Don't Stop Believing; the Law of Attraction is Still Working

Using the law of attraction is not about damage limitation; it's about creating your dream life! I talk to a lot of people who started out passionately learning how to use the law of attraction a couple of years ago, who are now just using it to tread water. It's natural for us that some of the enthusiasm wears off when something is no longer new and exiting, and as we loose the enthusiasm, we start falling into our old habits.

I hear people who were planning to live out their dream say things like "I'm doing ok, at least I'm not creating anything bad for myself." I personally can not think of a less exited or more bland way to look at your life. Ok, so you haven't lost anything, and life is pretty much what it used to be so everything is fine, right? Wrong! You didn't start out using the law of attraction to maintain what you had. You started out building your dream life and somewhere along the way you experienced either impatience, lack off faith or plain old fear of not succeeding so you kind of gave up and re-wrote your dreams to fit you level of enthusiasm.

I'm not trying to make you feel bad about where you are; I'm trying to get you to dig up your original dream and start creating on that again. If you are trying to tell me that things have changed and that you now realize that you don't really want that house or car or career that you first set your sights on, I don't believe you for a second. Stop lying to me, and most importantly; stop lying to yourself. The law of attraction operates on how you really think and feel, not on what you tell yourself to feel better about giving up or loosing faith.

Stop feeling bad about not having achieved it yet, and start using the law of attraction to create your dream again! You don't know how something is going to come about, that's not up to you. Your part of the job is to visualize yourself already having what you want and feeling good about knowing it's on its way. The rest is up to the universe.

My friend had a steady, well paying job but wanted something that gave her more challenges. Over the course of a couple of years she was considering leaving her job for more exiting but less secure ones but never acted because she was afraid of making a bad decision. I watched as she was more and more bored in her old job and heard her passionately talk about the life she could see herself having if she only took the jump and left her stabile job for a more exiting one. I tried to talk her into taking a leap of faith to realize her dream, but she was so caught in the paradigms of "safety over happiness" that she kept hesitating.

One day the universe acted for her. She called me up and told me she had just been let go from her stable well paying job; the company she worked for was closing down. As devastated as she was, she still acted fast and in five days she had a whole week of job interviews lined up. Here's the twist: she never even got to go to one job interview. Before the week was over she got a phone call from a company she had applied to yeas earlier but didn't get the job. She always referred to it as her dream job. The company told her they had heard rumors that she was back on the job market and wanted to snatch her up before someone else did. Not only did this girl get her dream job, it paid much more than her previous job.

Do you think my friend could see that the law of attraction was about to make her dream come true the day she was suddenly without a job? Of course not, but she was given a huge nudge from the universe and she acted on it.

Even though she was afraid to leave her secure job, my never lost faith that she could have the job of her dreams; she kept dreaming, she kept believing, and she was rewarded.

What are you so afraid of? Is failing really the end of the world? The way is see it, there is not such thing as failure if you really, really tried. The only thing stopping you from having what you want is you. Trust in your power to use the law of attraction, and welcome your dream. As long as you are doing your part right; as long as you are visualizing and feeling good about what is coming, you are on the right track.

The universe gives us nudges along the way too, and the law of attraction is always working. Keep your eyes open and you'll find the next step forward.

Overwhelmed by Starting a Business? Utilize Your Strengths

Making the shift from employee to entrepreneur can be a daunting task. The changes necessary to master entrepreneurial skill sets, habits, and paradigms can be overwhelming. "Do I have what it takes to become an entrepreneur?" you ask yourself for the tenth, twentieth, or even fiftieth time. Setbacks and frustrations come with the territory, and eventually many budding entrepreneurs believe that they have made a huge mistake and go back to the familiar, with their tails tucked between their legs and a massive failure hangover.

The good news is that you do not have to master everything. I know you don't believe it, so let me say it again: You don't have to master every attitude, skill set, technique, and body of knowledge to successfully start your own business. It is impossible for you to do so, being human. Cut yourself some slack. Those who have successfully made the transition will freely tell you that they are not fluent in all the necessary entrepreneurial skills. Even Bill Gates will tell you that!

More good news: Entrepreneurs are made, not born. If you are willing, you can acquire many of the attitudes and skills of an entrepreneur. If there is one quality that is paramount in your quest to start your own business, it is the willingness and desire to learn, change, and grow. If you are not interested in learning new things, changing yourself, and experiencing personal growth, you will find having your own business and making it prosper very difficult. Let's face it; you know the old paradigms aren't working, or else you wouldn't be interested in making such a radical change in your life.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of characteristics of successful entrepreneurs (Let me encourage you to read it dispassionately, without measuring yourself against each one right now):

* Self-motivating; able to take independent action

* A commitment to personal and business integrity

* A capacity for hard work with little to no feedback

* Problem-solving skills

* People skills - among them toleration, the ability to listen, encourage, and mediate

* Stubborn, persistent, able to tolerate frustration and failure

* Self-aware with the ability to modify your own behavior

* Reliability - a person who keeps commitments

* The ability to seize the moment and take risks

* Creativity - a "big-picture" thinker, innovative, visionary

* Strong capability to organize self, people, and resources

* Good self-esteem with positive self-talk

* Able to say "no" and set boundaries

* Adaptable

* Tolerance for ambivalence, uncertainty, and ambiguity

* A burning desire to achieve and succeed

* A wealthy, rather than middle-class, understanding of money

* An openness to ideas and inspiration from unfamiliar sources

* The ability to delegate and to ask for help

* Proficiency in communicating and getting your ideas across

* Able to learn from mistakes, criticism, and feedback

Here is an exercise that is very important in assessing your strengths and where you are right now. Take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, and label the right column "strengths." Label the left column "liabilities" as opposed to "weaknesses." Words are important! Now give yourself a block of quiet time without interruptions or distracting stimuli to take an inventory of your strengths and liabilities. Since we humans often have large blind spots about ourselves, it would be valuable to seek information from someone who knows you well and who will be supportive. Please note, that person being supportive is crucial! Don't ask critical, unsupportive people for feedback about your strengths and liabilities. This is akin to throwing your pearls before swine.

Don't look at the liabilities column right now. Also, don't be discouraged if the liabilities column is longer than the strengths column. You should have at least seven to ten strengths listed. If not, keep asking supportive people (or yourself) until you can come up with them. Once you have them, that is the time to look at the list above and see where your strengths dovetail with the entrepreneurial qualities listed.

I would lay a wager that if you took the necessary time, and were able to ask for help, you were amazed at the list of strengths you finally came up with. You were also astonished at how many of the qualities on the list you actually had. Here's where the fun part comes in. Take each of your strengths, and envision yourself in a business-related scenario using that strength successfully. Here are a couple of examples.

If you are a creative visionary, imagine yourself seeing the future of your business, and successfully planning to get it there. Don't be brief with this vision, but play it out. What obstacles do you see that others are oblivious to? What trends in the marketplace do you see that would provide a niche for your business, and how to you set yourself up to capitalize on this information? How do you capture your visions? Do you write them down? Dictate them? Draw them? Where are you when you do so?

If you are skilled at communicating and getting your ideas across, picture yourself communicating to a group of people your understanding of the benefits of your product or service. Do you write them down? Or do you make a PowerPoint and show it to them? You don't have to be physically present with them to communicate. How would you do so, if that were the case? Make sure you picture your success in the endeavor. If thoughts of failure or humiliation cross your mind, capture them quickly and get rid of them.

What about that list of liabilities? Glance through it briefly, then put it aside for the future. When you start focusing on and utilizing your strengths, you will gain self-confidence. As that confidence grows, and you start seeing success in your business, you can pull that list out to start working on one or two liabilities at a time.

The secret? Always operate from your strengths. As you learn, grow, prosper, succeed, and overcome challenges, you will see that list of liabilities grow smaller and smaller.

Celebrating Women's Friendship and Food

As women, we're usually responsible for getting dinner on the table; often we don't take the time to thoroughly enjoy the meals and feasts we create for our families. And, between work and family obligations, it's hard for us to find time to get together with our girlfriends. Yet, friendships need nurturing and attention in order to thrive and grow. One of the best ways to enjoy good food and good friends is to set aside one day a month for a women-only get together.

While it's fun to go out with your girlfriends, it's really more relaxing to meet at someone's house. You can let your hair down, laugh as loudly as you'd like, and not have to worry about splitting the tab. Here, then are five great ideas for "girlfriend time."

1. An afternoon of pie. As women, baking together is a tradition that goes back for generations. Spend a Saturday afternoon baking a pie with your friends. Each person can lend a hand in making the pie, and then everyone can have a glass of wine and catch up while the pie's baking. Once it's out of the oven, you can all share in eating your creation.

2. An evening of bunco. If you've never played bunco, you won't understand the sheer fun and silliness of this dice game. You can look it up online, but all it takes is twelve competitive women, nine dice, scratch paper, and six pencils. My bunco group has been playing once a month for about eight years now, and it takes a force of nature to keep us from our monthly game. We take turns hosting the evening and making a pre-game dinner for our friends. Each of us has our specialties and we all look forward to Lynn's famous enchiladas, to Sherry's chicken and broccoli casserole, and Cindy's barbecue tri-tip. Each of us hosts one month a year, and the other eleven months we get to enjoy each other's cooking.

3. An afternoon of tea. Tea parties enjoyed a resurgence in popularity a few years ago, and in our over-caffeinated world there are still plenty of reasons to relax over tea and crumpets (or scones, or cucumber sandwiches). An afternoon tea party with friends is all the more fun if everyone dresses the part and you can come up with some lace doilies to add to the decor. Don't forget the teacakes!

4. A dinner club. A dinner club is perfect for girlfriends who are serious foodies. Set aside one night each month and alternate hosting duties, then select a cuisine for each month. The hostess provides the main course, and assigns a recipe to each of the other members, who make the dishes and bring them in this sophisticated potluck. It can work with four friends, but six is the perfect number.

5. Brunch with a twist. Almost by definition, brunch is a wonderful, leisurely meal. To keep the stress level down, make it a potluck - with a twist. Like the Food Network's "Iron Chef America" series, come up with a unique ingredient and ask each friend to use that ingredient in her dish. If you have adventuresome friends, make the secret ingredient something exotic. You can even have each person assign scores to each dish based on taste, plating, and originality in the use of the secret ingredient. As they say on the show, "Whose cuisine will reign supreme?"

Women, friends, and food are an unshakable combination. Make time for friends and food, and you'll nurture both yourself and your friends. Bon appetit!

See also related blog:

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Drug Testing Regulations In US And Its Requirements

The US government has provided certain regulations to prevent the illegal drug usage in various situations. They permit and regulate the drug testing programs for every individual including, employees, motor drivers, convicts, and others in various situations. As per the regulations given by the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Federal Transmit Administration (FTA), drug testing can be performed at roadside to check the drivers using rapid testing devices.

Drug Testing Regulations of DOT
The DOT rules include procedures for urine drug testing and breathe alcohol testing. In the coming years, the implementation of drug and alcohol testing requires various aspects including the changes in testing technology, and the issuance of a number of written interpretations, required OST (Office of the Secretary) to review and revise the rules. The latest rules of the OST were published in the year 2000, which included these aspects with the involvement of public sector.

Regulations of OTETA (Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act)
The regulations under OTETA requires drug and alcohol testing for the transportation employees in aviation, truck, railroads, mass transit, pipelines and other transportation industries for their safe and sensitive driving. DOT publishes rules on who should conduct drug tests, how to conduct those tests and what procedures to use when testing. These regulations cover all transportation employers, safety-sensitive transportation employees and service agents, which counts about 12.1 million people.

Requirements of Drug Testing Regulations
The following are some of the drug testing regulations that are provided by the government bodies of US:
• Before suspecting an employee in an organization, the supervisors have to undergo a minimum of 1-hour training program on signs and symptoms of drug abuse. In case of alcohol testing regulation they have to undergo additional 1-hour training.
• Every candidate applying for an interview has to take a pre-employment drug test and will be qualified if they pass the test.
• The existing employees are required to get the drug testing, to perform their safe and sensitive proceedings. It even states that an employee will be tested randomly when they are on duty.
• The person who gets a drug-test should empty their pockets and show all their belongings to assure that there are no substances that may tamper the test sample.
• For some jobs the applicants has to provide background verification. The company contacts their previous employers and asks to provide paperwork and releases.
The transportation employees require to take the alcohol and drug testing, who are required to have a CDL (Commercial Driving License).

This information gives you an idea about drug testing regulations and their requirements in United States. These regulations are collected from certain organizations like, DOT, OTET, FTA and etc.

Stimp Rating of Local and Professional Courses

If you are a beginner golfer, there is a good chance you have never heard the terms stimp meter or stimp rating. In fact, the occasional golfer who heads out to the course for leisure may also not know what a stimp rating is. But, a stimp meter is rather important to the speed of a course so it does help to know about it, even if just a little.

Now, if you have played golf for any significant length of time, you should have heard experienced golfers mention how a golf property green is "stimping." In short, a stimp meter is a tool used to measure the speed of a golf course. The stimp rating is obtained by rolling a ball down a small ramp (stimp meter) in eight varying directions. The rating is actually the average distance the ball rolls after touching the green.

For example, a stimp rating of ten indicates that, based on eight separate rolls, the ball rolled an average of ten feet after reaching the green. Most golf courses that are part of the Professional Golfers Association run at a stimp rating anywhere from 10 to 12. The higher the stimp rating, the faster the course will be. Most local golf courses maintain an average stimp rating between seven to ten.

Unless you are playing competitively or alongside other golfers who play competitively, you probably will care very little about the stimp rating of a course. Regardless, the stimp rating really is quite important and can impact your game. Actually, it may explain why you had a "bad" day on the green. For example, you may score fairly well on a local course with an average rating whereas you may score much lower on a course with a higher stimp rating and, consequently, a faster course.

Something else to consider in measuring the stimp rating is the turf you are playing on. In the past, the difference between the stimp rate between artificial turf and natural grass was obvious. However, manufactures today are more much serious about artificial grass. Many have developed a unique "natural bend" feature that moves just as real grass. With that in mind, there really should be little difference in the stimp meter reading with the artificial turf today.

For golfers who prefer to putt at home to get some extra practice time, you can buy an outdoor synthetic turf to use in your backyard. If you know the stimp rating of the next course you will play, you can adjust the putting green's rating to that of the anticipated course. Of course, with any purchase, research the product and manufacturer to get a good grasp of the pros and cons of the practice green before you go out and purchase a particular system.

If the speed of a course is really not that important to you, then you probably need to know little, if anything, about the stimp rating at the courses on which you play. However, if someone asks you how the golf green is stimping, you can now impress them with an answer!

I've Completed My Coaching Program. Now What?

Executive coaching is one of the most powerful tools available to increase your value to your employer and grow your personal impact and satisfaction in your leadership role.

But the benefits may be fleeting unless you take steps to avoid going to back to old habits and to keep growing.

Sure, once you're my coaching client, I'm your coach for life (or at least until I retire). You can always pick up the phone to ask me a question, bounce an idea off of me, or ask for my advice -- without opening a PO.

What I'm talking about, though, is more than that. I recently created a "Leadership Success and Happiness" list of recommendations for a VP of Engineering who was completing his coaching engagement. As I reflected on it further, I realized that with a little modification, there's value in it for anyone who's ever completed a coaching program. Here it is:

1. Monitor your self-talk on a routine basis. We all have voices in our heads that tell us positive, constructive stories and others that tell us negative, destructive stories about ourselves, other people, and whatever situation we are in.

Nearly all of my clients got to where they are because they are very critical people. They have always set a high bar and worked hard to jump over it, along the way noticing and correcting everything that interfered with that goal.

However, it's a true case of "whatever got you here, won't get you there," because once you are either a VP-level executive or a small business owner, you see the inherent messiness of all businesses and all markets. It's not even clear what exactly that high bar should be or what it should be sitting high above. You just have to accept the risk that you're wrong and take your best shot at it.

Besides crippling decision-making, remember that an overly critical attitude will also squelch the motivation of the many people who now count on you for inspiration.

When critical internal voices start screaming (as opposed to objectively assessing trade-offs and progress), this is about fear, nothing more. The primitive part of your brain is doing its duty, trying to save you from danger, but it can't tell the difference between the light threat of on-the-job overwhelm and the serious threat of a ferocious lion about to eat you, so it screams.

Try reversing the negative message into a positive interpretation, because this is really not about the facts; it's about how you interpret them:

* "I'm growing, so some growing pains are to be expected and are perfectly normal."

* "We have a long way to go, it's true, but I'm correcting my past mistakes and we will get there."

* "I am completely confident that even though I don't know the answer, I am perfectly capable of figuring it out."

* "Things may be tough now, but soon I will look back on the journey and its challenges with joy and satisfaction."

* "Perfection is for people with too much time on their hands." :)

You can also simply step back and ask, "What am I afraid of?" Then decide if your fear is justified.

2. Fiercely guard your happiness. Spend time with positive people who believe in you, have faith in you, and genuinely build you up. Disassociate yourself from negative people or those who don't believe in you. If you can't disassociate yourself from them (for example, if they're your in-laws), minimize your exposure and maintain firm personal boundaries when you are together. If you consider yourself an extrovert, in particular, know that the company you keep will have a substantial impact on your happiness.

3. Continue to explore and develop the parts of your personality that you underutilize and work with the insights you gained about your natural style and habits at work. For example, let's say you've learned that your natural style is to not say things more than once (because you value efficient communication), and to do most of your communication one-on-one (because you hate meetings).

You've also learned through the feedback process that your natural style is hurting your organization because employees need you to more openly share and promote your vision, and not just through email, but through face-to-face brown bag lunches and all-hands meetings.

It's one thing to read the feedback and say, 'o.k. I can change that." But what you need to do is set a plan in place to behave differently, and be rigorous about executing the plan throughout the year, not just during the months when your coach will hold you accountable.

By gently working with the parts of yourself that are underutilized (in this example, the outgoing part of you and the part of you that is willing to give up communication efficiency in exchange for communication effectiveness), you will find new insights into your beliefs, your attitudes, your assumptions, and your relationships. You can then use these to approach and address vexing work challenges from a broader and less personally biased viewpoint.

4. Involve another person for mutual support. A mentor who has achieved what you want to achieve, a peer who is also on a growth path, a good friend, or even your coach, under certain circumstances.

As with Tip #2, this is particularly true if you are an extrovert. You will get farther and grow faster by literally speaking out loud with another person than by working on your own. This is not a character flaw! Let me repeat that. The fact that you need to work with someone across time in order to not get stuck is not a character flaw! Stop those darn critical voices from Tip #1. It's just a matter of personal style. This is how outgoing people propel themselves forward.

http://mychanneleight.blogspot.com/

Do you have programs no longer functioning properly on your computer? If so, then you may need to update your drivers. A driver is a program that interacts with certain devices and software programs. Without the driver your computer could not communicate with your printer, sound card, video card and just about any other piece of software you might have on your machine. Without the driver, these items will no longer work properly.

Occasionally when your Windows updates, it will cause problems in some software programs. When this happens you will need to update your drivers to ensure they are up to date with the Windows update. If you experience strange behaviors or a piece of software stops working the first thing to do is check for updates for the drivers, if no updates are available you may need to reinstall the driver. Its best to check for updates on a regular basis so that you know your programs will function as they should.

If you have an OEM computer, such as Dell or HP, you can usually find all of the driver information and downloads you will need at the companies website for any internal drivers such as network cards, sound and video cards. If your machine was built by the local computer store you may have to hunt for the drivers you need to update, just as you will for any software you might have added into the system. Your printer drivers will be located on the disk that comes with your printer, and can be located online if you no longer have the disk.

Searching for drivers can be a long, drawn out process, and doesn't always turn up the exact driver you need. A good place to start is with the manufacturer of the device your trying to update. There are several websites available today that say they will locate all of your drivers for you.

There is a new program on the market called PC Updater that does all of the work for you, in a short amount of time. This program has one of the most comprehensive databases of drivers available today. Why spend all that time manually searching for drivers and hoping you have found the right one, when you can be finished in a matter of minutes with PC Updater?