who require an internal artificial pacemaker to regulate their heartbeat will need to undergo pacemaker surgery to have the device implanted in the body. The procedure is performed under local anesthetic, though patients are generally hospitalized overnight for careful monitoring. Patients are given a mild sedative to keep them calm and relaxed but are otherwise awake and alert throughout the procedure.

To insert the pacemaker, the surgeon makes a two to three inch incision just below the patient’s collarbone. An electrode lead is inserted into a nearby vein and slowly advanced towards the heart. A fluoroscope is used to guide the doctor as he advances the lead, providing him with a detailed image of the interior of the vein. Once the lead enters into the heart, it is attached to the tissue so that the positioning of the lead may be tested. To test positioning, the surgeon sends small electrical signals down the lead and evaluates the heart’s response to the impulses. A suitable position is one that allows the full strength of the signal to reach the heart, thereby signaling the heart to contract and beat. It may be necessary to reseat the lead within the vein several times before an ideal position is achieved.

Once the lead has been placed and secured in the heart, the generator portion of the pacemaker is implanted under the skin. This small box, measuring just a half an inch long by a half an inch wide, is connected to the electrode lead and inserted though the incision into a small pocket just under the skin. The doctor then sutures the incision closed and hooks the patient up to a heart monitor for observation. The whole procedure, from start to finish, typically takes just one to two hours.

Patients should expect to feel mild to moderate pain and tenderness around the incision for several days. Since the generator lies just beneath the surface of the skin, most individuals can clearly feel the outline of the pacemaker once the incision site has healed. Some patients end up with mild scarring or a small deformity of the skin near the generator, due to the fact that it is not seated deep within the body. More serious complications are rare (occurring in just 1-2% of patients) and may include severe bleeding, blood clots, puncturing of the heart or lung, heart attack, stroke, or a pacemaker malfunction.

Since pacemaker batteries run from five to ten years, it is necessary to replace the generator every few years to ensure that it is running properly. Routine monitoring of the pacemaker ensures that is it operating as designed until such time that a replacement is needed.

If you appreciate a strong, healthy self confidence that carries you through overwhelming times and drives you to achieving your most far reaching goals, martial arts is for you.

A person’s self-confidence is like a muscle, it needs to be exercised in order to grow and develop. In the 20 plus years that I’ve been teaching Martial Arts in our community we have developed a 5 step approach to building self-confidence. These 5 steps can be learned by anyone – with the right guidance:

1. Correct Body Posture. The importance of the correct body posture is paramount. We all send hidden, sub-conscious messages with our body language and the way we carry ourselves. Carry yourself with pride, confidence and security. Carry yourself like a successful person and your confidence will show.

2. Proper Eye Contact. Making proper eye contact when speaking to others has a huge effect on the conversation. Have you ever been talking to somebody and instantly felt connected? Like you’ve known this person forever? Chances are, they understand the importance of body language, and proper eye-contact.

3. Goal Setting. Goal setting is talked about by everybody, and most people understand the importance of this process. Then why do most people miss their mark? Because they don’t have the discipline and confidence to see the goal through. Our process teaches you the right way to set goals and actually achieve them!

4. Communication. Inspiring those around you is critical to getting what you want. Whether they are your children, co-workers, employees or boss, good leaders are inspirational. We teach this inspirational formula.

5. Mentors. All of the skills above, a healthy body and mind combined with a good mentor or two will make all the difference in the world for your happiness and success.

If you are interested in learning more about how martial arts can help your self confidence, please contact one of my three locations in Bellevue, Lynnwood or Kent, Washington at 800-508-6141or martialadvice@hotmail.com to set up a free 2 week trail orientation.

Also, please see our web pages at www.kungfutemple.com and www.martialarts-instruction.com

Sincerely,

Robert Jones Master Instructor 6th Degree Black Belt Owner, the Academy of Kempo Martial Arts

Weve had nearly 1.5m snow in the last week. It was so prolonged that chairlifts have been shut down, the railroad train has been stopped at Chamonix and not heading onwards to Les Grands Montets. Some roads were blocked past our luxury chalet and snow announcements released.

This is in direct contrast to a few winters ago, with the incredibly warm January conditions, grass showing on ski slopes, and reports that global warming could mean the conclusion of the ski industry in the European Alps. The report from 2006 admonished that climate change could make snowboarding far too expensive for many holiday makers, with one-third of resorts closing with the disappearance of alpine glaciers. Scientists assert that it is nearly impossible to attribute the annual differences in the snow to the consequences of climate change.

We may have the longest downturn in nearly 25 yrs, and the Pound Sterling has dropped to new levels compared to the euro, but the skiing is great, and the recent reservations prove that people are eager to take of advantage of the great conditions. Its undoubtedly the finest in six seasons, and a lot of skiers are saying that it is the finest skiing snow in at least ten winters.

All the same recall that snow like this means significant avalanches risks.

Passing Drug Testing

Drug examination has grown into a popular phenomenon across the earth. Some companies do drug screens on freshly employed people or existing employees to secure a drug-free environment at work.

Insurance agencies and courts guide drug trials on a regular basis on distrusted people. The main inquiry that comes to your brain, when you go for such test is how to beat a drug test?

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Ways To Pass A Urine Drug Test

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