Contrarian Investing

Would you consider purchasing a fireplace in the peak of summer or an air conditioner in the dead of winter? Would you invest in a sale even if you did not have an immediate use for the product you are purchasing? Do you place value on the things you get at a discounted rate?

The summertime almost always presents an opportunity for people to invest. It is a quiet period because most individuals are focused on spending money and having fun. Businesses tend to slow down and they offer significant incentives to attract new clientele. Most companies are focused on maintaining relevance, marketing and promotions. It’s a great opportunity for networking and seeking out new relationships. Investment of time and money can produce great rewards if strategically planned.

As a singer, songwriter or other creative artist, the summertime is the best time to work on your visibility and ability to earn significant money promoting your ministry and/or product. While everyone else is vacationing, you should be working diligently making connections, attending events and yes, even selling your product out of the trunk of your car. Going into non-traditional places for exposure will give you a chance to book your calendar for the remainder of the year.

Deep Secrets

It started in January of this year with an article I wrote here called “The Secrets We Keep”.
Sort of as an after thought at the end of the article I put a link to my telephone advice service.

Normally, I get calls from great people who are having typical issues we all as people face. Things like panic attacks, problems with stress at home or work and/or having relationship troubles. Normal people with normal life challanges who just need someone to talk with about them. That was the concept of the project from the beginning.

However, I never dreamed what would begin to happen once I posted that article about secrets on Jan 8th of this year. People began calling me to reveal their deepest, inner most secrets. Secrets they couldn’t tell anyone. Secrets that in some cases were killing them inside for more than 50 years as was the case with one caller. When this person was 8 years old, they accidentally set fire to their home killing their baby brother. They never confessed. Today, in their late 60’s it still haunts them everyday.

10 Ways To Spot A Gambling Addiction

Someone once said: “In the beginning I gambled because it was fun. It was magical the way gambling freed me from the worries, fears and frustrations of everyday living. When the problems began, I convinced myself that one more bet would solve everything. But, one bet led to another, leaving me with the pain of lost money, lost time, lost self-respect, and the pain of losing control…” – Anonymous

Tens of millions visit casinos each year all over the world. Even more are placing bets from the comfort of their own homes on-line, right now. For the vast majority of them, it’s simply entertainment. However, what happens when the fun stops?

9 Shocking Stress Symptoms

When was the last time you went through a period of stress? Can you remember the way your body reacted? Chances are you didn’t feel quite like yourself. Health experts say that stress can come with some pretty surprising symptoms-from forgetfulness to nausea to skin rashes. Is your body sending you an S.O.S. that you shouldn’t ignore? Read on to find out if stress is taking a toll on you-and what you can do to reverse the effects.
1. Tweaked Muscles

The pain in your neck that you attributed to long hours at the computer could actually be a symptom of stress. “Stress definitely affects our musculoskeletal system, resulting in tight, contracting muscles and/or spasms in muscles,” explains Elizabeth Lombardo, PhD, MS, PT, a psychologist and physical therapist in Wexford, Pennsylvania, and author of A Happy You: Your Ultimate Prescription for Happiness. “It gets us ready for fight-or-flight, although unlike our cavewomen ancestors, we don’t actually need our bodies to react like this.” If you’re experiencing what you believe to be stress-related muscle symptoms, try this exercise: Take 5 to 10 deep breaths and focus on relaxing the tense area of your body, says Dr. Lombardo. For the neck, try gentle neck rolls or enlist your husband to give you a quick shoulder rub.

Amazing Self Stress Test!

Read the full description BEFORE clicking on the link and looking at the picture on the next page.

The picture you will see when you click on the link below has 2 identical dolphins in it.
It was used in a case study on stress levels at St. Mary’s Hospital.
This is quite possibly the MOST accurate self [...]

ARE YOU SUFFERING FROM STRESS CREEP?

You know what it’s like when you’re down to the wire on a project and suddenly that jolt of adrenalin kicks in and gets you to the finish line? That’s stress. In small doses, stress can give you a welcome energy boost and the increased focus you need to get the job done. But when you’re dealing with massive doses of stress – especially unrelenting stress with no recovery periods – it can take a physical, mental and emotional toll.

When your brain perceives danger – real or imagined – your natural survival instincts spring to your defense and you go into “fight or flight” mode. Your heart rate speeds up, your muscles tighten, your focus sharpens and your blood starts pumping faster. Stress can protect you by increasing your reaction time so that you’re able to slam on the brakes and avoid hitting a car that suddenly pulls out in front of you. Stress also keeps you sharp when you’re giving a presentation or studying for final exams.

The problem is that the amount of stress in your life can elevate without your even realizing it. I call this stress creep. It’s not hard for our stress to creep up on us in our ultra-driven society where we seem to pride ourselves on being crazy, busy, slammed on a 24/7 basis. And it’s literally 24/7 since our cyber-gadgets and social networking systems have added a right-now urgency and around-the-clock accessibility to our lives like never before.

So how do you know if your stress is under control or off the charts? Get a quick snapshot by answering the questions below with the following scores: 4 always, 3 often, 2 sometimes, and 1 never.

A Quick Depression Quiz

Are you depressed?

Do you feel down?

Did you know that: 25 percent of adults will have a major depressive episode at some point?

It’s just a part of life. It’s human nature.

However, most people don’t realize that depression is bad for your heart health, memory and more.
With all of the economic troubles in the world today, sadly TV commercials for every antidepressant known to man have become a part of our modern culture. In a recent study, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at 2.4 billion drugs prescribed in visits to doctors and hospitals in 2005.

Of those, 118 million were for antidepressants.

Why?

Sharing Your Vision

This challenging economic season has created an opportunity for everyone to think outside of the box and create a plan of action utilizes your natural talents and abilities. Consideration to establish your own business is both personally fulfilling and a satisfactory financial vehicle as well.

It is imperative to identify your talent, write a vision and make it plain. Then, you must share your vision with others. This is what I want to discuss today. You’ve determined your true calling, you’ve envisioned yourself walking into your destiny and now how do you make that happen? Sharing your vision based on your talent with others will allow those individuals to assist you creatively with options of how to get started. After all, that is what deters people most often. They don’t know where to begin.

I recall sharing the challenges I faced when I first became an author. I wasn’t certain if I accomplished my goals and objectives. Fear of rejection made me keep the thoughts of my perceived failure to myself. To share that intimate information and allow myself to be open to criticism was new for me. After all, a reason why we don’t succeed is because we talk ourselves out of our destiny being afraid of what others might think. Or perhaps we didn’t get the results we were seeking the first time we tried. Maybe, you shared your ideas with the wrong people and they told you that you were chasing a dream, it wasn’t possible, you can’t achieve… I could go on. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had more to accomplish. So I went back to the drawing board. I had already identified the gift and I wrote the vision. It never changed. This time around I shared the vision with other people.

You see, I was independently successful the first time around based on my own skills.

But when I shared my vision with other people, they began to add creative ideas and suggestions I never considered.

Your Body: Owner’s Manual, Part One

Your body is the greatest vehicle that has ever been created! OH MY… the intricacies, the details, the overall quality, the precision of all the parts, the perfection of multiple systems all coordinating to work together with unexplainable synergy. This amazing vehicle allows us to walk, talk, eat, breathe, see, hear, etc… it’s literally unexplainable…

However, regular maintenance IS required…and therein lays the rub!

Now if we use a car as a metaphor we can easily understand this analogy. If you were to walk into Lamborghini dealer and decide to buy the top of the line vehicle from him he would spend a great deal of time explaining the care and upkeep that you would need to do to make sure that this amazing vehicle stayed working at it’s optimal level. In fact, he would make sure that you knew that if you didn’t take care of the vehicle in the manner that was best for it, your warranty would be null and void.

This makes sense right?

I mean it is a $400,000 Lamborghini.

Pillow Talks with Nurse Nancy

“Look Mommy! Look Mommy!” yelled Sarah as she rounded the door to the kitchen. “Look at what” I said as I crouched down to her level.

“My tooth, my tooth, it’s coming in!” she said.

Sure enough there was the first sign of a new tooth.” We have been waiting a long time for this.” I said and Sarah nodded her head. As Sarah jumped up and down in excitement I could not help but reflect back onto what could have been a traumatic and expensive chapter in Sarah’s and our family’s lives.

Sarah has been independent from the start. One day when she was nearly two, I was working in the kitchen when I heard Sarah crying from the next room, where she and her brother Michael were playing. I checked on her and discovered she had hurt her mouth from a fall, but there was no sign of an injury. I comforted her for a bit and then sent her on her way to play hard again with her brother Michael. The next morning I discovered part of her lower front tooth was missing; it had fallen out in her sleep. A quick call and an afternoon spent getting to the dentist found that there was nothing to do at this time. I could only wish this was the end of the story.

After her third birthday Sarah once again came to me. “Mommy, my mouth hurts,” she said. With a little poking and prodding a small abscess was found at the root of her chipped tooth. It was very sore. The dentist confirmed my suspicions that the root had been damaged and the tooth would have to be removed. The dentist said she would try extracting the tooth in the office, but that many children Sarah’s age were unmanageable in the chair. If Sarah would not cooperate the tooth might have to be removed in the hospital under anesthesia. As a nurse I knew that with anesthesia and surgery there would be increased risk of complications for Sarah, and I wanted to avoid surgery if at all possible. Knowing that hospital visits associated with dental procedures were not covered by our insurance helped with the urgency of making sure Sarah became the perfect patient. How could I possibly tame an energetic 3 year old for such a procedure?

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