Life Lessons From Baz

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not
understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and
recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before
you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you
imagine.

How To Spot A Fake Baller

Real women, on the other hand, aren’t impressed by a man that has $10,000 of jewelry on his wrist but rides on the passenger side of his best friend’s ride. When a woman has already had eyes open to the many things life has to offer, trying to be a flashy baller will always look cheap. Money, cars and clothes may impress the shallow, but makes a woman of substance bored. Fake ballers disregard women who put in work to do financially well for herself, and only want someone who is able to complement (not create) the lifestyle she has already began to build for herself.

Fake ballers, even more so fake people, in general, must be avoided, and when you run across someone who would rather be someone they really aren’t, run the other way. Ladies, in case you haven’t mastered being able to spot them, here are 13 signs to help you out:

Money & Happiness

A short essay on money and its relation to one’s happiness

When I speak to audiences about happiness, I always qualify in my own mind, even before pursing my lips to speak, what type of happiness I am wishing to address.
For there are indeed different types of “happiness.”

There is, for instance, the simple type of happiness that comes on opening a long-awaited birthday gift – perhaps a beloved Apple i-product.
Is having a happy life simply the product of creating as many “birthday” moments as possible? Would life be better if every day was our birthday?
What about a different perspective. There is another type of happiness that comes from getting word of a promotion or raise. Happiness here is tied closely together with pride and satisfaction for a job well done.

Attitudes

Wikipedia says: “An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual’s degree of like or dislike for an item. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event– this is often referred to as the attitude object. People can also be conflicted or ambivalent toward an object, meaning that they simultaneously possess both positive and negative attitudes toward the item in question.”

While this is true, Wikipedia has left something out that I believe is so very important.

It’s the role your attitude plays in your own life and the direct effect it has on the quality of life you live each day. That’s what I want to discuss here. Lately, I have been having many conversations with callers who seem to be unaware of just how important a role your attitude plays in your life.

Attitude is everything.

Jeff Gitterman – Financial Freedom – Episode #33

Jeffrey Gitterman is an award winning financial advisor and the founder and CEO of Gitterman & Associates Wealth Management, LLC. www.gawmllc.com.

In these challenging economic times, Jeff recently co-founded Beyond Success, www.BeyondSuccessConsulting.com, a coaching and consulting firm that brings more holistic values to the world of business and finance. His first book, Beyond Success: Redefining the Meaning of Prosperity, was recently published by AMACOM, the publishing house of the American Management Association.

Tin Can Curt

I want to tell you about an amazing life that most people would have ignored.

It’s the story of a man known to the outside world, as “Tin Can Curt”. Curt Degerman was a poor tin can collector. But don’t feel sorry for him. He was living exactly as he wished. You see, for Curt, money wasn’t everything. Freedom way.

The aged Swede, most locals called simply “Tin Can Curt,” spent 30 years roaming the streets of Skelleftea in northern Sweden in his blue jacket and ragged pants, collecting tin cans and bottle for cash. He was, in the eyes of most people, an ordinary street bum.
Yet when he died he left more than $1.4 million to his cousin.
How did he do it? Thrift and smart investing.
It turns out that in between collecting cans, Mr. Degerman spent a lot of time in the local library reading business papers and studying the stock market.
“He knew stocks inside and out,” said his cousin.
He used his tin-can earnings to buy mutual funds.

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?

Challenging The Negative Response

For the occasional working vacation, I lecture about Hollywood and teach improvisation on cruise ships throughout Europe and the Caribbean. I know, it’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it, right?

What I find endlessly fascinating when I introduce adults to improv is their vastly different reactions to trying something where they could potentially fall flat on their faces. And not from one too many Pina Coladas, by the way, but from taking a risk that might not play out the way they expected. Even when it’s all in fun, some people succumb to fear’s first line of defense, what I call the Immediate Negative Response, or INR, before even considering trying something new.

The INR is that knee-jerk resistance to change that most of us have experienced at one time or another, which causes us to freeze, retreat, or somehow disengage from the impending risk, even if the results might be delightful or, at least, painless. Even before we’ve had a chance to consider why or why not to take on a project, start a fitness plan, dive into the dating pool – or join an improv class – our fear has already shut us down. By reacting on pure emotion and giving into the INR, we rob ourselves of opportunities for growth, connection and sometimes just a little silliness.

How to Lose Weight: Here’s What You’re Not Doing

Best selling author and guest blogger at StopStressingNow.Com Noah St. John knows how to get people to succeed in life. He’s coached thousands. Sometimes what is keeping you from success can be the most simple thing.

Click Here To Listen To An Amazing Podcast Interview With Noah

Here’s Noah St. John

You Know How to Lose Weight, Here’s Why You’re Not Doing It

Let’s face facts: every one knows that in order to lose weight, all you have to do is eat right and exercise. But a new diet book appears on the bestseller lists about as often as Hollywood releases a new Amy Adams movie.

So why, with this avalanche of “how to lose weight” information, are Americans still getting fatter by the nanosecond?

Here’s the surprising answer no one’s talking about: It’s NOT because you need more “how-to’s” of losing weight. It’s because you need to uncover your hidden Why-Not-To’s of Losing Weight.

Judy, a 55-year-old working grandma from Texas, had tried every diet and exercise program out there. She’d lose weight temporarily, then gain it right back and beat herself up.

I asked her in our coaching sessions why she didn’t want to lose weight – to list her Why-Not-To’s of Losing Weight. Judy realized for the first time that she believed that keeping the excess weight would protect her.

Next Page »