Photo Credit: Robert Campbell Photography

Part 1:

Fear is an illusive giant. What is it? What color is it? How is it shaped? Where can it be found? Fear is everywhere and no where at the same time. It has no shape, color, sound, form, or solid visibility. We can see and feel only its effects. What to do when fear is stalking? Stop. Turn around. Look at it square in the face, And what? Fear has no eyes, no face, and no form.

The truth is that fear is: False Evidence Appearing Real.

This step prepares you to overcome fear, and gather up the courage to write your dream plan and to build your Dream Plan Book.

A wise Eddie Rickenbacker once said, “Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.”

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Hi.  I’m Joey.  Nice to meet you.  Would you like me to write about the number one thing holding people back from growing their careers?

An awkward way to start an article, yeah?  It’s awkward because I’m asking for permission to talk about what I’d like to talk about instead of just talking.  I’m waiting for permission to do what I’d like to do.  Now this is silly for sure, but it’s not a whole lot different from how most people approach their careers.  We wait for permission to get hired, get promoted, and grow in our careers.  So often we let our success ride on what someone else allows us to do.  So, I’m going to go ahead and talk about the number one thing holding people back from growing in their careers—we wait for permission first.

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Photo Credit: DeeMayGreaves

I used to love gossiping – chewing on a juicy story about where someone’s boyfriend was seen after the party, or the story behind how that colleague really got fired. It was a great way to bond with my friends and family, made for lively conversation, and even seemed to make me feel better about myself.

Here’s how Random House Dictionary defines gossip:

Idle talk or rumor, esp. about the personal or private affairs of others.

Here’s the way I define it:

Talking in negative ways about someone who is not in the room.

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Hiccups might be a cute or funny bodily reaction, but when you’re experiencing them, they’re nothing but annoying. These not-so-pleasant spasms that make you say, “hic,” are the involuntary contractions of the diaphragm and sudden closure of your vocal cords. According to MayoClinic.com, hiccups can occur after drinking alcohol, eating a large meal or getting suddenly excited. Hiccups are usually nothing to fret over, but you also don’t have to deal with them all day, because there are several tried-and-tested home remedies designed to quiet your hiccups. Here are 11 popular ways to get rid of hiccups:

1. Breathe Into a Paper Bag
   This is an age-old trick that many hiccup sufferers swear by. Take a brown paper bag and, while holding the opening around your mouth and sealing it tightly, begin blowing in and out about 10 times. Some say to breathe fast or really hard to get optimal results, but it’s important to do it at your own level of comfort.

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Photo Credit: Gabrielle Esperdy

We’re taught that, in almost every area of life, having more is the key to happiness.

Not satisfied with your job? That’s because you want more money.

Unhappy with your home? You want more space.

Bored of your gadgets and DVDs and computer games? You want more of them.

As you’ve probably experienced in your own life, though, simply having more doesn’t tend to make you any happier. If you’ve ever received a pay raise – only to end up increasing your spending too – you’ll know that if you aren’t satisfied on $40,000 you’re unlikely to be satisfied on $50,000.

And if you’ve ever bought a new gadget or game, convinced that it’s going to make you happy, you’ll have noticed how quickly the thrill of “new” wears off.

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Today I want to talk about seven amazing life lessons from Oprah, I recently wrote an article titled “7 Must Read Lessons from Oprah,” so needless to say, there’s a lot to learn from Oprah.

Oprah Winfrey is an American television host, producer, and philanthropist, most known for her self-titled, multi-award winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history.

She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and was once the world’s only black billionaire.

Some even consider her to be the most influential woman in the world.

Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She went though considerable hardship during her childhood, prior to becoming the person she is today.

7 Amazing Life Lessons from Oprah:

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Have you ever been surprised at how much you can fit in when you’re at a conference? When we have a schedule provided for us, we manage to get from one event to the next at the right time; the imposition of external timings means that even if we’d like to stick with one task a little longer, we move on quickly. We deal with emails in brief breaks, sending shorter replies than usual, ditching any junk without even opening it.

In day to day working life, though, we tend to find ourselves struggling to stick to self-imposed schedules. One or two things overrun; emails and phone calls come in; our boss dumps an urgent task on us.

However beautiful your schedule looks, just writing it out isn’t going to help you.

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Want motivation on weight loss? Don’t rely on your willpower!

Controversial advice – I know, but there is psychological proof for it, so please bear with me and I’ll explain.

Most advice you’ll hear about how to get motivated and keep motivated when losing weight (or for any other goal in life actually), will teach you to rely on your will power for the support you need.

You’ve heard it all, right? And did any of the advice work?

You see – the problem with relying just on your will power to get you through the tough times, is that your will power is finite.

Research shows that it’s like a muscle. You over-use it and it fatigues. If you don’t let it rest sufficiently enough to recover, it won’t be much use to you for the rest of the day.

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Grade school was an impressionable time for everyone. It’s when we became immersed into a mini-society, learning valuable life lessons that have remained through adulthood. If you think about it, many comparisons can be made between life in grade school and life in the real world. For example, back then, we had to learn to coexist with our peers – for better or for worse. And for many, it has proven to be a never-ending learning process; though you’re hopefully better at it now than you were as an 8-year-old. Here are a few life lessons we learned during that fun yet trying time, when the world was fresh and we were a bit more resilient.

• Pay attention
  When you’re a kid and possess the attention span of a fruit fly, paying attention isn’t the easiest of tasks. This was especially the case when you first entered elementary school. No longer was there naptime or extended periods of time to expend your massive amounts of energy – recess wasn’t nearly long enough. In junior high, the opposite sex served as a constant distraction – if not an obsession.

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There’s a climactic moment in the movie Castaway where Tom Hanks, who has been shipwrecked on a desert island, finally creates the one thing that can provide him with a means for survival: FIRE.

The pure ecstasy that fills him as he dances around the beach, screaming like a kid who just won the big game, is palpable. Just when things were looking so grim, he found that one spark. Enough to fan into a raging fire. And that was enough to give him hope.

When people are passionate, we often say they have a “fire in the belly” or that they’re “firing on all cylinders.” Fire is full of energy and heat. It’s what we all want to feel inside—a sense of passion for what we do and what we stand for.

Unfortunately, it isn’t so easy to find. I often work with people to help them develop a career road map, and one of the biggest obstacles to success (both personally and professionally) is that they don’t have any idea what they’re passionate about.  

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