Supreme Success

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Supreme Success

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Health and Fitness? Abundant Wealth? Radiant Happiness?
Whatever your ambitions, achieve them with Supreme-Success.com!

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Collected Your Daily Inspiration yet?

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Happy New Year!

2008-01-07T21:46:00.000Z

I hope you've had a wonderful Christmas (or whatever other festival you might be celebrating at this time), and that you'll have, and enjoy, the best of everything in 2008.

To start the year there is a little gift for you. As even though the blog has only been going for a few weeks there are already quite a lot of entries, which means that if you want to read more than the most recent ones you have to do quite a bit of trawling through the archives, I thought you'd maybe find it handy to have an e-book version that you can read straight through without any cumbersome and time-consuming navigation.

You can download the book from here.

Hope you enjoy it!

The Yellow Rose Of Winter

2007-12-19T19:21:00.000Z

You can say it's down to global warming if you like (though thanks to the frosts we've been having this week it doesn't feel much like it), but just two streets away from here, behind a low wall and with some savage-looking thorns on either side of it, there blooms one single yellow rose.

No, it's not the "last rose of summer" sort of flower - you know the kind of thing, where it's been blooming for a while and it's just to say managing to hang on to its half-way withered petals.

This one is a real, live, brand-new, very healthy-looking, fragrant yellow rose.

I've been watching the bud for a few days now, not really daring to believe that such a flower could possibly be going to emerge in the middle of December, especially after all the frost... but it's defied the elements, and there it stands in all its beauty and its inspiration.

It seems to lift the spirits of everyone who sees it. People stop to admire it, and wave to the lady who hovers just inside the window, anxiously watching as if she's scared that someone's going to take it home with them (yes, I admit the thought had crossed my mind - but no, I wouldn't really).

People who've seen the rose already smile indulgently at those who are staring at it, awestruck, for the first time. Total strangers greet each other as they marvel at the unexpected sight. This rose is causing a real stir in the neighborhood.

So, where's the useful lesson in all this?

Well, the key lies in just what the rose is doing. Regardless of what other roses do, like blooming in the summertime, this one is simply doing what comes naturally - to it.

No-one's ever told it that it that it's not supposed to flower in December. No-one's conditioned it to believe it should feel guilty that it's bloomed too late for this year's summer and it's way ahead of next year's.

Regardless of the calendar, that rose has simply felt the urge to flower, and, to the delight of all the neighborhood, has vigorously and uninhibitedly gone ahead and done it.

It's simply followed the inner prompting to do all that it can do, and to be all that it can be... and that's exactly what we're all supposed to do.

You own talent doesn't need to be as unexpected and as startling as a rose that flowers in December. It can be something so commonplace that you see it only as the equivalent as one of the many daisies in the grass in springtime.

It doesn't matter in the slightest what it is... as long as it's your own, and you develop it and use it to the best of your ability, in some direction that your deepest inner prompting urges you.

If shyness and inhibition are preventing you from doing that, you can find the easiest, most pleasant way to conquer them by checking out Project Your Real, Dynamic Self at Supreme-Success.com.

The unexpected blossoming of just one yellow rose has brightened the lives of all those who have seen it. If you, too, will only be all you can be and do all you can do, you, also, will enrich the lives of many people - and the most important one will be your own.

Better Than A Feast (Part 2)

2007-12-19T15:00:00.000Z

If you're looking for success in internet marketing, here's another example of how important it is to strike a balance between what you want and what the people on your mailing list will stand for.

In a recent posting I wrote of my annoyance at being mailed by the same person 6 times in one weekend. Didn't someone once say, "You ain't seen nothing yet"? Well, I obviously hadn't.

I've now received an e-mail from another marketer whose list I'd joined because he promised me he'd never mail me more than once a week. That was fine with me.

Unfortunately, despite his promise, it clearly wasn't fine with him. His latest e-mail boasted that he'd been doing an internet marketing course, and he'd learned a great new marketing technique.

All he had to do to multiply his earnings beyond recognition, he said, was mail his list, not once a week, as promised, and not even once a day, but several times a day. As if to prove it, there were three other mails from him downloading while I read the first one.

He may not have been aware of it, but sending more mails than you've promised is not regarded as giving extra value - it's actually classed as spam.

You have to have consent to send commercial mails to anyone, and if they've given you consent to mail them only once a week, or whatever limit you've assured them will be all you'll send, you don't have their consent to mail them any more than that.

If you make that kind of promise, then you have to keep it. If you decide you want to send more mail, you have to ask them first.

The best way is to keep your weekly mailing list, and simply ask the people on it if they'd also like to join one where they'll get more frequent mails from you - if you offer something useful in exchange some will agree, and at least the others aren't going to unsubscribe.

Keeping your promise is about a whole lot more than simply staying on the right side of the anti-spam laws, though, important though that is. It's about persuading people on your list to trust you... because if they don't, they aren't going to buy from you. Not ever.

If they can't rely on you to keep your word on something as simple as how often you're going to e-mail them, why would they believe you when you tell them how great your products are, or that you'll honor any guarantees you give them... and if they can't trust you not to abuse their e-mail address, how are they going to trust you with their credit card details?

No matter what any course might try to tell you, success in internet marketing is much less about techniques than it is about two very basic things - consideration for the people that you deal with, and some simple common sense.

If you expect to be able to trust the people that you buy from, remember that your customers expect the same from you. If you don't want your inbox flooded out with mail, remember no-one else does, either.

If the advice you're given is to take some course of action that you wouldn't want someone else to do to you, you can be sure that people will react badly if you go ahead with it... but if you wish that other people would treat you as well as you look after your customers and the people on your mailing list, you're heading for Supreme Success. Go for it!

Taking Back Control

2007-12-18T22:08:00.000Z

I admit it - there is no excuse for what I've done today. I know perfectly well the thing to do is keep my mind on good things, things I want to happen, things that energize me and empower me, and I take a lot of pleasure out of helping other people do the same... and what have I been doing all day?

Well, pretty nearly nothing. Nothing that's gone right, at any rate. The only thing I've done successfully from morning until night is make a mess of everything I've touched - and if that sounds uncharacteristically negative, that's just the point.

I dropped my guard and let myself be swamped by negative thoughts and feelings, and I've been reaping the rewards in terms of damaged concentration, mistakes, annoyance and wasted effort without once stopping to take the most important step of all - a step backwards to put things into perspective.

The story actually starts a couple of days ago, when I worked ridiculously late to finish something I was doing as a favor to a friend. Being overtired yesterday wasn't a good start... then the friend took the favor totally for granted, and I admit I wasn't pleased.

It shouldn't have mattered. I'd put a lot of effort into what I'd done, and I was pleased with the outcome. It's the fact that I'd completed the task successfully and with enjoyment that should have counted - but I'd expected to be complimented on it, or at least be thanked, or something.

I should have remembered that other people's appreciation (or the lack of it!) isn't what's important. If you rely on other people to make you feel good about yourself, even for a moment, the one thing you can almost always guarantee is disappointment.

What I should have done, of course, was to be honest with myself about the real reason for my annoyance (hurt pride, I'm sorry to admit!), then let it go, refocus on the things I'm aiming to achieve, and take the next step forward.

What I did was let my anger fester. I slept badly, and got up even more tired this morning... and the inevitable happened. Hard as I might try, I couldn't do a single thing and get it right.

My e-mails took what seemed like twice forever to download. I tried another e-mail program, and it was even slower. I'd meant to do a blog post, but I couldn't get the page to open. I tried to access Google, and I couldn't. The computer seemed to have no power, and was running ridiculously slowly. I ran a spyware check, and it took three times longer than it should have done.

By this time I was getting paranoid. What was it that I'd read about a sudden drastic falling-off in computer performance meaning it had been hijacked as a net-bot, and was sending tons of spam without my knowledge?

Fortunately at this point I began to realize that maybe it wasn't the computer that was running amok so much as my own thoughts and feelings. I took a deep breath, and went and made myself a cup of coffee.

When I came back and sat down again at the computer, I idly clicked on a piece of work I do (or rather, the computer does) for a University science project. It's one of those things where people volunteer a bit of their computer's spare capacity to help to process scientific data. It runs in the background, and doesn't affect whatever work you're doing.

On second thoughts, make that "it doesn't usually affect whatever work you're doing" - because with that one mouse-click the whole problem was resolved. The project was collecting its next batch of work, which usually takes only a few minutes... but this particular batch of work was enormous, and the download was taking several hours.

Not surprisingly, everything else that I'd been trying to do online was not responding as I'd thought it would - but all I had to do was wait till it had finished, and the computer would start working normally again.

It was an exact parallel with what had been going on in my own mind. Just as I'd been doing with my friend, I'd expected the computer to behave in ways that I'd mapped out for it, and was completely wrong-footed when it didn't.

Well, at least it's been a useful lesson. Even when you know the power your thoughts and feelings have to replicate themselves in what happens in your outside world, and you're determined to keep them positive and energizing, there's always a temptation to let yourself be swept away by a powerful emotion that gets out of your control.

Don't beat yourself up over it - just let your annoyance, worry, fear, anxiety or whatever else is knocking you off-balance, go.

Once you reach a calmer frame of mind, ask yourself what, is anything, is real about that emotion (in my friend's case, for example, absolutely nothing - in the computer's, a performance problem that needed to be identified and dealt with).

If there's something that you need to do to put any genuine difficulty right, go do it - if there's not, just take a break for a few minutes so you can refocus. Clear your mind completely, and let it stay blank for a few moments while you take several deep breaths.

Now go back to whatever you were doing, and see how much easier it is!

If you find it hard to keep your thoughts and feelings under your control, or you've never realized that it's even possible, you might like to check out Free Your Life From Stress, or fill your mind with the empowering and energizing track called "Above The Pairs Of Opposites", which is part of the Supreme Success system.

Your mind is under your control - but, as I've proved today, you have to reassert your authority over it from time to time!

Untying The Elephant

2007-12-11T17:11:00.000Z

I read recently that elephants used in logging work (in some terrain they're apparently the only way of moving heavy logs around) are kept tethered by a single rope around one leg when they're not working. They can move around, but the rope apparently keeps them from wandering away from the camp.

Frankly, it doesn't sound like much of an existence... but the strange thing is, they don't need to put up with it. An elephant weighs tons, and there's just no rope on earth could hold one that decided to break free.

Why don't they, then?

Because they've been conditioned to accept the rope since they were babies. When they're first tethered they're small and weak enough that straining against it does no good. They haven't got the strength to break it.

This is where the elephants' famous memories work against them. They never forget trying to break the rope and failing to do so. Because they couldn't break the rope when they were babies, they assume they just can't break it - ever.

That's why one single rope can hold a fully-grown elephant... because the elephant will never, ever, even think of breaking it.

What's even worse - most people do the same. Most people who are told as children that they aren't very good at something will believe that, and as grown-ups they never try again.

It might just be that they needed practice, or to be taught a better way of doing it than a child would know. Sometimes they might be shy, and need encouragement. Maybe it's just been that a parent was tired or irritable, stressed, or simply in a hurry, and hasn't had the patience to watch or listen properly.

Whatever the reason, words like "You're hopeless!" or "You'll never get it right!" or being laughed at by someone whose good opinion matters to you can all too easily turn into the equivalent of the rope around the elephant's ankle - a shackle that will never be recognized as the weak and powerless thing it really is, but which will hog-tie the person that it's been inflicted on... for life.

Fortunately, humans have the capacity to change their thinking. If you can learn to recognize the outdated limitations that have so far held you back from where you want to be, you can break them just as surely as an elephant could break a rope.

What would you really love to do that you're not doing now? Professionally or personally, a career, an interest or a hobby - it doesn't matter. What unfulfilled ambition have you buried in your mind because someone once sneered at you and told you that you never would achieve it?

It's important that you're absolutely honest with yourself here. Being discouraged or derided as a child is a painful and embarrassing experience, and many people cope with it by burying the whole incident, along with their ambition, in the deepest recess of their mind so that they don't ever have to feel that way again.

Well, you don't have to feel that way again. You don't need to relive the bad experience - just bring out that ambition, and take another look at it.

Why did you want it - and do you still?

If it's simply something that you've honestly outgrown, that's fine. You've taken the sting out of a bad memory, and you don't have to concern yourself with it any more.

Before you consign it to oblivion, though, ask yourself one more question about it.

In a perfect world, if you could be quite sure that going for it wouldn't get you hurt again, and that you really have the talent that would help you to achieve it, and you couldn't fail, and people would applaud your skill, not laugh at you for lack of it, would you still want to walk away from it?

Isn't there a tiny voice inside that's asking wistfully, "What if...?"

If so, remember that almost any skill can be learned by almost anyone who really wants to master it... and that your happiness comes not from what you get from life, but from the creative energy that you put into doing something that you love.

Remember, too, that people who (usually unintentionally) inflict that kind of inhibition on a child are often less than knowledgeable critics.

A parent who says you can't sing may not have the faintest clue about the kind of music that you want to sing.

The teacher who derided your computer skills because you forgot to use the spell-check on a homework assignment may not even be aware of what you can do with spreadsheets, or how you can design a story-board for potentially money-spinning games.

Siblings tease because they're siblings - that's just how they are.

Most people who mock others' dreams have never even tried to reach their own.

Don't let the rope that someone's disapproval tied around your ankle when you were a child prevent you, like the elephant, from going where you really want to go.

Visit Supreme-Success.com instead, and find out how you can achieve ambitions that you'd thought were lost to you forever.

Sphere Of Influence

2007-12-10T19:44:00.000Z

Last night's TV movie was The Sphere, a sci-fi thriller starring Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone and Samuel L. Jackson. It's the story of a group of scientists who enter a strange underwater sphere and find that they've been given the power to create anything they think about.

The problem is that all they can think about is what they fear the most... so all the things they fear the most are exactly what they get.

Frustratingly, having got themselves into a situation where their lives are being threatened by all the fears of all of them, it doesn't occur to any of these scientific minds that if they can manifest the things they fear, they can surely learn to manifest the things they really want, as well... like getting back to safety, fast.

Even though Dustin Hoffman's character says at one point, "Imagine what you will, and you can have it," not a single one of them ever imagines anything at all they actually want, but only what they don't want.

In fact, they do this to such an extent that when they do eventually make it back to safety the only thing they want to do with this great power they've been given... is to forget that they've been given it.

Because they can manifest anything they want, they simply manifest the way they thought and felt before they'd gone into the sphere, and they immediately forget their power.

"What we've manifested," says Dustin Hoffman's character when he suggests the idea, "is the worst of us, not the best of us. We aren't ready for it."

Well, the simple answer to that is - get ready for it, because whether you want it or not, that power is something you've already got. You were born with it, and whether you choose to use it wisely or to forget it, you can not get rid of it.

The story may be fiction, but the idea behind it's solid fact.

The sphere is your own mind. It gives you the power to achieve the things you want - whatever you focus on is what you get.

If you choose to direct your attention to the things you really want from life, then sooner or later they will come to you - you'll find the ideas, the inspiration, the motivation and the energy to take you there.

If you prefer to keep your mind on what you don't want, or the things you fear, guess what? Your mind will cause you to act in ways that bring those undesired outcomes to you.

Either way, you'll get the things you focus on in great abundance... so it's pretty obvious which choice to make.

You can't opt out. If you don't deliberately direct your attention and your energy, then other people will direct them for you.

If you don't control your own mind, others will (the advertising industry is all the evidence you need of that!).

Make a conscious and deliberate decision, right here, right now, that in future you, and only you, determine what goes on in your own sphere of influence - your mind.

It'll make all the difference to what goes on in your whole life, too.

If you need some help to overcome any idea that you're not good enough, or any other kind of negative thinking that might get in the way of making sure your mind is under your direct control (and no-one else's!), visit Supreme-Success.com to find out how.

Saving The Cheerleader

2007-12-05T23:59:00.000Z

So, the first series of Heroes has finished on UK TV. I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone who's not yet seen it (it's being shown again not once but twice before the week is out, so that could still be quite a lot of people), but there's a character from last week's episode that's worth a mention, even if you've never watched the show.

A little girl called Molly Walker has a very strange ability – she can track the whereabouts of any person in the world just by thinking about them.

To Mohinder Suresh, who wants to find one particular person before he can set off an explosion that would obliterate New York, that makes her the most important person on the planet – but to Noah Bennett, whose main concern is to prevent his adopted daughter (the cheerleader) from being found by those who would put her life at risk, little Molly is an enemy who's threatening his family's safety.

One person's hero is another's villain. A situation that scares one person might exhilarate another. A job that one employee thinks of as security might suffocate a colleague. An amount of money that might seem quite small to some sounds like a fortune to a lot of others.

It all depends on what the person or the situation represents to them.

It's just the same with what you want from life. It's no good someone telling you that a particular career, or to reach a certain level in it, is a great thing to go after.

If it's genuinely right for you, you won't need anyone to tell you so. If it isn't something that you really want, however far you get in it is not success - it's only an attempt to gain approval.

The problem with looking for approval is that no matter how much of it you get, it's never quite enough, because there's no amount of approval from anyone in the world except yourself that can reassure you that the path you're on is right – for you.

Every picture can be seen in more than one light. Every coin has more than just one side... or, as my father put it when someone asked him whether he's the sort of person who would describe a glass as being half-empty or half-full, replied, "That depends."

"Depends on what?" was the next question, and he smiled ironically.

"On whether I enjoy what's in it!"

Make sure your life is full of what you want, and what you most enjoy.

You can find out how by visiting Supreme-Success.com.

Making It In Movies

2007-12-04T17:09:00.000Z

I admit it – I'm a news junkie. Monitoring the TV text for stories related to success is a great excuse, but it's only half the truth. I'd do it anyway.

That's how I came across a snippet claiming that a high proportion of the people who post videos on YouTube or put personal information on MySpace and the other Web 2 sites intend to take the whole lot down again before they plan to get a job or change their current one.

They may find out it isn't quite that easy. If someone's described your video exploits on their blog, for instance, that information will remain online, and there's not a thing that you can do about it.

Employers routinely Google applicants who want to work for them. Many go still further and Google current staff, especially if they're looking for promotion, and colleges and universities check applicants.

You can make that work to your advantage. If the college, university, employer or promotion panel that you're thinking of applying to are going to Google you, make sure there's something good for them to find... something that puts you well ahead of all the competition.

For instance, if you want to study English literature, a one-page Squidoo lens on Shakespeare makes it clear you're serious. If you're a great cook and you want to be a chef, a lens on food and cooking shows a cookery school you want to study at, or a hotel you hope to work for, just what you can do.

If you can't think of any marketable skills you have, what about your hobbies and your interests? Anything that shows that you're prepared to spend some time in doing something positive is fine.

Once you've got your subject, make a movie of it. You can post your video to YouTube or Google video, or upload it to your website or your blog. It can be just as easy as making a movie of a party, and it's much more valuable. It can be very satisfying, too.

Make sure your movie shows you off to best advantage. For instance, if your hobby's stamp-collecting, think about what qualities that means you have, and make sure your writing and your movie bring them out.

A stamp's not just a piece of paper – it's a tiny artwork, that tells a great deal about the time and place it's come from. It might be a country in King George's British Empire, or an Eastern European country that's gained its independence from a neighbor only recently. Maybe it's postmarked with the year of Kennedy's assassination, or perhaps it has a flaw that makes it priceless.

Well, put those things in your writing or your movie. They show you have a sense of history and geography, and that you're the kind of person who can notice detail. Most of all, they show you have a genuine interest in and knowledge of your subject... and that implies that you can bring those qualities to a degree course or a job.

Building a lens on Squidoo's easy, and there's lots of advice to help you do it well, but how do you make a video?

You start with the equipment. Webcams are inexpensive, and with a bit of practice you can soon get used to using one.

If you don't want to appear on camera, that's fine. Open Office has free presentation software that will let you make your movie without having to appear on-screen yourself.

At the moment you can get the Rolls Royce of video production software free. The company behind Camtasia has launched a new version, and they're giving the previous one away. It's the one that's used by the professionals, and it's as much as most producers ever need.

For good measure you can have the full version of SnagIt free, as well. That's another program which lets you capture images from your desktop to use in video... and you can find the links to all three free resources here.

Why give yourself an online presence that you might regret when you can have one to be proud of? Go get Camtasia right now, and grab yourself some video success!

A Present For The Future

2007-12-03T18:41:00.000Z

If you've ever seen the queues in stores just after Christmas of people lining up to exchange unwanted presents, you might not be surprised to hear that billions of pounds are apparently wasted every year in the UK alone (and no doubt the equivalent elsewhere) on gifts that just don't please.

Even that can only take account of those that are returned to stores. No-one knows how many badly-fitting gloves and socks, unwearably-colored ties, un-chic purses and hand-knitted sweaters that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy lie hidden in a closet or are quietly disposed of because their reluctant owners didn't want to hurt the givers' feelings.

Well, there's now an answer. If you have a relative or friend who's hard to choose a present for, or someone that you'd like to point discreetly for your own present in a direction that won't either cost them lots of money, or embarrass you, you might like to try a different kind of gift this year – one that has a whole lot more to do with what the Christmas season really stands for.

WorldVision is just one of the organizations that would like you to donate the cost of one small present to a situation of great need.

(If you'd like to donate the cost of a larger gift, please don't be put off doing so – the point is that even what's regarded in many countries as a small amount can do a vast amount of good in others, so no-one need feel they can't help because right now they haven't got a lot to give. Even a very small amount will be really, really welcome.)

Gifts come in all shapes and sizes. Last year someone gave me a year's supply of classroom materials – or, rather, a picture of them. The actual pens, pencils, paper and schoolbooks went to the children of a village in Africa.

In turn, I bought someone some saplings, which are meant to help another village with a soil erosion problem and also give them fruit that they can sell, and at Easter I received the picture of a goat – the real animal is busily providing milk for a family to sell, so that they have the money to let one of their children go to school.

The gifts are not expensive – they cost no more than a conventional present (many cost much less), and without the hassle.

After all, if your present is a brood of day-old chicks to start a poultry flock that will feed, clothe, house and educate a family and lift them out of poverty, you don't need stand in line to get it – and no-one can complain that they're the wrong size, pattern, shape or color, can they?

You can check out gifts from WorldVision right here.

Much Better Than A Feast

2007-12-03T17:49:00.001Z

A word of heartfelt advice to everyone whose vision of Supreme Success includes Internet marketing - when it comes to e-mailing prospective customers, enough is much, much better than a feast.

Recently I was sent an invitation to an online event known as a Joint Venture Giveaway. In case you haven't come across one, it involves downloading free e-books and software in return for giving your e-mail address to online marketers.

Sounds like a good idea? Well... maybe.

Some of the gifts turned out to be worth having, others much less so. That's only natural. So is the fact that the online marketers in question, having got permission to contact me, have been taking full advantage.

I really didn't mind at first. Some of the offers have been good ones (and, yes, there have been one or two I couldn't quite resist!).

The problem is, I'd based the number I'd signed up for on the assumption that I'd get one or two e-mails from each list every week, which would be manageable – and that's not how it's worked out.

Most have mailed me every day, and some much more than that. My e-mail program's crashed repeatedly, and I quickly reached the point of loathing e-mail.

I thought I'd got the situation under control by unsubscribing from the main offenders' lists, but this morning when I checked my mail I discovered to my annoyance that one marketer whose list I'd stayed on had over the weekend sent me 6 e-mails, inviting me to buy 6 different products.

A bit of common sense would come in handy here.

First, some people have a life outside of work, whether that's online or otherwise, and don't download their e-mails at the weekend. That means they're getting 6 of them in one go, Monday morning... and that's assuming that you haven't started off the working week by sending more of them. It's unlikely that they'll be delighted.

Secondly, if you get e-mail addresses through Joint Venture Giveaways, please bear in mind the people who will sign up for your list will also sign up for lots more through the same Joint Venture offer.

That means they're going to get a lot of mail, which, in turn, means they're going to unsubscribe from most lists very quickly... and, because they cause the biggest nuisance, the lists they're going to come off first will be the ones who send most mail.

Thirdly, it doesn't matter what the so-called marketing gurus tell you – your objective is not to build the biggest list you can, in the shortest possible time. The trick is to build a list of people who stay on your list, and actually buy things... and if you deluge them with so much mail they unsubscribe from it, that isn't going to happen.

Fourthly, if you're in any kind of business, online or otherwise, prospective customers are more than just the lifeblood of your business. They're your employers – and if you turn enough of them against you, then you aren't going to be in business very long.

Imagine for a moment working off-line. Would you honestly show up at your boss's home, unannounced and uninvited, three times on a Saturday and three times on a Sunday, each time trying to pitch a separate idea that would be good for you but cost them money... and if you did, would expect you'd still be in employment on the Monday?

Potential customers don't have employment laws and severance packages to hold them back. They'll simply hit the unsubscribe link, and as far as they're concerned you're history.

Prospective customers are like wild birds – if you want to have them eating from your hand, you have to treat them gently and not crowd them. The alternative is, they just take off and don't come back.

Try telling them that you respect their privacy, and to avoid taking up too much of their valuable time you won't mail them more than, say, once or twice a week.

You won't actually lose sales, because no-one's going to buy from you that often, anyway, but at least you just might keep them on your list and open to your offers... and if you can't do that, a mailing list's a total waste of time.

Much Better Than A Feast

2007-12-03T17:49:00.000Z

The Petrelli Factor

2007-11-30T19:51:00.000Z

In case you're not familiar with Heroes (the first series ends in the UK with a double bill on Wednesday, so it's going to be one of those switch-the-phones-off-and-don't-even-think-of-answering-the-door occasions here), there's a character called Peter Petrelli who finds he automatically takes on the characteristics of those around him – and as most of those around him have special powers, he has some very strange experiences.

The close of this week's episode had him standing right next to a man who spontaneously produces radiation – and, sure enough, Peter's hands began to glow, and he became convinced that he's the person who's about to unleash a nuclear explosion on New York (yes, I know that if you've not been watching it that sounds ridiculous, but in the context of the drama it's believable. Honestly.).

Each episode comes equipped with its own special little behind-the-scenes interviews and snippets, and there was one earlier in the series that really appealed to me. Someone remarked that Peter Petrelli is one of the most important people in the show.

"He's a kind of Everyman," he said. "The audience can identify with him."

I think that's probably quite true... because whether most people realize it or not, everyone has a bit of the Petrelli character within them.

However much you might like the other characters, it's a bit hard to imagine how it feels to walk through solid walls, or melt metal objects when you look at them (though Micah's ability to mend malfunctioning appliances just by touching them could be very useful!), but we all share Peter Petrelli's experience every day.

The truth is that every one of us is unconsciously affected by the behavior and attitudes of those around us – and unless we're aware of what's happening and determined to prevent it, they can really drag us down.

If the person you're talking to is upbeat, with a positive attitude and a lot of energy, it's inspirational – but that's generally not the case. A lot of people seem to see the negative side of everything,.. and to do their best to make sure that's all you can see, as well.

There are even some who do it so regularly (and so effectively!) that your heart sinks at the very sight of them. Your inner mind reminds you of all the miserable things they've said before, and your good mood evaporates before they've said a word.

What can you do about it? Conventional wisdom says you should avoid them, but that's rarely practical. The reason why they've depressed you so many times already is usually because you can't avoid them – they're family members, work colleagues, or someone else you haven't really any choice but interact with.

The only thing that you can do is become mentally stronger than they are. Just as when two pebbles are thrown into a pond at the same time, the ripples from the one that's made the bigger splash will overcome the ripples from the other, you have to make your own positive attitude so strong that nothing can disturb it.

If you stay focused on the things that make you feel good, you can prevent yourself from being affected by anything the other person says.

Make no mistake about it, if someone who's habitually miserable doesn't see the tell-tale signs that they're depressing you, they're unlikely to cheer up and start laughing with you. They're more likely to try still harder to destroy your cheerful mood, or even make you lose your temper.

Don't let them succeed. Letting yourself be provoked is of no help to anyone. It just demotivates you, saps your energy, wrecks your concentration and makes entirely sure you won't achieve a thing all day. It isn't worth it.

The best antidote to the poison of other people's negativity is a powerful sense of purpose. If you can keep your own mind firmly on the things you're planning to achieve, it will be easier to endure the grumbling till you can reasonably get away from it.

If you find this difficult, the audio track you get as part of the Supreme Success package can help you raise your mind above the level of petty irritations and promote a feeling of serenity and calm that will re-energize and motivate you.

You can check it out here.

Squid... Who?

2007-11-29T20:26:00.000Z

I've a confession to make - I've only just now made my first lens on Squidoo.

Till now I've kept away from social networking sites on principle, because I believed they were just that - social. It's not that I don't like being social, but there are more than enough distractions when you work online, and I'd heard all sorts of tales of how much time people can spend exploring them, so I thought I was being very virtuous in keeping well away.

Well, now I've found a perfect excuse. One of the very few people whose advice on Internet marketing I actually trust sent me an e-mail recently that gently told me off for having so far failed to recognize how good a social network site can be for getting your message out to the world.

(His name's Paul Myers, by the way, and if you have any interest whatsoever in marketing online his TalkBiz News e-zine is the place to be.)

So, I checked out networking... and found myself lens-building on Squidoo.

In case there's anyone else who hasn't tried this, it's great fun. A lens is just another name for a web page that's actually hosted on Squidoo itself. You start off with a template and add the modules that you want to use - and the words you want to say.

You can make as many lenses as there are subjects that you have an interest in, and you can link them all together so that in effect you have an extra website.

You can make a lens for pleasure or for profit, to raise awareness or to highlight a good cause. You can link it to your website. You can link it to your blog. You can link it up with Amazon, or show a video from YouTube. You can use it to get traffic - you can use it to make friends.

The folks at Squidoo even give you loads of advice on how to set it up to get the best results from it, and free tools to help you to promote it.

Well, my first lens is now up there with the others. It's about success, of course - what it really is, why it's so important to you, the process that you need to follow to achieve it, and the skills you need to make Supreme Success your own. If you'd like to take a look, it's at http://www.squidoo.com/supreme-success/ - hope you enjoy it.

Making Squidoo lenses is addictive. I'm looking forward very much to making more of them... and, of course, I can always tell myself I'm really working.

Pounding The Punch-Bag

2007-11-28T12:55:00.001Z

Staff at the UK's Department of Revenue and Customs (the equivalent of the IRS - the tax people) are reportedly stressed-out.

This isn't only because their work doesn't make them popular with the public. It isn't even just because they believe they're overworked and underpaid - although they do, and they very likely are.

It's because they're being blamed for personal information on 25.4 million people in the UK going missing.

The Government has blamed the junior member of staff who sent the CDs with the information to another Government Department, which insists it never got them.

Others claim the transfer was sanctioned by senior officers, who allegedly refused to take out sensitive information that didn't need be sent, or even to encrypt it, because doing so would cost too much.

Either way, the missing information includes things like names addresses, dates of birth, and full bank details - an ID thief's version of Aladdin's Cave.

What's more, it also has the name and date of birth of every child under 16 in the entire country - surely a paedophile's idea of Paradise.

One Government Minister has written to the parents of those children, reassuring them that the information is probably just misplaced somewhere in the offices of one or other of the Government Departments involved.

Granted, that would be far better that it being in the hands of criminals - but what does it tell you about the way that Government Departments are run if something that important to so many people can just drop out of sight?

Even so, that's not the only reason Revenue and Customs staff are stressed.

They've been blamed for not spotting fraudulent Tax Credit claims.

They've been blamed for backlogs of work they say they haven't got the staff to deal with.

They've been blamed for paying too much to some Tax Credits claimants, and wrongly stopping payment for those who are entitled.

They've been blamed for relying on call centers, and not letting the public speak to anyone who has the knowledge and experience to help them deal with difficulties - and a couple of years ago their website was hacked into, and the staff's own personal information stolen.

It's not surprising if they aren't very happy in their work.

According to a news report, they've decided to take action. They've used a Revenue and Customs community website to "demand" (the news report's description, not my own) to be given punch-bags, squeeze balls and aromatherapy to help reduce their stress levels (I gladly would have checked the source, but the report went on to say the website's now off-line).

Well, if the news report's correct, all credit to the staff for realizing the importance of doing something about the situation. Being under stress isn't just a miserable experience. It undermines your concentration, and it wrecks relationships. It's damaging to health, and it can kill.

I'm not convinced that pounding a punch-bag is the answer, though. Releasing stress through violence can all too easily become a habit, and it brings with it the risk that someday the punch-bag won't be readily available... and someone else will. Many abusive relationships become that way because one of the partners just can't handle stress.

If you want a high-energy way of releasing pent-up feelings, a more constructive way is taking exercise that doesn't involve violence. A good fast walk is great for that, and so are dancing, jogging, aerobics, or a work-out at the gym.

The problem is that although high-energy exercise is great for working off a blaze of anger, many forms of stress don't actually respond to it at all.

That's because continued stress leaves you exhausted. It's debilitating. You can't take exercise because you haven't got the energy... and you can't recharge your energy because you can't switch off your anxieties enough to get some proper, restful sleep.

That means you need to learn how to release that stress and tension, and relax your mind and body - not just occasionally, but every day, and any time you want to.

For the easiest way that you can free your life from stress, click here.

Pounding The Punch-Bag

2007-11-28T12:55:00.000Z

Staff at the UK's Department of Revenue and Customs (the equivalent of the IRS - the tax people) are reportedly stressed-out.

This isn't only because their work doesn't make them popular with the public. It isn't even just because they believe they're overworked and underpaid - although they do, and they very likely are.

It's because they're being blamed for personal information on 25.4 million people in the UK going missing.

The Government has blamed the junior member of staff who sent the CDs with the information to another Government Department, which insists it never got them.

Others claim the transfer was sanctioned by senior officers, who allegedly refused to take out sensitive information that didn't need be sent, or even to encrypt it, because doing so would cost too much.

Either way, the missing information includes things like names addresses, dates of birth, and full bank details - an ID thief's version of Aladdin's Cave.

What's more, it also has the name and date of birth of every child under 16 in the entire country - surely a paedophile's idea of Paradise.

One Government Minister has written to the parents of those children, reassuring them that the information is probably just misplaced somewhere in the offices of one or other of the Government Departments involved.

Granted, that would be far better that it being in the hands of criminals - but what does it tell you about the way that Government Departments are run if something that important to so many people can just drop out of sight?

Even so, that's not the only reason Revenue and Customs staff are stressed.

They've been blamed for not spotting fraudulent Tax Credit claims.

They've been blamed for backlogs of work they claim they haven't got the staff to deal with.

They've been blamed for paying too much to some Tax Credits claimants, and wrongly stopping payment for those who are entitled.

They've been blamed for relying on call centers, and not letting the public speak to anyone who has the knowledge and experience to help them deal with difficulties - and a couple of years ago their website was hacked into, and the staff's own personal information stolen.

It's not surprising if they aren't very happy in their work.

According to a news report, they've decided to take action. They've used a Revenue and Customs community website to "demand" (the news report's description, not my own) to be given punch-bags, squeeze balls and aromatherapy to help reduce their stress levels (I gladly would have checked the source, but the report went on to say the website's now off-line).

Well, if the news report's correct, all credit to the staff for realizing the importance of doing something about the situation. Being under stress isn't just a miserable experience. It undermines your concentration, and it wrecks relationships. It's damaging to health, and it can kill.

I'm not convinced that pounding a punch-bag is the answer, though. Releasing stress through violence can all too easily become a habit, and it brings with it the risk that someday the punch-bag won't be readily available... and someone else will. Many abusive relationships become that way because one of the partners just can't handle stress.

If you want a high-energy way of releasing pent-up energy, a more constructive way is taking exercise that doesn't involve violence. A good fast walk is great for that, and so are dancing, jogging, aerobics, or a work-out at the gym.

The problem is that although high-energy exercise is great for working off a blaze of anger, many forms of stress don't actually respond to it at all.

That's because continued stress leaves you exhausted. It's debilitating. You can't take exercise because you haven't got the energy... and you can't recharge your energy because you can't switch off your anxieties enough to get some proper, restful sleep.

That means you need to learn how to release that stress and tension, and relax your mind and body - not just occasionally, but every day, and any time you want to.

For the easiest way that you can free your life from stress, click here.

Yes, Internet Marketing Ethics DO Matter

2007-11-23T14:15:00.000Z

If your definition of Supreme Success involves internet marketing, or if you ever buy information or software from anyone online, this could be of real importance to you.

Some of the internet marketing tools which are currently being hawked around the internet are not just ethically dubious, but downright dangerous, as well.

For example, I've recently been offered a way of putting an advertisement and a link to my site on other people's sites - without their knowledge or consent. Assuming it can actually be achieved, that sounds to me like an excellent definition of hacking.
Well, if it is, then it's against the law.

It's against the policy of every reputable web-host on the planet.

It's also totally against common sense, because the first thing the webmaster's likely to do on seeing it is take it off again - about a nano-second before reporting the invasion of their site to their ISP (their web host), your ISP, at least a few of the anti-hacking sites around the net, and the police.

As you're meant to use this technique to place your link on lots of sites, not only one, that could mean that you end up with a king-sized deluge of complaints against you.

Think about it for a moment. If you broke into someone's house and plastered a poster promoting something you were selling, including your contact details, on their wall, what do you think they'd do when they got home and saw it?

1) Buy your product?

2) Throw a party, and proudly show off to their friends and neighbors the beautiful new artwork that their home's been decorated with?

3) Call the contact number on the poster, and thank you for the artwork you've so generously given them?

I don't think so. Let's try...

4) Call the police, and show them on the poster the details of exactly where to find you.

(Incidentally, don't think that a private registration for your domain will save you. If the police come calling, your registration company is generally obliged to tell them what they want to know. Hacking in any form is taken very seriously now, and is generally linked in law enforcement minds with ID theft, organized crime and potential terrorist offenses. Seriously.)

It's no contest, is it? Well, it works the same way online, too. No matter what the marketers may tell you, it's important you respect the rights of those you deal with.

That includes things like their right to control their own property - such as their website - and their right to block advertising pop-ups on the sites they're surfing.

That means that the current offers for pop-ups that can't be blocked by the site visitor can get you into lots of trouble, too.

Granted, it's much less likely that someone's actually going to report you to anyone for using them - but that's not much comfort if you're annoying your visitors, and they leave your site and don't come back.

It might clash with a lot of the advice you're being given, but the rule's quite simple - if you wouldn't want your site to be hijacked by a stranger, or to find your way to the site you're trying to visit blocked by an irritating pop-up that follows you all round the screen, remember that's exactly how anybody else is going to feel if you do that to them... and if they do, they'll never, ever, buy from you.

As I was drafting this post I got an e-mail from my friend Ric at NoBull.net to tell me that he's starting a new organization called the Ethical Marketers' Association.

It's not a sales site, but a forum where both those involved in internet marketing and their potential customers can express their views on the fairness or otherwise of online marketing practices.

The idea is to introduce a standard that online marketers can sign up to, and customers can trust... and if you'd like to get involved, or have a comment that you'd like to make, you'll be very welcome if you visit the Ethical Marketers' Association and tell Ric what you think.

Working together, we can make internet marketing more trustworthy - which, after all, is the best way of getting, and keeping, paying customers.

Oops! A Correction - And A Compliment

2007-11-26T21:01:00.000Z

Since my earlier post about the Ethical Marketers' Association, I've discovered that I've inadvertently misled you.

Ric Raftis has pointed out that he isn't actually the site owner - but he's still involved in developing and promoting the site.

I think that's quite a compliment to him. After all, it takes a lot of work, commitment, time and energy to organize a site like that, which is hard enough to motivate yourself to do when the site's completely your own brainchild.

It must be harder still when it's someone else's.

Well, I may have been mistaken about the owner of the site, but one thing hasn't changed. It's a venture that could sure use your support.

If you've got even a small amount of spare time, and you want to make the Internet a better place, you can make a lot of difference at the Ethical Marketers' Association.

Weather... Or Not

2007-11-20T22:23:00.001Z

"The glass is falling, hour by hour;
The glass is falling ever -
But even if you break the glass
You still can't change the weather."

My apologies to Louis MacNeice for adapting one of his verses (to take out an expletive and still make sure the rhythm works), but it's the first thing that went through my head this morning when I looked out at the leaden sky and the steady, unremitting rain.

By the time I got back from my usual long walk - soaked, despite my supposedly protective clothing, for the third time in four days - I was thinking more in terms of the expletive than the poem.

Tapping the barometer with not a lot of gentleness, I had to remind myself that Louis MacNeice is right. Breaking the glass would achieve only a wrecked barometer and a horribly cut hand. It wouldn't change the weather in the slightest.

The trouble is, when things don't go the way they're meant to, it's an all-too-natural reaction to want to shoot the messenger... to take it out on the person who's just announced the train is running late, your sports team lost a vital game in the last minute, there aren't any theater tickets left - or that it's going to rain again tomorrow.

It's never pleasant to get criticism or abuse that you've done nothing to deserve, or to be blamed for something that you're powerless to change. Worse, someone who gets away with blaming you unjustly for something that's gone wrong will probably do it again... and again, till it becomes a habit with them.

It can happen in relationships, in the family, in a social setting, or at work. Wherever it happens, it needs to be tackled - before it gets a hold. Once it does, it's very hard to stop. By then, you're being bullied.

If you let yourself be regularly blamed, shouted at, criticized or in any way disrespected in a situation where such behavior is undeserved, one or more of the following things will happen:-

1) You'll get so demoralized you'll make mistakes - lots of them. The criticism will then be claimed to have been justified;

2) You'll become so defensive you'll react badly even to the expectation that a criticism's coming. This will likewise be hailed as proof that you deserve it;

3) The abuse will get so bad you'll have no choice but leave the situation.

That could mean a broken relationship, a ruined family life, losing your friends, or being forced out of your job.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the damage to your confidence in any one of those areas will have a very negative impact on the others, too; or

4) You'll eventually become so crushed you'll just give up. You'll feel like life's just not worth living, and as if you don't have any choices any more.

That's absolute despair. You don't deserve that - no-one does.

Dealing with being bullied or abused is hard, especially if the bully is your partner or your boss. It takes a lot of calmness, as well as courage, to stand up to someone without resorting to their own tactics - seeing the victim angry or upset unfortunately seems to be something an abuser throughly enjoys.

(Incidentally, the abuse referred to here is the verbal kind, as in excessive and unreasonable blame or criticism. If abuse ever turns physical you need professional help, such as the police. Violence against a partner, a child or anyone else is against the law, and you're entitled to protection.)

The way out is to become much more assertive - not aggressive, but simply able to stand up in a civilized manner for your rights, your aspirations, your opinions, and yourself.

If you need some help in doing that, you might want to check out a subliminal audio track called Project Your Real, Dynamic Self, and let it help you to get rid of the anxiety and inhibition being bullied causes you and to assert yourself appropriately to deal with it.

Super-Charge Your Self-Belief and Turbo-Charge Your Self-Esteem are other tools that can help you to repair the damage.

Please, don't let yourself be ground down by a bully... because otherwise the glass that's broken will eventually be you.

Welcome To The Celtic Cup

2007-11-23T13:37:00.000Z

Further to yesterday's soccer post, I'm pleased to say a new competition has been announced. Seeing that Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are all out of next year's Euro 2008 championship, they've taken some positive action and agreed to start a new tournament, the Celtic Cup, instead.

Now that England's in the same situation, they have to make a quick decision on whether they want to rebuild their shattered self-esteem by joining in.

I hope they do. If they don't, they're not scheduled to play another competitive international before next autumn. The commentators on Wednesday night repeatedly described them as playing like strangers. That's a situation that a year's absence from playing together as a team is hardly likely to improve.

Come on, boys - the fans are starving for success. The run-up to the World Cup starts right here, right now.

A New Beginning

2007-11-22T22:14:00.000Z

Like millions more, I watched the England v Croatia soccer match last night.

For those who don't follow soccer (and many of those who watched last night's game must be wishing that they didn't, either), Croatia won the match, at England's own home ground; England failed to qualify for next year's Euro 2008 championship; bars, sportswear manufacturers and sellers, pizza suppliers and various other companies are projecting a total of over £2 billion lost earnings; and the head coach has, not too surprisingly, been fired.

As my own team, Ireland, has already been dumped out of the competition and has sacked the manager, I've got a pretty good idea of how they feel, and it isn't pretty.

No-one, either in Ireland or in England, is likely to thank me for saying this, but I believe the only thing to do now is to learn whatever lessons are appropriate, and move on.

Dwelling on a disappointment hurts - and it does nothing to put the situation right.

So the English and the Irish teams won't be in Euro 2008 next summer. Fine. That's one distraction out of the way. That gives both teams an extra year to prepare for the next World Cup, in 2010.

Yes, that might sound like a whole long way away - but not when you consider just how far both teams have to improve to be contenders... and yes, we're into reframing things again.

Well, why not? Both teams are capable of far more than they've shown us recently, and both countries' fans would relish some good performances and a few convincing wins. At the very least, we'd like to see them play as if they have some purpose out there.

Commentators in both countries have blamed the dismal showing on the players' and the coaches' attitudes. I don't want to labor the point, but if people can't go out and play as if they've got some self-belief (Croatia clearly had no problem doing that!), then all they can expect is failure.

Please, boys - on both sides of the Irish Sea - put some positive energy into it, and give us something that will make us proud of you. It isn't just success we want. Most supporters can endure a gallant failure, but we can't support a team that doesn't show much passion.

Believe in yourselves, so the supporters can believe in you, as well.

We really want to.

Giving Thanks

2007-11-22T20:53:00.000Z

I've been delighted by the number of e-mails I've had today from people online wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving Day.

Thanksgiving isn't a festival that's officially recognized this side of the Atlantic, which I think is a great shame, and the sooner someone introduces it, the better.

It's only natural to want more of what we really like and less of what we don't, but it's all too easy to take for granted what we have... and those we love.

Thanksgiving Day provides us with an ideal opportunity to put that right, and show appreciation of all that is most truly valuable to us. It gives us a sense of perspective - and that actually makes us enjoy all those things more.

What's more, all those lovely greetings, most of them listing things the writer is thankful for, and many asking me to return the compliment by telling them what I'm most thankful for right now, act as an encouragement to give some serious thought to that.

Well, as regular readers of this blog will know, I'm particularly thankful for an escape last week from what looked like it was going to be a fatal car wreck, with me right in the middle of it. It was a very scary experience, and not one that I ever want to have again (the danger part, I mean, not the fact that I survived it!)... but it's taught me an extremely valuable lesson.

"Never," I told myself when I thought about it afterwards - "never, ever, take anything for granted again.

"Not the fact that the car goes when you want it to.

"Not the fact that it stops (well, normally!) when you want it to.

"Not the fact that the hot water, the gas, the electricity, the phone, your cell-phone, the computer and your precious Internet, work the way you want them to.

"Not the fact that you have a family that you love, and who love you.

"Not the fact that your parents and Godparents taught you your religious faith, and that the first gift that you were ever given was your father's Bible.

"Not the fact that you have friends in Ireland, the UK, the USA, Canada, and countries all around the globe, who teach you about their faith, their politics, their music and their culture, and who enrich your life and bring you so much fun and laughter.

"Not the fact that there's a city full of bright lights and all the music that you love just 10 minutes' drive away from here.

"Not the fact that there's a whole wonderful countryside two minutes' walk from your front door.

"Not the fact that through books (including e-ones), newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, audio, video, and above all the Internet, you have access to all the information you could ever need, on every subject you could ever want.

"Not the fact that you have so many other blessings it would take a whole lot more than one day to recount them all.

"In fact, don't take anything, at all, for granted. Be thankful for it, and enjoy it. That's what blessings are given to you for."

Well, that's the lesson that I've learned this week, and I'm profoundly grateful to all whose Thanksgiving greetings have reinforced it for me today.

I'd like to pass their kindness on by wishing everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving Day - especially those who, like myself till now, don't celebrate it.

Please try it - otherwise, you've no idea how great it feels.

The Appliance Of Science

2007-11-21T18:15:00.000Z

I have a new favorite detective drama - it's called Numb3rs (yes, in case you're not familiar with it, that is not a typo - it really is its name). Perhaps it's because I've never really got much into math, it's a real eye-opener to realize that all those equations have a useful purpose, let alone that they can be so entertaining, too.

One recent episode where equations were being used to plot the whereabouts of a killer had a sub-plot involving using science to establish where a pool of water on the floor was actually coming from. Till then it had been assumed that either rainwater was coming through a damaged roof, or else there was a leak in a water pipe somewhere in the wall.

Using ink to track the way the water flowed made it easy to see the direction it was actually arriving from, which was nowhere near any of the places anyone had thought of. The leaking pipe was actually beneath the floorboards.

It's a shame no-one had taught that technique to the plumber who recently took the best part of an hour to mend what he insisted was the area of pipe in our front hallway that a leak above his head was coming from.

If he'd sounded less patronizing about it I might have had more sympathy when he found out his mistake the hard way - by standing underneath the real one when the water was turned on.

Yes, science is a wonderful thing...

In The Frame

2007-11-16T14:29:00.000Z

Reframing - seeing the positive side of something unpleasant and making it a force for good, instead - is not confined to the surfers of Great Yarmouth who made the most of last week's storm surge. At least one octogenarian has shown he has excellent reframing skills, as well.

Last night Sir Jimmy Savile, an 81-year-old broadcaster and former DJ, was leaving the Queen's Hotel in Leeds after a function when he was mugged by a woman who stole his glasses (as he's well-known for his love of wearing vast amounts of heavy gold jewelery that wouldn't seem to be the most obvious target for a thief, but that was what she went for, just the same!).

You'd imagine most people's reaction would be anger, indignation, shock or fear - but no. Sir Jimmy was delighted.

It reminded him, apparently, of the many times when he was chased by fans in the 1960s, when he was not only a very famous DJ in his own right, but also a friend of Elvis, the Beatles and pretty much everyone who was anyone in the music business at the time. That meant he was the guy that every pop fan in the country was desperate to get to know.

"I thought it was marvelous," he told the bemused police officer taking details of the incident. "I've not been mugged for over 50 years. It was just like old times."

Getting a morale boost out of being mugged? Now, there's some positive reframing!

An Exercise In Logic?

2007-11-15T10:41:00.000Z

Only 20% of women in the UK take enough exercise to benefit their health. So says the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation, in a call for a public debate on how to persuade more women to take exercise.

Women, apparently, are put off taking exercise by their experience of sport in school (that, I can thoroughly understand!), and "need much better rôle models than the wives and girlfriends of football stars". Well, till shopping joins the ranks of the Olympic sports, they've probably got that right, too.

The perfect rôle models to encourage women to take part in sports and to take up the fitness training that demands, you might imagine, would be the female soccer stars who recently took part in the World Cup. It was held in China just a few weeks ago, and the English team deservedly reached the last 8.

What a pity, then, that it's also been announced this morning that for each day they were involved in the competition, each member of the team has been paid... £40.

That's less than $80 - and it means that the team's fitness level's dropping fast.

Instead of doing their usual amount of training, the women are spending extra time at work, trying to make up their lost earnings.

The governing body of women's soccer, the Football Association, says that investment in the women's game has never been higher. Maybe so - but high enough to attract women into a sport that demands healthy eating, a lot of dedication, a vast amount of time spent training, a lot of traveling and some serious hard work both on and off the pitch?

I don't think so. In fact, if it effectively involves them in financial penalties as well, any potential gains in raising the profile of the sport are probably already lost.

Maybe someone should be looking at some ways to attract far-sighted sponsors who can see the health and the commercial benefits of women's soccer, or maybe the Football Association could look at the amounts of money "earned" by Premiership clubs and players - some of whom occasionally claim to be "too tired" to play - and make sure that the funding they're responsible for is fairly allocated.

Maybe it's something that the Government's Minister for Sport might like to take a look at. After all, no-one's asking for a fortune to be spent on women's football - just to make sure the women who take part in it aren't actually penalized for their success.

Perhaps the first thing that needs exercising is some common sense.

Rocking The Boat

2007-11-14T15:18:00.000Z

"If anyone's going to rock the boat, it's not going to be me."

This, according to "A Bridge Too Far" (shown on TV on Sunday as a mark of respect for Remembrance Day, and watched for the same reason), was why the person responsible for checking the radios needed in the 1944 attempt to capture Arnhem didn't tell his superiors that he believed they weren't fit for purpose.

With the battle under way, the radio communications failed. It turned out that the radios all had the wrong type of crystal (a vital part of radio construction at the time), and the commanders had no way of making contact with each other.

Worse still, they couldn't even tell the pilots of the incoming planes that they were dropping their much-needed supplies and ammunition over an area that hadn't yet been taken... a free gift for the enemy.

The radios were not the only thing that went wrong that day, and it wouldn't be fair to blame them for the whole disaster, but their failure played a major part in it... and more than 8,000 people, both combatants and civilians killed in the reprisals, lost their lives.

It's easy to criticize, and not even very fair. Rocking the boat can take a lot of courage.

It can be hard to stand out against what someone in authority's expecting you to say. It must be even harder if you're in the military, and much more used to taking orders than trying to make your senior officers listen to something they don't want to hear.

All sorts of things go through your mind. You might be jeered at as a crank, a negative thinker who doesn't see the bigger picture, someone who's scared to take a risk, someone who's "not one of us".

It might not sound like much, but that one hurts. Being accepted by our peers is one of mankind's deepest needs. It goes right back to prehistoric days, when someone cast out by the tribe or family grouping faced a slow starvation.

It can take a lot of self-belief to stand your ground.

Sadly, there are many, many people so inhibited by social pressures that they're unable to assert themselves in any way. They feel obliged to do everything the way they think that others will expect of them.

From how they dress to where they live, from what they eat to the candidate they vote for, every aspect of their lives is governed by the perceived need to fit in, to be part of the crowd, to be what others think appropriate - to be accepted.

It doesn't need to be that way. Things have moved on a little since the dinosaurs roamed the earth.

You aren't going to starve if someone doesn't like your hairstyle. It's not a sin if you prefer a style of music that your friends don't like. There's no law says you have to live in one area rather than another, or change your car more often than you want to, just to show your colleagues or your neighbors that you can afford it.

Most importantly of all, no-one on earth has any right to tell you who you are - or who you're meant to be.

If you'd like to have the confidence to let your light shine, visit Supreme-Success.com and find out how you can most easily project your real, dynamic self.

You may not need to save 8,000 lives - but you'll transform your own.

Bird Flu - UK Update

2007-11-13T18:17:00.000Z

With the news that the latest bird (or avian) flu outbreak in the UK is the deadly H5N1 strain which can be passed to humans comes a renewal of the anxieties which have been making headline news for the past two winters.

At present the disease remains quite hard to catch, and at the time of writing no humans have been so far been infected.

Infection is normally only possible through close contact with diseased live birds or their droppings, so the people most at risk are poultry workers, and over the past couple of years a number of bio-security measures have been introduced to protect them.

The much-hyped global pandemic will only become a reality if the current strain of bird flu mutates into one which can be transmitted easily between humans. This is perfectly possible... but by no means inevitable. Viruses mutate in many ways - sometimes, even into much less harmful ones.

If you're at all concerned about bird flu, or just curious to see what all the fuss is about, you might like to check out an article based on the guidance which was being given two years ago by the World Health Organization and the UK Government. So far, there's been no indication that those guidelines have changed.

P.S. Please don't let the possibility of bird flu stop you from feeding the wild and garden birds. There's no reason at present to suppose that any of them are infected - and even if they were, wild birds are highly unlikely to let you get even nearly close enough to catch it!

Letting Your Light Shine

2007-10-14T19:52:00.000+01:00

One of my favorite inspirational quotes is from Nelson Mandela. It's not in Your Daily Inspiration because of the sheer length of it, so I can't resist the chance to put it here.

I believe the quotation comes originally from Maryanne Williamson, and Nelson Mandela used it in the speech he made at his inauguration as the first black president of South Africa in 1994.

He said: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

His words have the power to stir the heart – but for many people, they represent a serious, uncomfortable challenge. It's not that they don't want to let their light shine. The problem is, so many people don't believe they have one. They've got so used to criticism, self-doubt, negative experiences and poverty of expectation that the idea they might be supposed to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and famous, instead of being a delightful affirmation of everything they want to be, disturbs them deeply.

It doesn't bring them joy – they find it threatening.

Well, don't just take my word that you have the right, the power, the duty and responsibility to be those things.

Listen to the man who spent 27 years in prison because he wouldn't give up on the things that he believed in, and then came out to be not only his country's first black president but a man revered and loved throughout the world.

If Nelson Mandela believes in you so strongly, why don't you?

If you need some help to be persuaded that you can be gorgeous (naturally gorgeous!), check out Reveal Your Inner Beauty. If you don't believe you're brilliant, you can improve your self-esteem. If you don't believe you're talented, you can improve your self-belief. If you believe you lack assertiveness, try out Project Your Real, Dynamic Self.

If you believe the things you want most are beyond your grasp, check out Supreme-Success.com, or else Achieve Your Wildest Dreams - and for your free book of inspirational quotations for every day of the year, just visit Your Daily Inspiration (while it's downloading, you can get get a taste of what you will be reading at the Inspirational Quotations page).

Share Nelson Mandela's faith in you, and let your light shine!

The Rôle That Killed The TV Star

2007-10-15T13:18:00.000+01:00

A few days ago I watched a TV documentary about a British actor called Richard Beckinsale. The comedy shows he starred in are still shown often on TV (there was one on just this weekend), so I'm quite familiar with his work, though I was unaware that he was branching out into films and was regarded as a seriously up-and-coming talent... till one morning he was found dead in bed, after suffering a massive heart attack. He was 31.

The shows I've seen him in (Rising Damp and Porridge) give the impression of a pleasant, laid-back kind of guy – the very last person you'd expect would ever have a heart attack. Some of his friends were interviewed, and said that's very much the way he really was.

His wife, though, told another story altogether. She admitted that his confident, relaxed demeanor was an act – the hardest rôle he'd ever hard to play, and one that ultimately killed him.

The truth was that his nerves were strained so badly that he couldn't bear to stay in the house alone, and he suffered such serious panic attacks that he couldn't sleep without the light on, and often stayed up all night because he didn't feel safe enough to let himself fall asleep before full daylight.

In other words, he suffered from a stress level so intense and painful that it killed him.

Tragic though it is (his two young daughters had barely even got to know him), the story has two lessons that anyone who's stressed out needs to learn.

1. Many people will do, or suffer, absolutely anything to keep their friends and colleagues from knowing just how stressed they are.

Often, they're afraid that they'll be laughed at, or passed over for promotion – and both those things do sometimes happen; and

2. Stress that isn't dealt with can be lethal.

That's because stress causes the body to produce chemicals, like adrenalin, that are meant to deal with an immediate, short-term emergency. If you're stressed, then you're producing these chemicals all the time... and you aren't getting rid of them.

That means you're literally poisoning yourself.

Fortunately, much more's now known about stress and how to deal with it. Although if you have any kind of health anxieties it's always wise to talk things over with your doctor, you can check out an easy way to free your life from stress at the Supreme Success website – and if, like Richard Beckinsale, you suffer from panic attacks, there's a book available at the Resources area of the site.

Stress can make your life, and the lives of everyone you love, a misery. Isn't it worth a mouse-click to get rid of it... for ever?

Beware The Gridlocked Video...

2007-10-15T15:03:00.000+01:00

Yes, I know this story makes me look an idiot, but if you're looking for success in online marketing, the situation that gives rise to it is one you really need to be aware of... and if you're not, you can feel free to have a laugh at my expense.

I recently came across a site with lots of videos on something that I'm keenly interested in, and I couldn't wait to watch them. Each one was supposed to last about 4 minutes, so they couldn't take that long to load up... could they?

Well, not if you're in the same country as the site, perhaps. The trouble is, that site and myself were on different sides of the Atlantic.

I clicked on the first track, and it buffered for several minutes - then it flickered into life and its producer said, "Hi! My name is..."

The video then froze, and buffered for several more minutes before the guy in the picture jerkily moved his hands for a split second and gave me half his name... and then it froze again. Cue more buffering.

This was not what I'd call streaming video – it was more like gridlock.

Now, at this point I would usually have given up and left the site, but I really wanted to watch those videos, so I hung on.

I kid you not, it took an hour and a half before the buffering got near the end – of a video which, remember, was supposed to take a mere 4 minutes to play through.

It was at this point that I made my big mistake. Once the buffering had finished, I decided, I'd be able to watch the whole thing properly – and I might as well do it with a cup of coffee in my hand.

Wrong move. In the time it took to switch the kettle on, the buffering had finally completed... and gone back to zero. Hopefully, I clicked on Play, and the buffering began again. Right from the start.

Now, this ought to be a one-off horror story... but it isn't. There are lots of sites that offer video and other kinds of streaming media that only work the way they should if you're quite near to them, or else you're using broadband (I don't, because I reckon that the best way to ensure that all the content on Supreme-Success.com is easily accessible to all site visitors is to test it on a dial-up connection).

If you want to use some video without antagonizing all your visitors who can't get at it easily, it's a good idea to offer an alternative.

1. If possible, present it in a format that can be downloaded. A download manager that can collect it overnight, or resume an interrupted download when it's more convenient, can take the sting out of the waiting; or

2. It that's not feasible, offer them a transcript. Write down everything you're saying on the video, and let them just download it as an e-book.

If you're working from a script, that should take very little effort – if not, it's worth the extra work to play it through and just transcribe your words.

(Do get rid of those distracting "um"s and "er"s, though – they creep into most videos at some point, and your visitors will probably take clarity a lot more seriously than exact fidelity to the recorded version!)

Your visitors will love you for it – it's a quick and easy way to show you care about them.

If you don't, you're going to lose a lot of hard-earned traffic, because a gridlocked video has just the same effect as gridlocked vehicles – exasperated visitors avoid the place in future.

Diet Eating Any Food You Like!

2007-10-17T17:54:00.000+01:00

A lot of people think that if you're on a diet eating food you like is strictly off the menu. That's not true – in fact, if you're on a diet eating foods you like is utterly essential if you're going to stick with it and not give up from sheer distaste or total boredom!

It's not what food you're eating that affects your weight, but how much energy (and yes, that does mean calories) that food contains. An excess of certain kinds of food, like fat, may well affect your health and fitness, so of course you need a healthy balance, but purely from the point of view of how much weight you might put on or lose it makes no difference.

100 calories of carrots will have exactly the same effect on your weight as 100 calories of chocolate. You'll get a whole lot bigger helping of the carrots for 100 calories than you will of chocolate (which, depending on whether carrots are a kind of food you like, you may feel is a good thing... or you may not not!), but it's the amount of calories you're eating that affects your weight, and not the kind of food you get them from.

That means that even on a diet eating any kind of food you want is fine... as long as you don't exceed the calorie allowance that your diet gives you.

You don't need to give up every kind of food you like – just eat it in sufficient moderation that it doesn't wreck your chances of success. Don't let it sabotage the number of the calories you're taking in, though – just adapt your menu for the day to make quite sure you keep to your allowance.

If you find that hard to stick to, you might like to check out Achieve Your Perfect Weight – And Stay There! at Supreme-Success.com for some support. Just because you're on a diet eating doesn't have to be a guilty pleasure – or a total misery!

More Than Skin Care Deep

2007-10-17T18:11:00.000+01:00

Skin care products seem to be particularly featured on the TV ads at present, and they mainly seem to be for just one type – repairing damage to the skin.

The ads refer to them as anti-aging, but a beauty consultant friend who gave up a well-paid job with a famous cosmetics firm because she felt she was misleading clients, tells me aging is not the only, or even necessarily the main, cause of sagging and unsightly skin. According to her, much of the damage has been caused by inappropriate skin care – in other words, by simply using skin care products that have been promoted for years as enhancing beauty.

Now, there's no way I'm against cosmetics – I refuse to step outside the door without my lipstick and mascara – but skin's a living organism that needs be treated with some care and understanding. It needs a chance to breathe.

Covering the face from first thing every morning till last thing every night with a foundation that's too heavy for it courts disaster. It doesn't take as long as you might think to wear the facial muscles down so that they start to sag. The muscles of your face are very delicate, and they're simply not designed to carry weight – at all.

The result can all too easily be sagging cheeks and deep, unsightly lines around your neck... within a short time.

What's more, a heavy, rich foundation clogs your skin's pores. It can't get any air. It can't get rid of natural impurities, either – so they stay right where they are till they start causing spots and blemishes.

What happens when your skin starts getting damaged? Some beauty editor or skin care expert tells you that you need... to cover it with even heavier cosmetics.

Oh, please. Cosmetics are intended to enhance your beauty, not destroy it!

If you don't deep-cleanse your skin of heavy make-up every night, you'll ruin it. You get deep pock-marks that my beauty consultant friend calls a cosmetic skin.

If you do deep-cleanse your skin each night, you're wrecking it. Your facial skin is fragile – it's not supposed to have its surface chemically stripped off every night.

Either way, how do most beauty editors and skin care experts suggest you deal with problems? Usually by lavishing a heavy moisturizer on it overnight, and piling on more make-up in the morning!

It doesn't have to be that way. There are lightweight cosmetics that will look a lot more natural and do a lot less damage. There are light moisturizers, cleansers, toners and astringents out there – though they aren't always famous names (and they're usually much cheaper, too!). You can find cleansers, toners and astringents, and all sorts of other gentle forms of skin care that don't actually attack your skin like paint stripper.

There are lots of exercises that can tone the muscles of your face and neck, and keep them strong and taut so that they won't sag – and a healthy lifestyle, including plenty of fruit and vegetables, exercise and fresh air, and some sound, refreshing sleep, will give your skin a glow and put a sparkle in your eyes that over-weighty, over-hyped, expensive skin care products can't achieve.

Radiant beauty is your birthright as a human being. Please, don't let the skin care "experts" rob you of it.

The New Buzz-Word In Dieting

2007-10-19T19:08:00.000+01:00

I've come across a new word to do with diet, eating, and I suppose you'd have to say to do with exercise, health and fitness (or the lack of them), as well. Obesogenic, apparently, is Government-committee-speak for British society, which allegedly takes less exercise than at any time in known history, and is obsessively focused on eating all the wrong kinds and quantities of food.

According to a new report, the majority of British people will by 2050 be seriously overweight - obese, in fact. The risk to health and fitness of such a level of obesity has been described as a potential catastrophe second only to global warming.

I don't know quite how true that is - statistics can be interpreted and projected to back up almost anything you want - but I do know that it doesn't have to be that way.

Unless it's caused by a medical condition or a disability, obesity isn't something that just happens, without anything that you can do about it. Becoming overweight is the result of regularly taking in more calories than you can use, and those extra calories being stored as fat.

It isn't pleasant being overweight. It isn't comfortable, either physically or emotionally. It isn't good for you... and it's seriously bad for how you feel about yourself.

You don't have to put up with it, though. Just make yourself a promise that you'll eat a little less, and exercise a little more... and keep it.

Eat a salad once a day, instead of junk food. Walk to work, or to the shops, instead of using transport. To tone your muscles with as little physical demand on you as possible, try the gentle exercise of yoga, qi gong, or t'ai chi.

A regular, committed effort will do far more lasting good than a crash diet or exhausting fitness schedule that you'll struggle through for a week or so and then give up on.

If you need some help to change your diet or your eating habits, you could visit Achieve Your Perfect Weight - And Stay There, and for encouragement to take more exericse and to improve your health and fitness, you might want to click on Teach Your Mind To Train Your Body.

Whatever kind of fancy name it's given, obsessing about people being overweight won't put the situation right.

Focusing on the outcome that you want, not one you don't want, can.

The Secret Of The Works Canteen

2007-10-23T14:46:00.000+01:00

A girl was working in a company canteen. It was just a vacation job so that she could make some money before going on to university, and it was hard work, too, but she was loving every minute of it.

Part of her job was to go in early and have the boiler lit and breakfast ready for her colleagues when they got there. She liked the responsibility, and it meant extra money for her, too – but there was just one problem. The boiler was practically impossible to light.

An engineer took pity on her. Every morning he'd be waiting for her at the station, then he'd take her in his car to work, and light the boiler for her. In return she'd make him breakfast, and the two would chat across their steaming mugs of coffee.

She thought he probably just did it out of kindness, but she was hoping desperately that it meant more than that. Fresh from a convent school, she didn't have a clue how to encourage him... and she was sure he was aware of how she felt about him, anyway. He was 7 years older than she was, after all. If he didn't make a move, it surely had to mean he didn't want to.

The weeks passed, and her vacation job was over. The engineer said nothing, and the girl went home and cried herself to sleep.

She went on to university, and it was several years before she heard of him again. She ran into a friend of his, and asked after the boy she'd liked so much - only to be told that he'd died, just recently, in a tragic accident. She was devastated, and asked if he had left a wife and children.

"No," his friend said sadly. "He never even had a steady girlfriend. The only girl he ever cared about was you." The girl was bewildered.

"But he never even asked me out!" she said. The man couldn't meet her eyes.

Embarrassed, he admitted that the workmates of the engineer had teased him mercilessly about his canteen girlfriend, who, they said, was only making use of him and would forget him the moment that she didn't any longer need his help.

Girls on their way to university, they'd said, just don't go out with small-town engineers.

"My own father's an engineer who comes from a small town," she retorted, "and I'm very proud of him!" The man had tears in his eyes.

"We never meant him any harm," he said. "It was intended as a joke, that's all. We never thought he'd take it seriously. When you left, we just assumed you hadn't wanted to go out with him. We never realized that we'd put him right off asking you!"

Once again, the girl went home in tears - not just of grief, but also anger and frustration that they'd both been too inhibited and shy to go for what they'd so much wanted.

Worse still, they'd both gone right on thinking far too lowly of themselves to dare make contact later, even though she realized now he must have wanted to as much as she did... and there was no way now that it could ever be put right.

If shyness puts you off going after what you really want, check out Supreme-Success.com and find out how you can reveal your true, dynamic self.

Exactly What You Promise

2007-10-25T20:53:00.000+01:00

I've just had a really annoying experience, and if the Supreme Success you're looking for has anything to do with online marketing it might be something you can learn from, too.

It sounds insultingly obvious to say you have to give your customers the things you've promised them, doesn't it? Well, I can assure you that it doesn't always happen.

In return for joining someone's mailing list I was offered a very interesting-looking freebie, which I eagerly accepted. With it came an offer of related software for a low price. I wasn't greatly interested in the main product, but I was keen on one of the bonus products that came with it. I accepted that, too.

The main product didn't work - at all - and one of the bonuses turned out to be an inferior version of something I already had.

Another proved to be a restricted version of the real thing. To be fair, it came equipped with some kind of an update patch, which didn't seem to turn it into the full version I'd been promised, but as it wasn't something I had much need to use I could have overlooked that.

My real annoyance, though, was reserved for the bonus product which was all I'd bought the package for. It, too, was a "lite" version - and one of its limitations was that it wouldn't let me save my work, or re-open a project once I'd left it.

In other words, it wasn't worth the download time I'd spent on it, let alone the (admittedly small) amount I'd paid for it.

Worse still, the "read me" file recommended that to take full advantage of the software I should buy the full version... from the very guy who'd led me to believe that's what I'd paid him for!

I checked the sales page again, very carefully, to see if there was something in the small print that I'd missed, but no. Nowhere was there any indication that what was on offer was anything less than a version that was fully functional.

As I pointed out in asking for a refund, there's just no way that I'd have paid him any money for a lite version of the software - most lite versions are downloadable for free.

The point of the story's obvious enough - if you offer something to your customers, don't mislead them. Most people will be decent enough to give you opportunities to put right a download error, but if they've got less value than your website promised them, you won't get many second chances.

At best, you lose a customer, and make sure they never buy from you again (and you can be very sure they'll tell their friends, as well).

At worst, you find yourself in legal trouble - advertising that doesn't deliver what it promises can bring a very heavy penalty in many countries.

If the sale's been made through PayPal, ClickBank or a number of other credit card fulfillment companies, there's also the possibility your customer will complain to them... and they rarely take that very well. One offence can cost you money - a number of complaints can get you barred.

It's no use offering the defence that the price was low to start with, either. The answer to the question, "What do you expect to get for that amount?" is very simple.

"Exactly what you promised me."

Jon Lester Rox!

2007-10-29T17:28:00.000Z

Congratulations to the Red Sox (aka Rox) on their 7 World Series title, their second in 4 years... and you really don't want to know what time it was this side of the Atlantic by the time the game, let alone the celebrations, ended!

The red and white banner held up by one fan expressed it all - "Believe Again".

Special congratulations to Mike Lowell on winning not just one car but two for being MVP, and, for that matter, to the Colorado Rockies, who have reached their first World Series in only their 15th series - no mean achievement in its own right.

For me, though, the real star has got to be a player whose courage, determination and commitment, let alone his skill, would defeat all efforts to describe them.

At first I thought I hadn't heard aright when the commentator said that this time last year Jonathan Tyler Lester wasn't pitching for the Red Sox - he was undergoing chemotherapy.

It turns out, though, that it's absolutely true. The Red Sox pitcher had a rare form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and might not even have survived it, let alone been able to go on playing baseball... but Jon Lester has an attitude of total focus and determination.

Three months ago, his treatment over, he came back to the Red Sox, and last night he claimed his place in baseball's history books... and his comment on what he'd achieved just to get over it and make it to the Final?

"I was a normal person, and did anything that anybody else would've done."

What's more, he says that the experience has actually helped his playing. Last year, he admits, he could get upset about small things too easily, and lose his concentration and effectiveness.

This year, he believes he's got things in perspective, and can focus better on his game.

Jon Lester's example will be an inspiration and a badge of hope for every cancer sufferer, or loved one, friend or family member of a cancer sufferer, who gets to hear about his heroism and its great and brilliantly-deserved success.

Your Secret Source Of Energy

2007-11-05T21:51:00.000Z

If someone told you there's a very easy way to improve your health, your looks, your energy and your concentration, fill you with self-confidence and creativity, and therefore help you to transform your finances and your entire life, and it wasn't even going to cost you anything to do it, would you believe them?

Probably not – and yet it's absolutely true.

There's something you can use every day that will do all that for you and much more - and the chances are that it's the most overlooked aspect of your lifestyle...

Sleep.

It's the thing that's easiest to economize on when you're busy, whether at work or in your social life - but that's actually the worst thing you can do. When things are hectic in any area of your life, the way to boost your energy to deal with them much more easily, effectively and enjoyably is to make sure you're well-rested.

If you're dreading a demanding day at work, or looking forward to a party, it can be hard to relax the night before. If you have last-minute preparations to make, it sometimes isn't even possible... so here's a tip.

Have a really early night the night before that. Forget your preparations, switch off the phone and the TV, treat yourself to a relaxing evening, and have an early night.

Empty your mind of whatever you've been thinking of all day, and fill it with tranquil images of whatever makes you feel your most relaxed.

Let all the tension ebb out of each muscle, from your head down to your toes, and let yourself feel warm and sleepy, then enjoy feeling yourself just drift into deep sleep.

You'll be amazed how much more energy and confidence you'll have.

If you often find it difficult to sleep as restfully as you would like, you can find help here.

The Golf Bag's Revenge

2007-11-06T15:31:00.000Z

A member of the local golf club swears not only that this really happened, but that he's one of the crowd who actually witnessed it.

After a disastrous round of golf, a foursome had at long last reached the final hole - the one where a little stream runs right beside the green, and you have to make your final putt in full view of the clubhouse.

Three of the players weren't playing badly, but the fourth was having the sort of round where he couldn't have hit the proverbial barn door. With each successive missed putt, he got madder... and the madder he got, the more his concentration suffered, and the worse he played.

Finally, after 8 missed putts, he snapped. He hurled his putter to the ground and started jumping up and down on it. He then rammed it back into his golf bag, hurled the whole bag to the ground, and repeatedly jumped up and down on that - and the several thousand dollars' worth of clubs inside.

Still not content, he retrieved his battered golf bag from the grass and in fury pitched it into the middle of the stream before stalking off the course with as much dignity as he could muster, ignoring as best he could the crowd of sightseers staring in disbelief through the massive window of the clubhouse lounge.

They were still there when a few minutes later he returned, walked towards the stream, took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his trouser legs and in obvious embarrassment waded out into the freezing water.

He'd left his car keys in his golf bag pocket.

There are much better, non-embarrassing and vastly less expensive ways to deal with stress. You can find one here.

The Secret Ingredient

2007-10-13T23:15:00.000+01:00

I've just watched England beat France 14-9 to reach the Rugby World Cup Final.

I don't know that much about rugby (except, of course, that Ireland's already out of the competition), but it didn't take an expert to recognize the transformation in the English play and attitude from the demoralized bunch of guys who went down so spectacularly 36-0 to South Africa a few weeks back.

One of the TV pundits was asked what he thought had caused the vast improvement.

"Their coach, Brian Ashton," he replied. "He's filled them all with self-belief."

If that one simple difference, an increase in their self-belief, was all it took to turn a disorganized group of players who were being ripped to pieces in the press for their performance, into a proud, deserving team of World Cup finalists, in just four weeks, what can a real and lasting increase in your self-belief achieve for you?

You can find out at Supreme-Success.com/Self-Belief.

Going Platinum

2007-11-13T10:40:00.000Z

I love dogs - it's just their owners that I sometimes have a problem with.

Out walking recently, I saw a real beauty of a dog - tall, curly-coated, alert, bright-eyed and friendly. He looked like a retriever, except that instead of the usual shade of gold he was a color that I'd never seen before - a most un-doglike sparkling shade of silver.

I patted him, and got my fingers well-licked in return. As the owner approached, I smiled and said, "What a lovely dog you have - I've never seen one quite like this before. What... exactly... is he?"

The smile froze on my lips as she replied, "He's a platinum retriever - they're so very in this year."

IN? She has the companionship of a beautiful, intelligent, affectionate, good-natured, loyal living creature, and she sees him as a fashion accessory?

I repeat - I love dogs. It's just their owners that I sometimes have a problem with.

When Success Means Just Surviving

2007-11-12T23:31:00.000Z

If you've never actually tried it, you might imagine that it simply isn't possible to pray, scream, push a car and panic at the same time, but I can assure you that it is. I'd better start at the beginning.

I was on an unfamiliar road this afternoon, and looking for a turn-off that I couldn't find. I pulled on to a patch of gravel beside the road and stopped to check the map. I didn't immediately notice a large farm vehicle coming down a track towards me - I'd stopped outside a farm gate, and I was blocking the driver's exit. I'd have to move the car.

I turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still nothing. I was not enjoying this. Here I was, somewhere I didn't recognize, right in the path of a farm truck, and I couldn't start the car.

I took the handbrake off, and the car rolled backwards just enough to let the farm truck through. With hindsight, that should have made me realize I was on a slope that led back to the road. It didn't. All that I was thinking of was how to start the engine.

The breakdown truck would take a while to get there, and in the meantime someone else might want to get through the farm gateway. I'd have to push the car out of the way.

I got out and gave the car a hefty shove. It moved a little. I pushed again, and it ran gently backwards, clear of the farm gate. I stopped pushing... but the car kept right on moving. Too late, I realized that the slope was not about to let it stop.

Worse still, there was traffic coming – a car, an SUV and an enormous truck – and they were moving fast.

I reached through the window and grabbed the steering-wheel to guide the car towards the hedge. It didn't seem to make much difference. I couldn't reach the handbrake, so I did the only thing I could. I ran behind the car, and tried to stop it.

It was slowly forcing me out into the path of the oncoming vehicles, but even if I left the traffic to its fate and tried to jump clear, the car that was going to hit it would hit me, too. Likewise, there was no way I could reach the safety of the hedge. It was too far away - my own car was going to run me over if I tried. The only hope left was somehow to stop the car.

That's when I found myself, in panic, praying, pushing with all my not-very-substantial might, and screaming at the car to stop.

I believe it was the praying part that worked. I wasn't clear of the traffic by very much when the car at last stood still. I did likewise, and watched as the three oncoming vehicles swept by... so close to each other that if the first one had hit, the others would have ploughed straight into it. Shakily, I got back inside the car and sent up a very incoherent thanksgiving.

Without thinking, I turned the key in the ignition. The engine fired first time, and I gratefully headed homewards to a cup of hot, strong coffee.

Sometimes Supreme Success means just surviving.

Surfing The Storm Surge

2007-11-09T14:54:00.001Z

Last night was a long and anxious one for the residents of eastern England, especially the area from Norfolk to the River Thames - they'd been told to prepare for the worst storm surge in more than 50 years.

A storm surge is what happens when a strong wind from the north or north west coincides with a really high tide. The reason why that matters is the shape of the country - its position in relation to Europe creates a comparatively narrow channel for all that energy to pass through.

It works like a funnel... and it makes the storm surge very powerful indeed.

These storm surges generally happen about every 20 years, apparently. They can be pretty scary, but they don't usually do a lot of damage.

This one, though, was expected to be different. The Environment Agency (part of the UK government) was warning local residents that the conditions were just right for this particular storm surge to be just about as bad as the infamous storm surge of 1953.

On January 31 and February 1 of that year, the country was swept by gales - just at the time of a massively high spring tide. The result was one of the worst disasters in the UK's peacetime history.

The gales started in the west, went round the north of Scotland, then swept down the east coast of England with a ferocity no-one had ever seen before.

From the River Tees, on the border between County Durham and North Yorkshire, to the Thames, the great river of London, the sea surged up to 2 miles inland. 307 people living in the coastal towns and villages within its path were killed.

133 passengers and crew on the ferryboat Princess Victoria drowned when the ship capsized in the Irish Sea. That included every one of the women and children on board, who'd been put, apparently safely, into lifeboats... which were then sucked into the maelstrom caused by the propellers as the big ship wallowed, helpless, on its side.

The waves at Ness Point, the most easterly part of the UK, rose to 20 feet. 177 fishermen, at sea when the storm hit, had no chance of survival.

On land, the sea smashed through the flood defenses in 1,000 places. 24,000 homes were damaged, and 30,000 people moved to safety. In today's money, the cost ran into millions.

Small wonder, then, that when the Environment Agency warned of "extreme danger to life and property" last night, people were alarmed. Many were evacuated from their homes; others stayed, but spent the night in fear.

In the early hours of this morning, a number of people went out to see the wild conditions for themselves. It was an unexpected sight that met their eyes.

Six surfers, lured by the prospect of the highest waves in over half a century, had taken to the water and were quite literally riding out the storm. They were clearly loving every minute of it. (Interviewed afterwards, one of them nonchalantly described the conditions as "pretty good - although the waves aren't the highest!")

My point in telling you this isn't to disrespect the people whose lives were lost or devastated back in 1953, or to downplay the very real and reasonable fears of the east coast residents last night.

Far from it. The prospect of a major disaster was all too genuine.

The point is that I can't off-hand think of a better example of reframing - the mind technique that lets you see the positive and energizing side of a situation you would rather not be in.

Where most people, very understandably, saw only fear and danger, 6 people saw a golden opportunity - a chance to do something most others could only dream about. Every surfer longs to find the biggest wave, and here was their big chance to do exactly that. They weren't going to waste it.

How many things that in your life could use reframing? How many things you've always thought were difficult or frightening, unpleasant or distasteful can you now see have the seeds of opportunity within them?

You might not have the answer right now, but spend a little time in thinking of it. Next time something happens that annoys you or frustrates you, disappoints you or causes you unhappiness, ask yourself what other ways there are of looking at it that will make you feel excited and empowered.

If you're upset about a relationship that's ended, don't forget that also means you're free to find yourself someone a lot more loving. If you hate your job, isn't that the greatest motivation you could have to find another one, or change career, or even strike out on your own?

If people facing a repeat of one of the worst disasters in their country's peacetime history can see it as exciting, and a major opportunity to do what they love best, you can.

Throw off your inhibitions, throw away your fears, and embrace your opportunities for your Supreme Success.

P.S. The storm surge peaked a whole lot lower than expected, and the east coast residents are now returning safely to their homes. It turns out that the surfers had the right idea.

The Slave In The Triumphal Chariot

2007-10-29T22:28:00.000Z

In Ancient Rome, when a general won extra territory or crushed rebellion, he would be welcomed home with a triumphal procession through the city.

It was his big opportunity to show the crowds how much success he'd had - how many prisoners he'd taken, and how much treasure he'd come back with.

Beside him in his chariot there would ride with him one of the most important people in the whole procession - a slave, who from time to time would lean forward and whisper just one sentence in his ear: "You're only human."

Successful Roman generals had a track record of believing that a man who'd won a battle had a right to rule the world... and to get rid of anyone who argued.

Reminding them that they were only human, and subject to the same laws as the rest of Roman society, was therefore more than just encouragement to keep their triumph in perspective. For other generals and prominent citizens of Rome, it was also the best chance that they would stay alive.

Sometimes it can be hard to remember that we're only human, too. It's very right and proper to want the things you do to turn out perfectly the whole time... but life's not like that.

We get things wrong sometimes. We make mistakes. We lose our concentration for just a moment, and do something that makes us feel completely stupid. We lose our temper sometimes with the people closest to us, and say something sharp that hurts somebody's feelings.

The other side of the coin is that we sometimes have that done to us, as well. It's easy to remember every mean, wrong-headed thing our parents, teachers, bosses, friends and even partner have said or done to hurt us - and to forget the things they've got spectacularly right.

It's easy to demand perfection from ourselves and everyone around us - but it isn't very helpful. The truth is that we're not perfect - any of us. We sometimes need to cut ourselves, and everybody else, some slack.

Self-belief means expecting the best possible performance from yourself - but not the impossible; self-esteem means knowing you're not perfect, but respecting yourself for always trying to improve - and liking yourself, anyway.

Once you can accept it's neither necessary nor possible for you to be completely perfect, you can start to feel the same way towards others, too - and once you let go of your perfectionism and stop expecting them to do exactly what you want, exactly as you want it, all the time, it takes the stress out of relationships and makes getting on with people much, much easier... and much more fun.

Relax, and stop demanding the impossible. Remind yourself from time to time... you're only human.

No - You DON'T Have Pictures!

2007-10-23T18:43:00.000+01:00

This afternoon, a friend asked for my help. He'd got an SMS text message telling him there was a picture waiting for him at what appeared to be the website of a well-known mobile phone provider, and he needed someone with a PC and some access to the Internet to get it for him. He assumed that it would be a family photo – jokingly, I said I hoped it wouldn't be obscene.

It was... and that was far from all.

My friend decided to complain to the police, so he asked me to download the picture to print out as evidence – apparently texted pictures don't remain online once they've been viewed, so downloading it appeared to be the only way he could report it, and I did.

Next time I tried to go online, my browser crashed. I got a message asking me to switch off the computer, leave it for one minute, then switch on again. I've only ever had that message once before – when I'd unwittingly downloaded a program with a rogue dialer embedded in it.

In case you're not familiar with these menaces, they're bits of coding that change your access number for the Internet without your knowledge, and route you through a seriously expensive premium line, instead.

My online access is protected against those, and the protection works by crashing the browser and asking me to switch the computer off (not just restart it). When I switch it on again, it reinstalls the proper access numbers.

If you have a cell-phone that doesn't accept pictures, you might like to treat any messages that tell you there's a picture waiting for you just the way you'd treat that kind of message in your e-mail from someone that you can't identify – delete it, without following the link.

If your ISP's not giving you rogue dialer protection, the alternative could be a very nasty phone bill.

A Luxury That NO-ONE Can Afford

2007-10-24T20:31:00.000+01:00

Last night I watched a TV documentary about one of the only two families whose members all survived the Warsaw Ghetto and the subsequent deportations to the Nazi death camps.

Not surprisingly, it made uncomfortable viewing – but the courage and resourcefulness of every member of the family were inspirational.

With both their parents missing and presumed dead, 12-year-old Margaret Frydman and her 8-year-old sister, Irene, were left to survive in way they could.

They were taken to a convent, where the nuns had to keep them hidden – the family was Jewish, and the penalty for sheltering a Jew in Poland at the time was death.

At one point, little Irene saw no-one at all for 14 days. She was given a supply of food which had to last her until someone could arrange to bring her more, but she had no idea when, if ever, that was going to be.

Many grown-ups would find it difficult to face being stuck in one small room, with no access to the outside world and not a glimpse of any other human being, for 14 days, let alone a little girl with no books, no toys, no idea of what had happened to her parents... and no real certainty that anyone would ever come to help her.

Worst of all, she'd no idea of what to do if no-one brought her any more to eat.

All four members of the family made it through the horrors of the Nazi occupation (their father had been held in Budapest, and their mother had survived a concentration camp), and thanks to Margaret's ingenuity they eventually were reunited.

Their parents have since died, but but both Margaret and Irene are alive and well.

Both qualified for good careers (Irene's still a much-sought-after dental expert), both have married and both have children and grand-children... and despite the ordeals that they've been through, both appear to be both physically and mentally unscathed.

Asked to explain how they'd not only stayed alive but weren't obviously traumatized for life, Irene had a very simple answer.

"Never," she said, with absolute conviction, "feel that you're a victim."

People who regard themselves as victims effectively are saying that they have no power. That attitude makes people helpless in the face of even the most minor difficulties or inconveniences.

By refusing to take responsibility for improving their situation, they deny themselves the opportunity to change things for the better. For the sake of a gratifying wallow in self-pity, they throw away the better, happier life that could be theirs.

Self-pity is a luxury that no-one can afford. It robs you of initiative, resilience, courage and resourcefulness. It saps your energy, ambition, self-esteem and self-respect.

If there's one attitude of mind that can destroy your hopes of getting anything you want from life, it's the "Nothing ever goes right for me" attitude of feeling like a victim. It's guaranteed to sabotage your every action, till it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Irene Frydman took courage, strength and sheer determination from her refusal, no matter what the circumstances, to see herself as any kind of victim. Success and happiness are only won by those who do the same.

Helping Them To Make It

2007-10-26T12:46:00.000+01:00

Hopefully, for most people who read this, Supreme Success means going for all the things you really want from life, without the sacrifice of what you have already - your health and fitness, your relationship, your friends and family, and whatever else you value.

For many people in the world, though, and, especially at this time of year, for birds and other wildlife, Supreme Success means simply to survive the night, and make it to the morning.

On TV and in the media we've seen the horrors of Dafur, and no doubt a lot of people reading this will have raised or given money to help Africa and other places where there's desperate need.

The hunger crisis facing many humans makes it easy to forget that there are other creatures, too, who need our help. It only takes a few minutes to provide it - and it doesn't even have to cost us anything.

The weather may be very different where you are, but here the temperature has dropped dramatically the past few days.

A sharp ground-frost has turned the local golf course into a sparkling wonderland - in the early morning sunshine, it looks as if it's carpeted with diamonds.

The air is crisp and fresh, the multi-colored leaves are coming down in vast profusion, acorns are strewn on the pathway through the woods... and the local birds are starving.

The ducks that usually live close to the bridge across a little stream have been missing all the summer. They're back now, quacking piteously, and fighting over the few bits of bread that any passer-by might throw them.

(It's worth taking some out specially, just to hear the lovely, contented little sounds they make when they're well-fed!)

In winter, a bird has to eat one third of its entire weight each day to stay alive. Less than that, and they simply can't keep warm enough to make it through the night.

Putting out peanuts and wild bird seed for the garden birds is wonderful, and if you have the chance to plant a shrub with winter berries on it you'll be doing lots of good - but even simply putting out left-over bread or a few stale biscuits is a life-saver.

It costs nothing to give them food that you would otherwise throw out, but it makes all the difference in the world to them.

If you haven't got a garden, there are lots of birds in parks, near streams, or pretty nearly anywhere outdoors who need some help in winter. They won't be fussy about the freshness of the bread - just grateful for the chance to stay alive.

If you do live near a park or stream, remember that the ducks or geese or swans who are well-fed at weekends and when school's out, and loving parents or grandparents encourage children to throw scraps to them, will probably go hungry once the kids are back at school.

It's best to put the food out in the morning - apart from the nocturnal kinds, a bird can only find its food in daylight, and in winter daylight hours are comparatively few.

That means that at the very time of year its need for food to combat cold is greatest, and when the sources of its natural supply (berries, insects, seeds, etc.) are at their lowest ebb, a bird has the fewest available hours of daylight to find food in.

The result? Each year, millions of them simply die of cold.

Please, if you have an extra slice or two of bread, you've trimmed some fat parts off your breakfast bacon, you maybe don't like crusts, or a few leftover biscuits have gone stale, don't just simply throw them in the bin.

Put them where the birds can find them, and help some fellow-creatures make it through the night.

The 6-Fold Increase

2007-10-26T17:32:00.000+01:00

I've just heard a story that I think you'll like. It comes from round about the beginning of the 20th Century, and it involves a very rich industrialist named Charles Schwab. You may not know the name, but at the time he would have been just about as famous as Bill Gates is now - a real example of Supreme Success, in fact.

One day Mr. Schwab was contacted by a member of a fairly new profession - an efficiency expert. The offer he was made intrigued him.

"If you let me spend just 15 minutes with each member of your executive staff," the expert said, "I'll increase your company's productivity and profits six-fold... and all you have to do is pay me, after 90 days, exactly what you think my work is worth."

Charles Schwab couldn't resist. After all, he was an efficient man, and he insisted his executives be every bit as efficient as himself. How could a total stranger possibly achieve a 6-fold increase in his business in that time?

Well, if it didn't work, at least it wasn't going to cost him anything.

He gave the go-ahead, and authorized the efficiency expert to talk to each of his executives in turn, for about a quarter of an hour.

By the time the 90 days were up, Charles Schwab had seen his already-thriving business transformed beyond his recognition - so much so that he gratefully wrote the expert a check for $35,000.

Now, by today's standards that might not sound like much of a recompense for someone who'd boosted a company's efficiency to that extent, but, remember, this was at a time when an average worker would be lucky to go home with $10 in his pocket for the week.

You'd imagine that the expert must have come up with something really groundbreaking to achieve results like that, wouldn't you? Something no-one else had ever heard or thought of? Something radical and difficult, that only top executives could use?

Not a bit of it. The technique that each executive was taught was very simple.

It's something you can do, as well, and you can start today. It won't cost you $35,000 - in fact, it doesn't cost you anything at all - and it'll work for you, just as it worked for Charles Schwab's company.

Every night, list the 6 most important things you have to do next day to get you where you want to go, and every morning...

Do them.

Start working on the first 6 things you know you need to do that day, and don't let anything distract you.

Focus on them till you've got them finished.

Unplug the phone. Switch off the TV. Don't check out your e-mails, unless they're work-related and you really need to. Keep away from all the social network sites. Ignore all invitations to have coffee and a chat, and anything else that might get in the way, until you've finished.

A clear view of where you want to go (listing the next day's 6 most important items) and a strong and energetic focus on getting there (getting those things done) will transform your life and fortunes, too.

Try it yourself for 90 days, and see!

Making The Difference

2007-10-23T15:13:00.000+01:00

A singer with a well-known band was wondering if he was really in the right profession. He loved what he was doing, but he wanted something more. He looked around him at the problems in the world, and he yearned to make a difference. Music alone, he thought, would never let him do that.

Then, out of the blue, someone wrote to him – a letter very different from the fan mail he was used to. It started off by saying, "Thank you for saving, at the very least, my sanity - and probably my life, as well."

Its writer had been in an unhappy situation - bullied by her boss at work, and in a difficult relationship at home. She felt so miserable, she said, that one day as she stood waiting to cross the road she seriously thought of stepping out in front of an oncoming truck, and had to force herself to turn away. Shaken at what she'd come so close to doing, she realized something had to change.

She knew the band's music, and on an impulse bought their album. On it were a couple of tracks she hadn't heard before, but immediately loved. She played them... over and over.

They had a powerful effect on her. They made her forget all the things that were going on around her. They filled her with excitement, enjoyment, energy and hope.

"I'd forgotten what it felt like to be happy," she said. "Once the music made me feel that way again, I wanted more of it!"

She played it on her way to work, and on her way back home. She played it every time she was alone. The more she played it, the more she found the feeling of happiness and optimism was lasting even when the music was turned off. She found she had the confidence to change things.

She started a business venture of her own, and left her job. She told her partner that if he didn't treat her better she would leave him. She changed her hairstyle, and she bought new clothes. Her life was transformed beyond all recognition. She had self-respect.

"It was enjoyment of your music that began it," the letter said. "It gave me energy and hope that changed my life – and maybe even saved it. I just want you to know the difference you've made for me."

So – there it was. The man who so much longed to make a difference was making one already, without any conscious effort... just by going where his talent took him.

We're given talents for a reason – and it's not to let them go to waste.

No matter if your talents and ambitions are for music or for teaching, for commerce or for home-making and parenting, or whatever other kind that they might be, you never know how many lives you'll touch for good by using them... or, if you don't, how many people suffer from the lack of what your talents could provide.

If you're in any doubt of how best you can use yours, a visit to Supreme Success.com is where to start.

Hello To The HelpDesk

2007-10-18T23:56:00.001+01:00

Well, that's been fun. I switched the computer on this morning to discover almost 1,500 rogue e-mails - some of them spam, but most of them mail which had been supposedly returned to me... but which I'd never sent.

Someone's been forging the e-mail address. Again.

Even deleting the wretched things took a lot of time that I could have much more usefully and enjoyably have spent doing a lot of other things. Watching paint dry would have definitely qualified.

Anyway, this time I've decided that enough is very definitely enough. Supreme-Success.com now has a brand new HelpDesk, so the latest e-mail address doesn't actually need to appear at all - clicking on the e-mail graphic now takes you straight to the contact form, complete with ticket system and automatic acknowledgment service. You just fill in the details of your enquiry and your contact information, and then hit Submit.

I like the HelpDesk. The way it works behind the scenes makes e-mails easier to organize and deal with quickly, and I'm all for that - so even though it's taken me most of the day to put things right, I suppose the spammers have actually done me a good turn.

That doesn't mean I'm going to let them get their hands on yet another e-mail address if I can help it, though!

Welcome To Supreme Success!

2007-10-12T18:31:00.001+01:00

Hi, and welcome to the Supreme Success blog.

Like the Supreme Success site, it's going to be about how you can achieve the things in life that mean the most to you - and, of course, the great thing about a blog is that it's perfect to add all sorts of little tips and tricks without making lots of changes on the site itself.

First of all, heartfelt apologies to anyone who's read any of my previously-published articles and followed the link to access-your-peak-performance-zone.com, then tried to buy one of the subliminal audio tracks, only to find the purchase links disabled.

The reason was that I was moving them to a new server and launching a new and much more comprehensive site (and with a much more user-friendly name!), and it's taken a whole lot longer than I thought it would.

However, the new site's up and running now, with several more personal empowerment audio tracks and a new book on offer... and a free book for everyone who visits.

No strings... no information to supply... no being forced to join a mailing list (though, of course, you're very welcome to sign up for the e-zine if you'd like to!)... nothing to do except download it - and make use of it.

It's easy to download a free book, put it on your hard drive, and forget about it.

Please, don't do that with this one.

You see, one very big the reason why so many people don't achieve the things they want to have or be is that the people around them and the situations that they're in are often so depressing and so disempowering.

This book's designed to be an antidote to that. It has an encouraging quotation for each day of the year (and, yes - including Leap Year), from some of the most famous people, past and present, in the world.

From John Fitzgerald Kennedy to Oprah Winfrey, from Thomas Edison to Bono, there's a dazzling array of famous names waiting to share their wit and wisdom with you - so, please...

Download it to your desktop, where you can see it every time that you sit down at your computer, and open it for just a few moments once a day.

Every day - and preferably before you start your work.

That gives you a burst of energy and enthusiasm that will get you off to a flying start, and make a real impact on everything you want to do.

To collect your copy right now, just head over to Your Daily Inspiration, and...

Enjoy!

The Curse Of The Flightle Bee

2007-10-12T22:52:00.000+01:00

Back in the days when presenters for the UK's national broadcaster, the BBC, had to be very, very careful about the language that they used on air, I'm told that the presenter of a music show was worried about his introduction to a particular piece – The Flight of the Bumble Bee, by Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov.

The title was easy enough, of course, but he couldn't get his tongue round the composer's name. Hard as he practiced, he was convinced that he was going to make a mess of it, and the night before the show he hardly slept.

At last the dreaded moment came, and the presenter took a deep breath and announced, “The next piece is by that popular composer, Rimsky-Korsakov...”

”YES!” he thought triumphantly. “I've done it – I've done it! Nothing can go wrong now.”

Then he gave the title as... “The Bum of the Flightle Bee.”

Now, the word “bum” doesn't mean in Britain what it means in the US. It means the equivalent of “a-s” - the part of your anatomy you sit upon.

It's actually considered a very mild word now, but apparently at that time it was high up on the list of things you couldn't say on air. The mistake the presenter was so scared of making, a simple mispronunciation of a name in a language he was unfamiliar with, would actually have got him into far less trouble with his bosses than the one he did make.

The point of the story is that what you focus on is what you get.

If you keep thinking hard enough, for long enough, that you're going to get something horribly wrong, the intensity of your feelings about it will convince your inner mind that that's the very thing you want to happen... and it will find a way it can achieve it for you.

No matter how hard you work, no matter how hard you try, how talented you are, what great ideas you have, or how much you would love to have Supreme Success... if what you're mainly feeling is a fear of failure, then that's exactly what you're going to get – your inner mind will show you how to sabotage your progress so that it can help you make those pictures in your head come true.

To be successful, see yourself as utterly successful. Feel all the excitement and anticipation of it. Hold that picture as strongly as you can, and thoroughly enjoy it. The more intense your feelings are, the faster it'll happen.

You have to do the work as well, of course – but that feeling will inspire you to do it better, and more easily.

What you focus on is what you get... so make sure you're always focused on success.

Meeting The Terracotta Men

2007-10-16T15:53:00.000+01:00

If you're in or anywhere near London in the next few weeks, I can thoroughly recommend a visit to the British Museum's exhibit of some of China's terracotta men.

In case you don't know the background to them (I must admit I didn't until recently), they're just a few of the estimated eight thousand lifesize figures buried with Ying Zheng, China's first emperor, in about 230 BC, apparently as servants to cater for his needs in the next world.

They weren't seen again until a chance discovery in 1974 unearthed a few of them, and so far about 1,000 have turned up.

A dozen of them are currently on show at the museum, and the best part of the whole thing is, you can get close to them... actually walk up to them and look them in the eye. It's a very strange experience, and really moving - and they're not at all the way I'd pictured them.

I'd imagined they'd be... well, just terracotta figures, with nothing much more special than their story to recommend them.

I can only say that I owe them, and the 1,000 people believed to have sculpted them, a massive apology.

They are incredible. They're absolutely lifelike, and have real personality. Apparently when they were originally sculpted they were painted, too, with proper flesh-tones for their hands and faces, and the appropriate colors for their clothes. That must have been some sight to behold!

It had simply not occurred to me that people were producing works of art of that standard over 2,000 years ago - the word "impressive" doesn't even begin to do them justice.

Apparently they were modelled on real people - the sculptors are believed to have used their fellow-workers as their inspiration - and that's what really made me think.

The terracotta men are all unique individuals, different in height and build and facial expression, and not to be mistaken for any of their colleagues. Some look happy - some look fierce. Some carry various implements apparently designed to show what they were skilled in - as well as warriors, there are acrobats, musicians, and even a few bureaucrats, too!

That's what really got me thinking. You see, every human being is just as individual - in looks, in personality, in temperament and in their talents - not just the amount of talent someone has, but in the precise combination of abilities, ambitions, skills and interests they possess. No-one else has now, has had or is going to have, the same.

That means, if you don't use the skills you have, there's no-one else to do it for you. No-one else can write the books or poems, songs or business plans that you might. No-one else can solve the problems you can, in the ways that you can solve them. No-one else can be the partner, parent, friend or colleague you can be... and no-one else can have exactly the same measure of success in what you want to do as you can.

The sculptors of the terracotta men created work that's lasted for 2,000 years, and still has power to delight and to inspire. What can you create... and why not start right now?

Supreme Success

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Happy New Year!

The Yellow Rose Of Winter

Better Than A Feast (Part 2)

Taking Back Control

Untying The Elephant

Sphere Of Influence

Saving The Cheerleader

Making It In Movies

A Present For The Future

Much Better Than A Feast

Much Better Than A Feast

The Petrelli Factor

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