Used just for testing site designs

Courtesy Carla F. Castagno

Stress can get people down so much that they can’t even think clearly. Have you ever had that happen to you? It might not be a common occurrence but it can happen, even to people you would not suspect it would happen to.

I recently saw an example of this happening. With all the stress that this time year brings on people, now compounded by a bad economy, I thought it would be good to talk about this.

Recently someone asked for my advice on making a choice, because he said that the stress of having to make the choice was too great and that he could not even think it through. His job is going away, at least in its current form, and he is faced with two alternatives for income, with neither of them being desirable.

I asked him if he had done the math, to see which alternative provided the better income. He had not. This surprised me, because I knew him to be a person who is normally good at thinking about which alternative is mathematically (financially) more sound. And, it is also when I realized how sinister stress can be, and how much it can impact the ability of our brains to function. [Read more...]

I suspect that most people live their lives in reasonable accordance with their values, at least most of the time. It’s not always easy to do, of course:

• You may value independence, yet, when your daughter has grown and is ready to move out on her own, you are not sure you want her to be so independent.
• You may value creativity, but find that you stifle your own creativity because you also value security, which makes you not want to take chances.

But, I also suspect that most people could not set down and list their values. So, if you are included in that group, I encourage you to take some time to list your values. It can be very enlightening. And, it can let you see that you might have some values that you are not living up to as well as you desire.

To help you think about your values, I’ll share my current list with you and we’ll use a couple of examples from this list to illustrate some important points. My current list of values is as follows: [Read more...]

I came across a few really good articles the past couple of weeks. This is good material for reading over the weekend, and/or to help you get in the right frame of mind on Monday.

• Leo Babauta recently wrote 3 Truths to Help You Live a Life of Gratitude. As with all of Leo’s articles, this one is very well thought out. Perhaps you already live a life of gratitude, and need no further guidance on it. But, if you are like me and are horribly inconsistent at being grateful, and if it is not really internalized within you, you’ll want to read this article.
• Earlier this week, my friend John Rocheleau published an article on empowerment and the Courage to be Yourself. John reminds us that we too frequently look to external resources for our empowerment, instead of looking within.
• Toward the end of 2006, JD wrote a post entitled Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. The article is very well written and has a number of excellent points (whether you plan on being a millionaire or not).

Mark Cuban has a two-sentence blog post, which says

“Today is the youngest you will ever be. Act like it.”

And, Seth Godin has a post entitled Is It Worthy? I really like his summary paragraph:

“The object isn’t to be perfect. The goal isn’t to hold back until you’ve created something beyond reproach. I believe the opposite is true. Our birthright is to fail and to fail often, but to fail in search of something bigger than we can imagine. To do anything else is to waste it all.”

Have you ever caught yourself working feverishly to solve what your mind had classified as a problem, only to later discover there was no problem at all?

Well, it just happened with me and caused me to waste a lot of time. Since it is fresh on my mind, I figured I would share the problem with you and what I learned in the process of “solving it.”

The Case Study: My Non-Problem

A couple of times over the past few weeks, my server has been down for about an hour. That, of course, is an actual problem. The non-problem came from the perspective I put on it. Specifically, rather than acknowledging that almost all servers go down every once in a while, even the most expensive ones, I took those down-times as an indication that I needed to change my web-hosting.

So, I looked at the facts that I knew: [Read more...]