Power of Persistence

Calvin Coolidge quote:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

Motivational Video

Hi readers,

Everybody needs a mentor or coach to push them to achieve their goals, whether they need it or not.

Will Smith Wisdom

Hi readers,

In this video, Will Smith shares his secrets of success.

Enjoy watching!

Move Forward To Grow Wiser by Mark Foo

As you move forward, you grow wiser.

Move forward because standing still is the guaranteed way to fail. Moving forward, whether you walk through victories or defeats, is the only way you will learn and grow.

Every step you take brings you one step closer to your goals. While on the journey to your dreams, you gather wisdom from your experiences, which helps you make better decisions in the future. In doing so, you are setting yourself up for a life with no regrets.

Be eager to learn new lessons around you every day. You are mature enough to learn from the situations of others even before you face those situations yourself. When you experience a shortcoming, remind yourself that mistakes are simply lessons in disguise.

When you experience a personal victory, take note of successful strategies that you can use in the future. If you ever encounter failure, reflect on your actions in order to perform better the next time.

Open yourself up to new challenges with confidence allowing life to be your classroom. Each day, embrace life with the expectation that you will receive knowledge from the most unexpected places.

Be daring to venture into every day, even when you are surrounded by uncertainty, because being a risk taker pays off with new knowledge that you never would have acquired otherwise.

Today, choose to walk forth into your destiny with wisdom and direction. Embrace the opportunity to learn from the many sources of knowledge that engulf you. Your knowledge increases as you fearlessly accept the lessons you are being taught by life itself.

Self-Reflection Questions:

1. What lessons has life taught you recently?
2. What unexpected knowledge can you find today?
3. How can you share your wisdom with others?

Anything In The Horizon Is Possible by Mark Foo

As long as you think you can, anything in the horizon is possible.

Always be open to the possibility of success. Look for ways to succeed rather than excuses to fail, and so you'll enjoy the thrills of success. Confidence and an optimistic attitude are the traits that pave the way.

In the classic story, The Little Engine That Could, it was the smallest engine in the train yard that climbed the mountain to save the day. He just kept saying, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..." all the way up.

In the same way, you don't have to be the strongest, smartest, most beautiful, most educated, or most experienced person to succeed. All your lights don't have to be green in order for you to get started on your journey to success.

The world is filled with examples of people who've succeeded despite the tremendous odds against them! What makes the difference? Attitude!

Develop your winning attitude daily with affirmations and positive self-talk. Congratulate yourself for even trivial achievements because what are they? Successes of course!

If you feel your confidence waning, remind yourself of your past successes to build it back up again.

When you encounter a challenge, waste no time in continuing to move ahead. Just tell yourself, "I think I can," and jump right into searching for a viable solution.

Today, make your mantra to be "I think I can." Nothing is out of reach for you if you decide it is what you want. Your can-do attitude can always bring you success!

Self-Reflection Questions:

1. When you start toward a new goal, what is your attitude?
2. What goal have you achieved simply because you thought you could?
3. What's holding you back? How can you move past that and believe in the possibility of your success?

Take Pride in Your Small Achievements‏ by Mark Foo

Take pride in your small achievements, for each step brings you closer to success.

Develop a bulletproof plan for success and let it keep you
fulfilled and motivated all along the way! It is your road map and every small task you accomplish is one step on the road to attaining your goals.

Divide every major goal in your life into a series of smaller goals that lead up to it. Then divide each of the smaller goals into a series of small, attainable tasks.

Once you take the time to figure out the smaller goals and tasks, you'll have a sure-fire plan for success. All you need to do is dive right in!

Schedule some quick and easy tasks for the beginning so that even large projects can be easily started. This helps you build your focus and momentum. Once you get going like this, it's easier to keep going, even when challenges arise because you'd already have the momentum to solve the problem and continue on.

Keep your plan flexible so that small detours around a challenge can still get you to your destination.

So in your plan, every task completed - every small achievement - is something to be proud of. Each task is an integral part of your journey to success. When you complete even the smallest one, celebrate your victory.

Today, make it a point to figure out your detailed plan for success and then jump right in to achieve those small victories on your journey.

Self-Reflection Questions:

1. What is your plan for success?
2. What small steps can you put at the beginning to get yourself started right away?
3. Do you feel proud of yourself for your small achievements?

Taxi - Living Life‏

Dear readers,

A story to share...

I arrived at the address where someone had requested a taxi. I honked but no one came out. I honked again, nothing. So I walked to the door and knocked.

'Just a minute', answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90's stood before me.

She was wearing a pink dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940s movie.

By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.

There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.

'Would you carry my bag out to the car?' she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, and then returned to assist the woman.

She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.

She kept thanking me for my kindness. 'It's nothing', I told her. 'I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated'.

'Oh, you're such a good boy', she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address, and then asked, 'Could you drive through downtown?'

'It's not the shortest way,' I answered quickly.

'Oh, I don't mind,' she said. 'I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a
hospice'.

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. 'I don't have any family left,' she continued.

'The doctor says I don't have very long.'

I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

'What route would you like me to take?' I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.

We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds.

She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, 'I'm tired. Let's go now'

We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.

Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

'How much do I owe you?' she asked, reaching into her purse.

'Nothing,' I said

'You have to make a living,' she answered.

'There are other passengers,' I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly.

'You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,' she said.

'Thank you.'

I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light. Behind
me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life.

I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk.

What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift?

What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

On a quick review, I don't think that I have done anything more important in my life.


We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great
moments.

But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

PEOPLE MAY NOT REMEMBER EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID, OR WHAT YOU SAID, BUT THEY WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL.

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance.

The #1 Reason Why Most Goals Never Manifest by Thomas Herold

I am sure you understand the idea of setting goals in life to empower yourself. Perhaps what you don't know is that goals require a constant stream of force behind them to keep them alive. In other words, you need to push them all the time to make them come true.

Constantly pushing of your goals, while necessary, is also detrimental to the effective manifestation of the goals themselves. Goals are artificially created by the mind and backed up by the concepts and beliefs that allow them to work.

Take away the concepts and beliefs that give them the foundation to live and your goals will evaporate in no time at all.

How Does This Look Like in Practice?

Let’s assume you've set a goal to lose weight. As you may already know, it is important to set each goal precisely. So losing weight, like any goal, should include exact particulars of what you want to accomplish. Let’s say you want to lose 25 pounds over the next three months, starting today. This goal needs a foundation to work. You need to have some sort of motivation that encourages you to accomplish this goal.

Perhaps one or more of the following acts as your motivation to lose the weight:

• You want to look attractive to others
• You want to look attractive to your partner
• You believe that you are overweight
• You want to fit into your favorite dress or pants again

You need a reason to lose the weight, something that can motivate you to achieve your goal. Whatever the reason behind the goal, you absolutely need to have one, otherwise you won’t have the motivation to even start.

Think of the reason as the decision to change something in your life and the motivation as the energy that affects that change.

The mere act of starting on any goal can be incredibly challenging as it involves being willing to change some of your usual behaviors and concepts in life. We all know what a challenge changing your behavior and concepts can be!

Behavior is changed in the physical domain while concepts are changed in the mental domain. This double whammy of both the physical and the mental is what makes a simple life change like weight loss such a challenge to bring off successfully.

Successful goals always come from a corresponding change in the mental domain.

Why is This?

Simply put, it is because your mind and your thoughts are what create your reality. If you change only your behavior, you will have only short-term success. In time, you will fall back into your old patterns of behavior – the very thing you tried to change in the first place!

So let's assume you are in the second month of your weight loss goal and your partner leaves you. What happens to your goal about losing weight? It doesn’t matter anymore, it diminishes and evaporates into thin air. You just took away both the foundation and the energy for accomplishing your goal. You no longer have a reason and you've lost your motivation.

The problem with goals is that they depend on life circumstances – and they are always forced by mental concepts.

How About Dreams?

Your dreams are powered by Source, by the ultimate power of consciousness. Your dreams are the recognition of what you can do with the unique gifts and talents you have brought into this life. Every person exists with a unique set of talents. These talents lead to a unique way of expressing themselves through various forms of creativity. Universal creativity is really what powers everything behind all manifestation.

With this creativity you are able to serve other people, and in return, you get rewarded with a form of energy. In Western civilization, the most common reward is often money, but creative rewards often come in many other energetic forms like status and recognition, authority, greater outreach to others and more.

In Summary:

You discover your strengths, gifts and talents. You find ways to use them that enrich and support society in practical ways. You are in service to others for serving others in this way is truly life’s ultimate purpose.

Your dreams are powered by your unique creative abilities. These abilities are like a never-ending fountain, the wellspring of your life. They will always be with you, in good times and bad. They are completely apart from and independent of mental concepts. They are powered by your true nature. You can deny them, but you can’t get rid of them.

Even on the worst day of your life, your dreams still exist. If you don’t live your dreams, you must constantly suppress them by engaging in mental concepts like:

• I am too old to start
• I don’t know how to do it
• Nobody will be interested in it
• My friends will hate me when I do it
• You name it!

I have used the words force and power in association with goals and dreams. To understand the concepts behind these words, I highly recommend David Hawkins' book Power Versus Force. Here are a few definitions from the book that help explain the idea of power versus force:

• Force is associated with the partial, power with the whole
• Force must always be justified, power requires no justification
• Force always creates counter-force and its effect is limited by definition
• Force is a movement, power is a skill
• Force always moves against something, power doesn’t move against anything at all
• Force is incomplete and therefore has to be fed energy constantly
• Power is total and complete in itself and requires nothing from outside
• Force constantly consumes while power energizes, supplies and supports
• Pow er gives life and energy, force takes these away
• Power is associated with compassion, force is associated with judgment
• Force requires proof and support, power is inarguable and not subject to proof

People who fulfill their dreams are the happiest people on earth.

They do what’s in their nature. In the end, it is completely irrelevant to them what kind of dreams they have. Dreams don’t need to fit into anything. They don’t need any approval. They don’t need any money to start.

Goals are temporary fixes of your mental desires that do not provide you with lasting happiness. The new car will get old and rusty, the new house will lose its charm over time, and if your goal is to create the perfect partner, you will begin to see your partner’s imperfections over time as well.

Your dreams are a recognition of what you truly are and how you can contribute to this world. You will never do anything else in life more important than this. In fact, in a very real sense there is nothing else in life but this. There is no true retirement from the contributions you can make in this life. You literally live the dream that is your life to your very last breath.

Why not start today to live your dreams in earnest?

What Makes You Stronger by Mark Foo

You are made stronger through adversities.

Life can be hard. You need to accept that as part of the natural order of things. In fact, if you didn't have the hard times, you couldn't appreciate the complete joy of the good times, either!

I am reminded of the well-known statement, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!" This is very true. Even when you feel as if you cannot bear any more, persevere and you will come out of the situation knowing that you are stronger than ever.

Just as your body is strengthened with tough exercises, your character is strengthened by hardships. These challenges exert pressure on you and make you feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. But each hardship you conquer makes it easier for you to lift off the weight of the next one.

Overcoming hardships also brings you the confidence to face new challenges. If you did it once, twice, or many times, you know that you can do it again!

Living through hardship also provides you a new appreciation of life. Be grateful for the good times and can find joy in even the most trivial moments.

Today, plan to persevere through any hardship that may befall you, knowing that you can come out on the other side of the situation stronger than before.

Self-Reflection Questions:

1. How has one of your recent hardships made you stronger?
2. Did it allow you to appreciate the good things in your life more fully?
3. Now that you've been through it, do you feel more confident about future hardships?

Learn To Enjoy Change by Mark Foo

Change is a blessing that you should learn to enjoy.

Be grateful for the gift of change. Without change, you would never be able to grow, learn new things, accomplish your goals, or look forward to anything different than what you've got. Even though you may resist change at times, you should learn to enjoy its possibilities.

Even when change is forced upon you and brings challenges, it opens new doors of opportunity. Do realise that a change that seems devastating can actually propel you into a better life!

Where would you be today if you had not lost that job, causing you to seek a better, more fulfilling path in life? How could you have the spouse you enjoy now if you had not left your old boyfriend/girlfriend behind?

Change is one of the blessings that come with the power of choice. You can choose to leave things the way they are, or change them to something better.

You can choose to waste your life fighting inevitable changes or take advantage of them and enjoy life. When life hands you lemons, choose to make lemonade!

Change allows you to learn and grow. As you strive to achieve your goals, embrace the changes in your life that bring you ever closer to success. With each change, you'll become more knowledgeable, stronger, and more confident that you can handle whatever life may bring.

Know that today brings its share of changes. Choose to welcome them all and allow yourself to enjoy all opportunities that come your way.

Self-Reflection Questions:

1. What changes are you resisting in your life right now?
2. How can you embrace these changes and use them to improve your life?
3. Is there something you can change to move you closer to your goals?

The 5 Emotional Beasts that Prey on your Power to Manifest by Thomas Herold

Do you know the difference between a feeling and an emotion?

You may say that emotions are much deeper and stronger than feelings. From one viewpoint, that's true. However, here’s a detail about feelings that you may not know about: you can observe your feelings but not your emotions.

When you experience feelings you are the observer and in full control; when you experience emotions, you cannot remain the observer and you are not in control.

Emotions Seems to Have a Life of its Own

In most cases, you can only experience them and not control them. You are no longer in control – the emotions are! They act collectively as a kind of psychic clone of the more complete, more human you.

That's the reason why we have emotional reactions to things that we sometimes later regret. We scream at our partners, we leave our friends, and we smash things until they break. Mostly, this emotional clone is reactive, uncontrollable, and seemingly independent from our core selves.

The Wolf Story

A sage once said that each person has both a white and a black wolf inside himself that constantly fight each other. The black wolf is aggressive and reactive and the white wolf is calm and social. The winner of this battle is simply decided by which wolf we feed. Most of the time we are not aware that, more often than not, we feed the black wolf and not the white one.

What can be done about this?

The black wolf can only live inside when you create it in the first place. A black wolf is a black hole that sucks up your energy.

1. The Black Wolf Called Anger

Anger is the result of not taking 100% responsibility for your life. You created this wolf by reacting to an experience. Then you forgot that you created it. If you decide to take ownership of your creation, you must simply feel your way through the original experience. That feeling could be sadness, for example, but not anger.

Sadness is the original feeling and an angry black wolf is the emotional result.

Perhaps you blame someone else for your anger. By doing so, you make another person responsible for the wolf creation that is yours and yours alone! It’s important to remember that everything in this world is a creation of yours in one form or another, even things that seem to have nothing to do with you directly.

2. The Black Wolf Called Resentment

Resentment is very close to anger. When you harbor resentment, you limit the spectrum of your feeling nature and a major part of you closes down. When you resent someone, you are saying very forcefully that the other person is the problem, the cause and the fault, not you. You forcefully blame the other person so you don't have to look within.

You are declaring the other person, group or institution to be your enemy.

The problem is that resenting your enemy creates a dilemma that centers around the conflict that come from not taking full responsibility for the the situation. Ultimately, it is you who has the conflict, you who faces the dilemma, and you who began to harbor resentment.

3. The Black Wolf Called Blame

Like resentment, blame is not much different from anger. In both cases, you attempt to make someone else responsible for what you feel by creating an emotional reaction. Resentment and blame are different faces of this type of emotional reaction.

Resentment is a form of disappointment that seems to have its source on the outside. For example, should you get fired it seems logical that the cause is your employer. If such a calamity happened, there probably wouldn’t be much you could do about it. The cause seems to be external (your boss) even though your emotional reaction is generated within.

Everything changes when you accept that the cause is always you.

You created it (you took the job), you experienced and accepted the situation (you created a positive or negative environment in which to work), and you reaped the results (you got rewarded or fired). You alone are responsible for this wolf. Why did you create a black wolf when you could have just as easily created a white one?

4. The Black Wolf Called Guilt

Guilt is much like blame of others, but turned back on yourself. When you’re guilty, you actually take ownership of what you did. So why would you feel bad about it? Because you judge yourself as having taken the wrong action in a given situation.

You did it and now you are convinced it was wrong.

With a little introspection, you’ll realize that guilt does not come from the original situation or action itself, but from the self-imposed judgment after the action. This judgment is, in fact, an emotional reaction that questions the original action you took in a given situation. When things fall apart afterwards, you tell yourself, “I made a mistake; I did not want to cause this.” You blame yourself.

5. The Black Wolf Called Betrayal

This is one of the hardest beasts to tame. The emotion of betrayal runs deeply. Betrayal occurs mostly after you have trusted someone close who then fails to satisfy that trust in some fashion. By trusting someone, you opened yourself up to be in a vulnerable state.

At some point, your trust is betrayed or even used against you. You thought that you had correctly judged your confidant as trustworthy, but now you are being punished in some way. It just makes no sense – it hurts! Betrayal is the emotional reaction to this (perhaps completely justified) feeling of being hurt by another.

Negative Emotions are a Pack of Black Wolves

This pack is vicious, fast, and can be deadly. They hunt you from the outside, circling closer until they can attack within. They may stalk you for days, months, or even years. This pack follows some people to their graves, snapping and snarling all the way. The pack is energetic and invincible. Like black wolves, e-motions are negative energy in motion.

It's part of your creative manifesting power used against yourself!

You can eliminate them in a very short time – given the correct understanding of their nature and the techniques to vanquish them. The most potent weapon against them involves a miraculous inner process few practice completely, let alone fully understand.

Remain Adaptable To Everyday Changes by Mark Foo

Change is a natural part of life. Those who adapt, thrive. Those who don't, become extinct! Choose to thrive, to use change to help you grow and learn, and to take advantage of new opportunities to help you succeed.

When you think about it, you'll realize that the only true constant in life is change. As each new day dawns, it brings you new opportunities. As each day passes, you know that you are different, even if only slightly, from the day before.

Know that you can incorporate life's changes into your journey with confidence.

If a day does not go as planned, restructure your timetable to fit in the change. Leave enough room in your schedule to make some unplanned stops along the way. Then get back on track as soon as you are able to.

When challenges arise, adjust your path to accommodate them. Take time to seek solutions and then act decisively on your decision, adapting to the new circumstances without flinching.

Major changes may even require you to adjust your priorities or reset your goals. Let go of the tendency to resist something just because it is a change from what you are used to. Instead, re-make your plans to take advantage of the benefits these new changes can
bring.

Today, plan to discover the benefits of change and adapt yourself to make the best use of your new opportunities.

Self-Reflection Questions:

1. Do you have a tendency to resist change?
2. What recent change has brought you positive benefits?
3. What can you do to take advantage of some of the changes in your life?

Give Yourself Permission To Be Imperfect by Mark Foo

Release yourself from any need to strive for perfection. Know that your imperfections help to make up the unique and wonderful person that you are.

Your imperfections enhance your beauty. All you have to do is look toward nature to discover the beauty in imperfection.

In a grove of colorful trees in the fall, each tree is just as beautiful as the next, although not a single leaf is the same. With zebras, each one has imperfections in its stripes, which add to its unique beauty.

Realize that those who love you do not love you for being perfect, but for being who you are - including all your imperfections. Your flaws are an integral part of the total package. If you were perfect, you would be a different entity altogether.

Your shortcomings enable you to grow and learn. Self-improvement brings the joy of success in knowing that you are getting better and better. If you were perfect, you would never feel this joy and you'd have nothing to aim for. You would wander aimlessly through life.

Your imperfections also bring variety to your life. Because you are imperfect, you change as life goes on. Process your experiences in your own unique ways and you are a little different from one day to the next.

Today, feel thankful for your imperfections and look forward to the varied experiences and many blessings on your life journey.

Self-Reflection Questions:

1. How do you feel about your flaws?
2. What good things have your imperfections brought to you?
3. How can you be thankful for your flaws?

How To Sell Without Selling by Manoj Sharma

Here is a scenario you are probably familiar with if you are in sales:

The marketplace is competitive. You need to meet your targets. Time is running out. Desperation is in the air. The buyer is not that keen. You know you need to differentiate, but the similarities are too obvious to hide.

You pitch passionately. It does not seem to work. The buyer tells you he is going to buy from someone else. Once again, you are left facing that all-too-familiar sinking feeling and you hate it. You wonder what strategic sales approach will make a difference.

After years of working with, coaching and learning from the top sales professionals around the world, I have compiled a list of selling “don’ts” or principles that will help you to benefit from the art of selling without selling.

Don’t sell ice to the Eskimos

Make people buy things they need. You can create desire by being compelling, you can seduce people to your point of view and you can even exhibit your undying passion for your product or service. But a true sales professional is one who discovers a customer’s needs and fulfils it.

Do this for your customers and you will surely create a sales pipeline that keeps rewarding you past the first interaction with them.

Don’t make an elephant climb a wall

Buyer’s remorse is painful to deal with. If you have convinced your buyer to buy above what he can afford, it is like getting an elephant to climb a wall — it is not natural and even if it does get up the wall, it is going to come crashing down hard on you.

I know of numerous sales professionals who close sales, whether in “small money” consumer environments or “million-dollar” business environments, only for the buyers to come back and demand a recourse or, worse, take legal action.

Don’t fall into this trap; the euphoria of making the sale will not be worth the gloom of the sales recovery that follows.

Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle

When a woman wants a dress, she does not buy it because it looks good on the mannequin or even because it looks good on her. She buys it because she envisions the impact she will make wearing that dress, either at work or a party. Find the benefit and sell that. This is what in the sales profession we call “selling the sizzle”. Focus on this and not on selling the steak.

Don’t just sell on emotion or logic alone

There are sales staff who sell purely on emotion and there are those that sell only on logic. These are practical sellers; they convey the hard facts, are happy to deal with the figures and will work out the return on investment for you. To be a top professional, you need to learn how to incorporate both selling styles.

Don’t be a hit and run artist

You often find yourself in a hurry to close the deal. And who can fault you when you have targets to meet and deadlines to beat? But rushing is not the hallmark of great sales professionals and is not conducive to selling without selling.

To sell without selling, you need to take the time to engage people in a dialogue, a two-way communication in which both parties take turns to listen. A major key to selling without selling is to build relationships.

Relationships are built on a foundation of trust, which is gained by listening and speaking with genuine sincerity. Unfortunately, this takes time, which “hit and run” salesmen don’t want to invest in.

Don’t sell the way your competitors do

The “same-old” can never lead to the “different-new”.

There is terminal normality in the marketplace.

Organisations are selling similar products at similar price points, hiring similar people with similar backgrounds who think similarly, sell similarly and have similar branding, marketing and sales strategies.

Selling without selling requires the customer to feel the difference without you having to sell the difference. Think about that long and hard and see what you can come up with to differentiate yourself.

Don’t sell like a prophet

A doomsday prophet and an overzealous priest are not great role models for salesmen who want to build lasting relationships which will allow them to subsequently sell without selling.

Don’t pressure sell, nobody likes it. Don’t artificially create time frames if they truly don’t exist. Don’t create doomsday scenarios or induce fear.

Don’t overstate the truth. These are typical things salesmen have been taught that make them sell like soothsayers. Just be genuine and truthful.

Eliminate the “don’ts” and you will be left with the “do’s”. This approach will go a long way to building great relationships.

It will allow you to sell without selling when other people are desperately attempting to “sell”.

Anthony Robbins' 10 Day Challenge‏

Day 1 - Vital Breathing

Learn the breathing techniques that increase your aerobic capacity, boost your energy and detoxify your lymph system.

If you are able to give yourself five to ten minutes each day to practice deep, cleansing 'power breathing' then you will definitely reap the rewards. This is one of the best, most effective exercises you can do for free, every day.

• Breathe in for 1 count
• Hold for 4 counts
• Breathe out for 2 counts

If you are able to do this ten times, three times a day (morning, evening and before bed) you will notice a huge difference to your energy, your clarity and your ability to ward off illnesses.

Day 2 - Living Waters and Live Food

Ensure that you consume at least three litres of quality, alkaline water per day and that 70% of food consumed is alkalising and high-water content.

The ideal waters to consume are those that are nutrient-rich and can be immediately used by your body. These waters are those that are found in fresh, raw foods such as vegetables, salads and low-sugar fruits.

These are some of the most water-rich, alkaline foods that you should look for:

Food	%water	Food	%water
Cucumber	94%	Grapefruit	88%
Watercress	90%	Aubergine	92%
Tomatoes	93%	Cauliflower	91%
Spinach	92%	Carrots	90%
Onions	89%	Broccoli	92%
Lettuce	96%

Day 3 - Aerobic Power

Exercise aerobically at least six times over the next ten-days and experience the massive boost in energy that aerobic power brings.

Do you remember Tony's rebounder? As you'll recall, rebounding benefits every muscle and cell of the body and provides huge benefits to the lymph system.

Having conducted research into the best and most effective aerobic exercise to train their staff, NASA concluded that exercise on a rebounder is "the most efficient and effective exercise yet devised by man".

Day 4 - Maximum Nourishment

Learn how to give your body the gift of total nourishment through nutrition, planning and rest.

Properly combine your foods for maximum nourishment and energy.

Many research studies have proven that different foods and drinks cause different reactions in the digestive system. If foods are poorly combined, the chemicals that are secreted to digest these different foods can cause negative reactions and can lead to foods not being properly digested.

Our bodies are not designed to digest complex meals, particularly not some of the classics we feed ourselves when we consume starch and protein together (i.e. almost any kind of sandwich, fish and chips, meat and potatoes etc).

Day 5 - A Directed Mind

Learn how to set goals effectively, plan your time and limit the stress and worry in your life. Experience the power of questions.

There are three basic components to having a directed mind:

1. Relaxation/ Stress Control
2. Creative and Achievable Goals and Aims
3. Strong and Enjoyable Relationships

7 points to consider in having a directed and focused mind:

1. The mind has a tremendous power over the body - the two should not be considered in isolation
2. Anger and resentment are poisonous to the body!
3. Stress is a result of how you interpret situations and the associations that you have to specific situations
4. Fear and stress compromise your immune system!
5. Stress disappears in a state of certainty
6. Physiology plays a major part in how we feel mentally. Emotion is created by motion!
7. Stress and upset disappears if we have a compelling future. Set goals, review your goals and reward yourself for moving forward.

Day 6 - Structural Support

Build sufficient rest, relaxation and sunshine into your life and your daily routine.
Here are 5 structural support guidelines:

1. Give Yourself Rest!
   Your body needs rest just as much as it needs movement and exercise.
2. Give Yourself Sunshine!
   One of the primary causes of depression is a lack of bright light. Make sure you spend plenty of time outdoors, breathing full breaths of fresh air!
3. Indulge in muscular relaxation or massage!
   Reward your efforts! Whether this means a massage, a day spa or just a long hot bath - set time for yourself and reward your good efforts.
4. Have an assessment for spinal alignment!
   Seek an expert's opinion for a program involving a series of gentle stretches and exercises to properly align the body.
5. Give Your Body Any Other Support it Needs...
   Whatever this may be - listen to what your body is telling you...

Day 7 - Eliminate Excess (Bad) Fats and Oils

Develop an understanding of the difference between good fats and bad fats and the huge difference that these oils can play in your life.

Day 8 - Eliminate Animal Flesh

Create effective strategies for limiting the amount of meat that you consume and understand the role that animal flesh plays in your life. The key principle is that you must make the decision that is right for you and makes sense to you long-term.

We hope you tried a vegan lifestyle over the 10 Day Challenge to assess how it could work for you.

Day 9 - Eliminate Milk, Cheese, Dairy Products

Experience the increase in health that eliminating dairy can have. Learn effective strategies for becoming vegan.

While we leave you to your own devices over whether to eat meat or not above, we strongly urge you to eliminate milk, cheese and all other dairy products from your diet.

Day 10 - Eliminate Acid Addictions

Learn the difference between acid and alkaline foods and develop a plan to help you to alkalise and energise!

Alkaline foods to include in your diet could be:

1. Green drinks
2. Vegetable juices (fresh)
3. Salads
4. Lightly steamed vegetables
5. Pure, alkaline water
6. Veggie snacks with hummus
7. Raw soups
8. Herbal teas

What Do You Do When You Are Turned Down 134 Times? by Thomas Herold

Mark Victor Hansen and his friend, Jack Canfield, had an idea to write a book of short stories that would touch the souls of many people. After the book was written the title seemed to be not quite right. So he went into meditation and asked for guidance about a title. He wanted the book to be special, to captivate the imagination of the public, so the title was critical. He went to bed each night with the phrase in his mind: “Mega bestseller”.

What Do You Do When You Are Turned Down 134 Times?

After a few days, Hanson woke up with the phrase “Chicken Soup” in his mind. He didn't understand until he remembered that his mom had always made him chicken soup when he was sick. After more contemplation, the final title was born: “Chicken Soup for the Soul”. Everybody he shared this title with got goose bumps almost instantly.

However, even though a major breakthrough had been achieved with the title, bills were piling up, and his spouse got more nervous with each passing day. The title was there but the book was not selling. How could they continue to promote the book to publishers when real life was intruding so heavily?

Hansen received over 33 rejection letters even though he was not an unknown in his field. In the following weeks, he was turned down by 134 more publishers. Finally, a small printing company agreed to take on the project if the authors agreed to buy the first 20,000 copies!

Well, what are you going to do if this is your dream? You just keep the faith and keep on doing it. Hansen and Canfield agreed to buy the first 20,000 copies themselves, and the book hit the market in 1994. It did not make it to the first bestseller list until 14 month later. During all that time, the two men ceaselessly promoted the book by their own efforts.

Guess What Happened Next?

The book became the greatest top-selling success story in the history of nonfiction books with over 100 million books in print and over a billion dollars in combined sales!

Your Dreams - The Source Of Infinite Power

If you love what you do, you can never fail! Why? Because you will never run out of juice. You will always be motivated. During the inevitable times when you are discouraged, you will find a way to simply acknowledge the state you find yourself in, take a break, and the juice will be back in no time. If you live your talents you will be empowered by the universal source—a source that is beyond your wildest imagination, and it is of infinite supply.

No argument can make you stop doing what you love to do. Many people have wonderful reasons for what they do and for what they want to accomplish. These reasons are as varied and personal as anything in the universe. If you take away these reasons and ideas, people fall into a black hole because there is then no longer any substance behind their reality—their dreams have been cut off at the source.

If there is only one important thing in your life, then surely it must be this: to find and live your dreams. Don't waste any more time doing things you don't like. Yes, you are taking a risk, but you will never want to go back once you have make this choice.

How Much Free Will Do You Really Have in Life by Thomas Herold

There is an overwhelming amount of self-help books on the market; hundreds of success seminars exist and still, every year, our society continues to experience more and more problems. This is certainly the case when you look at recent statistics on divorce, health and money related issues, the last one topping the list.

If you have free will, why would you decide to lose your job, undergo a bankruptcy, have an accident or create any other negative circumstances?

There must be something here that is missing . . .

Some people claim that they control everything in their lives by free will. There are others that believe that free will does not exist, as everything is predetermined by God or some form of higher power.

What Do You Believe?

If you observe how people govern — or fail to govern — their lives, it turns out that we all register on various points along the scale, starting with free will and self-determination on one end and ranging to no free will and ruled by God or some other higher power on the other end.

Everybody claims to know his or her own place on the free will continuum. This is really interesting as it demonstrates somehow that either most of us simply don't know how much free will we exercise, or that there is simply no basic rule applicable.

Exercising free will means that your decision is not based on any circumstances or influences from the past or future. Nor is your free will based on moral issues — and absolutely not on personal preferences.

When you closely examine your decisions you will soon see that they are indeed based mostly on existing facts and personal preferences. So how much free will do you really exercise?

What if you follow your intuition or go with your gut feeling? Are these based on free will? Where does intuition come from? Where does your gut feeling come from? You can see that the limits of free blur rather quickly when compared to most non-rational processes.

Your level of free will is determined by the state of your consciousness.

When you base a decision on intuition, you are really exercising free will because you are giving a certain higher level or your consciousness the power to rule. Intuition is free from any indoctrination brought about by pat forms of beliefs and concepts.

That's why success in life has a lot to do with your spiritual path. True success is far beyond what most of society focuses on. Don't let yourself be pushed into a box by shortsighted claims that money and beauty are all there are to success. Success in your life is not dependent on how much money you have, where you live or if you are in a relationship.

Success is not feeling happy; it is feeling happy about who you are.

Creating Goals Beyond Yourself

Most people start out creating their goals on a physical level — that's fine, we all do. However, to get further into the power of manifesting you want to learn what is beyond what you call 'That's Me'.

‘That's Me’ is just an assortment of beliefs and experiences that you have collected over time. Compared to who you truly are, it is merely the tip of the iceberg.

To expand your level of control you need to step aside of your usual cause-and-effect thinking. Pay more attention to coincidences. Allow yourself to make spontaneous decisions. Connect and listen to your heart and follow its guidance when it comes to life decisions. Simplify how you live and reduce stress as much as possible. Stress is the biggest challenge in allowing your being to reach a higher potential of awareness.

Manifesting with Higher Purpose

When setting up your intentions and dreams, try to get to the point of what you really want, and not what you think you need. Think about what would be the highest purpose you could fulfill in your lifetime. Imagine — beyond anything that you may think is possible!

When you start doing this, magic happens in your life!

Writing An Effective Resume by John Koh

Your curriculum vitae or CV creates the first impression that recruiters and prospective employers have of you. Before even meeting with you, your CV already starts selling you, in a positive or negative way.

Your CV is like a mini-biography of you. You will have a compelling story to tell if you have prepared a great CV. Readers will quickly pick up salient points about your skills and work experience in a logical and concise manner. Not only will a great CV generate strong interest in you, it also distinguishes you from others competing with you for the same job.

Conversely, CVs that are unstructured, written poorly or contain missing information typically do not get past the first round of selection. Employers will question your professional ability and your chance of getting a job interview will diminish considerably.

So, how do you prepare a good CV? Here are four key points to help you:

1. Write concisely

A well-written CV is one that is concise and contains all the essential information about you in a simple and readable format.

Job seekers typically err on the two extremes of writing CVs — they are either too lengthy or so brief they hardly say anything about the applicants or the value they can bring to prospective employers.

Keep your CV between four to five pages long. Anything beyond that risks losing the attention or interest of the reader.

2. Talk about yourself

The first section, which draws the reader’s attention, is your personal information. This includes your full name, contact information (telephone numbers, e-mail and home address), education, professional qualifications, technology skills and language skills.

This section should also include a statement or short paragraph about yourself, and a summary of your key strengths and skills, career achievements and aspirations.

Employers typically use this to determine your suitability for the job. It is one of the criteria used to decide whether or not to grant you an interview.

3. Share your work experience

The next section sells you as a potential candidate for a role. Get all your facts right and list your work experience in reverse chronological order.

This means putting your most current work experience first. Employers typically look at your current job and its relevance to the role they are hiring for.

Summarise the scope of your responsibilities neatly and use bulleted points where necessary (if there are more than two areas you wish to cover) to enable the reader to gain an accurate understanding of your role.

Be specific when writing about your job achievements. For example, if you were directly responsible for managing the profit and loss of a department, list down in numerical terms how much you did to increase revenues or save costs.

Also list qualitative achievements, such as job promotions, awards recognising your efforts, or improvements and positive changes you have made during your tenure.

4. Manage flaws in your CV

As you accumulate work experience over the years, how desirable your profile is to a prospective employer depends increasingly on the jobs you have done and the companies you have worked for.

Employers seek to hire candidates with a track record of success in a similar role, as there is greater certainty that they will do well in the role.

Firms are wary of job hoppers as they doubt their staying power after investing in training and inducting them into their jobs.

Conversely, if you stay too long in one job or company, it may raise questions about your ability to adapt to a different environment or job scope.

If this is the case with you, think over carefully the various roles you have filled and skills you have learned over your long tenure.

How many times have you been promoted within your role? Have you been exposed to different functions across the firm? How much of your experience would be directly relevant to the new employer?

Another potential flaw in your CV is the appearance of gaps. This is common especially in the current economic environment in which a significant number of people are retrenched or laid off from their work due to corporate restructuring.

As much as possible, fill those gaps in your CV with clear descriptions of what you achieved.

Be truthful about what you have or have not done and never be tempted to insert false information in your CV. The truth can easily be verified through reference checking and deception can cost you the job, or worse, tarnish your reputation in the job market.

Do You Make These 3 Mistakes with Manifesting by Thomas Herold

Looking back at my own life I have made many mistakes over and over again. They say there is a lesson to learn in each mistake, and there is no need to make the same mistake twice.

For a long time some of my mistakes just kept repeating themselves. It seemed a common and recurring theme, and I had no idea how to get a handle on it.

It took me many years to finally get out of this jungle of repeating mistakes and to find the answers. When you finally get them, the answers seem to be ridiculously easy to follow.

Mistake 1: Thinking You Don't Have Enough Time For It

We all live by the same physical rules; however, the same set of rules seems to appear differently to each of us. How often have you told someone (or yourself) that you don't have time for something? We only have 24 hours in a day—you alone decide what you do in these hours.

It seems to be more convenient to say “I don't have the time” rather than saying “I don't want to use my time on it.” Can you feel the difference? In the first phrase you have not taken ownership of your time—someone else has the time. You put yourself in the role of being a slave to time itself, and, if you are honest with yourself, it does not feel at all empowering.

In the second phrase we take full responsibility for our time. Know that this may upset some people when you say it. You tell them that whatever they want from you is not necessarily as important for you as for them. In reality, you are just being honest and this will, in the end, make you feel humble.

The interesting thing is that when you start doing this, you will attract more honest people in your life. You will get more comfortable over time with expressing this kind of yourself in this way to others and people will start appreciating your honesty. You will soon see the rewards.

Your dreams will come true if you make the time available to manifest them. Have you already used the Setting Intention sheet in your ebook? If not, the best time is now!

• Make a list of what you want to achieve in your life over the next few years.
• Make a list of your most inner desires
• Make a list of your life dreams

Set your mental blueprint. This is the beginning of all your dreams coming true. Most people fail with business intentions in particular and life intentions in general because they never create the blueprint in the first place that makes them happen. They are too busy with putting their valuable attention on daily clusters. Make sure you are not one of them.


Mistake 2: You Don't Like How It Is, Therefore You Try to Change It

You cannot change what you don't like! Too much of your attention is focused on the problem rather than on the solution.

Start with accepting your current situation. Take full ownership of it. Understand that it is somehow a result of your thoughts and actions, even if you don't comprehend why. Let go of any sadness or anger you hold towards yourself and others. Forgive yourself and others. We all make mistakes, and mistakes are not necessarily the bad things as you have come to believe.

Making mistakes (and understanding them) is how each of us learn to move on through life. Simply understand that your past and current actions did not lead to the results that you have expected. That's it—don't take it too seriously.

Only after you have gained a neutral perspective towards your current solution is it time to take a new approach. Being neutral means that when you think about it, no other thoughts or feelings come up. However you feel about it in the moment, no second feelings will arise.

Mistake 3: You Are Discouraged - Therefore You Give Up

You had the best intentions. You put in all your efforts and you certainly believed in your goals and dreams. However, nothing really ever changed—you are frustrated and discouraged. You start to believe that it is not meant to be. Maybe God does not want you to experience achieving your goals. You start finding all kinds of excuses why your dreams did not manifest. Finally you give up—you admit to yourself that you obviously don't have the power to pull this off. This is the place where dreams vaporize, where evaporating goals become a part of history that nobody will ever see.

Besides having no dreams and goals at all, this is the second most prevalent reason why people never fulfill their dreams.

It is important that you hold your intention and reconnect with it at all times. If your ego gets too involved, you’ll try to force it to happen. Allow yourself enough time and space to let your intention manifest in its own way and under its own conditions. Understand that the more people your intention serves the more likely it will happen.

Discouragement is not failure, it simply means that your expectations have gotten ahead of you.

Pay attention to the coincidences in your life, as they will show you the way. They may seem insignificant, but they are real. Acknowledge them, be grateful to what you have and then act on whatever opportunities come up.

There are no unrealistic dreams; there are only unrealistic time frames.

10 Ways To Get Noticed By Andrew Lucy

In his book, The Purple Cow: Transform Your Business By Being Remarkable, author Seth Godin speaks of the need to continuously differentiate and then re-differentiate to stay ahead of the game and “beat the competition”.

In looking for any new job opportunity, you must see yourself as the product and the employer as the customer. How do you stand out and convince the employer to choose you?

This can also work the opposite way around — as an employer, you want the best candidate to “buy-in” and join you, making you the product and the prospective employee your customer!

Either way, why not first exploit the same principles we all use to attract “real customers” and re-apply them to the task of landing a dream job or dream candidate?

So, how do you make yourself stand out from the crowd without donning a fancy dress costume?

I believe there are 10 basic and easily followed traits and actions that can help (eight of which were first prescribed by Richard St John in his book, 8 To Be Great: The 8 Traits That Lead To Great Success).

1. Passion

This is at the top of the list and is often referred to as “fire in the belly”. If you enjoy what you do and who you do it with, feel motivated, acknowledged and rewarded for it, money becomes secondary. But it will come, as a natural consequence of the passion you have and the success to which that drive leads.

2. Hard work

Realise that results should, and will, be rewarded, but don’t ignore effort and hard work. They are essential and need to be encouraged and recognised, whether or not there is an immediate pay off in dollars and cents.

As an employer, dismantle the fear culture and bring on the incentives. Even a donkey will kick out against the stick eventually, but he will always follow the carrot.

3. Practise

Get really good at something. Listen, question, practise, learn — and always think!

4. Focus

Don’t run around trying to do everything. Concentrate and excel process by process. If you are the employee, showcase your top skills. If you are the employer, your primary business and the culture you establish are your key attractions.

5. Keep pushing

As an employee, push through shyness, self-doubt and being passed over. Find a mentor and let him or her help you grow. Then move on to the next opportunity.

As an employer, press on through downturns by valuing and preserving your staff and communicating with them. One day, it will be you who needs them more and they will return the favour with their loyalty and wholehearted support, rather than through grudging self-preservation.

6. Build a service culture

Don’t just offer service. Give your customers, employers and employees something they want or need, and for which they are prepared to pay or work to obtain and keep. Make your culture one that serves something of real value.

7. Persist

Never give up and don’t let negative people hold you down! Everyone fails now and then. The winners are those that seek the distinctive “purple cow”, swim through the sludge, turn it to manure and reap the harvest.

8. Let the ideas flow

Good ideas come from observation, curiosity, asking questions, solving problems, networking, connecting and risk-taking!

No one can ever become remarkable by conforming — sometimes it is best to simply go with your gut.

9. Accept feedback

Warmly embrace criticism, complaints and failure as useful feedback. Only through your mistakes can you grow, learn and improve. Then can you become truly remarkable.

10. Connect with people

Communicate with your customers, your employees, your employers and your colleagues on an emotional level not just a commercial one.

But, more than that: delight each other! Always go beyond what is necessary to close the deal and provide not just what is expected, but what is needed. Those are things that you can only discover by listening more than you speak.

Remember that when you pay for attention, it becomes merely advertising and hyperbole, and people think that you are just trying to sell them something.

Instead, win loyalty from your new customers and your old ones, and from your staff and your employers. Loyalty is generated by people feeling good about you and spreading the word.

While marketing can sustain you and may bring in a few more leads, loyalty and the brand image that comes with it can truly grow your business and your reputation — and make you an employer or employee of choice.

The 5 Money Lessons For Manifesting Wealth by Thomas Herold

Studies show that wealth has nothing to do with luck, education or intelligence. It is the simple fact that wealthy people understand the principles of accumulating wealth and how to put them into effect.

If you follow the 5 lessons below, your life will change and you will become wealthy. These lessons are very simple; however, they require your commitment and a change in how you presently deal with money. It requires a change in your current model of thought.

Lesson 1: Decide To Be Wealthy

Make a decision today to be wealthy. Write down this goal, and either pin it on your board or carry the paper with you at all times. Take a look at your goal every day: Today I decide to be wealthy.

Your conscious decision to make a choice is the beginning of all your journeys. The moment you make a decision your consciousness will automatically start working on the solution to create that reality.

Lesson 2: Take Responsibility For Your Money

If you don't control your money, your money will control you! Controlling your money simply means that you need to know how much money you have, where you spend it and where it comes from. Take a piece of paper and write these three items down as precisely as possible.

Make this list as detailed as you can. Get a feeling of what your money is doing. The entire point of this exercise is to make your money work for you (you control your money)—and not the opposite (your money controls you).

Lesson3: Keep A Portion of Everything You Earn

Wealthy people pay themselves first, and then pay the bills! From time to time you hear stories about celebrities going bankrupt or having to wait tables. What happened? They obviously never saved a portion of their income and put it aside. If they had, they would still be wealthy.

Take at least 10% of your income every month and put it aside. Never ever touch this money for anything other than for investment purposed to make this money work for you. Don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Lesson 4: Win In The Margins

Always strive to improve your income and watch your costs. Reduce the money you spend. Do you really need that electric sock dispenser? Drive a more economical car and move into a smaller house with less expensive rent or mortgage. Replace the common belief that consuming for its own sake is a necessary part of your life with something that is more balanced.

Accumulating possessions will not make you happy! More stuff reduces your free attention, and you’ll have less attention left to focus on building your wealth.

Lesson 5: Give back

Would you like to live in a society where everybody has more than enough, where everybody is mostly focused on helping and supporting others? I bet you do. If everybody focuses only on themselves, our society would soon starve to death and be split into winners and losers.

If everybody focuses on giving back and on contributing to a better society, we would all have more than enough happiness. Peace and abundance would be the common ground.

Understand that we are not truly separate from one another; we are all depend on each other. The very things we all need the most—like fresh air, healthy food and loving hearts—are the things we most depend on others. The more we understand that this is a cooperative process and not an individual, separate one, the more we will reap the benefits from it.

Sharing your wealth and time is love made visible.

10 Preventive Steps to keep Swine-Flu Away

Dear readers,

They say prevention is better than cure and now that Swine Flu is spreading like Wildfire in many countries, we need to come up with some proactive measures so that we are not a victim of the deadly disease.

Here are 10 things you can do to protect yourself from the virus.

1. Wash your hands frequently

Use the antibacterial soaps to cleanse your hands. Wash them often, at least 15 seconds and rinse with running water.

2. Get enough sleep

Try to get 8 hours of good sleep every night to keep your immune system in top flu-fighting shape.

3. Keep hydrated

Drink 8 to 10 glasses of water each day to flush toxins from your system and maintain good moisture and mucous production in your sinuses.

4. Boost your immune system

Keeping your body strong, nourished, and ready to fight infection is important in flu prevention. So stick with whole grains, colorful vegetables, and vitamin-rich fruits.

5. Keep informed

The government is taking necessary steps to prevent the pandemic and periodically release guidelines to keep the pandemic away. Please make sure to keep up to date on the information and act in a calm manner.

6. Avoid alcohol

Apart from being a mood depressant, alcohol is an immune suppressant that can actually decrease your resistance to viral infections like swine flu. So stay away from alcoholic drinks so that your immune system may be strong.

7. Be physically active

Moderate exercise can support the immune system by increasing circulation and oxygenating the body. For example brisk walking for 30-40 minutes 3-4 times a week will significantly perk up your immunity.

8. Keep away from sick people

Flu virus spreads when particles dispersed into the air through a cough or sneeze reach someone else's nose. So if you have to be around someone who is sick, try to stay a few feet away from them and especially, avoid physical contact.

9. Know when to get help

Consult your doctor if you have a cough and fever and follow their instructions, including taking medicine as prescribed.

10. Avoid crowded areas

Try to avoid unnecessary trips outside. Moreover, avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread this way. We all want a healthy environment.

"Want to be headhunted?" by Laletha Nithiyanandan

You hear about a friend landing a great job through a headhunter and you wonder what he has that you haven’t.

How does someone become a target for headhunters? What do they look for?

These days, employers are very specific about their needs, and using headhunters to locate talent has become a popular option.

Here are some of the more employable traits that employers and headhunters seek:

Expertise in your field

When headhunters start mapping an industry, they talk to people within that industry.

They ask these people to recommend who they think is the best or is known for a specific line of work.

This means you need to be visible and be among the best in your field.

Some people do this by attending industry events and conferences.

Others write articles and speak at conferences, so they are known and looked up to for their opinions and views.

Value-added skills

In this multi-cultural and diverse environment, some profiles stand out even more.

Headhunters seek people with skills, experience or exposure that can add value to their clients’ organisations.

This includes overseas postings, assignments or educational exposure and the ability to speak other languages.

“As headhunters, we often see one candidate losing out to another just based on some of these attributes,” says Mr Mark Lam, principal consultant at BTI Consultants.

He recommends that young managers gain overseas exposure and be willing to live and work abroad.

Positive image

While social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook are popular, people in senior or high-profile positions must be vigilant in monitoring what gets published about themselves.

Also monitor what your children say about you in sites like Facebook.

Their comments may be fine in a social setting but if you are interviewing for a job, some personal information is best kept private.

Background

Where you come from in terms of education, family background and your social circles are important in some jobs.

Some headhunters want to know more about your background and family circumstances because they know that sometimes it just takes one family member to influence a candidate from taking a job.

Employment status

A company usually uses headhunters when it wants to reach passive candidates who are not actively looking for a change.

From a headhunter’s perspective, being unemployed can make you less attractive as a candidate.

However, it is prudent to discuss your desire to move from your current role only with those you trust.

People you know

The headhunting profession thrives on connections, so whom you know is important.

Stay on friendly terms with headhunters; they will remember you and keep you in their contact base.

Experience

You would have spent a substantial time in a role, job or company to make a sufficient impact and build a successful track record.

For a more senior position, employers are probably looking for depth of experience.

However, on the flip side, headhunters and employers can also consider breadth of experience a plus, as it can point to a candidate’s versatility and adaptability to different challenges and environments and cultures.

Strategic career move

Be strategic with your career move.

Don’t get enticed by just the lure of an attractive package or title. While you know this is common sense, even very senior-level candidates make this mistake.

Consider longer-term impact, employability and lifestyle changes when you accept an offer.

Credibility of headhunter

The term “headhunting” can be used rather loosely. Just approaching a prospect about an available job isn’t really headhunting.

Check out the headhunter before you divulge any information about yourself.

Company reputation, experience in the business and reputation of the senior leadership team are all factors that separate a good headhunter from one who is just trying to earn a fee.

Career decisions are big decisions, and getting headhunted is just the start of that process. Be open to discussion and be wise.