Ashley Solutions

Nowadays, shopping is an activity that some people enjoy while others consider it a chore. Why? Simply because of the variety offered in the clothing department. There is also another challenge: sizes. With the fashion displayed in magazines, boutiques and suggested by designers during fashion shows, one thing has become more and more obvious: fashion is focusing on thin figures and is more limited in plus sizes.

Plus size clothing stores are the meeting the needs of an increasing patronage shopping for plus size clothing. Why? It is simply because of the lack of specialized boutiques and stores in plus sizes. In short, the production does not meet the demand.

So, to meet the needs of plus size women, the internet has open its doors to online plus size clothing stores which offers quite a few benefits to their customers. Which are these benefits? Allow me to share them with you.

First, you can shop in the comfort of your home while browsing and relaxing at the same time. Over are the hours lost in search of a clothing item because of the distance and rarity of boutiques offering plus sizes. Especially, in department stores that pride themselves in offering the smallest sizes in plus size fashion which of course is also limited in plus size patterns.

Second, you find variety, quality, designer brands and much more at your fingertips. Over is the time when you use to settle for something else than what you needed or according to your desires. Use your mouse, not your feet and enjoy viewing the selections offered by online plus size clothing stores.

Third, often you have to either try quite a few plus size items before completing your purchase if you are not sure of your size or if the sizes are different. For example, a 3X may be different than a L in plus sizes or a 42 so you feel obliged to try it out in a small, hot, uncomfortable changing room. Why not shop online and look at the sizing charts they offer to both compare different sizing types and measurement as well as how to take them if necessary. Also, you can see what sizes are available right away in each one of the plus size patterns that are offered online.

Fourth, it is easy to compare prices and you can do it rapidly. Contrary to the people’s opinion, purchasing plus size clothing online is not always expensive. Like in 3-D boutiques, prices differ a lot. Some boutiques will offer you great deals and prices while other will charge for the quality, the name brand or the unique plus size patterns.

Finally, you can do you shopping at your own convenience. Time, distance, exhaustive searches and avoiding the “sales pitches” of sales clerks are now a thing of the past. You can now meet your needs by browsing, finding and purchasing what you want, at the right price and the quality that you want. Just…plus size it!

Looking for more information on shopping for plus sizes on line? Read this article and I also invite you to find more ideas, tips and inventory on my site: http://plus-sizes.findoutnow.org

The key to rapid muscle growth, is to perform all your exercises well outside your comfort zone. If you had performed the barbell curl to the point of complete and momentary exhaustion, instead of “copping out” at the tenth. Then your bicep muscles would be forced to work harder than normal. Much harder. As a result, they would grow and build size rapidly.

What matters here is not the number of repetitions performed beyond the initial ten. What’s most important is that you understand the reason behind the need to force yourself to work at higher levels of intensity. To produce the greatest possible muscle gains in the shortest possible time frame, you must continually strive to perform at a level well beyond your comfort zone.

If you perform a set of barbell curls until you can no longer lift the bar, no matter how hard you try, or how many pair of strides you split, then you will be involving the highest possible number of muscle fibers. It may not be the total number available, but it will be enough to produce massive increases in muscle size.

Muscle gains produced by a very small amount of intense exercise, will always be much, much more, than that produced by a large amount of low intensity exercise. It is never the quantity of exercise that produces muscle gains, it is always the quality.

Most guys who exercise today are completely ignorant of the need for maximum intensity in their workouts. And as a result, most are blind to their true potential. Even when they are training six days a week, most guys make have no muscle gains to show for it. They just don’t know that they need to workout at a much higher level of intensity. But, in many cases they’re just too damn lazy to do so.

If they don’t exert the level of intensity needed, they will never achieve astounding muscle gains. So, unless you are content to train for years and have nothing to show for it like Frankie No-Gains and Jermima Got-No-Brains, you must accept and respect what is required of you. Your exercise must be brief, but it must be intense.

Trent Brook is the Author of “Huge Gains Fast - How to Get More Rock-Hard Muscle Mass In A Month Than You Now Get All Year. His “Huge Gains Fast” muscle building program is an easy-to-follow system so simple and understandable it’s fully explained to you in just 4 easy steps! The Revised Edition is now available online at his website, http://www.hugegainsfast.com

Like many Americans my age, I grew up with a positive association to fluoride. Toothpaste commercials told me that fluoride helped prevent tooth decay and that I should brush my teeth with fluoride toothpaste, so I used it every day. The dentist gave me fluoride treatments for my teeth. Fluoride was also added to municipal water supplies, so drinking tap water (and anything made with it) gave me a daily dose of fluoride too. Like most other people, I assumed it must be healthy. Otherwise, why would people add it to toothpaste and water?

Many years ago though, I started hearing rumors about fluoride being potentially unhealthy. I realized I’d never looked into fluoride and didn’t really even know what it was and why I should be consuming it. I had to admit that all my knowledge of fluoride ultimately came from the people who were marketing it. People market plenty of other products that aren’t healthy (cigarettes, junk food, etc.), so why should I assume fluoride was healthy just because the marketers said it was?

So way back in 1997, I got curious and started taking a deeper look into fluoride. Today this is very easy to do because there’s plenty of info available online. I’ll share some of that info with you and provide some links so you can look into it further if you so choose. My goal is to help you consciously decide whether you wish to continue using fluoride.

What is fluoride?

The substance fluoride is technically a fluorine ion. Fluorine is a gas, and in nature it will be found bonded with other substances, forming compounds such as calcium fluoride.

Fluoride is a naturally occurring substance found abundantly in the earth’s crust. Consequently, it is found in natural water supplies, usually in very low levels (well below 1 part per million). Plants naturally absorb fluoride from the soil, so small amounts of fluoride compounds are present in all our food. Fluoride is also commonly used in pesticides, so plant foods grown with pesticides will have a higher concentration of fluoride.

The highest dietary concentration of fluoride occurs in animal foods and in processed foods, especially fish. Fluoride builds up in the tissues of animals. And whenever fluoridated water is used in food production, fluoride will be concentrated in the final product. The same goes for cooking with fluoridated water.

Although it is a natural substance, fluoride is highly toxic to human beings, even more so than lead. If you were to injest a mere 2-5 grams of sodium fluoride (a common ingredient in toothpaste), you would probably die. The amount of fluoride in a typical tube of fluoride toothpaste is sufficient to kill a small child if it were consumed all at once. Fluoride toothpaste contains a much higher concentration of fluoride than what is found in nature.

In the USA the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates fluoride usage.

Is fluoride necessary for health?

Not remotely. Unlike calcium or magnesium, fluoride is not an essential nutrient for your body. If you were to consume zero fluoride your entire life, you wouldn’t suffer for it. There’s no such thing as fluoride deficiency.

What is fluoride’s purported role in tooth decay?

Fluoride acts as an enzyme inhibitor. For this reason it is believed to help prevent cavities by literally poisoning the bacteria in your mouth. Unfortunately, because fluoride is so toxic, you’re taking a big risk by using it to try to prevent cavities. You not only poison the bacteria in your mouth but your other cells as well.

“Fluoride inhibits enzymes that breed acid-producing oral bacteria whose acid eats away tooth enamel. This observation is valid, but some scientists now believe that the harmful impact of fluoride on other useful enzymes far outweighs the beneficial effect on caries prevention.”
- UNICEF, Dec 1999

Fluoride only works topically. If you swallow fluoride, it won’t help your teeth at all except to the extent it touches them. So fluoride supplements are utterly worthless.

What are the risks of fluoride consumption?

Aside from the risk of death, fluoride can cause serious problems even at low levels of injestion that come from using toothpaste or mouthwash or drinking fluoridated water.

One risk is a condition known as fluorosis, caused by excessive exposure to fluoride. This comes in two kinds: dental fluorosis and skeletal fluorosis. Dental fluorosis occurs at a young age, and the main symptom is discolored and/or pitted teeth, but the outward signs on the teeth are believed to be linked with a deeper neurological impairment.

Skeletal fluorosis is an arthritic disease caused by a build-up of fluoride in the bones that can cause the bones to become brittle. Studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association noted that hip fractures are more common in communities that fluoridate their water supply.

Drinking fluoridated water is linked with reduced cognitive ability in children. There are also over 30 animal studies showing that fluoride is a neurotoxin which reduces learning and memory. Essentially, fluoride makes you a bit less intelligent.

If you wish to look into this further, you can find a lengthy list of health problems associated with fluoride and links to some of the research here:
Fluoride Health Effects Database

There are many more health problems than the few I’ve listed above, including kidney damage and cancer. Fluoride problems are an active area of research. A lot of new information has come out in just the past decade.

Why did people start adding fluoride to toothpaste and water?

You don’t want to know. Really you don’t.

But if you do, you can start by reading these articles:
Industry and Fluoridation
Fluoride, Teeth, and the Atomic Bomb

And if you really want to hurt yourself, you can read all about the fluoride fraud here:
Suppression of Scientific Dissent on Fluoride’s Risks and Benefits

If you don’t want to read the above, the bottom line is that fluoride is an industrial pollutant which became a serious problem several decades ago, and this problem was essentially solved by devising ways to feed the stuff to humans. Today it’s become a difficult issue that involves big business, large sums of money, the ADA, the FDA, and somewhere near the bottom of the political food chain… health.

What about water fluoridation?

Water fluoridation is common practice in the USA. About 60% of the U.S. water supply is now fluoridated. My city of Las Vegas started fluoridating its water supply a few years ago (in what was apparently something of a political fiasco).

The last time I checked, water fluoridation was banned in Japan, China, India, and most European countries. What’s interesting though is that in Europe the levels of tooth decay are no worse than in the USA. In both the U.S. and Europe, the levels of tooth decay have been falling at about the same rate for decades. Fortunately for non-U.S. residents, the politics of fluoride which have infected the U.S. have not similarly infected the rest of world.

The theoretical reason for water fluoridation is that it supposedly helps prevent tooth decay. The problem, however, is that the theory just doesn’t hold true. There’s no evidence that water fluoridation helps prevent tooth decay at all. The evidence in fact shows that fluoridation has no effect whatsoever on tooth decay, but fluoridation does cause other health problems such as fluorosis.

“All of the recent large-scale studies on fluoridation and tooth decay show that fluoridation does not reduce tooth decay. Studies from New Zealand, Canada, Europe, and the US have confirmed no difference in decay rates for permanent teeth of residents of fluoridated vs. non-fluoridated communities.” (source)

“In summary, we hold that fluoridation is an unreasonable risk. That is, the toxicity of fluoride is so great and the purported benefits associated with it are so small - if there are any at all - that requiring every man, woman and child in America to ingest it borders on criminal behavior on the part of governments.”
- Dr. J. William Hirzy, Senior Vice-President, Headquarters Union, US Environmental Protection Agency, March 26, 2001

“I am quite convinced that water fluoridation, in a not-too-distant future, will be consigned to medical history.”
- Dr. Arvid Carlsson, Winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize for Medicine

So what are the health reasons for water fluoridation? There aren’t any. The real reason for fluoridation is a combination of business and politics. The health claims are largely used to draw attention away from the real reason. In the USA it isn’t so hard to get fluoridation policies passed in new cities simply by leveraging the previous marketing work that has been done in favor of fluoride. Communities will vote in favor of fluoridation because most of the people doing the voting don’t know any better. People will emotionally defend something as true which deep down they never understood.

What about bottled water?

It depends on the source. Most water from natural springs will have on the order of 0.1 ppm fluoride, which is about 10% of the level found in fluoridated municipal water supplies. So with bottled water your exposure to this toxin is greatly reduced.

Be aware that some bottled water delivery companies do fluoridate their water. I called two of them to ask: Sparkletts and Arrowhead. Sparkletts told me they do fluoridate their water. Of course I let them know that I would never be a customer of theirs as long as they do so. Arrowhead told me they do NOT deliver fluoridated water unless the customer specifically requests it. Consquently, I have been an Arrowhead customer for many years. If I find out that they’ve started fluoridating their water, they will lose my family as a customer.

If you want to know whether or not your water contains fluoride, call the company and ask them how much fluoride is in their water and whether or not they add fluoride to it. They will be able to tell you how many parts per million of fluoride their water contains.

One fluoride-related web site suggested specifically avoiding Trinity Springs water because it contains a very high concentration of fluoride, on the order of 4 ppm. That’s about 4x the level you’ll get from fluoridated tap water.

You can also use a water filter to reduce fluoride from tap water. In this case you will need a reverse-osmosis filter, which will remove 90%+ of the fluoride. Distillation will also remove fluoride from water.

Is there such a thing as non-fluoride toothpaste?

Yes, absolutely.

Fluoride is not the ingredient in toothpaste that cleans your teeth. It is the abrasive calcium carbonate that does most of the cleaning. Fluoride’s only role is to poison the bacteria (and of course the rest of you gets poisoned in the process). Additionally, commercial toothpastes often contain sweeteners that can actually promote tooth decay.

I can recommend a couple brands of fluoride-free toothpaste which I’ve been using for years: Nature’s Gate and Tom’s of Maine. You should be able to find these at any health food store. I buy them at Whole Foods and Wild Oats.

My personal favorite is Nature’s Gate Herbal Creme de Peppermint. My wife prefers Tom’s of Maine. Tom’s of Maine also has children’s fluoride-free toothpaste available, which our 5-year old daughter uses. Both of these companies are cruelty-free as well, meaning they don’t test any of their products on animals.

These toothpastes are made from all-natural ingredients, and they don’t contain extra sweeteners. One thing I like about Tom’s of Maine is that they list all the ingredients on the box along with a description of what each thing is and why it’s there.

My wife also wrote a short review of Nature’s Gate toothpaste on her web site many years ago. One thing she noted was that because of the lack of sugar, it took us a few days to get used to these toothpastes. But after that we never looked back.

What about dentists?

I challenge you to ask your own dentist for detailed information on fluoride. Test his/her knowledge of this subject, and see if the answers you get make you more confident or more doubtful.

Ask your dentist to tell you exactly what fluoride is and what the lethal dosage is. Ask your dentist where the fluoride in their toothpaste and fluoride treatments originally comes from (trust me you really don’t want to know). Ask your dentist how s/he came to believe that fluoride helps prevent tooth decay. Ask your dentist to tell you about the dangers of fluoride exposure. Ask your dentist to tell you where you can obtain the proof that fluoride usage is safe and effective.

Wouldn’t you expect your dentist to know this information?

Personally I have never met a dentist who knew even the most basic facts about fluoride. Dentists apparently learn about fluoride from the same people that market it to consumers. Most likely your dentist doesn’t know much more about fluoride than you do aside from the information that’s been provided to them by marketers. In fact, simply by reading this article, you probably know a lot more about fluoride than your dentist does, unless your dentist happens to be exceptional.

What should you do?

I think you should look into this for yourself and make your own conscious decision.

Look beyond the fluoride marketing hype and decide if fluoride is something you want to put into your body on a regular basis. Common sense suggests that you shouldn’t ingest such a toxic substance unless you fully understand what you’re doing. Remember that you have no dietary need for fluoride, so if you have any doubt, leave it out. In my opinion that’s the safest bet.

Fluoride is not addictive, so I think you’ll find it easy to do without. You may even notice some health benefits in doing so. Who knows? Maybe your IQ will even go up a few points that effect is certainly conceivable given that fluoride is a neurotoxin and has been linked to reduced IQ in children.

At the very least, doctors recommend not using fluoridated water to make infant formula. Don’t give young children any fluoridated water if you can avoid it. Fluoride’s toxicity is relative to body mass. So the smaller the person, the more toxic a particular dose will be. Consider nature’s example the level of fluoride found in human breast milk is about 100 times lower than in fluoridated water (i.e. 0.01 ppm vs. 1.0 ppm).

My viewpoint is that if you want to convince me to injest a toxic substance on a regular basis, the burden of proof is all yours. By default I’m not going to take poison, so if you can’t provide rock-solid evidence that your substance is worth consuming, you won’t convince me. And fluoride is a substance where the mountain of evidence has convinced me I’m better off without it.

You don’t need to poison yourself just to try to prevent cavities. I hope you can begin to see the insanity in that approach. If you have excessive bacteria eating away your tooth enamel, realize that it’s a sign of a greater imbalance in your body. Don’t try to correct the imbalance by poisoning the symptoms (i.e. the bacterial growth). Address the root cause. By reducing the acidity of your diet, you can safely prevent your teeth from dissolving. Especially cut out refined sugar and coffee if you can, and eat more raw fruits and vegetables.

If you aren’t going to change your diet, at least acknowledge that tooth decay is not the worst health problem in the world. Even if you do get cavities, it’s a fixable problem, and in my opinion, it’s not worth taking poison to try to prevent one problem and cause yourself far greater grief in the long run. You might miss your teeth, but I think you’ll miss your brain, bones, and kidneys even more.

I want to look into this further. Hook me up.

First, you can start with a simple Google search on fluoride or on such terms as “fluoride toxic poison” (without the quotes), and you’ll find plenty of sites to look through.

Here are a couple of my favorite fluoride sites with loads of articles, information, and research references:
The Fluoride Debate
Fluoride Action Network

At the very least, I recommend you read the home page of The Fluoride Debate site to give yourself a nice overview. But you will certainly learn a lot by diving deeply into both of these sites.

There are also some books on the subject (you can find both at Amazon):
The Fluoride Deception by Christopher Bryson and Theo Colborn
Fluoride: Drinking Ourselves to Death by Barry Groves

I just can’t believe any of this. It’s too unbelievable.

I’m sorry to be the one to shatter your blissful fluoride fantasy. Really, I am. I know you’ll probably curse me the next time you pick up your toothpaste and see a tube of IQ-lowering poison instead of sugary cavity-fighting bliss.

I’m just the messenger though. I didn’t invent any of this information. And my goal isn’t to convince you not to use fluoride. My goal is far more insidious it is to encourage you to think for yourself and make decisions more consciously, whether you agree with me or not.

Copyright © Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina
Personal Development for Smart People
http://www.stevepavlina.com
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog (blog)
http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles (articles)

Steve is intensely growth-oriented. He trained in martial arts, ran the L.A. Marathon, and graduated from college in three semesters with two degrees. He can juggle, count cards at blackjack, and make damn good guacamole. Steve is also a polyphasic sleeper, sleeping just 2-3 hours per day and only 20 minutes at a time. So chances are good that he’s awake right now.

What is a Family Business?
A family business is basically any business in which the majority of the ownership or control lies within a family. Involvement of members of family in a business can bring with it its own complexities because the line between the business system is sometimes separated by a thin line from the family system. Sometimes these 2 positions overlap causing all sorts of conflicts.

Families involve emotion with includes relationships that carry with it loyalties and natural love whereas a business system is unemotional and coldly designed to extract the highest profit from that venture.

Styles that are necessary in a family situation may not always suit the business situation. Membership of a family is by birth whereas membership of a business should be by investment and performance.

Families deal with family matters in a certain way that entails the head of the family making decisions either alone or in consultation with another senior member of the family. The business however, has its own systems and methods of communication as well as styles involving the resolution of conflicts and finalizing decisions.

Conflict between Business System and Family System
Conflicts arise in family business when the roles of one system intrude into the roles of the other and because each member of the family is basically involved in a dual system problems arise. The overlap of these two systems become really apparent when there are conflicts in interest arising between the family members and the business.

Most families regard the concerns as being paramount in all cases but a prudent business owner will ensure that family concerns and business concerns are properly balanced so as to achieve the maximum satisfaction for both systems and people involved. Too often the emotional bonds of family tend to short cut processes which have been designed to ensure the security of the business and to maximize its success.

For example, family members are put into positions of power where they do not have experience or knowledge simply because they are family members. If they came through the normal interview and selection process they would not get that position. This is clearly a case where family considerations breach the normal standards of how businesses should be run in order to achieve maximum profitability.

Specific Issues in the Family Business
A business is difficult enough to manage at the best of times. A family business however brings with it its own issues and problems and these need to be clear before anyone gets involved in a family business whether that person is part of the family or an outsider. A family business is subject to the same problems that beset every other business except they usually take on an extra one or two, simply because relatives are involved.

Some of the issues that most businesses have to face include the following:

• Leadership.
  Who is the leader in the business that makes the final decision and how will it appear for the business to move onto the next generation.
• Family Harmony.
  What needs to be done to ensure that there is harmony in the family.
• Successors.
  Who will be chosen to succeed and run the family business when the present manager retires or dies? Any family member who is given the responsibility of managing the family business must ensure that sound business and management practices are carried out.
• Engagement.
  Who should participate in the family business and under what conditions?
• Passing over the Business.
  What has to be done to allow the entrepreneur to pass over the business to the next family member?
• Non-family people.
  How are non-family executives and managers to be attracted and retained and what powers do they have to make decisions that may go against the wishes of family members in the business.
• Compensation.
  Should family members be paid for work which they are not qualified in? And should their salaries be at the same level as non-family members with greater expertise and knowledge in a particular area?
• Protect Finances.
  Many relatives regard the company as their own personal bank and as a place where they can do whatever they wish. The prudent family ‘boss’ needs to make decisions, however unpopular he becomes with family members, that will ensure the ongoing protection and financial health of the business.

All the issues above have to be assessed in a family business situation because the potential for business conflict and family stress can be very high. The way to diffuse conflict and eliminate stress involves identifying the issues causing the conflicts and stress and then discussing these issues with all the family members involved.

Copyright 2005 StartRunGrow
http://www.startrungrow.com

StartRunGrow (http://www.startrungrow.com) is a global online information organization that specializes in creating, developing and marketing business help information specifically with the aim of “making business easier” for entrepreneurs around the world. The StartRunGrow objective is to become a dominant player in the business help arena providing end to end solutions for the millions of small and medium businesses worldwide who continue to struggle daily with the difficulties of starting, running and growing a successful business.

Emily looks to be ready to take on Hurricane Status as it moves North on a projected course for Florida. Barbados appears to be in Emily’s path and will be there within 24-hours. Emily is the fifth names storm this season and she is being followed by her siblings; Franklin, Gert, Harvey and Irene.

Right now Emily has sustained winds of nearly 60 miles per hour and is moving West now with little organization, but some rotation. Most Forecasters who are monitoring the situation believe she will indeed reach Category I Hurricane Status before any landfall. Hurricane Status starts at 74 miles per hour winds. This will be on Wednesday or early Thursday and then it makes its long journey Northward to pound into the United States.

There is much activity off the coast of Africa this year and this activity is going to spit out many storms in the next few weeks and those storms will move West to and then North into the United States. This increased activity will span several weeks and is somewhat unusual in its intensity this early in the Hurricane Season.

Most meteorologists believe that the 2005 Hurricane Season will rival or surpass the 2004 Hurricane Season when four Hurricanes of Category Two or higher slammed into the State of Florida and challenged the resources of FEMA. For now we wait and see, but we cannot take our eyes of Emily.

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

Getting a new dog or puppy can be a very exciting time for the whole family but you will want to do some training with your dog, notice I said with and not train your dog, this is because you are going to have to learn some new skills when you start your training.

You do have some choices when you first start to think about your basic dog training, do you train the dog yourself or do you call in a dog training professional?

Both choices have their merits if you train the dog your self then you are bonding with your dog every time you do it, you are also learning how your dog reacts to different situations. Hiring a professional gives you the immediate expertise and you are able to correct any mistakes you might have made by training your dog yourself.

A mix of the two is probably the best way to go, join a dog training class, this will help keep the costs under control, but also give you the professional direction for your home training. When I got my first dog I read as much as I could and learned what techniques worked and then I visited 3 different trainers who were holding classes, I found one that I could communicate well with and attended the classes once a week while doing daily training at home with my dog using the lessons I had read about. That was over 30 years ago and the library was my best stop to find information but now the internet offers millions of sites and articles on dog training so you should make the most of it.

The three things I feel are a must during your basic dog training are patience, environment and praise let me explain.

Patience- your dog does not speak the same language as you so you must realise that it is going to take some time before you saying sit will get your dog to sit, repetition and reward are the key to getting the message across, but remember please be patient.

Environment- you must think about where you train your dog, you should avoid noisy and distracting places, as you will need your dog to be able to hear what you are saying and he must also be able to concentrate. Remember that your dog is excited about the world around him and if there is something new and interesting around him he will want to check it out, so you should find somewhere quiet and free from distractions.

Praise- your dog wants to make you happy, so when he does something right let him know you are happy that he has done that, lots of praise when your dog gets it right.

If you follow these three basic guidelines you will find your training is a lot easier to concentrate on and your dog will get much more from it, a little training done often is better than long training sessions dome infrequently, this is because your dog will start to get board doing the same thing over and over again, but if you split the lesions in to shorter chunks then your dog will look forward to the sessions and enjoy them when you run them.

Sean D teaches you all you need to know about training your dog..

Visit his site at Dog training
basics for tips and help with your basic dog training.

http://www.dogtraining-basics.info

Copyright 2006 Donna Gunter

In 2003, I moved to Little Rock, AR, and I was amazed with how helpful my new property manager was. If you haven’t moved recently, you may have forgotten all the joy associated with having to arrange to shut off your utilities, phone, cable, etc. and arrange to have them hooked up at your new location. Then, you have to deal with mail forwarding, finding new service providers for all aspects of your life, and then deal with the move itself. When I made a cross-country move in 1998 from MA to TX, I had the luxury of being able to quit my job and focus solely on the move and on selling unwanted items. Now, as a solo business owner, I no longer have that luxury, and the processed caused a meltdown or two.

However, my saving grace was my property manager.. The information and resources that she had available has greatly decreased the amount of time I’d need to find this info on my own, and in some cases, she had her own contacts with some of the companies. For example, upon my decision to rent from her company and completing the paperwork, she handed me a packet of info to help with my move. Within that I found contacts for the electric, gas, telephone and water companies, along with the deposit fees required and installation charges I could expect to pay. There was a brochure from the cable company with all the options available from them, along with the pricing of their services. All of this info was in a great folder from a moving company with moving tips, in addition to having mail forwarding cards that I could complete and return to my local post office. I was talking to her about my options for a mover, and she proceeded to open the Little Rock phone directory and found the name of a moving company she could recommend, as well as ripping out a discount coupon for them from the back of the book. When I decided that I wanted to rent a PO Box as a business address for my business, I called her and discovered the branches of the USPS that are close to my new home. I can honestly say that I’ve never had such a great one-stop shopping experience in my entire life!

And, it didn’t end there! While in her office, I noticed that she had bookcases full of videos and DVDs. The residents of all of the properties owned by the company could drop by the office and check out videos at no charge. What an amazing array of resources I had at my disposal! I truly felt I had gotten exceptional service from this company because of all the resources that my property manager had at her disposal that provided solutions to the problems I was having.

The idea of being in the solutions business came to me when I read about an article in the Arizona Republic regarding a child care facility in Ohio that offers fresh Starbuck’s coffee for the parents when they drop off their children in the morning, a dry cleaner drop-off service, as well as home-cooked and healthy meals that parents can take home with them when they pick their kids up. Now, isn’t that a big jump from offering child care services to offering a solution for really busy parents?

So, how can you be a solutions provider instead of a service provider in your business?

The first way is to identify ALL of the problems that your clients may have. If you’re not sure what those are, ask them! Your business may not be able to help solve all of them, but you may be able to help your client with those that are most pressing. Brainstorming these may cause you to have to think outside the box and figure out how you might best serve your client. You will probably discover that you’ll need to have a list of tried-and-true reliable service professionals at your disposal.

If you don’t have a list of professionals at hand, there’s no time like the present to create this list. If you can create strategic alliances with other businesses who can service your client base, by how much might all of your businesses profit from such an alliance? There’s strength in numbers, and truly the business owners with the biggest Rolodex and the greatest number of contacts wins!

Your clients are busy — heck, we’re all busy these days. Anything you can do to save them money, time, or energy will engender their lifelong loyalty to you, and lifetime referrals! Start providing solutions to your clients, and they’ll become your most vocal referral agents!

We are living at an incredible time and anyone that is following the spiritual path knows that the earth is changing, which in effect, propels human beings to evolve/change as well. There is no escaping. Those that are resisting the changes because they are not aware of what is going on, their lives will show much turmoil and chaos. All one has to do is look outside and see this for themselves. This is not top secret, it is wake up time. The inner search has finally been put into high gear for many! People no longer believe in other humans who once stood on high pedestals, as those pedestals are crumbling beneath their feet. Many people are finally turning inward to search for the truth within their own beings, instead of relying on and trusting outside sources. Finding new spiritual tools to help us upon our journey is at an all time high.

I believe that one of the most powerful tools we have right now is a spiritual energy called The Violet Flame of Transmutation. Using the Violet Flame along with energy work is an excellent and very powerful combination. Although the Violet Flame has been around for many years, we are finally finding ways to use it to change all areas of our lives - mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. In this article I will share a very self-empowering way that you too can use the Violet Flame in your life.

The knowledge of the Violet Flame was brought forth to us by Ascended Master St. Germain. For seven decades Lightworkers around the world have been invoking the Violet Flame for various causes. The Violet Flame has the ability to transform all fear based thoughts and emotions into love based thoughts and emotions. It can transform anxiety into peace, hatred into love and fear into courage. The Violet Flame is a tool that can help release karma, raise your vibration and consciousness, accelerate spiritual growth and activate your DNA. If you use energetic releasing programs to help you clear out your issues faster, such as the Lightarian Clearing Program or the Practical Mastery Series that I offer, along with the Violet Flame you have an incredible self-empowering tool to help transform the quality of your life. The Violet Flame can help you with all emotional and mental problems if you believe in its power! It can help to relieve stress, anger, sadness, depression etc. It is a gift that transmutes human mis-creations that we have created through the power and misuse of our own thoughts and feelings.

When I first started my healing journey, I like most people attended group meetings to learn how to better myself. I was taught in this group that when you said or did something negative, if you realized immediately that this is not the energy you wanted to put out to the Universe, you could say “Cancel, Cancel, Cancel” and the energy of that thought or action would be erased, as quick as snapping your fingers. In the beginning I believed this was a truth and yes I began using it! The fact was when I first started my own healing journey my life was a complete mess, so any trick given that could change my life I was going to implement.

After spending some time within this group I observed this in action with those that used it frequently and wondered how one could put out negative energy and then depend on saying the words cancel, cancel, cancel and expect all to be ok? From everything that I had been studying on my own I was under the impression that if one followed a spiritual path, a life of joy and happiness would soon appear. I would witness people saying cancel all the time! I too would have a thought pop in my head and immediately say cancel! I was only doing what I was taught and believed to be true. The difference with me though, I had to know why my life was not changing to joy and happiness even though I was implementing the grand cancellation policy!? It was making no sense to me, I mean I was using the cancel tool! Then it really hit me. Why was this group of people that I was investing my time and energy with not enjoying the quality of their lives either? This cancel aspect began not sitting well with me so I had to figure out how this could be possible that saying the words cancel stopped the negative flow of energy.

I discovered two things during my research. First off those that were teaching me the cancel policy were only half right. They were teaching from the belief that we are the creators of our life, and yes this is what I still believe. Upon researching I discovered the key part that they didn’t teach, understand or perhaps didn’t know about and that is, there is no such thing as destroying energy. It is impossible. The only thing a person can do is change the energy into a different form. You cannot say cancel, cancel, cancel and expect it to go away! If you sent the energy out, you are responsible for it and it will come back to you. That is after all the law of attraction! With this new understanding I figured out why my life wasn’t changing! I was still sending out the lower vibrational frequencies even though I desired a better life. Using the Violet Flame as a tool can allow us to quickly transmute the negativity from our lives but only if applied appropriately.

Now that we are aware of our creating powers, and yes each and everyone one of us is a powerful creator! We must work at controlling our thoughts and emotions and focus our attention on what it is that we want to create or manifest in our lives. We are magnetic energetic beings and our vibrational frequency is what pulls or attracts to us the same or very similar vibrational frequency that we are putting out. Therefore the full circle, boomerang effect or what comes around, goes around. Put out any feelings of negativity - and negativity will come right back to you. Put out any feelings of lack, lack comes right back to you. The other side of the coin, change the frequency to a higher vibrational thought or emotion. If you put out the feeling of love - love comes right back to you. If you put out the feeling of abundance, abundance comes right back to you.

Do you see how powerful we really are? Our thoughts put together with our emotions create our way of daily living. So start today by changing your thoughts and emotions, to generate the change within your world! We can invoke the Violet Flame to transmute our misqualified thoughts and feelings from the past, and we can empower our efforts with using affirmations to succeed in the life we desire to create. You are the only one that has power over your life. You create your tomorrow by your daily thoughts and emotions that you express today. You are the creator.

I use the Violet Flame when I am doing healing work on myself. I also suggest to my clients that they too invoke the Violet Flame to transmute all they are releasing. The Violet Flame has qualities of mercy, forgiveness, freedom and transmutation. The Violet Flame has the power to erase, or transmute the cause, the effect, and even the memory of our past mistakes! This IS an incredible tool!

When we consciously choose to implement energetic healing programs in our life to speed up the clearing/releasing/healing process, we are aware and ready to make positive choices during the releasing process. Therefore when I ask my clients to empower themselves and use the Violet Flame, they are ready and prepared to take positive action.

For those of us that are being thrown into the releasing process caused by perceived outside circumstances, we need a tool to help relieve the negative energy/feelings we are releasing/experiencing. I’m going to use anger as our example because at the time of this writing it is prevalent upon the earth.

At any point in our life we always have an abundance of emotions flowing through us. As explained earlier we are magnetic beings. That means that whatever energy/emotion we flow out from our being, we attract back to ourselves. Yes, emotions are energy! So let’s say one day you are mad and you project that anger at your husband, child, co-worker etc. This anger that you have now projected out WILL come back to you; remember “What goes around comes around!” It does not necessarily come back from those that you projected it too. It may come back to you by the guy that cuts you off on the highway! In order to stop the anger boomerang effect, implement this tool. As soon as the feelings of anger start, immediately stop, take a breath and say (in your mind is fine), “I call upon the Violet Flame to transmute the cause, core, effect, record and memory of these anger feelings Now!” Take another breath and within a matter of seconds these feelings of anger will have been transmuted and feel much less powerful than they did only seconds before. Therefore the venom/karma that you could have potentially directed towards another individual has been stopped dead in its track!

You took immediate action and empowered yourself by refraining to give into the urge of expressing your anger in a negative way. Congratulations, but you are not done! You need to immediately raise the anger vibration, which is a very dense, heavy energy into a higher vibrational emotion. Redirect your thoughts to something that makes you feel joy! Something that makes you smile from ear to ear. If you do not implement the higher vibrational emotion, you will stay stuck in the lower, denser vibratory frequency. It is important to raise your frequency if you desire to create a positive, joyful existence. Positive thoughts and emotions attract positive experiences!

You can use this technique for every negative emotion that comes into your life. If you are not expressing love, than you are expressing fear. Love based emotions are feelings of joy, happiness, bliss, peace, calm etc. Fear based emotions are the opposite of love which are hate, anger, sadness, confusion, depressed, etc. Whenever a fear based emotion creeps up on you, immediately use the Violet Flame to transmute the energy. Eventually, with work these feelings of fear will come up less and less in your life because you have found a tool to release them positively instead of having to recycle them and learn again by the boomerang! You will also notice after repeated use your life changing for the positive because you are raising your own vibrational energetic frequency! Always remember the law of attraction. What you put out you will attract back.

I invite you to start creating the life you desire today!

Until our paths cross again, keep smiling and play in love!

Copyright 2004-2006 Lisa Whatley, an Indigo/Crystal Adult, Master Energy Facilitator, Writer, Mother of four Indigo/Crystal children and Spiritual Ascension Life Coach interweaves body, mind and spirit into her work. Lisa’s spiritual path and connection with God has lead her to a place of knowing that all things are possible! She has helped many people change their lives using the same self-empowerment teachings that helped to transform her own life, helping them find peace, joy and stability. She currently offers energetic sessions for DNA Activation, Clearing, Healing, Balancing, Spiritual Growth, Enlightenment and Life Coaching. She resides in the beautiful countryside of Northern Ontario Canada. Website http://www.InfinityLightHealing.com

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This morning, I went to take a short walk outside. I’ve been feeling a little more flexible since this weekend, and I figured a stroll would help me keep that liquid feeling in my bones that I’ve missed so much.

I stopped when I came to a tree and had myself a sit-down.

Have you ever gazed at the glory of a tree? I’ll spare you the poem (you know the one, “I think that I shall never see…”). But I must say that trees have been one of the chief inspirations of my life, number two behind natural bodies of water.

You can easily miss the marvel of oaks and pines in the midst of the daily bustle. They really are miracles when you think about it.

One day, years ago, the wind, or a happy world citizen like you or me, put a tiny seed in the ground, maybe smaller than a pea, or about as big as the tip of your thumb.

Each day water from heaven or from a heaven-sent caretaker would caress or massage the ground with moist blessings. Each day the sun would whisper from behind clouds at it, or scream in a blistering tone.

And for weeks, months even, it seemed as if nothing was happening.

But underground, far below where you or I could witness, molecules were bumping into each other, atoms were hopping around, electrons were spinning. Then after a time roots began to spiral out into the soil.

And long after anyone human was really giving it any daily, specific thoughts beyond routine tendering, a little sprout started pushing up through the earth.

A dozen or a few hundred years later, there I am, sitting under the tree, thinking about trees and business.

The lessons nature volunteers us are fascinating, if only we’d listen. Our businesses, big and small, are like these trees. We put $1000, $200, $3 million into the investments that form our ventures - saved, borrowed, earned from past sales.

Every day we do a little more. Sometimes we do a lot more. And we, in our human impatience, often watch the location where we buried our money, looking for signs of life the very next day, sometimes the next hour.

“I bought this computer three months ago. How come there isn’t cash coming out of the DVD drive?”

Seems like a ridiculous question right now, doesn’t it?

But we behave that way all the time. I’m guilty of it too. Many is the time that I’ve whined about how some new promotional idea I’m testing didn’t return my deposit of time or money in 3 days.

Then all of a sudden, on that fourth day, I have more sales in 24 hours than I had the whole week before.

Sometimes it takes even longer. I used to look at people who would come on the Net, buy a couple of ebooks and fall bass ackwards into cash 90 days later. And I’d think “Why not me? What am I missing? What did they do that I didn’t?”

And the lesson I learned from that seven year experience were two things.

(Seven years including the small time, inconsistent returns I used to have before I really started to learn to study and be patient. As I’ve said before, I started making advertising money about two years in, enough to feel like an extra paycheck a month)

I’ll tell you my lessons learned in part two….

Tinu is a web site promotion specialist and the author of several books on search engines, blogging, and RSS. You can read more tips on branding your business with a blog at Free Traffic Tips.

In my earlier article “Who’s Got The Monkey Now? How To Find Out How Well You Manage Your Time” (http://www.nationallearning.com.au/index_files/HowToMakePeopleFeelBetterAtWork.htm) , I suggested that you may be caring for a cageful of monkeys (other people’s problems) unless you are managing your time effectively, and in particular delegating.

For managers, there are two key aspects to successful delegation:

• Having people to whom one can delegate, and
• Selecting the most appropriate tasks to delegate

If you are not a manager, or do not have anyone to delegate to, then I suggest the excellent article by Beth Schneider (http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Delegate-When-There-is-No-One-to-Delegate-To&id=141500).

The key to delegation is to develop within your people, the “initiative to take action” so that they learn to develop their skills and knowledge to their full potential.

Managers who are successful are always good at delegating. Less successful managers, when asked why they don’t delegate more, often reply

• “If only my staff were more experienced” or,
• “I don’t have enough faith in my staff to do the job properly” or,
• “Delegation. Sounds great in theory, but I need to have fully trained staff and I don’t have the time to train them”.

If some of these comments sound familiar to you, then the following steps will show you how to:

• Identify the current “level of initiative” of each of your team members.
• Use the “level of initiative” ranking with your team to further develop their skills and knowledge.

When delegating, it is important to fit the task to the person and to ensure the reason for delegating is appropriate.

Firstly, let’s look at the person. Is it possible to delegate to all your team members? For delegation purposes, team members may be classified as those who:

1. Wait until he or she is told what to do.
2. Do what is necessary, but refer to their manager or supervisor all problems or slightly unusual issues for a decision.
3. Refer all problems or unusual occurrences for a decision, but when doing so recommend appropriate action.
4. Take action on problems as they occur and then immediately report on the action taken.
5. Take action on all issues and problems on his her own initiative and then report periodically on progress.

Less successful managers keep their team members at the second level, i.e.

• Do what is necessary, but refer to their supervisor all problems or slightly unusual issues for a decision, by not encouraging them to make recommendations on problems or issues they encounter. As a consequence, their people rarely develop the knoweldge or skills they need to become fully competent.

Successful managers quickly move all their people through to at least level three i.e.

• Refer all problems or unusual occurrences for a decision, but when doing so recommend appropriate action.

When people are at level three, they are always looking for solutions rather than just stating the problem. Not only do they look for solutions, but when they do bring a problem to you, they bring their recommended solution. Wouldn’t your life as a manager be so much easier if all your people did this?

Successful managers then move individual staff from level three through levels four and five depending on the particular team member’s skill and how quickly they can gain the necessary experience.

Many successful managers take this one step further by involving their team members in the process of “developing initiative”. For instance, they explain the five-step “level of initiative” process to them and then ask:

• What level do you believe you are at now on each of your major job responsibilities?
• How can you move to the next level?

Using this approach, managers can then be very clear about which aspects of a person’s job the team member can take initiative on, and how much initiative they may take. It is also a great opportunity to talk about training and development strategies to help move people to the next level on particular job responsibilities. In this way, you know exactly who within your team, you can delegate certain tasks to and most importantly, how they will respond.

I have developed a Delegation Matrix of the five Levels of Initiative which I have been using with practising managers for many years. If you would like a free copy, please contact me via www.nationallearning.com.au

Let’s now look at the second aspect of delegation - tasks that may be delegated.

Tasks suitable for delegation include:

• Minor and repetitive decisions.
• Tasks you are expert in and that others should learn.
• Tasks for which you are least qualified, but that others could learn.
• Tasks you dislike, provided someone else likes them (delegation should not be an excuse to dump unpleasant tasks).
• Tasks that add variety and interest to another person’s role.
• Tasks that will increase the number of people who can perform critical assignments.

Which tasks could you delegate? Remember these remain part of your job and while you can delegate responsibility for them, you remain accountable for each.

One of the questions I am often asked by managers is

• “How do I keep track of what’s been delegated?”

If you use the Levels of Initiative protocol by discussing and agreeing each person’s permitted level of initiative, you will note that levels 3,4 & 5 all have built in reporting mechanisms. Make sure you agree how these will operate with your people.

Following the guidelines outlined here, will allow you to release some of your monkeys back to where they can be cared for and fed by others - your team!

Copyright 2006 The National Learning Institute

Bob Selden is the Managing Director of the National Learning Institute. He is a part time member of faculty at the International Management Development Institute in Lausanne and the Australian Graduate School of Management in Sydney. You can contact Bob at http://www.nationallearning.com.au/