tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17183237488371503182024-02-18T22:36:54.392-08:00Job TipsLuiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-40664226543582288532014-01-01T13:05:00.001-08:002014-01-01T13:05:47.589-08:00How to Create a Better Job for Yourself<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This might mean that you must learn to get creative…or think outside the box…but you can use your current job to provide yourself with free training and new skills to beef up your resume in order to get a pay raise or better career position, or simply to enhance your present workplace and your relationships with your coworkers.</div>
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Here are some of the ideas I have used to successfully create a better job for myself:</div>
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I became a notary public in just a few hours online, and I did it with my boss’s permission — on company time! He even let me pay for it on the company credit card because it would be so useful to him to have a notary on the premises.</div>
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<b>Pitch Your Boss</b></div>
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The point here is to try to think of an idea you can pitch to your boss that will help him or her or the company, and therefore make you a more valuable employee. You will have more job security and confidence, management will love you, and you can grow your resume for the future.</div>
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My most recent pitch to my boss was not for myself. I learned that a coworker who is also a friend has a small hobby/side business that requires a lot of social media, so she is very experienced in that field. We pay our advertising company an astronomical amount of money to have them manage our social media in addition to running our website and designing our ads. Their contract is up next month.</div>
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I talked to my boss and presented my idea to save the company tons of money by having one of our own employees take over the social media portion of the advertising contract for next year. We could even give my coworker a nice pay raise, but it would be SO much less than we currently spend. The company would come out MUCH better off financially, and so would my friend.</div>
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Believe it or not, being kind and offering to help others can also be an opportunity for you to create a better job for yourself at work. Because I volunteered to do extra work filling in for someone on maternity leave so that her boss could cope, when she decided not to come back to work after having her baby, the position was given to me…with a pay raise!</div>
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<b>Look for Training Opportunities</b></div>
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Another potential way to improve your career options is to sign up for any relevant training programs offered by your employer You can also find out if they would pay for certifications or classes. By taking advantage of any learning opportunities available, you can become a more valuable asset to your company while also growing and improving yourself and your capacity to earn more money in the future.</div>
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For example, I learned of a fabulous program in my state offered by Workplace Development. I discovered it through an email sent by our local Chamber of Commerce. It is a grant offered by the state to pay for employees’ continuing education or to improve or build job skills.</div>
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I presented it to my boss and told him I would do all the work involved if he would let me apply for the grant. (Full disclosure: If I’d realized how much work would be involved in the grant process, I’m not sure I would have been so eager to volunteer for this project!)</div>
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With the grant, I am getting approval for over a dozen of my coworkers and myself to take classes on company time for two hours, twice a week. With our new knowledge and skills, we will then be able to get pay raises, but the company will benefit financially as we apply the new knowledge and skills.</div>
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For example, our maintenance staff will learn more intensive plumbing, air conditioning and electrical skills. They will be able to do more of the big jobs that usually require hiring outside contractors. Therefore, even with giving the maintenance staff pay raises, the company will come out ahead by saving money spent on contracted services. Win-win!</div>
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For myself, I am taking accounting and Quickbooks classes so I can cover for our bookkeeper when she goes on vacation, rather than having to wait for her return every time she takes a few days off. Perhaps one day, I’ll even want to change my career from administrative assistant to accounting. In the meantime, I have a pretty good thing going with the present job I created for myself.</div>
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<b>Frame Your Idea in Positive Way</b></div>
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The first time I asked my boss if he had a few minutes to talk to me, I felt him cringe as he assumed I was going to ask for a raise. (There was no money in the budget for that.) I learned to ask instead, “Do you have a few minutes so I can run an idea by you?” Now when I approach with a big grin asking if he has time to talk about a new idea, my boss is eager to hear what I have to say.</div>
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Have you ever pitched a new or creative idea to your boss that changed your job or experience? Please share your ideas or comments!</div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-10453291286803072472013-10-07T08:38:00.000-07:002013-10-07T08:38:17.340-07:0017 Things The Boss Should Never Say<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>1. "That Client Drives Me Nuts!</b>"<br />
We all experience crazy deadlines in a high-pressure environment. Passing along our feelings of stress to our staff can cause them to feel less motivated working for a particular client. Make sure they don't lose sight of the fact that every single client is equally important, even if you have an 80/20 portfolio.<br />
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<b>2. I'm the Boss!</b><br />
No one wants to work for an organization that doesn't respect their commitment level or humanity. If your co-workers wanted to take orders, they would have joined the army. Unless you are the military, avoid pulling rank. Every decision is a dialogue. Even if you do have the final say and aren't in full agreement (which is probable), don't make "I'm the boss" the ultimate reason for any decision.<br />
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<b>3. "I'm Too Busy"</b><br />
This statement is terse and shows a lack of empathy to the needs of your staff. It also makes your employees feel that what they are doing is not that important. Instead of telling them you're too busy, try asking them to come back at a specific time when you do have availability. This gives them confidence that they have your ear, your respect, and your sincere care about the work they are doing. <br />
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<b>4. "What's the Latest Gossip?"</b><br />
When you're running a company, you set the tone for the workplace culture. If you gossip about staff members, it tells your staff that it's okay to gossip, which ultimately sets up a toxic environment for team relationships. Leave the gossip at the door.<br />
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<b>5. "What's Wrong With You?"</b><br />
It's easy to get frustrated when your staff does something incorrectly but this question goes right to the heart of their competencies. It not only assumes that they have a fundamental flaw but it conveys that you've lost all trust in their abilities. It's only downhill from there.<br />
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<b>6. "You're the Only One Having a Problem"</b><br />
This will only isolate your employees. It will break your staff down and make them feel alone. I believe that a majority of the time, if you were to google a question or problem, you will find many others have similar issues and concerns, and are truly seeking an answer. <br />
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<b>7. "I Don't Care About That"</b><br />
You need to care about every aspect of your business -- small or large. If you let you staff know that you don't care about something, why should they? Treat every aspect of your business the same and your staff will have more pride in their work.<br />
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<b>8. "Do What I Won't"</b><br />
As business owners and bosses, we need to be willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. Never ask an employee to do something you wouldn't do yourself. If I'm assigning a somewhat overwhelming or complicated task, I always make sure to offer myself as a helper or resource. Follow the guideline of leading by example. Get in the trenches with your employees if need be. <br />
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<b>9. "Don't Argue With Me"</b><br />
No boss should dissuade their staff from arguing or disagreeing with them. Sometimes you may be wrong, and it's important to get that insight from your staff. Hearing their thoughts and ideas is crucial to building a business. <br />
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<b>10. "We've Always Done it This Way"</b><br />
Just because something's been done a certain way for months or years doesn't mean that it's the best way to approach a problem. Empower your staff to think of new solutions. Openness breeds creativity, which in turn breeds innovation. And startups need all the innovation they can get, regardless of whether it comes from the CEO or an intern. <br />
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<b>11. "Just Let Me Do It"</b><br />
You can’t grow your company by doing everything yourself. If you feel you have to step in every time things get hard, your staff will never learn to be self-sufficient. Give everyone a chance to succeed and encourage management to do the same. You will build a stronger company. <br />
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<b>12. "You're Doing Okay"</b><br />
When an employee asks for feedback, never tell them they're doing an okay or fine job. Asking for feedback is a sign of potential; a desire to grow, change and get better. We typically have a good sense of what we're good at, but we don't always know what we can do better. Telling someone "you're doing fine" without giving the gift of improvement is a hugely missed opportunity.<br />
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<b>13. "This is MY Company"</b><br />
That may very well be true on paper, but you won't be much of a leader if you don't have any willing "followers." Being "in charge" is like being "cool" -- if you have to say you are, you're not. <br />
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<b>14. "It's Your Problem"</b><br />
Maintaining an attitude of shared responsibilities with your employees is important to order to create the best experience and generate the best work. If an employee knows you feel personally involved in all tasks, they view their own work as being a valued part of a larger effort.<br />
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<b>15. "This is Just a Small Client / Sale"</b><br />
Teaching your staff to treat the high-paying clients or the big sales differently than smaller ones is a huge mistake. This sets up your company not only for bad customer service but also for arguments amongst your staff over who gets to work on which accounts. <br />
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<b>16. "We Just Need PR"</b><br />
Although PR is important, the staff should always be working to improve the product. Placing the focus on only needing PR insinuates that the product is complete and success is out of everyone's control. Never make your staff feel like anything is out of their control. <br />
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<b>17. "I Don't Care What You Think"</b><br />
This sentence can end many different ways. It could be "I don't care what you think," or "I don't care if that's what XX does." Regardless of how the sentence ends, "I don't care" is a phrase that shuts down conversations rather than encouraging dialogue. It suggests you aren't open to considering others or their ideas. Exercising your role of power unnecessarily leads to a negative workplace. <br />
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-4357530495272724002013-08-09T09:17:00.000-07:002013-08-09T09:17:18.956-07:0023 Life Lessons You Get From Working At A Restaurant<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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1. If you don’t have a thick skin and complete abandonment of political correctness, don’t go near the kitchen. You will immediately learn there that what you consider to be off-limits is just the baseline of someone else’s sense of humor.</div>
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2. Bad tippers are the worst kinds of people, and are often terrible in many other ways than just being cheap.</div>
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3. Correction, the worst people are those who don’t tip or tip very badly, and accompany their financial insult with a snarky note left on the receipt.</div>
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4. The pain of a bad seating chart is a real one, and not a single customer will care or understand that you got slammed while someone else is totally dead.</div>
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5. The difference between the people who have never worked in food service, and the people who have, is always clearly visible. And a lot of time it has to do with the basic degree of respect they give to the people who are serving them.</div>
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6. Make back-of-house’s life easy, they will make yours easy. Working is always about scratching someone’s back so they’ll scratch yours, and you’d better not break that chain.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ0vLaf5ZVTJd3bkFoYFN7DEpXNPWBFlTBV2SOIiWls9tjB7xGeh9YP_E-TJD2r84w8Yb51A9_ZziCSPXOpRKl9uIVDraVPq_e5B9rgRo9yKjRF8SJLlkX-yCutyuSxulL_i1_KNqYoaA/s1600/restaurant-staff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ0vLaf5ZVTJd3bkFoYFN7DEpXNPWBFlTBV2SOIiWls9tjB7xGeh9YP_E-TJD2r84w8Yb51A9_ZziCSPXOpRKl9uIVDraVPq_e5B9rgRo9yKjRF8SJLlkX-yCutyuSxulL_i1_KNqYoaA/s320/restaurant-staff.jpg" width="320" /></a>7. The only people you’re going to be able to hang out with — and often date — are by default going to be other people in the industry. So you better like the people you work with it, because no one else is going to be coming out with you at 1 AM.</div>
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8. There is absolutely zero shame in eating the plate that gets sent back barely-touched because someone either misunderstood what they were ordering or is incredibly fussy about their perfectly-good food. People who will judge you over shit like that are people who don’t know the joys of a pristine plate of onion rings coming back to you when you are starving.</div>
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9. The most important friend you will make is the one who will cover for you while you eat, crouched next to some appliance in the kitchen. True friendship is about taking the fall so someone can eat.</div>
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10. There are a lot of people who are going to look down on you for working a restaurant, and treat you with massive disrespect, and you just have to get over it and remind yourself to never be like that in your own life.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisYbaMmdx8dyIQU64-hDCIxXWPcWManFBwEwel47zCY4KiRGfDyzk4o-TFa3RSy6Blgs8VCcCN1DT1_PT5wG-tjOi5BUBL86yVGXhYmOWiaqeKwBbp0ovTecNz5R6hh0sAudnnJpvTkj0/s1600/dish-bavarianchef-web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisYbaMmdx8dyIQU64-hDCIxXWPcWManFBwEwel47zCY4KiRGfDyzk4o-TFa3RSy6Blgs8VCcCN1DT1_PT5wG-tjOi5BUBL86yVGXhYmOWiaqeKwBbp0ovTecNz5R6hh0sAudnnJpvTkj0/s320/dish-bavarianchef-web.jpg" width="320" /></a>11. If you are good to your server, your experience will be about a thousand times better, and you might even get free stuff if you’re lucky.</div>
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12. There is nothing better than a chef who is currently trying out new stuff and has tons of excess food for everyone to try. The best friend anyone can have is a good chef.</div>
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13. Line cooks are some of the hardest-working, most humble and honest people in the working world. And many of them happen to be felons. And when you see them get off a 14-hour shift and still manage to make jokes with you at the end of it, you realize that every judgment we make about the guy with neck tattoos is completely off base.</div>
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14. If you’re a female waitress/hostess/bartender, some of the more drunk male customers will take it upon themselves to also designate you “professional receiver of gross comments and inappropriate touches.”</div>
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15. A good manager is the one who will shut shit like that down, because they would rather lose the money from that customer than have someone who mistreats their staff.</div>
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16. Even the best establishment can be run into the ground by a petty, spiteful manager.</div>
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17. There is no worse an experience on this planet than working a busy brunch shift when you are brutally hungover.</div>
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18. If you don’t make friends with the bartender from the get-go, your life is going to be difficult. And you quickly learn that this also applies to the places you don’t work at — treat your bartender well, reap the rewards.</div>
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19. The calm before the storm (also known as the rush) is one of the most precious, fleeting moments in life. And as soon as you see that first customer looking at the specials board just a little too long, you know that it’s already over.</div>
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20. Never be the person who comes in just as the kitchen’s closing and orders something really complicated. Just don’t be that person.</div>
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21. In the best restaurants, you’ll become like a little family, and live through several very important moments together (especially because you don’t get days off for normal, human things such as holidays or birthdays).</div>
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22. There will be one item on the menu that you fall in love with so much that you actually start having dreams about it, and go through withdrawal when you don’t have it for a long enough stretch of time. You can actually get that way over, say, a cream of crab soup. It’s like heroin.</div>
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23. Going back to a place you used to work and seeing all the old group — and getting to eat and drink all your favorites again — is one of the best feelings you can have. <span class="tc_mark" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-60328800073377320122013-04-04T11:37:00.005-07:002013-04-04T11:37:56.220-07:00How To Dress For A Job Interview<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-36489323007903060682013-04-02T11:07:00.002-07:002013-04-02T11:07:31.589-07:00The 10 Reasons You’re Not Getting a Raise<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>You might think you deserve a raise, but that doesn't always mean your boss agrees with you. And no, you can no longer heap all the blame on a bad economy. At 7.7%, the unemployment rate is the lowest it has been since December 2008. In February alone, the Labor Department reported that the economy added 236,000 jobs. So, what does this mean for you? It's the perfect time to ask for a bump in pay.</b><br />
<b>If it's been a while since you increased your salary and you're coming up against a wall, the most likely reason is...you. Here are the top ten reasons you haven't landed the increase you so desperately want, and how to fix them.</b><br />
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<b>1) You Have Unrealistic Expectations</b><br />
In 2012, a typical merit raise averaged 1.9 to 2%, while the highest-performing employees received closer to a 4% raise. To determine if you're worthy of that 4% (or more), it's vital to check in with your boss regularly so you're on the same page about your performance. Does your boss think you turn in above average work or is there an area she thinks you're struggling with?<br />
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Also, does your company give raises at a certain time each year (say, at annual review time), or are they rolling, based on performance? If it's the former, make sure to time your request for optimal results.<br />
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Finally, remember to consider your company's financial situation. Asking for a big raise when the company is struggling can come off as out of touch.<br />
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<b>2) You Didn't Do Your Research</b><br />
Before deciding how much of a raise you deserve, look up the standard industry salaries for similar positions on sites like Salary.com and Glassdoor.com. That will give you a point of reference for framing the conversation. But it's not enough to cite averages-you also have to make a case for your personal performance, and how you're going above and beyond your job duties. Which brings us to...<br />
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<b>3) You Do Only What's Expected of You</b><br />
Doing your job is what you are paid for, whereas a raise is a sign that your boss sees that you're contributing at a higher level than what you were originally hired to do. One good rule of thumb is to be an employee who makes your boss's job easier: Volunteer to take on additional projects and think about what you can do to lighten her workload. Or notice what she is complaining about, and figure out how to solve a problem within your department. If you present solutions for her now, you'll find your superior more willing to meet your demands later.<br />
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<b>4) You Don't Call Attention to Your Accomplishments, or You Act Entitled</b><br />
Neither of these extremes will help you get that salary bump. And, admittedly, mastering the fine art of self-promotion isn't easy. First, make sure that your boss is aware of everything you've taken on. And feel free to share your successes—they show that you're capable and competent. Just be subtle about it: Set up a meeting to discuss the projects you're working on, mention key wins you've had and ask for feedback on how you could still do better.<br />
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Another good strategy: Rely on third-party praise. Copy your boss on an email chain discussing a successfully-executed project or forward her a particularly moving compliment from a client.<br />
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<b>5) You're Not Staying Current</b><br />
Evaluate your skill set: How much has it changed since you started in your industry? In certain jobs, a lack of tech finesse, or the ability to stay on top of the latest trends, can trip you up—and cause your salary to stagnate. That's especially true for older workers, who, unfortunately, can face age discrimination in the office: In a survey of people 50 years old or older, over one-third of respondents reported that they or someone they know has faced age discrimination at work, and 25% of all complaints filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission involve age discrimination.<br />
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But there's no reason to let a lack of skills hold you back. Bookmark and follow industry blogs, and look into workshops and courses teaching the latest industry developments. You can even mention them to your boss and see if the company will foot the bill for your continuing education. Bonus: He'll see that you're trying to sharpen your skills.<br />
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<b>6) You're Unable to Problem Solve, or Love to Complain</b><br />
Be honest with yourself: Is your gut instinct to tell your boss every time an issue arises, or do you try to navigate through hurdles yourself?<br />
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If it's an issue that truly needs to be escalated, by all means, manage up. But a broken printer is a good example of what not to kick up the food chain. Also, beware of becoming the employee who's always got a gripe, whether it's about company policy or your coworker you just can't stand. Ultimately, the people who get raises are the employees who consider it their jobs to provide solutions, not raise problems.<br />
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7) <b>You Don't Pay Attention to the Details</b><br />
Does your boss tell you to fix the same type of mistake over and over again? Do you constantly need reminders? Do you usually ask the same question twice? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, a raise is (most likely) not in your near future.<br />
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Take notes while your supervisor is giving instructions, see if you can find the answer yourself before asking questions, and each time you make a mistake, write down for yourself what it was, why it happened and how you'll prevent it from happening in the future.<br />
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<b>8) You Made it a Personal Matter</b><br />
Your argument for why you deserve a raise should be focused on your work ethic, your accomplishments and your value to the company—and those three things alone. What should be left out of the proposal? Your student debt, your rent, your hospital bills or the fact that you "just can't make ends meet on this salary." Bottom line: A raise will be awarded based on your merit, not your sob story.<br />
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<b>9) You Didn't Ask for One</b><br />
If none of the above eight reasons apply to you, then seriously, ask for a raise. Don't expect your boss to bring it up.<br />
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<b>10) You Were Unfairly Penalized for Being a Woman</b><br />
Unfortunately, even in 2013, this happens: In a study by Harvard researcher Hannah Riley Bowles, participants were shown videos of men and women asking for raises—using the same script. The results: Participants agreed to give the male participants raises, while the women were considered too aggressive and their requests too demanding.<br />
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While sexist and unfair, it may still be a reality female employees need to work around. In another experiment, two techniques helped to eliminate the different perceptions of women and men. First, says Riley Bowles, a woman should focus on how her performance has helped the company, and solicit feedback, with a simple: "What do you think?" It can also be effective to bring a third party into the conversation. For example: "My leader advised me to do this."<br />
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-64672861399904315312013-03-26T09:12:00.000-07:002013-03-26T09:12:45.395-07:00IS THIS THE FUNNIEST CV EVER?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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So this funny CV bounced around Twitter. If, in turn, it now offers you some Monday morning cheer then my work here is done.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG5Id6o3rrpXTxB1dx_59Kil-Xi2yFB5alCAxzmZCJXiFJQcnag1DHo_fBWHs7YAT5CC0KLS-sYFlUAatpiMznnZCnU9HN569VXIRpvRSW6L90oNZ8-oE7NWWN5KJiPkAOnayH_PTjgEs/s1600/hire-this-guy-now-687-1305965129-0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG5Id6o3rrpXTxB1dx_59Kil-Xi2yFB5alCAxzmZCJXiFJQcnag1DHo_fBWHs7YAT5CC0KLS-sYFlUAatpiMznnZCnU9HN569VXIRpvRSW6L90oNZ8-oE7NWWN5KJiPkAOnayH_PTjgEs/s1600/hire-this-guy-now-687-1305965129-0.jpg" /></a></div>
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Funny as I found this, it did make me think about how <b>Recruitment Consultants</b> often get it wrong when compiling their own CV's. Now why is this? Surely any half decent Recruitment Consultant knows how to put a decent CV together - so why fail so often with what must be their most important CV of all?<br />
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Of the many CV's over the past week I would estimate that at least half of them would be rated as poor, irrelevant or just plain inappropriate. So, being helpful soul that I am, here are a few examples of what NOT to do when preparing your CV:<br />
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<b>DON'T</b> moan about your current employer - <i>Massive turn off </i><br />
<b>DON'T</b> give reasons for leaving your previous job i.e. you were headhunted - <i>Nobody believes it</i><br />
<b>DON'T</b> send your CV without spell-checking - <i>So basic</i><br />
<b>DON'T</b> include some dodgy photo that looks like it was taken at the wrong end of a night out - <i>No explanation needed on this one</i><br />
<b>DON'T</b> use weird fonts - <i>Why would anyone do this? Why?</i><br />
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If you do want to prepare a winning CV and job application then you need to get inside the "head" of your new potential employer and consider the following and include it in your <b>CV</b>:<br />
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<li>What<b> positive</b> reasons do you have for seeking a career move?</li>
<li>What <b>valuable skills</b> do you possess - <b>LIST THEM!</b></li>
<li>How would you <b>add</b> <b>value</b> to your prospective employer?</li>
<li>What are your <b>values</b> and how do they align with the organisation you would like to join?</li>
<li>Go crazy and include some <b>references</b> from clients and candidates</li>
<li>What are your recent key <b>achievements</b>?</li>
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When you are applying you have to "sell" yourself just like you would a candidate. This is what you are great at - don't sell yourself short!<br />
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Have a great week :)<br />
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-2495417968883439332013-03-01T10:28:00.001-08:002013-03-01T10:28:54.447-08:00How To Write A Personal Statement For College Applications<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>Writing a strong personal statement for college applications can be a great tool to help get accepted. Learn how to write a good personal statement.</b></div>
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A personal statement for college and university applications can be a great addition to your application. In some cases, a strong personal statement can even draw attention away from any negative aspects of your application. Writing about yourself can be tough, but once you get a grasp on how to write a good personal statement, you'll have no problem at all.</div>
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The first thing to do is consider a few general points. What kind of school are you applying to, and what kind of program are you applying to within the school, if any? As with any writing project, it's important to consider your audience. If you're looking at a conservative college and applying to their business school, for example, you'll probably want to give your personal statement a more professional, direct tone. If you're applying to the art program at a liberal school, you'll likely have more room to be creative and write something that might be a little more casual in tone. If you're not sure who your audience is, then it's always safe to take a middle-of-the-road approach. Be professional, but let some of your personality through as well.</div>
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Some applications might be specific about what they want you to address in your personal statement, but many will be very general about your content. Think about it this way - colleges are asking for personal statements because they want you to tell them why you should be chosen above other students. This is no time to be shy or timid - you want to use your personal statement as a way to really shine. It's the one piece of your application that allows you to get your personality across, and to communicate your passion for education, for the subject you wish to study, your enthusiasm about life, and your long-term goals. In the content of your personal statement, it's also important to talk about the school itself, if only in a few sentences. It's important to show the admissions staff that you're excited about their institution, and to drop a few details about the school that tells them that you've done your research and you're serious about wanting to go there. Even if this statement is for a "safety" school, don't let that come through. No school wants to accept someone who doesn't look like they really want to attend - they'd rather give that slot to someone who really wants it.</div>
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The last, and possibly most important detail about your personal statement, is this: Have someone else proofread your final statement! Especially if you've worked on your statement for awhile, it's important to get a pair of fresh eyes to look at it. Even after you spell check, a person can catch errors or details that a computer cannot. Having someone else read your statement is also a good way to get feedback if you're unsure about whether what you wrote is interesting and reflective of you.</div>
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So take your time, and make sure that your personality comes through in your personal statement. Good luck!</div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-68908407764189365902013-02-15T10:52:00.001-08:002013-02-15T10:52:30.072-08:00What not to ask in a job interview<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIFmonPlExbjb_SJ-FBFpTfGlcstNS4Q7Fep5NzrG7eSnLF0cgD8Qm0GVMSm1wQsgHfCZ0a4rjW2JrR0HGH1V0WKDnRcgIaQJHYbDH25nkx7vMYcz4sXRH9RxWxsa96_RXYV1h-2R2538/s1600/ToughQuestion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIFmonPlExbjb_SJ-FBFpTfGlcstNS4Q7Fep5NzrG7eSnLF0cgD8Qm0GVMSm1wQsgHfCZ0a4rjW2JrR0HGH1V0WKDnRcgIaQJHYbDH25nkx7vMYcz4sXRH9RxWxsa96_RXYV1h-2R2538/s320/ToughQuestion.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Would you go on a date with me?" and "Could I get a pay advance?" are among the most, um, memorable questions interviewers have heard.<br /><br /></strong></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Some people arrive at job interviews with a well thought out list of smart questions. And then there are the other kind. Staffing firm Office Team recently asked 650 human resources executives and hiring managers to recall the oddest or most off-putting queries posed by applicants. A sampling of the results:</span></span></div>
<ul style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: outside; margin: 0px 20px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"What job is this for?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Do I have to be at work every day?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Would you go on a date with me?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Do you want to take a ride in my new car?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"What color is the paint in this office?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Can my husband finish this test for me?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Is the boss single?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Do you have a job for my partner?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"What are the women who work here like?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Do you allow midday naps?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"How much time do I have to put in?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Could I get a pay advance?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Can I place my desk near the cafeteria?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Could you help me find an apartment?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Can you help me with the employment test?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Can I get every Tuesday off?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"How soon can I take my first vacation?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Can I have three weeks off every three months to pursue my music career?"</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Can I have my birthday off?"</li>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Regarding those last four, Office Team executive director Robert Hosking notes that vacation time is part of compensation, which "is best discussed after an employer has expressed a serious intent to extend a job offer" -- however unlikely that might be.</span></span></div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-18968450346815074222013-02-07T17:22:00.001-08:002013-02-07T17:22:46.371-08:0010 Lies Disorganized People Like to Tell<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR_UGX31QCNyUQJPWPy41uDfp9joqjHwX7ipfZ-9KQat-p8e5-W2LHMMdd5QoAAmdw6wa6nNQmVsNvMA9Sp34snnu1SVK05q2ZD0s0oXxiw8W-Dx_KNoEduensGI29g_JuOomnV10V4fs/s1600/disorganized_office.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR_UGX31QCNyUQJPWPy41uDfp9joqjHwX7ipfZ-9KQat-p8e5-W2LHMMdd5QoAAmdw6wa6nNQmVsNvMA9Sp34snnu1SVK05q2ZD0s0oXxiw8W-Dx_KNoEduensGI29g_JuOomnV10V4fs/s640/disorganized_office.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.25em; line-height: 1.5em;"><br />Disorganized people leave a wake of non-productivity in their path.</span></div>
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They impact not only themselves, but entire teams around them.</div>
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And yet, disorganized individuals love to deny their disorganization.</div>
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They will say almost anything to cover their lack of getting things done.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m Not Disorganized, Just Too Busy</strong></h2>
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We all know that disorganized individual who will pine to the end-of-the-earth that they are not responsible for their disarray.</div>
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Even worse than their disorganization, are the tall tales they tell to justify their lack of productivity.</div>
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They make excuses. State outlandish claims. And even lie to cover their tracks.</div>
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Which of the following denials have you heard?</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">9 Lies that Disorganized People Like to Tell:</strong></div>
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<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“I’m not disorganized, just too</strong> <strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">busy.”</strong> Like many things in life, if someone has to boast about how they <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">are</strong></em> something, it means that they probably <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">aren’t</strong></em>. (Bonus tip: This applies to those who brag about how honest they are, as well…)</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“I just don’t have time.” </strong>Actually, they have the same amount of time as the rest of us. However, <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">how</strong></em> they choose to spend it isn’t getting the job done.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“I am overloaded.”</strong> This is a bold statement from someone who can’t list all the things they are working on. This is usually a broad brush excuse for everything they are not getting done.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“I know exactly which pile I put that paper in.”</strong> Disorganized individuals will often try to explain their messy desk as organized. When a desk is a mess, it’s a mess.Piles are not organization.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“I was late because I was held up.”</strong> Late is late. Blaming traffic or the train or whatever, only means that you didn’t leave early enough. Tough, but true.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Someone else is keeping me from doing my job.” </strong>Everyone faces obstacles in getting their work done. Find a way around that wall, but don’t blame-shift.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“I didn’t get your email.”</strong> Of all the emails that were sent on the planet yesterday, apparently the email-man lost this one. <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></strong></em></li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“I’ll get that done by tomorrow.”</strong> Of course, by tomorrow they mean the day after next. And tomorrow is always tomorrow.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“I’ll get right back to you.”</strong> Assurances of returned calls that never happen. Don’t wait for the phone to ring on this one.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“I’ll send that right over.”</strong> Ah, the often promised delivery. Yet, the email never comes. The package never arrives. And the person never ships what they promised.</li>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Lies or </strong>Disorganization?</h2>
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Are these disorganized individuals guilty of lying?</div>
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Or are they so in denial about their disorganization that they truly believe their statements?</div>
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Either way, beware when you hear these tall tales and outright fibs.</div>
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And if someone has to brag about how organized they are… <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">run the other way.</strong></em></div>
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<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Question: What lies have you heard as excuses for disorganization?</strong></em><br />
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-24779924558873962002013-01-29T09:05:00.000-08:002013-01-29T09:05:45.994-08:00Preventing Sexual Harassment and Harassment in the Workplace<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;">Preventing Sexual Harassment and Harassment in the Workplace</span></h2>
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Definition: Sexual Harassment</div>
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Sexual harassment is a form of discrimination, in the United States, that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.</div>
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Sexual harassment occurs when one employee makes continued, unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, to another employee, against his or her wishes.</div>
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According to a current issues update from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), sexual harassment occurs, "when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment."</div>
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Examples of Sexual Harassment</div>
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Sexual harassment can occur in a variety of situations. These are examples of sexual harassment, not intended to be all inclusive.</div>
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Unwanted jokes, gestures, offensive words on clothing, and unwelcome comments and repartee.</div>
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Touching and any other bodily contact such as scratching or patting a coworker's back, grabbing an employee around the waiste, or interfering with an employee's ability to move.</div>
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Repeated requests for dates that are turned down or unwanted flirting.</div>
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Transmitting or posting emails or pictures of a sexual or other harassment-related nature.</div>
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Displaying sexually suggestive objects, pictures, or posters.</div>
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Playing sexually suggestive music.</div>
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When an employee complains to a supervisor, another employee, or the Human Resources office, about sexual harassment, an immediate investigation of the charge should occur. Supervisors should immediately involve Human Resources staff. Employees need to understand that they have an obligation to report sexual harassment concerns to their supervisor or the Human Resources office.</div>
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Policies to Adopt to Prevent and Address Sexual Harassment</div>
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Your policy handbook needs a:</div>
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sexual harassment policy,</div>
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general harassment policy,</div>
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policy about how sexual harassment investigations are conducted in your company, and</div>
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policy that forbids an employee in a supervisory role from dating a reporting employee and that details the steps required should a relationship form.</div>
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I'm not a fan of non-fraternization policies. I think the workplace is one of the logical locations for people to meet and fall in love, as long as the employees engaged in the relationship follow common sense guidelines. But, dating your reporting staff is never appropriate. After creating these policies, you need to train all employees about these policies.</div>
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The Role of Managers in Harassment Prevention and Investigation</div>
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Managers and supervisors are the front line when it comes to managing employee performance and needs from work. First, and most importantly, you do not want a workplace culture that allows any form of harassment to occur. Out of your commitment to your employees and your company, harassment, in any form, is never to be tolerated.</div>
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In harassment, as well as in other law suit-engaging topics, as an employer, demonstrating that you took appropriate steps is crucial. In fact, demonstrating that you took immediate action and that the consequences for the perpetrator were severe, is also critical. And, the front line leader is usually the person initiating and following through on those steps, so they have to feel confident about what they are doing. Any form of harassment can create a hostile work environment including sexual harassment and how it is addressed. The court's definition of what constitutes a hostile work environment has recently expanded to coworkers who are caught up in the situation, too.</div>
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As you think about sexual harassment and other forms of harassment in your work place, keep these facts in mind.</div>
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The employee harassing another employee can be an individual of the same sex. Sexual harassment does not imply that the perpetrator is of the opposite sex.</div>
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The harasser can be the employee's supervisor, manager, customer, coworker, supplier, peer, or vendor. Any individual who is connected to the employee's work environment, can be accused of sexual harassment.</div>
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The victim of sexual harassment is not just the employee who is the target of the harassment. Other employees who observe or learn about the sexual harassment can also be the victims and institute charges. Anyone who is affected by the conduct can potentially complain of sexual harassment. As an example, if a supervisor is engaged in a sexual relationship with a reporting staff member, other staff can claim harassment if they believe the supervisor treated his or her lover differently than they were treated.</div>
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In the organization's sexual harassment policy, advise the potential victims that, if they experience harassment, they should tell the perpetrator to stop, that the advances or other unwanted behaviors are unwelcome.</div>
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Sexual harassment can occur even when the complainant cannot demonstrate any adverse affect on his or her employment including transfers, discharge, salary decreases, and so on.</div>
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When an individual experiences sexual harassment, they should use the complaint system and recommended procedures as spelled out in the sexual harassment policy of their employer. The investigation should be conducted as spelled out in the handbook.</div>
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The employer has the responsibility to take each complaint of sexual harassment seriously and investigate. The investigation should follow these steps listed in How to Address Sexual Harassment Charges.</div>
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Following the investigation of the harassment complaint, no retaliation is permitted, regardless of the outcome of the investigation. The employer must, in no way, treat the employee who filed the complaint differently than other employees are treated nor change his or her prior-to-the-complaint treatment. If it is determined that the employee lied, disciplinary action is necessary, however.</div>
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<b><i>Disclaimer:</i></b></div>
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<i>Please note that I make every effort to offer you common-sense, ethical management advice on this blog, but I am not an attorney and the articles on the site are not to be construed as legal advice. The site has a world-wide audience and employment laws and regulations vary from state to state and country to country. When in doubt, always seek legal counsel.</i></div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-41168744328857885502013-01-26T11:16:00.000-08:002013-01-26T11:16:41.205-08:00The antidote to bullying<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Do you know what the number one thing is that stops bullying in its tracks? It is genuine empathy for others. There is growing body of research that has found that genuine empathy by bullying students towards targeted students is the most effective antidote to bullying.</div>
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Punishing the bully is less effective and often results in the bullying continuing but out of the sight of adults. Research has also found that students who have greater empathy for others tend to have happier relationships, both now as well as in their adult relationships. Furthermore, the more emotionally intelligent they are, the more likely they are to achieve academically.</div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">So what can parents and adults do to encourage greater empathy in their children? One of the best ways to do so is to set the example by modelling caring behavior Young people will not always remember what we say, but they are more likely to remember what we do. Show genuine care both to loved ones as well as people outside of your family. When you have hurt someone, even unintentionally, show them it is the right thing to do to respond in a caring way, apologizing and making amends if necessary.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">Praise your children when you see them doing the right thing in caring or being considerate for another. When their behavior has been hurtful to another, you can ask them to reflect on how that person may be feeling. You could also ask them to remember a time when they were unhappy. When that child is able to do so, you might then say that you believe that the person who has been hurt is probably feeling the same way.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">Most children or adolescents who are able to genuinely appreciate how their behavior is affecting another, are better able to change their behavior or make amends. Those who take pleasure in causing pain to another need to reflect if their behavior is really helping them be the person they want to be. Or they need to be taught about how good relationships work.</span></span></div>
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We can also encourage empathy in our children by encouraging care for a sibling or even a pet. Of course, there are many adults who also need to develop greater care for others. As we develop greater empathy, we not only become more whole people, but also more aware of how our actions can impact on others, and the need to take action to make things right.</div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1956267785">This article is from:</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1956267785">Ken Warren BA, M Soc Sc, CSP is a Relationships Specialist</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://positivepeoplesolutions.com.au/index.html">http://positivepeoplesolutions.com.au/index.html</a></span></div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-45078945014759525202013-01-25T09:19:00.001-08:002013-01-25T09:19:36.109-08:00What are your customers saying about you?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS0wO_SMcsY4ovONKVd7s-17WFSc7ucisNQRW1DdfCmSzCsIifv_kvmBCPefXX5dfwzoW1mMweXrkzT1eoID2MnqyaXNwzu1pjpem-4JsHwTP8uPNPMmXiSOp3iUlAdUiwKJbD2mQ3amY/s1600/customer-feedback.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS0wO_SMcsY4ovONKVd7s-17WFSc7ucisNQRW1DdfCmSzCsIifv_kvmBCPefXX5dfwzoW1mMweXrkzT1eoID2MnqyaXNwzu1pjpem-4JsHwTP8uPNPMmXiSOp3iUlAdUiwKJbD2mQ3amY/s320/customer-feedback.png" width="235" /></a>A couple of years ago, I was running a workshop at a major hotel in Sydney. Firstly, no-one at the venue was available to assist me with the room setup which had been done differently to that requested. Despite advising the venue beforehand of 55 people attending, at morning tea, they had set up only one coffee station which resulted in a very long wait for coffee. I also had to chase them up when food ran out at both morning tea and lunch. Eventually, the Function Co-ordinator made an appearance. When I told her what had gone wrong, I simply received a shrug of the shoulders.</div>
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Yes, we have all been on the receiving end of very bad customer service. We certainly know it when we experience it and gain some satisfaction from telling others of the experience. But if we receive great customer service, we love it and are certainly happy to repeat that story too. What stories are your customers saying about you?</div>
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Here are five areas to consider that can help you to take good service to great at your workplace.<br />
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<li><b>Make a great first impression</b>: One of the best ways to make a great first impression is simply to respond immediately to customers. Answer the phone within four rings. Return calls and emails quickly. Greet people in a warm and friendly manner when they walk into your premises. Use their name if you know it. Making a great first impression is part of what differentiates great service from service where you feel treated like a number.<br /><br />One doctor I know gives a warm greeting to new patients who are waiting. His secretary also makes them freshly brewed tea or coffee in nice china served with gourmet biscuits. All of his patients receive also a warm greeting from his secretary and a welcome pack which includes details of his services at his practice and also vouchers for discounted meals, hair-dressing, or massages with local businesses.<br /> </li>
<li><strong>Give customers a great experience</strong>. Can you anticipate what your customers are needing? If so, you might simply offer these things or ask how you can be of help. One lovely person in charge of catering who I dealt with recently while running a function in Canberra made a point of greeting me when I arrived in a friendly and personable way. She checked with me what had been arranged for catering and the break times. She also let me know how I could contact her if there were any difficulties. The catering, of course, was exceptional - with beautifully prepared and presented food provided on the day. I told her (and management) that she was the most pleasant and professional person I had dealt with in that hotel.<br /><br />Management can do their part to help - communicating clear expectations, setting the right example, and providing training if needed. Most importantly, if management can help their staff to be happy at work, this will help create a positive and welcoming atmosphere. Customers can certainly tell if your workplace is a great place in which to work.<br /> </li>
<li><b>Deal well with challenges when they occur</b>. Customers do not expect us to be perfect, but they do expect us to take action when frustrations occur. Here we need to be prepared and clear about what we can offer to our customers - whether this be an explanation, some empathy, or some practical action by us.<br /><br />Recently, when flying on Virgin Airlines, one of our children's car seats was snapped in half while begin transported. This could have gone very badly. Before we had a chance to become upset, we received a very genuine apology from Virgin staff, an offer to reimburse us in full for a replacement, and a loan safety seat we could have while on holiday.<br /> </li>
<li><b>Exceed their expectations</b>. Don't you love it when you go to a restaurant and they bring out some complimentary food for you to sample? Or you order a smoothie at your local cafe and they bring out some extra smoothie that was made in the process. One Janitor Groundsman I know at a local school makes a habit of leaving fresh flowers from the school grounds for the staff in their tea room. A business consultant I know always sends his customers a box of chocolates or a nice bottle of wine to thank them for doing business with him. What can you do to exceed your customers' expectations by doing something extra?<br /> </li>
<li><b>Stay in touch</b>. People who give great customer service know that it takes less effort to get repeat business from existing customers than it does to gain business from new customers. But to get repeat business takes at least two things. Firstly, the customer needs to have had a great experience in dealing with you. And, secondly, you need to have put in place some way of them staying in touch with you or you staying in touch with them. Out-of-touch can sometimes mean out-of-mind. You might stay in touch with your email newsletter. But there is also a personal touch where you give them a call and ask how they are going in relation to the product or service you have provided.<br /><br />If they are happy, they will let you know. If they are not happy for some reason, that is still good as it gives you a chance to work things through. A speaking colleague of mine stays in touch by genuinely caring for her customers when they are dealing with challenges. Recently, she was aware of a number of her clients who were directly affected by natural disasters and made a point of calling them up, asking how they were, and offering help where she could. This is certainly great service.</li>
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You would think that great customer service would be important to everyone, but sadly it is not. </div>
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This is good news - as it only takes some smart thought and effort to stand out in your customers' eyes, resulting in them singing your praises and you feeling more proud of the work you do.</div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1956267775">This article is from:</a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1956267775">Ken Warren BA, M Soc Sc, CSP is a Relationships Specialist</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://positivepeoplesolutions.com.au/index.html">http://positivepeoplesolutions.com.au/index.html</a></span></div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-43849521011479303872013-01-24T10:53:00.000-08:002013-01-24T10:53:21.493-08:00People who play the blame game<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKjqdeVD2VLc68O8BQQ3DAHfK5Y5R_zzgwFHqII0VZwY8TCBH19Lzaw5H83w2SmbKfbQC-07eLanKFkDUTsjYvM6-atg-a3b33e9cJc5dGSxhBhPoV8Iab3EwXrbzMmiqkHnZfMBMUQZM/s1600/blamegame.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKjqdeVD2VLc68O8BQQ3DAHfK5Y5R_zzgwFHqII0VZwY8TCBH19Lzaw5H83w2SmbKfbQC-07eLanKFkDUTsjYvM6-atg-a3b33e9cJc5dGSxhBhPoV8Iab3EwXrbzMmiqkHnZfMBMUQZM/s1600/blamegame.jpg" /></a>It can be extremely frustrating when you work with someone who thinks a problem to which they are contributing is simply being caused by someone else.</div>
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On the one hand, this is a very human thing to do. It has been suggested that human beings are born with a negativity bias that helps us to identify problems and thus ensure our survival. However this tendency can also be manifested in lots of blaming, complaining and criticising.</div>
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The trouble with blaming others is that it tends to provoke a defensive response. It also puts us in a powerless position as, when we are in this place, there is nothing we can do to change the situation as the problem is completely due to someone else.</div>
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So how do you help others take responsibility for doing their part to help?</div>
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<li><strong>Let them tell their story</strong>. If we can allow people to get their story out and demonstrate that we understand how they are seeing things and feeling, this can put them in a better position to consider another perspective. If they can vent their emotions well enough, this can often help them to settle and begin to see things in a more balanced way.</li>
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<strong>Be human</strong>. By this I mean being real, approachable, and not taking a superior stance - that you know what is best for them. Instead you want to convey that we are all human, that we all make mistakes, and we can all do things better. You might even consider whether a brief story about yourself might help. You could speak of a similar situation you were in, something dumb that you did, and what you learned as a result. I don't recommend telling stories about yourself as the hero.</div>
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<strong>Suggest a trade</strong>. If you are on the receiving end of their blaming, you could offer what you are willing to do to help, saying something like, "If I do .., will you do ..." or "How about we both ..." Here the focus is what you will both do differently in the future rather than debating the accuracy of what the other person is saying. Some people gain greater commitment by writing down, with the other person's permission, what each person will do.</div>
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<strong>Ask questions</strong>. After they have felt properly heard, you could ask questions like, "What do you think you both can do to help?" They may well run off a long list as to what you or the other person needs to do. Agree where you can, but then consider asking, "What are you willing to do to also help?" or "What do you imagine the other person would say they would find helpful?" If your timing is right, you may well be able to get away with asking them direct questions about their behaviour. "When you ..., did that make things better or worse?" Here we are wanting to get them exercising the frontal cortex of their brain, the part that helps us to think about our choices.</div>
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<strong>Offer a different perspective</strong>. If they can find a kinder way of seeing the situation, this may well put them in a better position to act more helpfully. You may well have to suggest kinder or more balanced perspectives rather than expecting the person to generate them. If appropriate, you could suggest, "Is there a chance this was a simple communication breakdown / you were both very stressed / you were both inadvertently pushing each other's buttons?" (I suggest one of those options, not all three). Remember that their openness to a different perspective will depend on the degree to which they feel fully heard and the level of respect they have for you.</div>
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The great majority of people are capable of self-reflection. However, like any new behaviour, taking responsibility for one's own behaviour takes conscious practice over time. When next speaking with someone playing the blame game, experiment with the above and notice what helps. </div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1956267787">This article is from:</a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1956267787">Ken Warren BA, M Soc Sc, CSP is a Relationships Specialist</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://positivepeoplesolutions.com.au/index.html">http://positivepeoplesolutions.com.au/index.html</a></span></div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-29605878235851949012013-01-23T10:07:00.000-08:002013-01-23T10:07:25.858-08:00Why people miss their appointments<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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You would think that everyone who has personal challenges and in need of professional help would be moving mountains to gain that assistance. But the reality is that many people simply do not keep their appointments with agencies and professionals whose role is to help them in some way.</div>
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Counsellors, Youthworkers, Dieticians, Doctors and other helping professionals all know what it is like to bend over backwards finding an appointment for someone in urgent circumstances only to be sitting around twiddling their thumbs when the person does not turn up.</div>
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In some agencies which provide free services, up to a third of their clients do not turn up for their very first appointment. (In my private practice, the rate was under 5%). Then there are other clients who drop out early from the helping process.</div>
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Why does this occur? Many professionals believe people discontinue due to dissatisfaction with the help given. But this is not always the case. I believe there are five common reasons people disengage from helping relationships and here is what you can do about it.</div>
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<li><strong>There is some personal challenge.</strong> Whenever a client misses an appointment with me I try to believe there is an ordinary explanation - they or their child was sick, they forgot their appointment, had trouble with transport, or were abducted by aliens. Of course, these sorts of challenges are common. Well, maybe not the last one.<br /><br />Of course we can simply cut people some slack or simply give people a reminder about their appointment the day before. However, I have found when people miss an appointment, they will be more likely to do so again. When they do attend, it pays to check that the following factors are not contributing.<div style="font-size: 11pt;">
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<li><strong>You have not established a relationship of trust.</strong> Apparently, the majority of people stress about seeing a psychologist, social worker, counsellor, etc - knowing they will be discussing very personal issues, concerned that they will be judged in some way, or perhaps because they have had a bad experience when seeking help in the past. When people initially enquire about making an appointment, your job (or that of your secretary) is to be as personable and reassuring as possible.<br /><br />My secretary would often tell my new clients that I was a lovely person to speak to ... even if this was bending the truth a bit. The better the connection when they enquire or present in person, the more likely they will continue.<div style="font-size: 11pt;">
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<li><strong>You are not working with the client on what they really want.</strong> Perhaps Centrelink has obliged them to see you for help in gaining employment, for example. Or they have been mandated by a court to have counselling for their problematic drinking. They may well be saying that they want to gain work or address their problem drinking, but perhaps they really don't see their behaviour as a problem and what they really want is for others to get off their back.<br /><br />Once they are through your door, your job is to work with them on what they are wanting, if possible, and see if this parallels what others want for them. Everyone is motivated for something. Your job is to find out what they want and link this to the changes that they, and hopefully others, want to see.<div style="font-size: 11pt;">
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<li><strong>The client is not happy with you.</strong> Upsets between you and your clients will occur from time to time. Times when I have accidentally double-booked a session come to mind. When upsets or disappointments occur, we need to be quick to repair the relationship and offer what we can for the future. We will at times also have clients who are not finding the way that we are working helpful. This is not necessarily fatal to the helping process, but it is if we are not open to changing the way we are working.<br /><br />Outstanding professionals in helping roles are always adjusting themselves for the individuals they see. I must confess that I was at times tempted to give people a menu as to what sort of therapist they needed while they were waiting to see me. Did they want they want the caring Ken who simply listened and empathised with their circumstances? Or did they want the affable Ken who could also make them laugh? Or the practical Ken who could give them some advice on moving forward?<br /><br />Of course, I don't really recommend giving people a menu, but you can at least ask how you can be helpful and adjust yourself accordingly. You can also ask what you can change next time you both meet so you can be more on track. I remember one client who was frustrated with me that I wanted to talk things through when she was visual. That was very helpful for me to know.<br /><br />Openness to client feedback will not only reduce early drop-out from the helping relationship but also produce improved outcomes. You can make it easier for clients to give you feedback by setting this expectation from the start, by making it a routine part of how you work, and responding non-defensively - perhaps apologising if you were off the mark, but at least offering to make that change for future meetings.<div style="font-size: 11pt;">
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<li><strong>They are happy to continue by themselves.</strong> Sometimes clients conclude the helping relationship, not so much because they have achieved their goal, but more because they feel able to continue by themselves. Sure we may think differently. But as professionals we need to appreciate that sometimes people get what they need from their contact with us, or their circumstances change, and seeing us is no longer a priority.<br /><br />If one of your clients has ended the helping relationship, you can at least touch base with them by telephone or email seeing how they are going. You can check if they were unhappy with your approach for some reason and let them know you are happy to make changes. And you can also let them know if it is OK for them to re-present in the future.</li>
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There are, of course, those clients who you are happy haven't turned up, but that's another story!</div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1956267770">This article is from:</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1956267770">Ken Warren BA, M Soc Sc, CSP is a Relationships Specialist</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://positivepeoplesolutions.com.au/index.html">http://positivepeoplesolutions.com.au/index.html</a></span></div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-2931593560496475672013-01-22T12:58:00.000-08:002013-01-22T12:58:04.994-08:00Why people resist change<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCLvVyOBur36IQW9ncL3mYiju_FMQTsXg8DCBkgZ1Y_046EkmVdspFOYGZHPYtbOC2LRZXgf7IGO2NonqYEStpDz8FNHlOUOGcTqwMdB-Gqq4aYFYdksSz7H2cTx8Wd2gT_dOvoSVxNHw/s1600/Resisting-ChangeYNaija.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCLvVyOBur36IQW9ncL3mYiju_FMQTsXg8DCBkgZ1Y_046EkmVdspFOYGZHPYtbOC2LRZXgf7IGO2NonqYEStpDz8FNHlOUOGcTqwMdB-Gqq4aYFYdksSz7H2cTx8Wd2gT_dOvoSVxNHw/s320/Resisting-ChangeYNaija.png" width="320" /></a>You would think that everyone who has been caught drink driving would want to change their drinking habits. You would think that everyone who has been to prison would never re-offend. You would also think that everyone who is unhappy at home or work would be doing whatever it took to build a much happier life for themselves.</div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Why is it that many people are so reluctant to acknowledge that their behavior is a problem? Even those who do are slow to do anything about it or they find change very hard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, we all struggle with changing our behavior at times. I believe there are five main reasons why this occurs.</span></div>
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<li><strong style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Unhelpful thinking</strong><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">. Many people tend to minimize how problematic their behavior is - convincing themselves that their behavior is not so bad or that it is more other people who need to change.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">People can also have unrealistic expectations, giving up when change has been hard or they have experienced a relapse. Other times, the problematic thinking is not thinking at all, simply being on automatic pilot, repeating the same behavior that is not working for them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Here we need to identify thinking that is a barrier to helpful action and find more helpful thoughts that will be motivating for the individual.</span><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
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<li style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>The status quo is comfortable</strong>. Why change if you are relatively comfortable? Sure your partner is upset about your drinking, but they are still there. Yes, your smoking may increase your risk of heart attack, but ... you haven't had one yet.<br /><br />Sadly, for some of us, it is only when the status quo becomes very uncomfortable that we see the need for change. Even if we are open to change, the thought of putting in the effort and coping with the related challenges, is enough for some of us to return to the familiar.<br /><br />Here we need to help people to appreciate more the costs of inaction, perhaps allowing the status quo to become more uncomfortable, emphasizing the benefits of change. But it is important to search until we identify what is most motivating to the individual concerned. It is not always what we think.</li>
<li style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Changes are being imposed</strong>. I believe that most people don't mind change. It's just that they don't like being changed by others - whether this be their partner, their manager, or their therapist. The more one person argues why the other needs to change, the more the other person can sometimes resist.<br /><br />If you believe your approach is producing resistance, you need to immediately reconsider what you are doing. People tend to be more open to changes which they initiate themselves, where their ideas are included.</li>
<li><strong><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The problem behavior is need-satisfying</span></strong><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">. Problematic drinkers, for example, will sometimes say that drinking helps them to socialize with others, feel more in control of their life, gain freedom from painful emotions, have fun, or simply to relax.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">For those in helping roles, the challenge is to help people identify the needs underlying their behavior and make choices that are effective in meeting the same needs, respectful of the needs of others, and take them in a good direction.</span><div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
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<li><strong style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Physiological barriers are present</strong><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">. It can be easy to mistakenly label someone as resisting change when they actually have a medical condition inhibiting their ability to change problem behavior Clinical depression and chronic pain are examples of conditions that, when effectively treated, can greatly increase an individual's ability to embrace change.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Other physiological conditions such as brain injuries or neurological diseases may mean that some people may never be in a good position to behave as others would like. With such individuals, the focus is more on managing the environment around them.</span></li>
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Of course, when people are resisting change, more than one of the above factors may well be contributing. If you are helping people to embrace change, it can help to form a theory as to what may be contributing, adjust your approach, and to notice what helps.</div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This article is from:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://positivepeoplesolutions.com.au/index.html">http://positivepeoplesolutions.com.au/index.html</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ken Warren BA, M Soc Sc, CSP is a Relationships Specialist</span></span></div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-35225969398798730842013-01-18T11:49:00.000-08:002013-01-18T11:49:24.441-08:0010 Tips to create a better Working Environment<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” — Hans Hoffman</div>
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Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.” — Henry David Thoreau</div>
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For today’s knowledge workers, every distraction is a drain on productivity and sanity. Every ringing phone, instant message, flashing email reminder, pile of papers, cluttered sticky notes and phone messages and knick knacks and memo posted on the wall — each of these things slows you down, wastes your time and energy, and stresses you out.</div>
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<strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">To achieve calm, and simple productivity, create a better working environment.</span></span></strong></div>
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Imagine for a minute that your desk is completely clear, except your computer monitor, keyboard and mouse, your inbox and phone, and perhaps a framed photo of a loved one. Imagine the walls around you are free of visual clutter, except for a photo or painting or two of a serene nature scene.</div>
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<strong>You are able to focus, you can crank out your tasks, and you can lower your level of stress.</strong></div>
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<span id="more-3416"></span><br /><b>It’s not hard. Here’s how:</b></div>
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<strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Clear papers</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">. Take all the papers on your desk, and around your desk, and put them in your inbox. If they don’t fit, just put them in a single pile. Now go through that pile, one document at a time. Don’t put any document back on the pile — deal with it immediately, and then move on to the next document, until you’ve cleared the pile (this may take several sessions for some people). With each document, your choices are to 1) Trash; 2) Delegate; 3) File immediately, 4) Do it immediately; or 5) Put the action on your to-dolist and the document in an “action” folder.</span><div>
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<strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Clear clutter</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">. Now clear as much of the other stuff on your desk as possible. And it’s all possible. Knick knacks, post-its and phone messages (those should go in the inbox to be processed), most of your framed photos, folders, etc.</span><br /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Clear gear</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">. You don’t need your office gear to be in sight. Put your pens, stapler, paper clips, digital camera, and any other assorted gear in a drawer, organized neatly. While you’re at it, clear out your drawers and only put in the essential stuff. It’s easier to keep organized that way.</span><br /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Clear the walls</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">. Clear every scrap of paper and most of the artwork from your walls. You don’t want your surroundings to be too busy. Put one or two pieces of simple art on each wall.</span><br /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Have an inbox</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">. Have one inbox on your desk, and have all incoming documents, notes, phone messages and other papers be put into this inbox. Process it to empty at least once a day, using the steps above. From here on out, don’t let any other papers clutter your desk except the one thing you’re working on.</span><br /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Simplify your computer</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">. Clear your desktop of icons — it’s an inefficient way to launch documents or programs and organize yourself, and they’re just visual clutter. Clear everything from your menubar too, if possible. On your desktop, use a simple and serene picture as the background, and only have the document open that you’re currently working on. Turn off all email and IM notifications, and only do email at 2-3 set times a day. You don’t need all the interruptions.</span><br /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Simple filing system</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">. Use a simple alphabetical filing system with plain manila folders. Have plenty of labels and empty folders on hand, so you have nothing stopping you from creating a new file quickly and filing a document. Don’t let your filing pile up.</span><br /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Edit, edit, edit</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">. Once you’ve cleared the clutter, there’s usually still stuff you can clear away. Edit your surroundings. For each item in view, ask yourself, “Does this really need to be in view?” In most cases, the answer is no. Find a way to get it out of sight, or get rid of it. When you’ve gone through this process, do it again — you can usually still find ways to get something out of sight.</span><br /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Simple furniture</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">. Go for the simplest furniture possible, a plain floor covering (solid-color wall-to-wall carpeting or undecorated hard-surface floors), bare windows or simple window coverings such as blinds, plain shelves and lamps if necessary.</span><br /><strong style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Simple decorations</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">. Skip the bric-a-brac, and only have one or two simple decorations, such as a few flowers in a vase or a Zen garden.</span><br /><div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-83114658205222177122013-01-13T14:28:00.004-08:002013-01-13T14:28:47.788-08:00Top 10 Ways to Reduce Your Work Week<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5HqsKjtz6h9QkXfCR1HTc-hrbiTQB__HroJkHgP3eYZVvENbVh5ZHvyXBi-h5wJk289yshSOZHjnOiQuwuh01Dvkne_EOuRivi_ogcZ3C4HBoeNzwiWX5XgK_VPMeTNK4HuXiai8TWU8/s1600/Relaxing-on-beach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5HqsKjtz6h9QkXfCR1HTc-hrbiTQB__HroJkHgP3eYZVvENbVh5ZHvyXBi-h5wJk289yshSOZHjnOiQuwuh01Dvkne_EOuRivi_ogcZ3C4HBoeNzwiWX5XgK_VPMeTNK4HuXiai8TWU8/s320/Relaxing-on-beach.jpg" width="320" /></a>Even though our modern lives have an incredible number of time-saving devices, we seem to end up working more and more all the time. From time-saving devices in the home (microwave, the robot vacuum, and dishwasher, to name three), to time-saving devices at work (spreadsheets, email, Internet, etc.), we don’t seem to be able to take advantage of the time saved and claim it for ourselves.</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Let’s claim that time and decide, from this day on, to work less.</strong></div>
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Here’s how:<span id="more-293" style="border: 0px; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
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<li style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Reduce your work hours</strong>. Give yourself a set amount of time to work each day and each week, and stick to it. You’ll find yourself becoming more productive during the time you actually work, because you have to get your stuff done faster. To help you stick with your new work hours, set appointments for 30 minutes after you’re supposed to get off work. So if you tell yourself you’re absolutely going to leave work at 5 p.m. (or even better, at 3 p.m.), set an appointment for 5:30 p.m. and stick to it. Make it a doctor’s appointment, or a barber or beauty shop, or an appointment with your spouse or kids or workout partner. Whatever you do, stick to it. <strong style="border: 0px; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Best tip yet</strong>: cut your work week down to 4 days (or even 3). You’ll find that you can do all you need to do within that time period.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Work from home</strong>. More and more people are finding ways to work from home, to either do their current job by telecommuting or to find a new career that doesn’t require them to work at the office. Consider this for yourself — write up a proposal to your boss, telling her how this will make you more productive and save money for the company. Or think of other job options that are more flexible. This step alone won’t save you work hours, because you can end up working even more, but you have to combine it with step 1 above — limit your work hours in the home, and set very strict boundaries for yourself.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Have set email or RSS times</strong>. Don’t allow yourself to be available to the world every minute of the day. Set times when you will check and respond to email, or read your feed reader, or check your voicemail, and stick to them. You really don’t need to be connected all the time — people were somehow able to survive without it before. Now take that time that you save from responding to email, and claim it by reducing your work hours as in step 1 above. Also, now that you’re not being interrupted all the time, focus more, as in step 4 below.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Become focused</strong>. If you want to work less, then become better at getting tasks done. That means you need to stop multi-tasking and focus on doing the task before you. Shut off all distractions, reduce distracting clutter, and focus on the one task before you. Get into a state of “flow” and really pour yourself into your task. This will make you more productive, meaning you can get more done in the smaller amount of time you set for yourself, instead of constantly becoming distracted, interrupted, and switching from task to task.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Set time boxes</strong>. Parkinson’s Law says that a task will expand to fill the time available for it. So only give yourself a limited amount of time to complete a task, and you’ll do it. It may seem paradoxical, but it works. Give yourself 30 minutes to complete something, or an hour. If the task is too large to complete in an hour, break it into smaller tasks, and time box those smaller tasks.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Do only the big tasks with big returns</strong>. Of all the tasks on your to-do list, which is the most important? Not the one that will take the most time, or that you want to do least. The most important task is the one that will give you the biggest return, however you measure that in your job. In freelance writing, that’s the article that will pay the most for the least amount of time spent on it. In programming, that might be the program that will become a giant killer, that will get you a million downloads, that will make a name for you in the programming world. All the rest is just busy-work — focus only on the key tasks with the most value.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Outsource the rest</strong>. If a task or project doesn’t give you a huge amount of value, you shouldn’t be doing it. Give it to someone who needs the work. Find the repetitive tasks, the ones that need to be done but that aren’t worth your time, and hire someone else to do it for less. If it’s something that doesn’t really need to be done, eliminate it. Be ruthless with your time — you don’t need to be spending a million hours working.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Reduce your commitments</strong>. You probably have too much on your plate. If you edit your commitments, you can reduce your workload and the amount of time you need to work.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Shut off the computer</strong>. The biggest distraction ever invented. I know, you need the computer to work. But if you set limits for how long you’re on the computer, and shut it off the rest of the time, you’ll find that you get everything you need done within those limits. Don’t allow yourself to be on the computer all the time, or you’ll never be done. There’s always something else to do, something interesting to read.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Change jobs</strong>. Does your current job not give you the flexibility to implement these tips? Then start looking for a new job. There are a million of them out there. Look online. If you’ve got skills (and you may have more skills than you think if you give it some thought), you can market them and find a job that fits your needs. Be confident in your skills, and ask for enough pay that you don’t need to work 40 hours a week or more to make ends meet. If you work 60 hours now, and double your pay, you only need to work 30 hours. If you don’t have the skills you need now, start learning them while working your current job. Important: don’t quit your job until you have another lined up.</li>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-size: 21px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bonus tip: Find ways to make passive income</strong>. This is income that you don’t need to do much to earn every week. Investments, a web site that is self-sustaining, a business that doesn’t require your active management … these are just a few ideas for passive income. This will require an initial investment of capital or time, but once it’s going, you’ll be making money without having to work.</div>
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Reclaim your time and suddenly you’ll have a whole bunch of extra time to work on your life goals, to relax and de-stress yourself, to spend time with family and friends, to read, to educate yourself, to work on a hobby, to exercise. It’ll be one of the most important things you do.</div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-14599314010212776422013-01-10T09:11:00.000-08:002013-01-10T09:11:43.512-08:00A Leader Must Look and Listen and Know How to Resolve Conflicts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you examine the rise of a typical leader, the ability to look and listen decreases as power increases. That's a trend you need to be aware of. At the outset, a future leader often rises out of a group to present a grievance or to offer a new idea or way of doing things. Hands-on experience motivates him (or her), and the group supports his efforts because they recognize a need to be fulfilled.</span></span></h1>
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But leaders at the top are often enmeshed in corporate politics and insulated by immediate aides. The notorious White House bubble that isolates presidents also encloses any leader to lives inside a small circle. Here are some pointers about looking and listening all the way up the ladder.</div>
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1. Keep your feedback loop large. Leaders and followers co-create each other. There is constant input and output. If you get input only from your closest circle, you won't be in touch with the whole picture.</div>
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2. Stay flexible. It's not hard to detect when a leader wants to hear only praise and support for his own ideas. Be flexible enough to allow your core beliefs to be challenged.</div>
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3. Welcome criticism and know our opposition. Leaders who rise high often feel insecure about their position. They are prominent targets for jealousy and attack. So start early on to embrace other points of view, accommodating them when you can and at the very least listening to them and taking them seriously.</div>
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4. Be good at giving feedback. No matter what face they put on it, people notice praise and blame. No one is indifferent. Make sure your feedback doesn't demean anyone, and if you are in doubt about hurt feelings, see the person privately. "Are we okay?" isn't enough. Look and listen to their personal reactions.</div>
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5. Don't claim a monopoly on the truth. Keep in mind that you do not see the whole picture. This will instill a desire to hear as many perspectives as possible.</div>
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6. In any meeting, never lose sight of the central question, "What do these people need?" Never leave the room feeling confused about this. Behind every discussion, somebody needs something.</div>
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7. Know the difference between what somebody needs and what they want. We all want more of anything that is available. But most of the time, what we need isn't clear. Ego and emotions stand in the way.</div>
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This is such an important point that it deserves being expanded. In relation to a leader, a group of people has individual and collective needs. They tend to overlap, and yet a successful leader tends to both. Sometimes you have to reach down to one person to provide a specific need (e.g., President Lyndon Johnson hated baseball, but he went to every game with a prominent Southern senator because the senator, who chaired a key committee, was a devoted baseball fan).</div>
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Most of the time, however, what counts the most is being able to analyze a group’s need.</div>
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1. All groups respond to hope. They need to be told that tomorrow will be better.</div>
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2. All groups need to be inspired about what they are doing. This is different from offer external motivations like money and raises. Feeling worthy is far more important.</div>
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3. All groups need to know that their leader is loyal and supportive. If a leader is just passing through on his way up the ladder, the group responds accordingly. The best leaders take their cohorts with them as they rise to the top.</div>
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4. Insecure groups need to be reassured that they are safe. Any threat such as layoffs, salary cuts, losing market share, being bought out, etc. must be addressed. The solution that comes out of the discussion should benefit everyone in the group if possible (as when companies hard hit by the recession lay off no one but instead provide part-time work to everyone).</div>
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5. Groups that are doing well competitively need greater challenges. Their motivation is to keep proving themselves.</div>
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6. Creative groups need new, innovative ideas. Here the leader functions as a sounding board for any and all suggestions. Suppressing the creativity of any member sends a signal that creativity isn't valued for its own sake. Such an attitude quickly kills the spirit of innovation.</div>
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7. All groups need morale. You need to be open and honest about any person or behavior - including our own - that is hurting morale.</div>
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As you can see, the so-called born leader isn't what a group needs. They need a leader who presides over a healthy, open, expansive feedback loop.</div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-90560943768871617932013-01-08T09:16:00.001-08:002013-01-08T09:16:11.607-08:00Which is Your Goals For This Year?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Stick to Your Goals This Year by Using Identity-Based Habits</h1>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">by James Clear</strong></div>
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Change is hard. You've probably noticed that. We all want to become better people—stronger and healthier, more creative and more skilled, a better friend or family member. But even if we get really inspired and start doing things better, it's tough to actually stick to new behaviors. It's more likely that this time next year you'll be doing the same thing than performing a new habit with ease. Why is that? And is there anything you can do to make change easier?</div>
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How to Be Good at Remembering People's Names</h3>
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My girlfriend is great at remembering people's names. Recently, she told me a story that happened when she was in high school. She went to a large high school and it was the first day of class. Many of the students had never met before that day. The teacher went around the room and asked each person to introduce themselves. At the end, the teacher asked if anyone could remember everyone's name.</div>
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My girlfriend raised her hand and proceeded to go around the room and accurately name all 30 or so people. The rest of the room was stunned. The guy next to her looked over and said, "I couldn't even remember your name." She said that moment was an affirming experience for her. After that she felt like, "I'm the type of person who is good at remembering people's names." Even today, she's great at remembering the names of anyone we come across.</div>
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Here's what I learned from that story: In order to believe in a new identity, we have to prove it to ourselves.</div>
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Identity–Based Habits</h3>
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The key to building lasting habits is focusing on creating a new identity first. Your current behaviors are simply a reflection of your current identity. What you do now is a mirror image of the type of person you believe that you are (either consciously or subconsciously). To change your behavior for good, you need to start believing new things about yourself.</div>
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Imagine how we typically set goals. We might start by saying "I want to lose weight" or "I want to get stronger." If you're lucky, someone might say, "That's great, but you should be more specific." So then you say, "I want to lose 20 pounds" or "I want to squat 300 pounds." These goals are centered around our performance or our appearance.</div>
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Performance and appearance goals are great, but they aren't the same as habits. If you're already doing a behavior, then these types of goals can help drive you forward. But if you're trying to start a new behavior, then I think it would be far better to start with an identity–based goal.</div>
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The image below shows the difference between identity–based goals and performance and appearance–based goals.</div>
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The interior of behavior change and building better habits is your identity. Each action you perform is driven by the fundamental belief that it is possible. So if you change your identity (the type of person that you believe that you are), then it's easier to change your actions.</div>
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The reason why it's so hard to stick to new habits is that we often try to achieve a performance or appearance–based goal without changing our identity. Most of the time we try to achieve results before proving to ourselves that we have the identity of the type of person we want to become. It should be the other way around.</div>
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The Recipe for Sustained Success</h3>
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Changing your beliefs isn't nearly as hard as you might think. There are two steps.</div>
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1. Decide the type of person you want to be.</div>
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2. Prove it to yourself with small wins.</div>
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Here are five examples of how you can make this work in real life.</div>
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Note: I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to start with incredibly small steps. The goal is not to achieve results at first, the goal is to become the type of person who can achieve those things. For example, a person who works out consistently is the type of person who can become strong. Develop the identity of someone who works out first, and then move on to performance and appearance later. Start small and trust that the results will come as you develop a new identity.</div>
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<b>Want to lose weight?</b></div>
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Identity: Become the type of person who moves more every day.</div>
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Small win: Buy a pedometer. Walk 50 steps when you get home from work. Tomorrow, walk 100 steps. The day after that, 150 steps. If you do this 5 days per week and add 50 steps each day, then by the end of the year, you'll be walking over 10,000 steps per day.</div>
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<b>Want to become a better writer?</b></div>
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Identity: Become the type of person who writes 1,000 words every day.</div>
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Small win: Write one paragraph each day this week.</div>
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<b>Want to become strong?</b></div>
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Identity: Become the type of person who never misses a workout.</div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.5;">Small win: Do </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">push-ups</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.5;"> every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.</span></span></div>
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<b>Want to be a better friend?</b></div>
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Identity: Become the type of person who always stays in touch.</div>
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Small win: Call one friend every Saturday. If you repeat the same people every 3 months, you'll stay close with 12 old friends throughout the year.</div>
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<b>Want to be taken seriously at work?</b></div>
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Identity: become the type of person who is always on time.</div>
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Small win: Schedule meetings with an additional 15–minute gap between them so that you can go from meeting to meeting and always show up early.</div>
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What is your identity?</h3>
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In my experience, when you want to become better at something, proving your identity to yourself is far more important than getting amazing results. This is especially true at first. If you want to get motivated and inspired, then feel free to watch a YouTube video, listen to your favorite song, and do P90X. But don't be surprised if you burn out after a week. You can't rely on being motivated. You have to become the type of person you want to be, and that starts with proving your new identity to yourself.</div>
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Most people (myself included) will want to become better this year. Many of us, however, will set performance and appearance–based goals in hopes that they will drive us to do things differently. If you're looking to make a change, then I say stop worrying about results and start worrying about your identity. Become the type of person who can achieve the things you want to achieve. Build the habit now. The results can come later.</div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-88320782515393079972013-01-07T11:17:00.001-08:002013-01-07T11:17:50.763-08:00Top 21 Ways to Make Lightning Strike<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ytTgJLmWiZeVuYOypPGxvqZc9agvh_TyCjpJBVnOcRs_COudEI9qRdg67C3SJrFGGpE_IAkeYDQZNnrAQPH8miDtLUXfA0G2ylv8u4nCqGGRAaxVy23BI72nt0OG0cENG5Jz2W4Y_AQ/s1600/A-lightning-strike-580x432.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ytTgJLmWiZeVuYOypPGxvqZc9agvh_TyCjpJBVnOcRs_COudEI9qRdg67C3SJrFGGpE_IAkeYDQZNnrAQPH8miDtLUXfA0G2ylv8u4nCqGGRAaxVy23BI72nt0OG0cENG5Jz2W4Y_AQ/s320/A-lightning-strike-580x432.png" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">How do you make <em><strong>lightning strike?</strong></em>How do you succeed where others have failed before you?<br />How do you make magic happen when others are giving up?<br />I believe that you can make lightning strike in your life and career</span><span style="font-size: 14px;">.</span></div>
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<strong>Ways to Make Lightning Strike</strong></h2>
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<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Be there early.</strong> There is a reason the early bird gets the worm.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Make your own success</strong>. No one is going to give it to you.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Always learn something new.</strong> When you stop learning, you stop growing.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Do something differently. </strong>What got your here, won’t get you there.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Get uncomfortable.</strong> Success is located <em>outside</em> your comfort zone.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Do something for someone else.</strong> Relationships lead to new opportunities.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Blaze your own trail.</strong> Common paths lead to common results.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Don’t quit.</strong> It’s those who stay long after others give up, that win.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Don’t stop before the finish line.</strong> Many people stop within sight of success.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Keep calm.</strong> When others panic, remember that there are very few true emergencies in life.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong style="font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Don’t do what others have done.</strong><span style="font-family: Droid Serif, arial, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> Despite the cliche, it </span><i style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">hasn't</i><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> all been done before.</span></span></li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Do what others have done.</strong> But, do it <em>better</em> than anyone who has proceeded you.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Don’t get even with those who have wronged you.</strong> Rather “get even” with those that have helped you.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Try again. And then again.</strong> No one gets it right the first time. (See #8)</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Make your own luck.</strong> The harder you work, the luckier you get.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Get back up.</strong> Always get up more times than you fall down.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Make decisions.</strong> If you don’t, life will make the choices for you.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Enjoy yourself.</strong> You never get <em>there</em>, it’s all about the journey along the way.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Go through walls.</strong> As Randy Pausch said, “The brick walls are there to show how badly you want something.”</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Don’t abide by the rules.</strong> Before breaking a rule, ask why it is there in the first place.</li>
<li style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; list-style-type: decimal; margin: 0px 0px 15px 35px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><strong>Just do it now.</strong> Action today, always beats intent for tomorrow.</li>
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<em><strong>So, what are you going to do today to make lightning strike?</strong></em></div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-24211921542570965942013-01-05T11:44:00.002-08:002013-01-05T11:44:27.880-08:008 Ways to Deal with Detractors <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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We all have them as we set and go after our goals, no matter where we are or what our goals may be: naysayers, detractors, people who poke fun or get angry or tell us we can’t do it.</div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.45em;">Detractors are very serious business, even if they just seem to be having a little fun at our expense.</span><span style="font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.45em;"> </span><b style="font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.45em;">Don’t let them stop you or even slow you down</b><span style="font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.45em;">.</span></div>
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How do you deal with detractors? Each one will be different, but here are a few tips:</div>
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<li style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.5em; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">First learn to identify them</span>. Sometimes we don’t realize that someone is being a detractor. They may be a close friend or spouse or other trusted person, so when they scoff or say negative things, we trust them and take it to heart. But there’s a difference between being realistic and just being a naysayer. Learn to listen to what others are saying, and see what your reaction is. If it discourages you, makes you feel like quitting, then maybe this person is being a detractor.</li>
<li style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.5em; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">See if they have a valid point</span>. Like I said, sometimes they are just trying to be realistic. They might have a good reason for their negativity. Step back, objectively think about whether they are bringing up a real obstacle that must be overcome, and if so, figure out how to overcome it. It’s rarely insurmountable. If you want it enough, you can figure out a solution. Now, if they don’t have a valid point, read on.</li>
<li style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.5em; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Zap any negative thoughts they give you</span>. Detractors have a way of taking their negative thoughts and transferring them to you. Suddenly, there’s a seed of doubt. And it can grow into a huge oak tree of doubt, with roots that tear up the foundation of your goals. Stop those negative thoughts as soon as possible. Push them out, and think positive thoughts instead. Don’t let them overcome you.</li>
<li style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.5em; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Realize that there will always be detractors, and let them slide off you like water on a duck’s back</span>. In every person’s life, there will be at least one detractor, if not more. You cannot completely avoid them. But you don’t need to listen to them. Just smile, and let them talk. Their words cannot stop you. They have no effect on you if you ignore their words.</li>
<li style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.5em; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Confront them, and get them on your side</span>. Sometimes the detractor is someone close to you, someone you cannot ignore. If so, it’s best to enlist the help of this person instead of fighting against them. Do this as early as possible. Tell them that this goal is very important to you, and you cannot do it without their help. Tell them that you realize they have doubts, but you really need them to be positive, and support you. They can be your best ally, instead of your worst detractor.</li>
<li style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.5em; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Laugh with them</span>. Sometimes people are uncomfortable when you make a change, and so in order to ease this discomfort, they will make jokes or tease you. This probably has less to do with you than it does with their discomfort. They don’t know how else to deal with this change. Realize this, and just laugh. If you take it as a good-natured joke, sometimes this will disarm them. They may continue to make jokes, but it won’t be as tense and won’t have as much an effect on you if you just keep laughing.</li>
<li style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.5em; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Have counterarguments ready, and inform them</span>. Sometimes people are just misinformed. They might have misunderstandings about what you are doing. Know all of their arguments, and the common potential arguments, and have counterarguments ready. Do your research, and be very informed. Then try to educate your detractor. If you do it right, with a positive, sincere attitude, you might actually get the person to listen, and perhaps even change their mind. If not, at the very least you know better, and you don’t let their arguments create doubt in your mind.</li>
<li style="color: #333333; line-height: 1.5em; padding: 0.2em 0px 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Be secure in the knowledge that you are doing something good</span>. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do. You can’t win them over, you can’t avoid them, you can’t laugh with them. So you have to just ignore them, and keep telling yourself that when you do achieve your goal, that will be your reward for enduring this detractor.</li>
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Again, there will always be detractors in your life. But they are just more obstacles that you have to overcome to get to your goal. There will always be obstacles, but if you think positive, and seek solutions, you can beat them (or get them to join you).</div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-36175843432738359432013-01-04T17:32:00.001-08:002013-01-04T17:32:40.533-08:00The Best Places for Jobs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Even in periods of economic downturn, new jobs are still being created and there are many places across the country experiencing high job growth and low unemployment. There are also certain sectors within the economy where a lot of work is available for those looking for it.</span></span><br />
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Best Cities for Jobs</h2>
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Since the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 hit, smaller towns and cities have experienced higher employment growth and lower unemployment than the big cities. These include Jacksonville, North Carolina; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Honolulu, Hawaii. The big cities that have fared the storm of the economic downturn well and are likely to continue growing well into the future all have strong, broad-based economies in addition to collaborative government, business and academic communities. These cities include Austin, Texas; Seattle, Washington; Washington, DC; Boulder, Colorado; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Rochester, Minnesota.</div>
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Best Regions for Jobs</h2>
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The best regions for jobs in 2011 and into the future are those which bore minimal impact from the financial crisis, yet also reaped the rewards of government stimulus funding. Economists such as Professor Lee McPheters, Director of the Economic Outlook Center at Arizona State University, sees the West and Southeast regions as the strongest for job growth in the country now and in the years to come. Mr. McPheters predicts that the best prospects for job-seekers are in the western states of Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Washington and Utah as well as Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida in the southeast.</div>
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Sectors with High Job Availability</h2>
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Jobs have been created within the federal, state and local government sectors through the economic stimulus package and particularly in areas such as education and health. Cities related to the war economy have maintained strong employment markets as well, such as Fayetteville in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Georgia's Fort Stewart and Warner Robbins as well as Lawton, Oklahoma. Places that provide sources of energy have also performed well, such as Bismark and Fargo in North Dakota, Morgantown in West Virginia and Anchorage, Alaska.</div>
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Places with Future Potential For Job Expansion</h2>
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There are several indicators that a particular city will maintain a strong job market into the future. A population with a high proportion of university graduates, a business-friendly political climate, the presence of tech companies and an academic community that closely collaborates with local businesses are all indicators of a city's long-term prosperity. Mark Emmert, president of the University of Washington, Seattle, best summed up the two contributing factors to a city's economic vitality: smart people and great ideas. The best places for jobs and business are also the most liveable, being great places to be because of their culture, infrastructure and environment as well.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><i>By John London, eHow Contributor</i></span></span></div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-80362774755893684882013-01-04T09:44:00.000-08:002013-01-04T09:44:28.305-08:00How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">Avoid to go through tough financial times and get further and further into debt, not paying bills (which then goes to collectors) and always behind, even on payday. Step back and realize that this situation is all of your own making, due to your own choices and financial habits, and that it is possible to change.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">First things first</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">I recommend starting by tracking all of your spending on a daily basis, which is a typical recommendation from financial advisors and blogs, and is good advice. But mine is attempting to be practical — I advise you to do it, but if you don’t, for whatever reason, don’t let that stop you from fixing your finances.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">My recommendation is that, whether or not you track your spending (and you should), at least do the following:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;"><b>1) Stop the bleeding.</b> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">Stop using your credit and debit cards immediately. Cut them up, or put them in the freezer in a ziploc bag filled with water, effectively freezing your cards. Also stop taking other loans, either from banks or finance companies or friends or family. <i>Stop getting into more debt</i>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;"><b>2) Start saving now!</b> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">The next most important step you can take, in the beginning, is to start a small savings account if you haven’t already. Begin depositing into it regularly, at least $100 per paycheck but more if you can. If you can’t find $100 then see the next step for how. Make it an automatic deposit, the first bill you pay each payday, because it is the most important! A savings account will help you smooth out your finances — when an emergency comes up, like your car breaking down or someone having to go to the hospital, you won’t be thrown back into debtedness or brokedness. You will have some cash to pay for that emergency, and you can use your regular paycheck for regular expenses.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;"><b>3) Look at discretionary spending.</b> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">If you can’t find $100-200 to save per paycheck, then you need to cut some things from your spending. This is where tracking your spending comes in handy, but even if you don’t, you know some of the extras you spend on — cigarettes, coffee, snacks, candy, desserts, eating out, magazines, shopping for clothes or gadgets or toys or shoes, books, going out … these are just a few of the examples. I’m not saying you need to cut everything out, but if you can cut a few of them, or maybe just one at a time, that can add up. <i>Then, take the money you </i></span><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.133333206176758px;"><i>didn't</i></span><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;"><i> spend on those discretionary items, and put that amount into savings each payday.</i> Increase this over time.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><b style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">4) Start a debt snowball to begin getting out of debt. </b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">If you haven’t read about debt snowballs, they’re simple. List out your debts and arrange them in order from smallest balance at the top to largest at the bottom. Then focus on the debt at the top, putting as much as you can into it, even if it’s just $40-50 extra (more would be better). When that amount is paid off, celebrate! Then take the total amount you were paying (say $70 minimum payment plus the $50 extra for a total of $120) and add that to the minimum payment of the next largest debt. Continue this process, with your extra amount snowballing as you go along, until you pay off all your debts. This could take several years, but it’s a very rewarding process, and very necessary.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">Those are the first, emergency steps to take. While you’re doing those steps, start on these:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">I know, it’s a dreaded word for most of us. But it’s not that hard, and if you set it up right, it’s fairly simple. I recommend using a simple spreadsheet. List all your regular expenses (rent, car, utilities, internet, etc.) and their amounts, and then your variable expenses (groceries, gas, eating out, etc.), and then your irregular expenses (things like car maintenance or medical that might not come up every month, but break them into estimated monthly expenses — if you spend $600 a year on car maintenance, budget a $50 monthly expense). Now match that up against your income. The expenses should be less.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;"><b>2) Automate your bills.</b> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">As much as possible, try to get your bills to be paid through automatic deduction. For those that can’t, use your bank’s online check system to make regular automatic payments. This way, all of your regular expenses in your budget are taken care of. Make sure that your savings is done the same way – automatic deduction.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;"><b>3) Save for your irregular expenses.</b> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">Some call it a Freedom Account, but the key to ensuring that you have smooth finances and that you stick to your budget is to take into account all your irregular expenses, such as insurance, car maintenance or repairs, gifts (think Christmas!), medical and other such things. List them out, estimate your annual spending, and begin saving for them each month. Again, if you spend $600 on car repairs, budget $50 a month for that expense, and put that amount in savings. You could set up different accounts for each expense in an online bank, or put it all in one account and use Money or Quicken or a spreadsheet to keep track of each. Then, and here’s the key, <i>when these expenses come up, use that money for those expenses! </i>That way, you can use your regular budget for the stuff it’s meant for, not for these “unexpected” expenses.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;"><b>Use the envelope system for your variable expenses such as food and gas. </b></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">This is optional, but it’s a good tip. </span><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.133333206176758px;">I've</span><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;"> been using it myself, and it works like a charm. Let’s say you set aside three amounts in your budget each payday — one for gas, one for groceries, one for eating out. Withdraw those amounts on payday, and put them in three separate envelopes. That way, you can easily track how much you have left for each of these expenses, and when you run out of money, you know it immediately. You don’t overspend in these categories. If you regularly run out too fast, you may need to rethink your budget.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><b style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">Start thinking about your goals, and planning for them.</b><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;"> When do you want to retire? How often do you want to travel? When do you want to buy that dream house? Do you want to save for your kids’ college education? Think about what you want in life, and start planning to save for them, especially once </span><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.133333206176758px;">you've</span><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;"> done all the above.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: ff-meta-serif-web-pro, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;">Once </span><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.133333206176758px;">you've</span><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 30.149999618530273px;"> gotten beyond these steps, you should be past the paycheck-to-paycheck syndrome. Now there’s a whole world of personal finance options available to you, including investing your money for your goals. But getting past these first stages is important.</span></span></div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-48833008035853244602013-01-03T10:11:00.001-08:002013-01-03T10:15:50.643-08:0010 Tips for Quitting Smoking<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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1. <strong>Commit Thyself Fully.</strong> In the quits that failed, I was only half into it. I told myself I wanted to quit, but I always felt in the back of my mind that I’d fail. I didn’t write anything down, I didn’t tell everybody (maybe my wife, but just her). This time, I wrote it down. I wrote down a plan. I blogged about it. I made a vow to my daughter. I told family and friends I was quitting. I went online and joined a quit forum. I had rewards. Many of these will be in the following tips, but the point is that I fully committed, and there was no turning back. I didn’t make it easy for myself to fail.<br />
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2. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Make a Plan</span>. You can’t just up and say, “I’m gonna quit today.” You have to prepare yourself. Plan it out. Have a system of rewards, a support system, a person to call if you’re in trouble. Write down what you’ll do when you get an urge. Print it out. Post it up on your wall, at home and at work. If you wait until you get the urge to figure out what you’re going to do, you’ve already lost. You have to be ready when those urges come.</div>
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3. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Know Your Motivation</span>. When the urge comes, your mind will rationalize. “What’s the harm?” And you’ll forget why you’re doing this. Know why you’re doing this BEFORE that urge comes. Is it for your kids? For your wife? For you health? So you can run? Because the girl you like doesn’t like smokers? Have a very good reason or reasons for quitting. List them out. Print them out. Put it on a wall. And remind yourself of those reasons every day, every urge.</div>
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4. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Not One Puff, Ever (N.O.P.E.)</span>. The mind is a tricky thing. It will tell you that one cigarette won’t hurt. And it’s hard to argue with that logic, especially when you’re in the middle of an urge. And those urges are super hard to argue with. Don’t give in. Tell yourself, before the urges come, that you will not smoke a single puff, ever again. Because the truth is, that one puff WILL hurt. One puff leads to a second, and a third, and soon you’re not quitting, you’re smoking. Don’t fool yourself. A single puff will almost always lead to a recession. DO NOT TAKE A SINGLE PUFF!</div>
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5. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Join a Forum</span>. One of the things that helped the most in this quit was an online forum for quitters (quitsmoking.about.com) … you don’t feel so alone when you’re miserable. Misery loves company, after all. Go online, introduce yourself, get to know the others who are going through the exact same thing, post about your crappy experience, and read about others who are even worse than you. Best rule: Post Before You Smoke. If you set this rule and stick to it, you will make it through your urge. Others will talk you through it. And they’ll celebrate with you when you make it through your first day, day 2, 3, and 4, week 1 and beyond. It’s great fun.</div>
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6. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Reward Yourself</span>. Set up a plan for your rewards. Definitely reward yourself after the first day, and the second, and the third. You can do the fourth if you want, but definitely after Week 1 and Week2. And month 1, and month 2. And 6 months and a year. Make them good rewards, that you’ll look forward to: CDs, books, DVDs, T-shirts, shoes, a massage, a bike, a dinner out at your favorite restaurant, a hotel stay … whatever you can afford. Even better: take whatever you would have spent on smoking each day, and put it in a jar. This is your Rewards Jar. Go crazy! Celebrate your every success! You deserve it.</div>
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7. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Delay</span>. If you have an urge, wait. Do the following things: take 10 deep breaths. Drink water. Eat a snack (at first it was candy and gum, then I switched to healthier stuff like carrots and frozen grapes and pretzels). Call your support person. Post on your smoking cessation forum. Exercise. DO WHATEVER IT TAKES, BUT DELAY, DELAY, DELAY. You will make it through it, and the urge will go away. When it does, celebrate! Take it one urge at a time, and you can do it.</div>
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8. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Replace Negative Habits with Positive Ones</span>. What do you do when you’re stressed? If you currently react to stress with a cigarette, you’ll need to find something else to do. Deep breathing, self massage of my neck and shoulders, and exercise have worked wonders for me. Other habits, such as what you do first thing in the morning, or what you do in the car, or wherever you usually smoke, should be replaced with better, more positive ones. Running has been my best positive habit, altho I have a few others that replaced smoking.</div>
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9. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Make it Through Hell Week, then Heck Week, and You’re Golden</span>. The hardest part of quitting is the first two days. If you can get past that, you’ve passed the nicotine withdrawal stage, and the rest is mostly mental. But all of the first week is hell. Which is why it’s called Hell Week. After that, it begins to get easier. Second week is Heck Week, and is still difficult, but not nearly as hellish as the first. After that, it was smooth sailing for me. I just had to deal with an occasional strong urge, but the rest of the urges were light, and I felt confident I could make it through anything.</div>
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10. <span style="font-weight: bold;">If You Fall, Get Up. And Learn From Your Mistakes</span>. Yes, we all fail. That does not mean we are failures, or that we can never succeed. If you fall, it’s not the end of the world. Get up, brush yourself off, and try again. I failed numerous times before succeeding. But you know what? Each of those failures taught me something. Well, sometimes I repeated the same mistakes several times, but eventually I learned. Figure out what your obstacles to success are, and plan to overcome them in your next quit. And don’t wait a few months until your next quit. Give yourself a few days to plan and prepare, commit fully to it, and go for it!</div>
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<span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold;">BONUS TIP #11: THINK POSITIVE</span>. This is the most important tip of all. I saved it for last. If you have a positive, can-do attitude, as corny as it may sound, you will succeed. Trust me. It works. Tell yourself that you can do it, and you will. Tell yourself that you can’t do it, and you definitely won’t. When things get rough, think positive! You CAN make it through the urge. You CAN make it through Hell Week. And you can.</div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1718323748837150318.post-17723786936139252122012-12-25T18:55:00.000-08:002012-12-25T18:55:04.282-08:00MAKE MONEY ONLINE FROM A BLOG - STEP BY STEP GUIDE - BLOGSPOT EXPERIENCE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">This Article was writting by Darren Rowse</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Introduction</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />This is a <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">detailed guide</span> about how to make money online by writing a blog (for e.g. from this blogspot). As compared to other methods to make money from home like online data entry jobs or freelance writing, blogging for income is perhaps the most powerful method of making money online and at the same time having fun. Yes, making money from the internet, by sitting in front of your computer.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />If you do not have a blog or a high traffic website and would like to build one, you may be interested in reading about <a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-build-successful-website-that.html" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Site Build It!</a>.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />When Investo Blog was started in August 2008 <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">the intention was not to make money</span> from my online activities. Since I had a full time enjoyable job, I had no intentions at all to make money from home by quitting my job. It was just a casual blogging attempt which to my surprise turned into an important income source. Now,<span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">after about 6 months of blogging, i earn over $1000 per month</span> from my blog. That, for me is a already a significant amount of money, and especially since this entire blog income comes purely from my online activities. Based on past traffic patterns, it is my guess, that I am only a couple of months away from achieving an income of $100 per day. Although, as compared to other bloggers, this is not a tremendous amount of money, <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">what surprised me is that it is possible to achieve this level of income in less than a year</span>.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #000099; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Topics Covered in this Guide</span><table border="0" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(230, 230, 230); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(230, 230, 230); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; color: #333333; font-size: 11px; line-height: 20.21666717529297px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; width: 230px;"><tbody style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#blogmoney" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">How much money can you earn blogging?</a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#living" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Can you make a living ?</a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#guide" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Step by Step Guide for beginners</a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#monetize" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Different ways to Monetize your Blog</a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#seo" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Basics of SEO techniques, Page Rank</a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#adsense" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">All about Adsense Optimization</a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#affiliate" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Make Money Online using Affiliate Programs</a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#getpaid" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Get Paid to Blog - Earn upto $500 pm</a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#article" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Blogging - The Art of writing an Article</a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#fulltime" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Make Money from Home - Fulltime</a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#hubpages" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Make Money Online with HubPages</a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#ehow" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Make Money Online with eHow</a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#squidoo" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Make Money Online with Squidoo</a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#freelance" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Blogging versus Freelance Writing</a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#myth" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Top Myths of Making Money Online</a></td></tr>
<tr style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/make-money-online-from-blog-step-by.html#story" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Story of Investo Blog</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Stunning discovery</span>: I have recently discovered that the income I get by displaying<a href="http://beyondgoogleadsense.blogspot.com/" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Adsense</a> and <a href="http://tinyurl.com/ctnrxs" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Chitika</a> together is significantly more than my Adsense income alone. Thank you Chitika !. If you have <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">visitors from U.S and Canada who come directly from Google or Yahoo,</span> I strongly recommend you try Chitika (place it right above the title or below the post title). However <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">only quality blogs are accepted</span> by Chitika. Be sure to boast about your blog when you apply. <a href="http://tinyurl.com/ctnrxs" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">More info on Chitika</a>.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />I would like to however <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">caution</span> every new blogger that merely writing a blog does not guarantee that you will <span style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">make money online</span>. There are some bloggers who earn a lot of money, well over $15000 per month while majority of bloggers barely manage to make $10 per month from the totality of their online activities including blogging. Have you wondered <span style="color: #000099; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">why some bloggers make thousands while others barely cents?</span> Read this guide in detail if you want to find out <span style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">why this happens</span> and what you as a blogger can do more to make money efficiently from your blogging and related online activities.</div>
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<div id="blogmoney" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">How much money can a blogger earn from blogging?</span></div>
<div id="blogmoney" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
The answer to <a href="http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/11/30/how-much-money-do-bloggers-earn-blogging/" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">how much money do bloggers earn blogging </a>depends on so many factors that there is no precise answer. However as an extremely crude an approximate guess I would say that <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">a blog typically has the potential of earning between $2 to $20 per 1000 visitors</span>. The money you make from your blog will be directly proportional to your blog traffic. So if you want to earn over $1000 per month, you have to build a blog which receives at least a couple of thousand hits per day. You may be interested in my earlier blog post on <a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/blogging-income-how-much-money-do.html" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Blog Money</a>, or a progress report of my <a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-make-money-online-from-home-blog.html" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Make Money Blog</a> which deal with similar questions. The following image summarizes a survey of 'how much money to bloggers earn' by problogger in 2007. The results tell the story of how over hyped 'income from blogging' is.</div>
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<a href="http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/11/30/how-much-money-do-bloggers-earn-blogging/" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new" title="Bloggers Earn Money"><img alt="Bloggers Earn Money" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327917468630708434" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KtEU8hBnqWI/SfCQtY5U8NI/AAAAAAAAASc/xubWkQ_JQE0/s320/images.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 283px; margin: 0px auto 10px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a></div>
<div id="living" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Can a blogger make a living from blogging income?</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Yes! absolutely</span>. Or let me put it this way- the theoretical answer is Yes. There are<span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">several bloggers who are earning thousands of dollars per month</span> more than a average decent paying job. <span style="font-size: 23px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">BUT</span> .... there is a very sour note to the above happy statement. The fact is that most of the bloggers hardly make enough money. I would say <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">less than 10 in 100 bloggers who think they want to make a living from blogging income can actually manage</span> to do so. The reason for this is complicated, and instead of digging into the reason, let me express my honest opinion. I think that<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">You Are Not ready to Make a living from your blogging income if </span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><ol style="line-height: 2em; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 12px 30px;">
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">You do not have an above average knowledge about your blog topic.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">You are absolutely ignorant about basics of html, javascript, css, or other web designing jargon.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">You are blog is in English and your English is extremely poor.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">You are not ready to take the search engine optimization seriously.</li>
</ol>
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<div id="guide" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Blogging for Money - Step by Step Guide for beginners</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">This is a step by step guide</span> for those who want to make money online from blogging. It is a result of my own experience and it is what I would do if I had to start with a new blog once again.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Step 1</span>: Choose a Blog Topic - This is one of the most crucial decisions a blogger has to make. I will only say the following two things:<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><ul style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 2em; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 12px 30px;">
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Choose a <span style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">blog topic</span> about which you have above average knowledge, or at the very least, above average interest.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Choose a<span style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> blog topic</span> withing your interest area which is <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">as general as possible</span>. For example: instead of starting a blog about weight loss ideas, it would be much better to start a blog on a much more general topic : Health and Fitness. Get the idea? Believe me, this is <span style="color: red; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">very important</span>. The reason for choosing a general blog topic is simple - you have a larger audience to target and this increases your chances. To give my own example, Investo Blog was first started as a blog for trading nifty futures (hence the url niftyprediction.blogspot.com). However later on i realized that by generalizing the blog topic to include everything related to money I would be able to get a lot more blog traffic.</li>
</ul>
<span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Step 2</span>: You have to develop a <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">weekly routine</span>. Decide how much time you can spend every week for blogging and related online activities. Since most of us have full time jobs, it may not be possible to blog everyday. For those of you who are serious about making money I recommend writing <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">at least 3 to 5 blog posts per week</span>, (daily one blog post or more would be awesome!). At least one of the blog post you write every week must be <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">high quality</span>. By high quality i mean one which has lot of content (say at least 1000 words or so) and which is on a topic which people search a lot. Include relevant images and videos in your quality blog posts.<span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #003300; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Step 3</span>: Submit your quality blog posts to </span><a href="http://blogcarnival.com/bc/" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Blog Carnivals</a>. Submitting blog posts to carnivals is <a href="http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit.php" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">extremely easy</a> and it can bring valuable blog traffic and help improve your page rank. Following these small tiny steps will have a tremendous positive impact on the amount of money you will make online from blogging.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Step 4</span>: After you have about 20-25 articles in your blog, I recommend that you <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">apply and open the following accounts</span>:<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><ol style="line-height: 2em; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 12px 30px;">
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://paypal.com/" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Paypal Account</a> - This is what you will need for <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">receiving money</span> from paid blogging networks or various other online sources. If you have regular visitors who admire your blog, you can also add a "Make a Donation" button on your blog using Paypal. I myself however, have never managed to make money online by donations to my blog.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.google.com/adsense/" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Google Adsense Account</a>: This will be your <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">first sources of online blogging income</span>. Apply for an adsense account and then come back to the section of Adsense Optimization of this page and learn some tips to maximize your income from Google Ads. In some cases your adsense application may be rejected because your site is not 6 months old or some other criterion. Relax ! dont worry. My adsense application was rejected 5 times. It turned out i was using the wrong email address to apply. In any case if your adsense application is rejected, take the reasons seriously and then reapply at a suitable time.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://tinyurl.com/dblboh" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Pay Per Post</a>: This will be your <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">second important source of online blogging income</span>. Initially you may get only a dollar or two for each paid review. But later on <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">as your page rank increases</span> you will earn more and more. You may also apply for other paid blogging networks listed below. Read the section Get Paid to Blog to learn how to make money online from Pay per post and other paid blogging networks.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://hubpages.com/_hubhomepage/" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Hubpages</a>: You can consider this optional, but it is useful for <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">SEO and traffic reasons</span>. Writing a <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">one or two articles per week on hubpages and putting one link to your blog</span> in each post. Remember as your page rank increases, so will your income from pay per post. Read more about how to make money online from Hubpages below.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.sitemeter.com/" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">SiteMeter</a> or <a href="http://www.statcounter.com/" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">StatCounter</a>: This or any other equivalent web counter is good enough. This will be important to <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">study your blog traffic</span> as discussed in the next step. As I have mentioned earlier, the amount of money you make blogging is directly proportional to your blog traffic. So putting a good hit counter can help you take your traffic seriously.</li>
</ol>
No more steps. After you complete the above steps, some <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">real online action</span> begins. By now, you must have at least 5 to 10 google visitors per day and maybe some more visitors from other sources. Install a decent web counter (one of the above two is my own preference) and start monitoring your traffic. Spend a couple of minutes every day studying your traffic. <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">What keywords do people use to arrive at your blog</span>, etc. You will know which blog posts attract traffic and which blog posts do not. Get ideas from this and continue with your weekly routine.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Step 5</span>: After you finish about 100 blog posts and start getting about 50 to 100 blog visitors every day you may join some affiliate marketing networks and <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">apply for Affiliate programs</span>. It may be a bit too early for you to start making money from referral or affiliate ads, but you can try.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />After this you are on your own and your can read <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">different ways to monetize your blog</span> mentioned below. I have found that it is good to <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">set yourself targets</span> - for example : write at least 10 blog posts in the coming two weeks, or develop at least two links per week using <a href="http://hubpages.com/_hubhomepage/" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Hubpages</a> or try hard to take blog traffic to so and so level by end of next month etc. Setting targets provides good motivation.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></div>
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<div id="monetize" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Monetizing your Blog</span> or Blogspot<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><img alt="Monetize your Blog" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326999516758719186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF24U1nHIJYWI4DmpZ-SdFHYu1Zug5dMLM5fdc2oUoDGP9ZWFOavwz944g2ub7GWI8cSK4DRCHWJe9ug6yrg2VZuQtn9jC73LQARPQo8FgZRjiw-W77o4mVlmlYostscFNSsa6_RpkzJI/s400/images.jpeg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 124px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; padding: 5px; width: 93px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />There are several ways to make money blogging. A blogger's goal should be to diversify his/her blogging income and try to make money from as many different sources as possible. This is especially important if you are planning to work full time from home and are going to be heavily dependent on your blog income. <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">It is always good not to put all your eggs in one basket</span>. Here is a list of ways in which you can monetize your blog.<ol style="line-height: 2em; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 12px 30px;">
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Monetizing your blog by displaying Google Adsense Ads</span><span style="color: #003300; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">.</span> - This is the <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">best way to make money online</span> for relatively new bloggers. For me this is the most important source of blogging income. Take adsense very seriously, at least until other revenue options open. Also, do not forget to monetize your blog feed. GoogleAdsense is discussed in detailed in the section 'Google Adsense Optimization'.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Monetizing your Blog by writing paid blog reviews</span> - There are several opportunities where <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">you can get paid by paypal for writing reviews</span><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span> of products or websites of advertisers. This can be the second best source of income for new bloggers. Once you have a decent blog with over 50 blog posts or so, (or maybe even less will do, try) apply to paid blogging networks like <a href="http://tinyurl.com/dblboh" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Pay Per Post</a>. Other details are discussed in the section 'Get Paid to Blog'.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Monetizing your Blog by Affiliate programs</span> - Affiliate programs allow you earn money per action (<span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Cost Per Action</span> or CPA). Although new bloggers will struggle to make good blogging income from affiliate programs, later on you should try to diversify your income and make money using referral or affiliate ads. Details in the section 'Make Money using Affiliate programs'.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Monetizing you Blog by directly selling Flat rate Ads</span> - This is one of the best source of blogging income, since it is stable and independent of variations in your blog traffic. When the time is right, advertisers will themselves contact you after they come across your blog. This maybe a difficult money making option for new bloggers.</li>
</ol>
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<div id="seo" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Basics of SEO techniques and Page Rank</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />SEO techniques or Search Engine Optimization techniques are those which you can use to <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">improve your search engine rankings</span>. Even improving your ranking for a particular keyword or querry from say position 8 to position 1 can literally <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">triple the traffic</span> to your website or blog. Thus SEO is extremeley important. Before understanding the basics of SEO, you have to understand how search engines work. Well, the exact criterion and formula is a secret, but roughly, search engines like Google decide the ranking of a particular page based on the following three criterion.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><ol style="line-height: 2em; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 12px 30px;">
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">What other websites think about your site</span> – this takes into account other pages which link to your page, the quality of those pages, the anchor text used to link to your page and all that jazz. This can be summarized in just one number – <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">your page rank</span>. Getting more pages from other domains to point towards your page can increase your page rank.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">What the Search Engine Robots or Crawlers think about your site</span> </span>– this takes into account the keywords appearing in your page, the <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">keyword density</span><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span> and the relevance of the appearing keywords with the search query.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">What your site visitors think about your page</span> – this takes into account the<span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">visitor behavior</span> for example how often do visitors press the back button on their browser immediately after visiting your site. If most visitors to your site find that it is not useful at a first glance they will press the back button and submit query to the search engine again. This, eventually will damage your search engine ranking.</li>
</ol>
<span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">SEO TIP 1</span>: <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Participate in </span><a href="http://blogcarnival.com/bc/" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">blog carnivals</a>, submit your articles to <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">free-article-submission sites</span> like <a href="http://www.bestcashcow.com/" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bestcashcow.com</a>, or best way would be to write your own 200 to 300 page relevant articles on sites like Hubpages and yourself link to your articles on your blog. One or two links per article on Hubpages pointing towards your blog is allowed. Don't be too fussy about page rank though. It is clear that nowadays page rank has less and less to do with search engine ranking.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><div style="display: inline; height: auto; margin-bottom: 0cm; overflow: visible; padding: 3px 0px;">
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The following is an interesting video about page rank.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
<object height="265" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="320"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JsfLG7AEaP8&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></object></div>
<span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">SEO TIP 2</span>: Having the <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">right keywords and keyword density</span> can improve your chances of search engine ranking, but dont take this too literally. Believe me there are several examples of web pages which have rank one but repeat the main keyword only twice or thrice in their page. In any case, if you overdo it and repeat a keyword too many times, Google or other search engines may consider it as a <span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">spam</span>. Keywords are important. Learn to use them naturally and throughout your blog post, without overdoing it.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">SEO TIP 3</span>: <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Visitor behavior is the most important thing</span> that will determine your search engine ranking in the long run. It is important that you <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">try to keep your visitors on your blog for as long as you can</span> by providing information they need, other external useful links, etc. Keep your blog clean and tidy so that visitors are not repelled instantly by watching the enormous amount of irrelevant content and links on a page. Write articles for <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">human beings first</span>, search engines later. More about this in 'The art of writing an article'.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">SEO TIP 4</span>: Develop the habit of putting <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">internal links</span> (at least two or three links to your own previous articles on related topic). Internal links and the content of those pages has role to play in Search Engine ranking.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">SEO TIP 5</span>: Try to include relevant (not junk) <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">images and videos</span><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span> if possible. Also whenever you include an image describe it using a short keyword or phrase in the <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">ALT tab</span> of the image.</div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;">Make Money blogging using Google Ads - Adsense Optimization</span></div>
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<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Displaying <a href="https://www.google.com/adsense/" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Google Ads</a> on your blog is perhaps the best way of earning income from your blog, especially when you are a new blogger. It is for this reason that you should never ever mess up with <a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/03/follow-google-adsense-toc-to-secure.html" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Google Adsense TOC</a> because a blogger who is banned by Google from the Adsense program is banned forever. Now lets talk about Adsense Optimization - how to find the best configuration of Google Ad formats, color patterns and ad placements in order to maximize your bloggging money.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />It is the experience of several bloggers (including me) that tweeking the position, type and format of your Adsense ads and finding the right combination can virtually double or triple the money you make from adsense. There are three questions that need to be addressed:<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><ol style="line-height: 2em; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 12px 30px;">
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Which ad formats</span> to use for maximizing income?</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Where to place</span> Google Adsense Ads?</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">How to test the performance</span> of your Google Adsense ad units?</li>
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The answer to the third question is easy - <a href="https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=9868" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Adsense Custom Channels</a>. I strongly recommend you <span style="color: #cc0000; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">start using Custom Channels</span></span> right away, because without them it is not possible to fine tune your ad placement and formats to optimize your blogging money.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />There is no magical answer to the first two question that suits all. For example: on some blogs Leaderboards work well, on my it does not. However the most common ad formats are 300x250 medium rectangle, 336x280 large rectangle, 160x600 wide skyscraper and 728x90 leaderboard. You must find out what works well on your blog and it may take a month or so to find the most efficient combination. Here are some Adsense videos from Inside Adsense which explain some of the basics of Adsense Optimization. <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">If you haven't already, watch all three of these videos</span>.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><table border="1" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 100%px;"><tbody style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<tr align="center" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" valign="middle"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="60%"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><object height="265" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="320"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/WrKGucKThNs&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></object></td><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="40%"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />The thumb rule is that<span style="color: #990000; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">bigger Adsense ad units work better</span>. A wide skyscraper is better than a thin skyscraper, a large rectangle is better than a medium one and so on. Try putting a large rectangle just at the bottom of your blog post. Read more about this on <a href="http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/11/optimisation-essentials-part-i.html" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">Adsense Optimization I</a>.</td></tr>
<tr align="center" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" valign="middle"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="60%"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><object height="265" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="320"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/m3SGp7-hQo4&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></object></td><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="40%"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />It is important to <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">place the ads near the content</span>. Ads placed far away usually have lower <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click-through_rate" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">CTR</a>(Click through rate) simply because your blog visitors will not notice these ads. Watch this video and then see the heat map below for some recommended ad placements. Read more about this point on <a href="http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/11/optimisation-essentials-part-iii.html" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">Adsense Optimization III</a>.</td></tr>
<tr align="center" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" valign="middle"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="60%"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><object height="265" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="320"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2SPctunvWhU&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></object></td><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="40%"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />It is usually found that ads on a 'uncluttered' and clean blog work much better than those on a highly cluttered one. Also <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">choose ad colours which complement the layout of your site</span><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span>. Dont try too hard to attract the attention of your visitors by using gaudy colors. Read more about this on<a href="http://adsense.blogspot.com/2008/11/opttimisation-essentials-part-ii.html" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">Adsense Optimization II</a>.</td></tr>
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If you have a forum, read <a href="http://adsense.blogspot.com/2005/10/six-adsense-optimization-tips-for.html" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Adsense Optimization tips for forums</a>.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><table border="1" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 100%px;"><tbody style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<tr align="center" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" valign="middle"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="40%"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Adsense Heat Map</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><a href="http://www.google.com/images/adsense/en_us/support/general_en.jpg" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Heat Map - Best Ad placement positions"><img alt="Heat Map - Best Ad placement positions" border="0" src="http://www.google.com/images/adsense/en_us/support/general_en.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); cursor: pointer; height: 370px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; padding: 5px; width: 250px;" /></a></td><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="60%">It is important to think like a blog-visitor when you place ads. Try these recommended ad placements and then test them using<a href="https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=9869" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">custom channels</a>. You may also want to have a look at where I have placed the ads on this page. There is large rectangle right at the beginning of the blog post, mainly for those visitors who do not stay for long on the page. There is a wide skyscraper at the right, aimed for those who leave the blog reading a post halfway. And then there is a large rectangle at the bottom of each blog post. For me this combination works quite well. It took me a series of tests spread over 2 months to find what works best. Remember placing ads will not repel your visitors or reduce your blog traffic. In fact as Google puts it, the ads are so targeted that some of them may actually useful for your visitors.</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Adsense Tip</span>: When you create custom channel and test ad performance, <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">allow at least one week for each test</span>. In my experience the income generated from very new ad units is usually less and thus in the first couple of days, the test results can be lower than what they should be.</div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;">Make Money Online using Affiliate Programs</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KtEU8hBnqWI/SfH5fWYS_0I/AAAAAAAAASs/vtYDg7zHBpg/s1600-h/images.png" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Make Money from affiliate programs"><img alt="Make Money from affiliate programs" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328314151134756674" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KtEU8hBnqWI/SfH5fWYS_0I/AAAAAAAAASs/vtYDg7zHBpg/s320/images.png" style="border: 1px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 140px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; padding: 5px; width: 160px;" /></a>Affiliate or Referral advertisements allow you to earn money or commission if website or blog visitors click the affiliate link and make a purchase, or join a newsletter, or perform any other action as prescribed by the advertiser. If properly used, and also depending on the type of your blog, affiliate programs can one of your best source of online income from your blog. Let me give you a concrete example of how money is made using affiliate links.<span style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Example</span>: The following link is an affiliate link or referral ad for them.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><a href="http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-3399976-8242916" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Quality Web hosting - Unlimited Bandwidth & Storage - Only $4.95.</a><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />If you click on the above affiliate link and make a purchase, then I make money in the form of commission. If you click but do not make a purchase, then I do not make money at all.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Affiliate programs allow bloggers to <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">make income on basis of Cost Per Action</span> (CPA), which means you get a specified amount of money if your blog visitor performs a specified action which can be anything like purchase, signing up a newsletter, etc.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #000099; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A good affiliate income is a sign of a healthy blog</span>. Although in the initial stages of your make money online project, it maybe a bit difficult to earn from affiliate links on your blog, you must keep it as your medium term goal to achieve success with earning money from Affiliate programs.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">How to start earning income from your blog using affiliate programs?</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />There are two ways to enroll in affiliate programs and start . Either you directly search for suitable affiliates one by one or you join a <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">affiliate marketing network</span> or referral programs network like Commission Junction where you can find hundreds of affiliate programs to enroll at one place. The following are some popular affiliate marketing networks (there are several others)<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><ol style="line-height: 2em; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 12px 30px;">
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.cj.com/index.html" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Commission Junction</a></li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.marketleverage.com/" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Market Leverage</a></li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.dgmpro.com/" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">DGMPro</a> (affiliate programs for those in U.K., Australia, India and Asia Pacific)</li>
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My personal experience is that for small blogs (like this one) it is a bit difficult to make money online from affiliate programs. For example, although I have displayed and tried several affiliate ads on my blog, my income from them is practically zero. If your blog or website traffic is less than 100 visitors per day, it is unlikely you will make a lot of revenue with affiliate programs. In that case I would first recommend you to focus on traffic building and earning money online with Google Adsense in the meantime. After you take your blog traffic to the next level, say 1000 per day, it would be a good time to take the idea of making money with affiliate programs or referral advertisements seriously. If you are a new blogger, just bookmark this section and visit later after you work on your blog traffic.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br />Get Paid to Blog</span> -</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="text-align: left;">Make Money Online by writing Paid Blog Reviews</span></div>
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<img alt="Get Paid to Blog" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KtEU8hBnqWI/SdGFp9f3S1I/AAAAAAAAARM/aJqczXQPPX4/s320/images.jpeg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 123px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; padding: 5px; width: 86px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />For a new blogger, perhaps no other income is as exciting as directly<a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/get-paid-to-blog-how-to-earn-maximum.html" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">getting paid</a> for writing a blog post. You can actually earn between $1 to $20 (realistically, sometimes even more) for writing a 200 or 300 page blog review of an advertisers product or service or website. <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">It is actually possible to make anywhere between $100 to $750 per month </span>(depending on how often you write and the quality of your site, etc.). Here are three main Paid Blogging networks where you can find opportunities to get paid to blog.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><ol style="line-height: 2em; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 12px 30px;">
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://tinyurl.com/dblboh" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Pay Per Post</a> - The biggest and perhaps the best such site with plenty of opportunities. On their website they claim that you can find income opportunities for your blog and make $500 per month or more.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://tinyurl.com/detufs" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sponsored Reviews</a> - Maybe the second best. Lesser opportunities, but still good paying ones.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://tinyurl.com/ck4ah2" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Buy Blog Reviews</a> - Low paying opportunities, but still worth joining.</li>
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Sign up on all three of them. You can find more such paid blogging networks on my previous blog post - <a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/04/get-paid-to-blog-how-to-earn-maximum.html" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Get Paid to Blog</a> where you will also find more details on payment options about the above site, etc.</div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><br />The Art of writing an Article</span></div>
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<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />If you master the art of writing useful articles you will make a lot of money online from your blogging activities. Let me give you some specific tips in order to writing 'successful blog articles' which will bring you a lot of blog traffic. These are a result of my own experimenting and experience.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><ul style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 2em; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 12px 30px;">
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Choosing the Title / Topic of your Blog Article</span>: You article should be a blog post<span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">focussed on one or a group of related keywords</span>. One to three of those keywords should appear in your title. In order to <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">choose the best keyword for title</span> and sprinkling throughout your blog post, use <a href="http://google.com/insights/search" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Google Insights</a> to get an idea for what people search. For example, if i want to write a blog post on Home Loan, there are some similar sounding keywords - Home Loan, Home Mortgage, Housing Loan, etc. After using Google Insights <img alt="Choosing your Blog title" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327261661519885618" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KtEU8hBnqWI/Se48QZBzNTI/AAAAAAAAASU/mEaedrWg7Q8/s320/images1.png" style="border: 1px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 130px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; padding: 5px; width: 261px;" />I find the following - The queries for Home loan and home mortgage are much more than those for housing loan or house loan. So it is better to home loan/ mortgage in the title and in most of your blog article.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Get the idea?</span> Also remember to select the country and other specifics of audience you are planning to target while using Google Insights.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><div style="clear: both; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
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<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Try to give complete information related to that group of keywords</span>: When you complete writing your blog post, ask yourself the question - if a person lands up on your blog post by google search, will he/she find what they are looking for? Whatever keyword or keywords you have in mind for that blog post, have you supplied complete information? This is important for making your blog visitors stay on your blog for a longer time.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Provide related and meaningful external links</span> : Try to link to top external web pages on related topic. This will be good for your visitors and also good for your rankings too.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Update your best blog posts</span> - You will have some blog posts which will attract good blog traffic. <span style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">It is important to keep the information in that blog post up to date</span>. It is useful to use sitemeter to track what your visitors come looking for and then see if your blog post actually has information useful for them. Monitoring what keywords your blog visitors use to arrive at your blog post can also be useful for getting ideas to write further posts.</li>
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<span style="font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #660000; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Work from Home Full time - Risks, Strategies and Benefits</span></span><span style="text-align: left;">.</span></div>
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KtEU8hBnqWI/SfH3-u1ReGI/AAAAAAAAASk/YTLaVElXZpw/s1600-h/images.jpeg" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Make Money from Home"><img alt="Make Money from Home" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328312491251431522" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KtEU8hBnqWI/SfH3-u1ReGI/AAAAAAAAASk/YTLaVElXZpw/s320/images.jpeg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); cursor: pointer; display: block; float: left; height: 120px; margin: 0px auto 10px; padding: 5px; width: 120px;" /></a><span style="color: #333333;">Are you planning to make money from home full time? That is, quit your current job and be a full time blogger? Or may be not blogging, but make money from some other site? Working from home has its own perks and risks. The perks are obvious. You get to choose how you work, when you work, there is complete job satisfaction. Here are the risks that you will have to face if you plan to make money from home full time.</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><ol style="color: #333333; line-height: 2em; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 12px 30px;">
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Kick-Start Risk</span>: If you are planning to start a blog or a website, <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">you may never manage to get enough traffic </span>to make enough money for a living. This unfortunately does happen, and some of the reasons are mentioned in the section "Can you make a living by working from home?"</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Competition Risk</span>: Lets say even if you manage to make a blog or website and currently you ARE making a good amount of money from home. Even in this case, if your entire source of traffic is based on only a few keywords or pages, then you are vulnerable to the risk of competition. It can easily happen that as newer and better pages on that topic are created you lose your search engine ranknig and consequently lose traffic. In order to avoid such risks, you do not want to be in a situation where you rely on only a few pages of your blog or website for majority of the traffic and revenue.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Missed-Opportunity Risk</span>: Your lethargy or lack of discipline or incurious mindset may avoid you from spotting new opportunities. If you never write a page on a topic, you never know how much traffic you have lost. This is a risk you face of missing the money making opportunities around you.</li>
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<span style="color: #333333;">In any case, you are the best person who can decide whether or not you are ready to make money from home full time.</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #333333;">Here is a list of ideas you can follow in order to maximize your chances of success. This list is based on observing some very successful bloggers who make their living by working full time from home.</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><ol style="color: #333333; line-height: 2em; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 12px 30px;">
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Don't just build a blog</span> - Build a website (on one single domain) which has a blog, a forum and some information or resource pages.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Build a Glossary or small Encyclopedia</span>: It is advisable to build a comprehensive glossary of the terms that you will be dealing with on your site. For example if you have a finance related site, then you would want to build a glossary where you explain terms like mutual funds, tax deduction, market derivatives, etc. - <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">one term on one page where you also include an image, an external link and a complete information</span>. The idea is that <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">whenever you use a term in your site or blog, you link it to the page on your glossary</span>. This is useful for your readers, it is also more likely that the readers will click on an ad on the glossary page and these numerous internal links that you will have on your page will also help SEO.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Learn to interact with people</span>: Building a successful website is not just about writing pages after pages. It is also about dealing with several other people including your visitors, advertisers, and other fellow bloggers or even your competitors. You will have to make efforts to improve your skills of dealing with people. Start early and never miss opportunities to communicate with people or offer help.</li>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Apart from these you will have to follow the general guidelines of building numerous high quality pages. Remember that although the main perks of making money from home are flexible and relaxed working hours, these perks are only visible once your website kick starts. In the initial few months or maybe a year, you will have to work hard, maybe over 5 hours a day until you get a few thousand visitors and signs of a decent income. You should </span><span style="color: #333333; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">allow at least one year of time</span><span style="color: #333333;"> for getting your </span><span style="color: #333333; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">make money from home</span><span style="color: #333333;"> project running in full swing.</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #333333;">There are many ways in which you can make money from home. Apart from blogging for money, the following income opportunities seem to be popular.</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><ol style="color: #333333; line-height: 2em; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 12px 30px;">
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Making money online from home by participating in <a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/03/earn-money-online-from-home-by-taking.html" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">paid surveys</a>.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Making money by finding online data entry jobs which allow you to work from home.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Making money by freelance writing.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://niftyprediction.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-make-money-online-from-home-blog.html" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Making money from home by blogging</a>.</li>
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<span style="color: #333333;">However writing a blog or maintaining a website seems to be the best way to make money from home - if you succeed in it of course.</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><div style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Make Money using HubPages</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="text-align: left;">- a combination of blogging and Freelance writing.</span></div>
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<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><a href="http://hubpages.com/qt/main_thumb.jpg" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Make Money - Hubpages"><img alt="Make Money - Hubpages" border="0" src="http://hubpages.com/qt/main_thumb.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; padding: 5px; width: 200px;" /></a><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><a href="http://hubpages.com/_hubtour/" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Hubpages</a> is a great place for 'casual writers' who love to write and also don't mind making some money on the way. This is like a freelance writing job, only the money you make is variable, depending solely on the quality of articles you write. Articles you write on Hubpages are called Hubs. From the hours I have spent reading about hubpages, i believe that if you write say <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">100 quality hubs</span>, you can expect an income of somewhere between <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">$20 to $200 per month</span>, depending of course on the quality of your hubs. Let me quickly point out some features of hubpages which might interest you. Continue reading or <a href="http://hubpages.com/_hubtour/" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Take a tour of hubpages</a>.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><ol style="line-height: 2em; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 12px 30px;">
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Using Hubpages for traffic and SEO reasons</span> - This has already been discussed. If you have a blog, which is your primary publishing platform and primary source of making money online, you can <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">write 200-300 word articles on hubpages and place one or two links in each of those articles pointing towards your blog articles</span>. This will help you to <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">drive some traffic</span> from hubpages to your blog and may also be useful for SEO reasons. It would be a good idea if you can make sure that the articles on hubpages are independently interesting on their own.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Enjoyable experience</span> : If you are looking for earning income by freelance writing, then you will enjoy your experience on hubpages. Especially creating hubs, putting images, and all that is quite user friendly.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #003300; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Variety of Options to make money online</span>: By writing hubs you have a variety of different ways to earn money online from the articles you have written. You can display <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Google Ads</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">sell Amazon and Ebay products</span>, make money with<a href="http://www.kontera.com/" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Kontera</a> in text ads, etc.</li>
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<a href="http://hubpages.com/_hubtour/" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Visit Hubpages</a> to find out more.</div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Make Money Online with eHow</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="text-align: left;">- a combination of blogging and Freelance writing.</span></div>
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<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><a href="http://blog.ehow.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/ehow-creating-buzz.jpg" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Make Money - eHow"><img alt="Make Money - eHow" border="0" src="http://blog.ehow.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/ehow-creating-buzz.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 99px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; padding: 5px; width: 102px;" /></a><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><a href="http://www.ehow.com/" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">EHow</a> works like hubpages. You write articles on eHow and you get paid. However there are <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">some key differences</span>. On eHow you can<span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">only write articles which are of the type "How to"</span> do some particular thing. For e.g. you can write an article dealing with "How to save money", but the title of your article cannot be "Best Savings Account to save money". The format of articles is also restrictive and you cannot use eHow as SEO for other sites. You get paid by <a href="http://paypal.com/" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">paypal</a>and the formula for compensation you recieve is not clear. However if you can write good "How to" articles, it is possible to make good money from eHow. Some say the money you can make online by using eHow is sometimes more than what you can make from Hubpages or Squidoo. One great strategy would be to open an account with eHow as well as <a href="http://hubpages.com/_hubtour/" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Hubpages</a> and use Hubpages to boost SEO ranking of your eHow articles.</div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Make Money using Squidoo</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="text-align: left;">- a combination of blogging and Freelance writing.</span></div>
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<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><a href="http://www.jcpublishing.com/squidoo-240x240-orange.gif" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Make Money - Squidoo"><img alt="Make Money- Squidoo" border="0" src="http://www.jcpublishing.com/squidoo-240x240-orange.gif" style="border: 1px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 100px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; padding: 5px; width: 100px;" /></a><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Making money by writing with <a href="http://www.squidoo.com/" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Squidoo</a> is again similar to making money with Hubpages or eHow with some more differences that I will point out. The revenue sharing on Squidoo is 50-50 and you can read more about it on <a href="http://www.squidoo.com/pages/faq" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Squidoo FAQ</a>. The main additional difference is that on Squidoo you can write posts which have adult content. This is perhaps the best site to write such articles and make money online. You get paid by paypal and the compensation depends on how well your articles are doing, measured by a lens score.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />For non-adult articles, <a href="http://hubpages.com/_hubtour/" style="color: #314e6f; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Hubpages</a> seems to be more efficient to attracting traffic. You can however sign up on both and see what works out best for you.</div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;">Blogging versus Freelance Writing</span><span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"> </span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KtEU8hBnqWI/SfH6X4cXzPI/AAAAAAAAAS0/f-2WG3UN8g0/s1600-h/images.gif" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Make Money Freelance"><img alt="Make Money Freelance" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328315122351328498" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_KtEU8hBnqWI/SfH6X4cXzPI/AAAAAAAAAS0/f-2WG3UN8g0/s320/images.gif" style="border: 1px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 130px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; padding: 5px; width: 160px;" /></a>As more and more people start using the internet more and more, there is tremendous amount of material to be written on the web. Not surprisingly there are several opportunities for good writers where they can make money online on a per writing assignment basis. These writing opportunities are sometimes called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freelancer" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">freelance writing jobs</a> and the person who writes articles for others to make money is sometimes called a freelancer. Although you can make money online by freelancing as well as blogging, there are some marked differences, disadvantages and advantages of both which are summarized below.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><table border="1" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 100%px;"><tbody style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<tr align="center" style="background-color: #d2dcff; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" valign="middle"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="50%"><span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Make Money Freelancing</span></td><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="50%"><span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Make Money Blogging</span></td></tr>
<tr align="center" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" valign="middle"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="50%">A freelancer makes <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">money per assignment</span>. <span style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Example</span> $10 for writing a 500 word article, etc.</td><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="50%">The amount of money a blogger makes per article is not fixed. And you do not make money immediately after you finish writing your blog post.</td></tr>
<tr align="center" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" valign="middle"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="50%">You can <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">start making money</span> as soon as you find a good freelance writing job</td><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="50%">It <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">takes time</span> to set up a blog, get decent traffic and learn about ways to monetize your blog successfully.</td></tr>
<tr align="center" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" valign="middle"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="50%">You <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">stop making money</span> as soon as you stop writing articles (naturally).</td><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="50%">You get <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">ongoing revenue</span> for articles you have written. Even if you go on a vacation for a week or two, you will keep getting money as long as your previous blog posts are there to attract blog traffic.</td></tr>
<tr align="center" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" valign="middle"><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="50%">Somebody else gets a <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">share in the advertising money</span> earned from your article.</td><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="50%">You get to keep 100% of the advertising income from your blog.</td></tr>
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<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />If you are planning to be a freelancer, <span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">it would be a good idea to channel some of your writing enthusiasm or energy into either developing your own blog</span> or website. After all, one day you would like to write for yourself. Why get a freelancer job when you can employ yourself?</div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;">Top Myths of Making Money Online</span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></span>Let us have a closer look at what people search on google related to Money Making. I tried to compare the the volume for search in the past 12 months for the following queries in the category of Finance and Insurance using Google Insights :<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><ol style="line-height: 2em; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 12px 30px;">
<li style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Free Money</li>
<li style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Fast Money</li>
<li style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Easy Money</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Make Money Online</span></li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtMvf4i6RvCEUGkcZ-prLdynxoBaRa1alQBwYgu6JsVhjZs78N2ERkHdTkhG5FhO4lDDmwC5D-Sre_I_-PpKNox4dsiw5pu7LCuYIjQLX9E3pvqMPvZocvfR_b-dne13OuMFHSgrmD7F8/s1600-h/images.png" style="color: #314e6f; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="World after Money"><img alt="World After Money" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325725242146757746" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtMvf4i6RvCEUGkcZ-prLdynxoBaRa1alQBwYgu6JsVhjZs78N2ERkHdTkhG5FhO4lDDmwC5D-Sre_I_-PpKNox4dsiw5pu7LCuYIjQLX9E3pvqMPvZocvfR_b-dne13OuMFHSgrmD7F8/s400/images.png" style="border: 1px solid rgb(255, 255, 255); cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 272px; margin: 0px auto 10px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>There you go. So many people looking to earn free money. They want to make money right now, as fast as they can.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Click on the above image to have a closer look at the image. The top most blue line is for searches related to Free Money. The Red line is for searches related to Fast Money. And the orange line below is for Easy Money. The barely visible green line at the rock bottom of the above image is what this post is all about "Make Money Online" especially by writing a blog.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Here are the top myths related to money making which I think you should avoid being a victim of.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><ol style="line-height: 2em; margin: 0px; padding: 12px 0px 12px 30px;">
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Myth</span>: <span style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">You can earn Money for Free, i.e. without working for it.</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Myth</span>: <span style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">It is easy to earn Money Fast</span>. While this maybe true in some very rare accidental cases, it usually takes a lot of patience to start earning money either from online activities or otherwise. I would say you must be prepared for a waiting time of at least a couple of months in the case of making money with your blog.</li>
<li style="line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Myth</span>: <span style="font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bloggers usually earn a lot of Money</span>. While this is true for a some bloggers, say around 10% of the bloggers, most of the bloggers struggle to make even $100 per month. This is because of a number of reasons which are discussed in this long post.</li>
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So if you are here for earning fast money, free money, easy money or quick money - I am sorry to disappoint you but this blog post is not for you. This is meant for serious people who are ready to invest time and patience for making a five figure yearly income. Later on maybe even six figure yearly income.</div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; text-align: left;"><br />Story of Investo Blog</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">As I mentioned before in the introduction, the earliest reason why I started this blog was not with the intention to make money online or work from home.</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #333333;">In the summer of 2007, one of my friends discussed with me the idea of making money online with a blog or a website. He also gave me examples of a couple of his other friends who make over 100 thousand dollars a year from their websites. However, they were full time into website management. This is one reason why I never took the idea seriously. After all, I have a full time job which I enjoy much more than I enjoy my online activities like blogging. So why should I even think in the direction of making money from home?</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #333333;">However around August 2007, i started a blog, just to keep track of my investments and money management. Ya, the purpose was simple - just blogging for its own sake, not for making money. Blogging in order to keep track of what I am doing with my money.</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #333333;">As weeks went by, i became attracted to the idea of having more an more blog visitors. I think it must be sometime in late August 2008, that i started thinking in directions of making money online from my blog. For the next two or maybe two and a half months, I spent aimlessly blogging without any concrete plan. My efforts did not give rise to the amount of blog traffic i thought i should have got. One of the reasons is that i did not follow some of the guidelines mentioned above about SEO and writing quality blog posts.</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #333333;">By November end, I applied for an Adsense Account. My Adsense application was immediately rejected (later on i found out that the main reason was that I my email address attached to this blog and the email address used for adsense application did not match). Fortunately I had a friend who agreed to let me use his adsense ads until i got mine. So early December was the beginning of my actual blogging income. The first three days did not see a single click on any of the ads I had put on my blog. Yes, not a single penny earned from my hundreds of blog impressions. The ads were simply not placed near the content or whatever. But after some experimenting with ad placements and learning a few things about adsense optimization, i had started making about $1 a day by the end of December. I remember mid-January was the time when my earnings more than tripled. The main reason is a revelation I had about the importance of some of the blogging tips I mentioned above. Then by mid-February, I got my own Adsense account and had started making over $15 per day. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">That in my opinion was a very rapid improvement</span><span style="color: #333333;">. I attribute this entire growth to some of the quality article writing tips i have mentioned above. I have shared everything I know.</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span style="color: #333333;">Currently I earn between $35 to $50 per day which is over $1000 per month. I hope this Make Money Online guide will help you in your goal of making money from your blog. If you do find some of the tips here actually useful, - </span><span style="color: #000066; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">share the tips with your own blog readers</span><span style="color: #333333;">.</span></div>
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Luiz Lisboahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11954480091525096417noreply@blogger.com1