When it comes to business and economy, bad news is pouring like rain; go to any news website or social bookmarking website and you will find scores of links telling you what a mess we’re in. Businesses are crumbling, banks are failing, real estate is dissolving, and a new study has revealed that 80% Americans are stressed due to the prevalent economic conditions (Source). So when it seems the skies are falling, I know it may feel like rubbing salt over the wound if I tell you such conditions can be used to your benefit.

I’m not saying take financial, emotional or physical advantage of your family members, friends, colleagues, or neighbors. Whether we like them or not, adversities are like vaccinations that make us stronger as individuals, as a society and as a civilization.  It is through hardships that we become more perceptive towards human values, towards togetherness and towards the beautiful world around us. Whenever we have grown as people it has been through hardship. Unfortunately the law of survival of the fittest manifests most prolifically during such times; some people survive and come through victorious and some don’t (the recent family-suicide-cum-murder).

So what makes you victorious, what differentiates you from those who succumbed to the pressure and couldn’t make it? You are victorious when you can use even adversity to your advantage.  Here are a few things to consider:

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We all have a voice inside our head that chatters to us constantly about the day-to-day situations we find ourselves in. It’s one of the three primary ways that we interpret external data by constructing conversations internally with ourselves.

Although we all have a voice (or quite often several different ones) we have our own particular versions some of which can be more helpful than others.

Does your voice support and encourage you when things aren’t going quite as planned or does it become aggressive, whiny, rude, pessimistic and thinks nothing of tearing a strip off you?

Is it often far more hostile and abusive to you than you ever would be to other people, even people you don’t actually like?

I once heard this voice likened to that of a bad tempered, miserable, old duck! Yes that’s what I said, a duck. Close your eyes and you can hear the voice in your head now quacking away at you.

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Fact 1: Meditation assists healing. If you have any kind of health complaint at all then meditation can help you to get better.

Fact 2: Meditation can help you to stay healthy. If you are in good shape and want to stay this way, then regular meditation is a good idea.

Twenty years ago these would have been considered fringe ideas rather than facts, but not anymore…

Meditation Goes Mainstream

Meditation no longer belongs solely to the worlds of pseudo-science and spirituality, but has now been embraced by modern science as well.

Good western doctors know how meditation works to relax and heal. A recent survey of General Practitioners found that up to 80% of doctors had referred patients to practitioners of the three most popular Complementary Therapies – which included meditation, along with acupuncture and hypnosis.

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One piece of advice that I’ve come across in the writings of several life coaches is that we should act in our own best interests. My initial reaction to this is to feel uncomfortable – like most people, I worry that I’m being selfish if I put myself first.

But I’ve come to realize that acting in your own best interests, when done properly, isn’t a selfish act – it’s a way to ensure that you’re making the very best of your life, so that you can help those around you to make the very best of theirs.

So, what are your best interests? How do you base your actions, your goals, your time-management and your life on them – and how will this affect the people around you?

I would suggest that acting consistently in your own best interests involves four areas:

• Meeting your physical needs, such as getting enough sleep and exercise
• Meeting your emotional needs, such as asking for support when you need it
• Meeting your mental needs, such as having a stimulating job
• Meeting your spiritual needs, such as taking time to meditate or pray

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Every day we communicate–whether orally or written. Not a day goes by that we’re not communicating in some way with someone. If you work outside your home, you communicate with the people you work with. Orally, you talk with your colleagues, you present information in meetings, or you train your staff. With writing, you send emails, memos, and letters. You create proposals, articles, or books.

If you work at home, you communicate over the phone as I do with coaching clients, or you call vendors, customers, or associates. You probably spend a lot of time on the Internet maybe communicating by email or through social networking sites, blogging, or your website.

And if you’re not in the active workforce, you converse every day with family, friends, merchants, and people in the community. You email, write letters, send birthday cards, or write in a journal, where you communicate with yourself.

With all this communication in your life, how effective do you think you are? Do people always get what you’re saying? Do they respond as you expect them to? Do they ask a lot of questions for clarification? Do they completely misinterpret your intentions?

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You may have noticed a recent backlash against productivity in some parts of the personal development community. If you have found yourself second guessing the value of this subject, it may be worth going back to a very simple question: “why be productive?”

The first idea in The Little Book of Productivity, the new e-book written by Scott Young, is to understand the reasons for wanting to get more done in less time. Many of you will be familiar with Scott’s work from his regular contributions to Pick The Brain over the past year and his own self-titled blog, Scott H Young.

Of course everyone will have their own individual reasons for wanting to be productive. Personally, productivity is a subject I have taken an interest in due to the pressures of working two jobs and being the father of two boys under the age of two. I need to be able to get things done quickly and efficiently. As Scott points out, by becoming aware of these reasons you will be naturally motivated to stay productive instead of slipping into lazy habits.

There are many more excellent ideas in this book, including timeboxing, sprinting theory, Hofstadter’s Rule and operant conditioning. And that is exactly what The Little Book of Productivity is: a book of ideas. Scott’s book looks at 99 ideas related to productivity, with each idea taking up one page.

The book is very well organized (as you would hope a productivity book would be) and covers the following topics:

• Beating Procrastination
• Becoming Organized
• Staying Energized
• Getting Things Finished
• Automate Your Routine
• Productivity Hacks
• Doing the Right Work

Returning to my first point in this review – the backlash against productivity – I would like to point out that a book such as this doesn’t pretend to be answering life’s big questions. But there are plenty of other books for that. The Little Book of Productivity does, however, hope to improve your life. And as I’m sure you will agree, sometimes it only takes one idea to do this.

If you are interested in The Little Book of Productivity you can purchase a copy for $9.95 USD by clicking the following button:

If you would like to know more about this e-book, Scott has made the first chapter available to read for free here.

The events of the past few months and especially this week are disturbing and troubling at best. Food and gas prices are rising faster than they have in a long, long, time. The value of our retirement accounts are on a wild roller coaster ride and our incomes are not keeping pace with inflation. It’s a scary time and one night I was wondering if there was anything that we can do to calm our fears and help us sleep at night?

The other night I was particularly restless and decided to go downstairs and started watching The Matrix. I watched the movie, the scene selections, listened to the audio commentary and viewed every piece of footage on the DVD. Then I stumbled across the strangest scene of all – it must have been a ‘deleted scene’ that didn’t make it into the released version of the movie. In this scene Morpheus was explaining to Neo how to survive troubled times. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and even felt the back of my head for one of those ‘Neural connectivity ports’.

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This is one of my favorite posters. It hangs where I can see it from my desk:

12 and ½ Writing Rules from AllPosters.com.

Everything on there is good advice for any writer, especially those working on pieces of fiction. It also looks great on the wall of your office or den – it’s currently replacing my rather battered poster of Johnny Depp…

So what exactly do these rules mean, and how can you use them to make you a better writer? This is my take on it – I expect everyone who owns this poster has a slightly different opinion!

1. If you write every day, you get better at writing every day.

This is common – and good – advice that lots of published authors offer. Stephen King, for instance, suggests that aspiring writers should write a minimum of 1,000 words a day. Many people, myself included, find that it’s easier to make something a daily habit rather than a “not quite daily” habit: I’ve written about this one in How to Write Every Day (And Why You Should)

2. If it’s boring to you, it’s boring to your reader

When I was doing NaNoWriMo last year, I found myself churning out sentences, paragraphs and scenes just to hit my wordcount for the day – what I was writing didn’t always interest me much. If you find yourself struggling to write because you’re bored, stop! No-one’s going to want to read it.

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