No regrets...

Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right and forget about the ones who don't. Believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it.

It's the business...

Learn the business, not just the technology.

- Ian Patterson, CIO, Scottrade

Subject to change...

Everything you're facing is subject to change. Problems are temporary. Everything negative is temporary.

- Joel Osteen

Love...

"One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is LOVE."

- Sophocles

Life...

Life is too important
to be taken seriously!

- Oscar Wilde

Never criticize...

Never criticize or blame yourself or anyone else for anything.

Finishing

Starting is easy. Finishing is hard.

[I had this on a piece of paper on my wall for over five years. My wife cleaned it and framed it for me. This is my best piece of advice for any entrepreneur... the first 80% is easy, the next 15% is hard and last five percent is painful. ]
- Jason Calacanis

This day in history...

The computer age reached a milestone when the Altair 8800, a precursor to the PC, became available on this date in 1974, allowing anyone to build a computer at home. The microcomputer kit was originally intended to be sold to hobbyists, but it was an instant hit, and in 1990 the computer went on display at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of History and Technology in Washington, DC. The microcomputer was designed by Ed Roberts, who had been producing calculator kits for hobbyists.

Awesomely simple...

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."

- Charles Mingus

Art

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

- Picasso

Be yourself...

Be yourself before you can be anybody.

Let go...

Remember, it's the ride that counts. Get some rest and let go of your anxiety, fear, and anger. Look forward to every minute of this interesting journey we call life.

- Brad Feld, via Miah's Journey article

Vision...

"Where there is no vision,
there is no hope."

- George Washington Carver

Burn out...

Don't work harder or later than you have to. You'll burn out and lose enthusiasm.

Don't say it...

If it's not something you'd say to someone face-to-face, then don't say it online either. The next time you get upset and you're typing a message, reread it and ask yourself if you would say that if the person were sitting in front of you.

Referrals...

Remember that referrals can come from anywhere. Any interaction you have can result in good word of mouth, or bad word of mouth. It's up to you.

The best advice I ever got... [Eddie Lampert]

"Almost every weekend when I was 7, 8, 9, 10 years old, my father and I would toss a football in the yard or play basketball in the driveway. When we played football, he'd say, "Go out ten steps. Turn to your right." The ball would reach me just before I turned, and it would hit me right in the chest. Why would my dad do this? He told me, "If I waited for you to turn, you and the defensive player would have an equal chance to get the ball. Your opportunity is gone."

This idea of anticipation is key to investing and to business generally. You can't wait for an opportunity to become obvious. You have to think, "Here's what other people and companies have done under certain circumstances. Now, under these new circumstances, how is this management likely to behave?" The plays my father designed for me helped me learn to think ahead. Lots of days I asked him, "Why can't we just invite kids over and play a game?" In order to do something well, he explained, you have to keep practicing and preparing."

- Eddie Lampert, Chairman and CEO, ESL Investments; Chairman, Sears Holdings
Excerpt from Fortune Magazine

Obsession...

Obsession, this is the key to success in any field.

Smile!

When wearing only a smile - be sure to smile a lot.

It's a new day -

Shake-off those failures and disappointments. It's a new day!

- Joel Osteen

Loving people...

"You'll never be happy if you can't figure out that loving people is all there is. And that it's more important to love than be loved. Because that is when you feel love, by loving somebody."

- Gwyneth Paltrow

Confidence...

Confidence is not a guarantee of success but a pattern of thinking that will improve your likelihood of success, a tenacious search for ways to make things work.

Small acts...

The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.

- Oscar Wilde

Be kind...

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

- Mark Twain

Think...

You don't have to think outside the box. Just think inside the already working box.

- Kelly Shipp

Greet...

Greet everyone as you would your dog.

A gift...

Anything and everything can be a gift.

Get what they want...

When you help customers get what they want, you get what you want. Always ask yourself how can you help them look good, excel and succeed.

A happy life -

Very little
is needed
to make a
happy life.

What you know...

It's always good to know what you don't know.

Happiness...

Happiness is an inside job.

Your financial life -

The better you get at recording your financial life, the better you'll be about managing it.

The Arts...

Students who studied the arts scored 83 points higher on the SAT than students who did not.

You are great

"Not everybody can be famous,
but everybody can be great.
Because greatness is determined
by service."

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Be brave...

Fortune favours the brave.

- unknown

Windmills...

When strong winds are blowing, some people hide behind walls, others build windmills.

- Chinese proverb

Make a plan...

Proverbs 16:9 - In his heart a man plans his course, but God directs his steps.

What are you doing to bring your dreams to reality? Are you taking steps of faith? Are you getting prepared? Do you have a clear direction? Have you written anything down?

Success is intentional. You're not going to accidentally start a business. You're not going to accidentally lose 20 lbs. Success is intentional. You have to have a plan. Write it down. Let it come from the heart. Write your vision and make it clear as possible. If you make a plan, God will direct you.

- original message by Joel Osteen; additions by Kelly Shipp.

Monopoly...

Is it wrong that only one company makes the game MONOPOLY?

[Monopoly was released on this date in 1935 by Parker Brothers.
It was 1934, the height of the Great Depression, when Charles B. Darrow of Germantown, Pennsylvania, showed what he called the MONOPOLY game to the executives at Parker Brothers. Initially, they rejected the game due to "52 design errors". More than five billion little green houses have been "built" since 1935.]
http://www.hasbro.com/games/kid-games/monopoly/

Winning...

You can't win if you don't play.

Attitude & Success

Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.

- John Wooden

Purpose...

Without purpose, there is no passion.

- Joel Osteen

what would you do...

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?

Difficulty...

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

- Albert Einstein

A 12-year-old's idea goes national...an inspiring story

Inspiring story of a 12-year-old's website idea and how quickly it's expanding and helping. Mimi Ausland, a 12 year old who launched freekibble.com, a website where people can click on once a day to donate free dog and cat food. A local shelter in Forsyth County is now getting 2,000 pounds of pet food a month from the Oregon-based site. There's more to this story -->
Read the full story here

Life's greatest teacher...

Failure is one of life's greatest teachers.

Reflection...

Someday we'll look back on this...
laugh nervously, and
change the subject.

Thanks...

In everything, give thanks.

Rules for happiness...

Five rules for Happiness:

1. Free your heart from hatred.


2. Free your mind from worries.


3. Live simply.


4. Give more.


5. Expect less.

The heart...

The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.

- Helen Keller

How to Create Your Life Plan

Everyone hates the dreaded "Where do you see yourself in five years?" question, but it's a lot easier to answer when you've got written goals and a plan to achieve them. CEO Michael Hyatt blogs about how he put together his life plan, which he reviews with a coach every three months.

This won't insulate you from life's many adversities and unexpected twists and turns, but it will help you become an active participant in your life, intentionally shaping your own future.

Read full story

Ideas

"An idea that is developed & put into action is more important than an idea that only exists as an idea"

- Buddha

What you know...

Focus. Stick with what you know. Work with the knowledge and those resources to expand into related areas.

- Franco Harris

Happiness...

Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.

- John Barrymore

George Carlin's Views on Aging...

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

'How old are you?' 'I'm four and a half!' You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key. You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

'How old are you?' 'I'm gonna be 16!' You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life ... You become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony. YOU BECOME 21 YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're Just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!

You get into your 80's and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn't end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; 'I Was JUST 92.'

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. 'I'm 100 and a half!'
May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

HOW TO STAY YOUNG


1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay 'them.'

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. 'An idle mind is the devil's workshop' And the devil's name is Alzheimer's.

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love , whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

The best advice I ever got... [Mark Hurd]

"Nine years after starting at NCR, I moved to a head-office job in Dayton in 1988. An NCR executive was giving a presentation; he had great slides and an even better delivery. The CEO, Chuck Exley, listened to the entire presentation in his typically gracious, courteous manner. At the conclusion, he nodded and said something brief but profound: "Good story, but it's hard to look smart with bad numbers." And as I reflected on it, the presenter, articulate as he was, as good as his slides were, simply had bad numbers.

That comment has always stayed with me. You have to focus on the underlying substance. There's just no way to disguise poor performance. I've tried to follow that advice throughout my career. Deliver good numbers and you earn the right for people to listen to you."

- Mark Hurd, Chairman and CEO, Hewlett-Packard
Excerpt from Fortune Magazine

Success...

The only difference between success and failure is the ability to take action.

- Alexander Graham Bell

Five Signs That You're Living Beyond Your Means

If you are concerned that your finances could be in danger, there is a way to tell whether you're in over your head. This article will provide you with five key indicators to watch for. If you find that one or more of them apply to you, it is likely time to reevaluate your spending and work on a long-term financial plan. Recognizing the problem is the first step to finding a solution.

Read full story



Source: Yahoo Finance

Devote yourself...

The only way you can devote yourself completely is to challenge yourself to do something unbeaten.

- Tim Ferriss

Diversity...

Focus on what you do best. Diversity has its place, but don't let it distract you from your passion and strengths.

- Rosh Sillars

Purpose in life...

Finding your purpose in life is a combination of reflection and action.

- Gregg Vanoureck, author of Life Entrepreneurs

7 Steps To Developing A Strong Network In Case You Get Laid-off

What's the first thing you would do if you were fired or laid-off? Punch your boss? Cry like a baby? Throw a party? Financial blogger Brandt Smith at Get Rich Slowly suggests that your first step should be to contact your network, and he backs up his assertion with a real-life success story. He also shares seven keys to developing a strong network.

Read the full story

12,000 laptops lost weekly at U.S. airports

According to a study of 106 major US airports and 800 business travelers published by the Ponemon Institute and Dell Computer, about 12,000 laptops are lost in airports each week. Only 30 percent of travelers ever recover the lost devices. Nearly half of the travelers say their laptops contain customer data or confidential business information. Read more here

Changing careers...

When looking to change careers, decide whether it's the career as a whole or just the job you don't like.

Possibilities...

Confidence is about Possibilities not Probabilities.

Attitude...

A relaxed attitude lengthens a man's life.

- Proverbs 14:30

Consistency of thinking...

Confidence is consistency of thinking – thinking about what is possible and how to make it possible. How can you believe in something that has not yet happened? We do it all the time, though usually negatively. Most people tend to let detrimental thoughts and beliefs control them: "I might fail, I might lose. What if I screw up? Yes, I've poured myself into this project, done everything in my power to get it right, but what if the boss doesn't like it?"
Think about what is possible and how to make it possible.

Take a stand...

Do you stand while talking on the phone? If not, try it and see if your calls go better.

- Miah's Journey

The future...

"I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past."

- Thomas Jefferson

Loyalty...

Loyalty must be given before it is received.

Bounce back...

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

- Confucius

The customer comes first...

Always ask questions about your customer BEFORE you start talking about your product or service.

Navigating Your Potential...

Confident people are explorers, navigating their potential, always testing their abilities and talent. Trying to control your life or steering it in one direction or the other is a recipe for frustration; too many things can happen that are unpredictable. The people who say, "I'm going to work here for five years, then get married, then get promoted…" will not be prepared for accepting a great but risky job offer, not to mention walking around the corner tomorrow and bumping into the man or woman of their dreams.

- Excerpts from The Big Idea Blog - Donny Deutsch

Explore it...

Don't control your destiny. Explore it.

Confidence...

Superstars think like superstars long before the fans or the press anoint them.

Tips on managing your Inbox

3 good tips on managing your Inbox...

http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9936380-2.html

Learning...

Learn how to learn.

- Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior VP, Google, Inc.

Laugh

Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can.

- Elsa Maxwell

Don't sit around computing the odds

Computing the odds against you is one way to make a rational decision. It's also a good way to lower your confidence. If there's something in life you really want, you won't get it, or experience it, by sitting around doing calculations. By basing your efforts on better criteria than statistical probability, you can save yourself a lot of misery and depression – energy that you can then put into finding ways to make the things you believe in come to fruition. "Why risk your reputation?" is a question exceptional thinkers do not understand. What they hate risking is being complacent, bored, or unfilled. The best in every business are always looking for the next big challenge.

In 1992, when an IBM board member asked Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. if he was interested in running the company, the former CEO of RJR Nabisco and ex-President of American Express passed. IBM's sales were plummeting, its stock had decreased by 50 percent over the past five years. Gerstner was aware that both the Wall Street Journal and the London Economist had predicted that IBM was on the verge of becoming another late, great American company. After he got his first look at IBM's current financials and budgets, he saw that the company's sales and profits were declining too fast for comfort and that its cash position was scary. "On the basis of those documents," he later recalled, "the odds were no better than one in five that IBM could be saved and [they indicated] that I should never take the position." But the board was persistent, Gerstner grew intrigued, and the advice of an old friend also caught his attention: "IBM is the job you’ve been training for since you left Harvard Business School. Go for it!" Gerstner agreed; his track record as "a change agent" might be just what the company needed. These were the variables that played into what Gerstner later called "my gluttony for world class challenges."

- Excerpt from The Big Idea, Donny Deutsch

All things pass...

All things pass...
Patience attains all it strives for.

- Mother Teresa

The greatest challenge on the horizon

The greatest business and engineering challenge on the horizon, is "to organize information in a way that allows you to live the way you want to live, to take time off with your kids without fear you're going to miss out on something."

- Jeong Kim, President, Bell Labs

Ideas...

When you think, "I wish I could think of an idea like that," remember: ideas like that are all around you. But you ignore them because they look wrong or are often overlooked. If you work on overlooked problems, you're more likely to discover new things.

- Paul Graham
Essay: Six Principles for Making New Things

Treat it like a business...

Too many entrepreneurs run their business like a hobby. If you want your business to pay you like a business, then treat it like a business.

- JC Williams, President & CEO, Fehu Uruz Investor Services

REM sleep

People who sleep in an east-west position have far shorter rapid eye movement or REM sleep cycles... compared with north-south sleepers who got more REM sleep.

- REUTERS

The bigger pie...

Accept a smaller piece of a bigger pie, rather than a big piece of a small pie.

- Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior VP, Google, Inc.

Look into...

"A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into."

- Ansel Adams

Achieve your dream

People put a lot of obstacles in front of their dreams. It's actually not that hard to achieve them - it sounds cliche', but the biggest obstacles are in your mind. Just write down what you want to do, write out the steps, and just take the plunge!

- Melissa O'young

Jeremiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you ... plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

- Jeremiah 29:11

Red Wine May Slow Aging

New Hints Seen That Red Wine May Slow Aging - Red wine may be much more potent than was thought in extending human lifespan, researchers say in a new report that is likely to give impetus to the rapidly growing search for longevity drugs. "The upside is so huge that if we are right, the company that dominates the sirtuin space could dominate the pharmaceutical industry and change medicine..."

Click here to read full article

New Ideas

If you're not allowed to implement new ideas, you stop having them. And vice versa: when you can do whatever you want, you have more ideas about what to do.

- Paul Graham

Opportunities

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.

- Demosthenes

What success means to you

Each of us views success in a different way. For some, success means advanced academic degrees or continual upward progression on the career and money ladder. For others, it is spending quality time with family or helping others in the community. Many of us get tripped up by following others' definition of success and wonder why we still aren't happy when we attain our goals. The key to fulfillment is to define what success means to you and make a plan to get there.

- Pamela Slim, author of 'Get a Life' blog

Goals

Goals are dreams with deadlines.

- Diana Scharf Hunt

Get those washboard abs!

If you're afraid that obtaining washboard abs is completely out of your reach, you are not alone. There's more to it than just doing a thousand crunches a day. Unless you modify your diet and burn belly fat in addition to those abdominal exercises, that six-pack will always just look like a keg.

Here's great tips and videos on how to get your washboard -->
How to Get Six-Pack Abs

Live...

Live as if you like yourself, and it may happen.

- Marge Piercy

Take the chance

"Breakthrough ideas are around the corner, but most of us are failing to take a chance on them."

- Larry Page, Google co-founder and President.

No problem.

It's not a problem until it becomes a problem.

Photograph the soul

"When you photograph people in color you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls."

- Ted Grant

Innovation

How is your company going to compete in the world? If you can't compete with low-cost labor, you have to compete with innovations. How to innovate? Here are some ideas:

• Balance revolutionary with very useful.
• Incorporate big and small ideas.
• The goal of the innovator is to have a positive impact on your company, your country and yourself.
• Innovation, like growing up, sometimes needs to get done in the midst of adversity.
• Remember, the transistor was invented by three people, not 30,000. The laser was invented by two.
• Innovative ideas start small.
• Never lose sight of the actual goal of innovation: not new technology, but what new technology can deliver to us - awareness, insight, interaction. And freedom.

- Excerpted from a Fast Company interview with Jeong Kim, President, Bell Labs

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is the vital element toward the individual success of every man or woman.

- Conrad Hilton

The best advice I ever got...[Michael Bloomberg]

"I can't remember who told me this, but I certainly didn't grow up knowing it, so I must have gotten this advice at Salomon Brothers in the 1970s. The advice was, first, always ask for the order, and second, when the customer says yes, stop talking. I have watched more people make great presentations, whether they're trying to sell to their family or in business or in government, and never get to the point of what they're trying to get out of it. And too many times when the customer says yes, the person who got that answer just doesn't stop talking. Worst advice? The worst advice that people can take is to react before they've had a chance to think. I think we all say things and wish we hadn't said them. Ready, shoot, aim is not the smartest policy."

- Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, founder of Bloomberg LP
Excerpt from Fortune Magazine

Consistency causes ease of use.

Live your life to the fullest

Design your life, create memories and live in the present. I'm not saying it's easy, I'm not saying you won't encounter some bumps along the way. But in the end, isn't following your true passion, living your life to the fullest and with inspiration worth it?

- Kimberly

Confidence

Confidence is about ignoring external or other people's realities in order to believe in yourself and your ability to make great stuff happen. What "great stuff"? Someone has to make it to the Major Leagues, so for thousands of dedicated ball players, the big leagues are a possibility. There are also thousands of CEO positions out there in the market place, so any ambitious executive has the option to imagine himself or herself sitting in the corner office.

In the 1950's when Robert Johnson was in elementary school in Freeport, Illinois, what were the odds that he would become a billionaire? What were the odds that he would become the first African-American billionaire? What was the probability that he would create Black Entertainment Television (BET), the largest black-owned and operated company in the country? Zero probability. In Mississippi, where Johnson was born, black kids still could not go to the same schools as white kids or even drink at the same water fountain. The son of a factory worker and one of ten kids, whose only entrepreneurial experience was a local paper route, such goals were inconceivable to Johnson. But he did dream of going to college and was the only one of his ten siblings to do so. While at the University of Illinois, he dreamed about joining the foreign service and becoming an ambassador. He took the first step by going to Princeton for a masters degree in international affairs and then accepted a job as an aide to Washington D.C.'s congressional delegate.

One night at a party at a neighbor’s house, someone told him that he would make "a good lobbyist for the cable industry." Johnson admitted to knowing nothing about cable TV, but he took the meeting and got the job as vice president of government relations for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. He quickly learned the business, including how programming could be segmented to a specific audience, which sparked his idea for creating a network aimed at African-Americans. With a $15,000 bank loan and one major investor who loved the idea, Johnson started BET in 1980. Five years later, BET was profitable and growing. In 2001, Viacom bought the network for $3 billion. Johnson, who remained in charge of BET, made $1.5 billion off the deal.

- Excerpt from The Big Idea Blog, Donny Deutsch

Not succeeding can be a window of opportunity

Confident people are not hung up on how things work out because the challenge is what excites them, they’re into the process, and they know that whatever happens, they will be able to take advantage of the situation. Too many people let setbacks demolish their confidence. The best performers take it on the chin – in fact, welcome it – and still believe that success is just around the corner. Most often, they use obstacles as the drive behind maintaining high confidence and excitement. Setbacks can be a reason to believe in yourself even more, holding all kinds of experience, knowledge, and data to show you how you will be able to move forward and succeed. Not succeeding can be a window of opportunity, not to mention thrilling. For great thinkers, life would be very boring if it were filled only with easy wins.

The very place where most people lose their confidence – after a failure – is where exceptional thinkers build theirs.

- Excerpt from The Idea Blog, Donny Deutsch

Work

Find something you love to do and you'll never have to work a day in your life.

- Harvey Mackay

Happiness...

There is a difference between joy, enjoyment, pleasure, love and happiness. All those things are feelings, but happiness is a state of mind, not a feeling.

- Unknown

Plan a Money-Free Weekend

If you're trying to be more frugal but find the day-to-day struggle too taxing to win, the Simple Dollar finance blog suggests a relaxing way to cut back on spending: A money-free weekend. This list has one hundred fun ways to spend a money free weekend!

Read the full story

What are you doing this weekend?

What Do You Want to Do With Your Life?

You may ask yourself, "What the heck am I doing with my life, anyway?"
It's a big scary question, one that's easily avoided by checking out the coolest new Firefox extension instead. But if you've decided to tackle the beast, reader William Mize recommends a free ebook entitled What Do You Want to Do With Your Life?. The 136 page PDF is a workbook for creating your life plan.

Read the full story

Gratitude

People who practice optimism, gratitude letters, etc, are happier over the long term. Gratitude is more powerful than optimism.

- Sonja Lyubomirsky, author, How of Happiness

Ten Steps to Drought-Resistant Gardening

The days of hauling out the hose to douse your garden are over, even in regions that once were considered water rich. According to several scientific projections, the parched conditions now occurring in the Southeast and other drought-stricken regions of the country are likely to spread as the effects of global warming take hold. Fortunately, you can take a number of sensible steps in your garden to conserve dwindling water. Our friends at the National Wildlife Federation have these tips:

1. Work compost into the soil around your plants.
   
2. Mulch your plantings.
   
3. Choose plants that tolerate drought and a wide range of temperatures.
   
4. Minimize and drought-proof your container plantings.
   
5. Cut down on mowing and fertilizing.
   
6. Let your lawn go dormant.
   
7. Use water-conserving equipment.
   
8. Water your plants early in the morning.
   
9. Water less frequently but deeply.
   
10. Put off major planting projects until after severe droughts.
    

Read full story with details

The best advice I ever got... [Peter G. Peterson]

"Focus on those things you do better than others."

- Peter G. Peterson, Co-founder and Senior Chairman, Blackstone Group
Excerpt from Fortune Magazine

Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.

- Leo Tolstoy

Melanoma cases increased by 50%

Melanoma rates have risen 50% among young women in the U.S. since 1980, a trend that may be related to an increase in the use of tanning salons and exposure to the sun's damaging rays, according to a report released Thursday.

Among young men, melanoma rates have remained steady, the study found.

The most lethal skin cancer, melanoma occurs in pigment-producing cells. The American Cancer Society estimates there will be 62,480 new cases of melanoma and 8,420 deaths from it in the U.S. this year.

Exposure to ultraviolet radiation is the biggest risk factor for developing the cancer, although genetic factors can also contribute. People with fair skin are most at risk, but melanoma occurs in people of all races and skin tones.

People can reduce their general risk of developing melanoma by avoiding sun exposure when the sun's rays are strongest, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.; wearing protective clothing and a sunscreen with an SPF of 15 or greater; and not actively seeking a tan in the sun or a salon.

Read Full Story

People learn most when there's an emotional connection. If you want someone to learn something, find that emotional connection.

Urban Hiking - a new trend?

Urban hikes - a new trend in socializing and exercise. Generally, they are a half day of walking, with oddball points of interest and promising food stops. To make the hikes more interesting, invite a few friends.

Read full story

Live while you can.

- John Shaw

The best advice I ever got... [Indra Nooyi]

My father was an absolutely wonderful human being. From him I learned to always assume positive intent. Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different. When you assume negative intent, you're angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed. Your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response. You don't get defensive. You don't scream. You are trying to understand and listen because at your basic core you are saying, "Maybe they are saying something to me that I'm not hearing." So "assume positive intent" has been a huge piece of advice for me.

In business, sometimes in the heat of the moment, people say things. You can either misconstrue what they're saying and assume they are trying to put you down, or you can say, "Wait a minute. Let me really get behind what they are saying to understand whether they're reacting because they're hurt, upset, confused, or they don't understand what it is I've asked them to do." If you react from a negative perspective - because you didn't like the way they reacted - then it just becomes two negatives fighting each other. But when you assume positive intent, I think often what happens is the other person says, "Hey, wait a minute, maybe I'm wrong in reacting the way I do because this person is really making an effort."

- Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO, Pepsico
Excerpt from Fortune Magazine

As much as you are fired up about making changes in your life, if you do not carve out the time in your schedule, it will never happen.

- Pamela Slim, author of 'Get a Life' blog

The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

- Steve Jobs, commencement speech at Stanford University. Steve is the co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.

- Mark Twain

"Success is all about employee freedom. You have to fight the encroachment of rules and bureaucracy and people who want to limit us at every place. The fundamental risk in a technology company is the loss of creativity. You have to take a lot of little risks, break the rules, and push the values of employee freedom."

- Reed Hastings, Netflix founder

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

- Francis Bacon

Who Says Kids May You Happy?

Interesting article from Newsweek. The author considers both perspectives - couples with and without children.

Personally, I agree with one of the comments, "...Everyone has to make the decision they can live with. I think it is nonsense that childless people are happier than people with children or vice versa. People who have children and are unhappy would be unhappy without children too, because there are people who will never be content with what they have...The grass is always greener on the other side, right?..."

"If most are not happy, then it's not because they do or do not have children, it's because they chose to not find the joy in what they have..."

Read the full article here - note: the comments are almost as interesting as the article.

If you have a bad day, don't worry about it. You can't expect to get a hit every game.

- Yogi Berra

Novel Treatments Ease Migraine Pain

New studies discussed at the American Headache Society’s annual meeting in Boston suggest that new technologies may lead to promising treatments - Full Story

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

- Helen Keller

Lessons are usually where you look for them. You can learn something from anyone.

- Brian Koval

Far more lives are lost to diseases caused by a lack of sunlight than to those caused by too much.

International Journal of Epidemiology
Excerpted from this article

The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here.

- Robert Ingersoll

Make voyages. Attempt them. There's nothing else.

- Tennessee Williams

Half the people who have heart attacks don't have symptoms before they have a heart attack.

Understand that cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 cause of death and disability in our society, so it's something you really can't afford to ignore. If you're looking for a magic bullet to protect yourself from heart disease, the closest thing we have to that is exercise. It is healthy for us in so many ways.

Learn more...

People who succeed speak well of themselves to themselves.

- Laurie Beth Jones

As soon as you start to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning.

- Barbara Sher

Live your imagination, not your history.

- Steven Covey

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

- William James

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

- Albert Einstein

The only way to be truly happy is to relish what you do have, what you can do, and who you are right now.

- John Tesh

Your life's work

It isn't about the perfect job; it is about your life's work. Jobs are temporary things, often enticing on paper until you realize that as soon as you get comfortable in your position, it will change, your boss will change, your team will change or your organization will change. Your life's work on the other hand, are activities that you have natural talent for, which energize you and stimulate you and do not change no matter what "job" you happen to be in. Each one of us has specific gifts, talents and experience that make us uniquely qualified to do our life's work. Each choice you make about a job should be in the context of supporting and furthering your life's work.

- Pamela Slim, author of 'Get a Life' blog

Cell phone use and cancer risk - debate continues

What do brain surgeons know about cellphone safety that the rest of us don't? Last week, three prominent neurosurgeons told the CNN interviewer Larry King that they did not hold cellphones next to their ears.

"What we're seeing is suggestions in epidemiological studies that have looked at people using phones for 10 or more years," says Louis Slesin, editor of Microwave News, an industry publication that tracks the research. "There are some very disconcerting findings that suggest a problem, although it’s much too early to reach a conclusive view."

Some doctors say the real concern is not older cellphone users, who began using phones as adults, but children who are beginning to use phones today and face a lifetime of exposure.

The fear is that even if the individual risk of using a cellphone is low, with three billion users worldwide, even a minuscule risk would translate into a major public health concern.

"We cannot say with any certainty that cellphones are either safe or not safe," Dr. Black said on CNN. "My concern is that with the widespread use of cellphones, the worst scenario would be that we get the definitive study 10 years from now, and we find out there is a correlation."

Read full article

Life is a puzzle. Tackle each piece one at a time. Then put it back together - in your own way.

- Kelly Shipp, 2008

Butterflies in danger

Worldwide, many butterfly species have begun to falter and even disappear. In this country, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has designated 23 species as endangered or threatened.
View National Wildlife article

Sun Kings

A pair of Swiss pioneers are gearing up for a 23,000-mile flight around the world fueled only by solar energy.
...Bertrand Piccard, a record-breaking Swiss hot-air balloonist who is, incidentally, a qualified psychiatrist, thinks the crazy thing would be not to try. "What is dangerous," he says, "is to think we can continue consuming petrol at the rate of one million tons per hour without destroying the planet."
http://www.mensvogue.com/design/articles/2008/03/solar

Num-what?

Could you use that in a sentence? This is a hilarious video at a spelling bee.

Ask for what you want

The more often you ask for what you want, the more likely you are to get it. To ask for help, you have to define what you want. To get the best results, ask about the process, not the people.

- Pamela Slim (ganas.com)

Jack Russell Terrier pops balloons

Jack Russell Terrier pop balloons in 30 seconds. This is hilarious!

A rising tide raises all boats.

Pay less at the gas pump

Here are some tips from John Tesh on how to save money at the gas pump.

Do You Have What It Takes To Live To Be 100?

How long do you think you'll live? or better yet - How long do you want to live? John Tesh gives an excerpt from his new book Intelligence For Your Life: Powerful Lessons For Personal Growth. Good tips and advice to ponder...

Smart people have a million dollar idea every week or two, but there are many smart people who are not millionaires. Why? They don't start. Just start...!

- Excerpted from Jason Calacanis' blog entry

The holiday is upon us. Do we plan so we fill the holiday weekend or do we dare endeavor "no plans" to hopefully elongate the holiday? hhmmm...

Life is short, but there is always time for courtesy.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.

- Helen Keller

Work hard. Believe in yourself. Know what you want and then go for it. Visualize your dreams and make them come true. Forget about what other people think. Hang in there. You'll make it. You just have to want it badly enough.

Don't dwell on reality; it will only keep you from greatness.

- Rev. Randall R. McBride, Jr.

Find a problem. Figure out how to solve the problem. Find more people with the same problem and you have a business.

- Gary Schoeniger, founder of Entrepreneurial Learning Initiative

Life does not happen to us, it happens from us.

- Mike Wickett

Nice Hike at El camino del Rey

Occasionally, I come across great finds on the web and I was recently sent this one. According to the comments, the entrance is closed, but some tourists still find their way to the walkway.

Link w/Sound and Music:
http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1438490562
Note: It's about a 6.5 minute clip, but it's cool! If you have a slow connection, let it download for a while before watching it.

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone."

—Henry David Thoreau, naturalist

You can overcome anything if you don't bellyache.

- Bernard M. Baruch

The best way to prepare for life is to begin to live.

- Elbert Hubbard

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.

- Thomas Jefferson

If you're not happy, you're wasting time.

- Justin Rogers, Cowboy

Honoring America 's Firefighters

Baskin Robbins is honoring America 's Firefighters by selling ice cream for $.31 cents per scoop on Wednesday, April 30th between 5 and 10 pm. Grab your friends, and/or the kids and have a cool one! This fundraiser for the firefighters is an important one for them, so let's go out and have ice cream and support a great cause.

http://www.baskinrobbins.com/Promotion/31cent.aspx

Making The Most Of Your Tax Refund

According to Kiplinger.com, about 70 percent of all filers get tax refunds and are anticipating a tax refund this year averaging $2,200. The National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC) suggests tips for managing your tax refund.
http://www.debtadvice.org./Consumer_Tips/consumertips_05.cfm

Struggling to Evade the E-Mail Tsunami.

How do we deal with all of our Unread messages? What did famous people do with 100's of letters per day? What is today's advice? Consider the postal service. How often does it pick-up and deliver e-mail? Once or twice-a-day is likely enough. Any more and you couldn't get any work done. The same can apply to e-mail.

Keep your e-mail off during your busy hours at work and then read it when it's not interrupting your work. If it's part of your work flow, then define certain times that you read it. Depending on your work style, consider once an hour at the half-hour, or maybe at 10-2-4. Once you get a system in place, it will be easier to manage.

Here's the full NY Times article on the topic. You may gleam some ideas here.

If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.

- William Hazlitt

Do you want to live past 100? It's not just in the genes, which accounts for 25% of the longevity factor. It's about diet, exercise, keeping the mind busy, and a passion for something.

Good video on this topic today:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4700405&page=1

You create your own universe as you go along.

- Winston Churchill

Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.

- Booker T. Washington

Life is short.
We should do what we enjoy doing most - more.
Pursue dreams seriously. Don't let time slip by too often.
Make the most from life while we're here.

- Kelly Shipp, 2007

Pat the customer's back first.

The secret to the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested.

- William Dean Howells

The love we give away is
the only love we keep.

- Elbert Hubbard

Bark less,
wag more.

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

- Benjamin Franklin, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

Laughing burns calories! Burn some calories this weekend! :)

The quality of your life will come down to the quality of your contribution.

Don't be afraid to start small.

The best time to plant a tree was forty years ago. The second best time is today.

Time stops at Grand Central. This is quite entertaining! :)

Sound travels faster in the water than in the air.

Only you can improve yourself and the better you are, the better you are sought after.

If you stand still, you lose ground.

"Life is not a journey to the grave, with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body; but rather to skid-in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and proclaiming, "Wow, what a ride!"

- unknown

If you want to succeed in any business, you should be aiming up not down. People don't get "A" grades in school by starting with "F."

"Love unlocks doors and opens windows that weren't even there before."

- Mignon Mclaughlin

So the question is...would you do it?
Dinner in the sky - this is quite a concept. :)

The average four year old laughs 300 hundred times a day. The average adult - fifteen times.

Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.

"You can get anything you want if you help enough people get what they want."

- Zig Ziglar

Anything worth doing must be done with passion.

- unknown

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes
but in having new eyes."

- Marcel Proust

"...never grow weary of doing what is right."

- 2 Thessalonians 3:13

Make the most of your strengths, whether they're a sense of humor or an out-of-the-ordinary vision.

If you live your dream, what do you dream about?

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

- Albert Einstein

The best part about hitting your head against the wall is when you stop.

"We don't see things as they are...we see things as we are."

- Don Jones

Anything that you negate, you will never have.

Simple

Say what you need to say.

- unknown

Pay it forward...

Tornadoes cut a swath of destruction that resulted in an estimated 59 deaths from Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee, and injured hundreds more. The Red Cross immediately mobilized volunteers and supplies, provided shelter, fed victims, provided emergency workers and lended emotional support. Relief efforts are ongoing.
Please donate anything you can by visiting www.redcross.org or calling 1-800- RED CROSS