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Julie from HSB Associates provided me with this slide show that I thought my readers would like. It summarizes 10 ways to achieve Heaven on Earth:
Be sure, if you haven’t seen it to check out our review here.
I believe that there are 3 keys to success. Opportunity that you create, Knowledge and Action. There is nothing to it but to do it. I hate excuses. You can’t make money or progress coming up with excuses.
Discipline. You gotta make yourself do what you set out to do. If you want to be successful you gotta stick to your plans. You must find ways to train yourself to be disciplined. I set a schedule for myself. In prison my day started at 4:45 am. It started with prayer, writing, perform my assigned prison job, exercise and write some more, including fan mail, editing and reading manuscripts. Once you make up your mind to do something, don’t let folks talk you out of your plans. You gotta stay focused and stick to it.
Sacrifice. With success comes sacrifice. Sacrifices will have to be made. You will have to give up something. I gave up lots of leisure time. I gave up time that I wanted to use on other things but was it worth the sacrifice? Absolutely. I am now beginning to reap the rewards.
If I can beat the odds, so can you. If I could do it so could you. Set goals. Stick to your plans and go for it!
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If you are a little cautious you’ll accomplish little. –Winston Churchill
The future is not something we enter; the future is something that we create. – Ms. Jan the mail lady.
It’s hard to fail, but worse to never have tried. – My Uncle John, R.I.P.
You are what you do! Not what you want to do. Not what you hope to do, not what you think to do. – Ms. Ida, my teen Recreation Supervisor
Kelly Wilson
Teaching Resource Center
Kelly.wilson@trcabc.com
Why Kids Need To Read During the Summer
Kids celebrate the end of the school year with the common refrain, “no more teachers, no more books.” While teachers won’t argue the first part, there are three main reasons why kids should spend time getting lost in books during the summer season.
Practice Important Skills
It’s imperative that kids read over the summer. Reading is a skill that, like any other, needs consistent practice. I explain to my kids that knowing how to read is like practicing a skill in sports – to get better, you have to keep trying. If kids don’t read during the summer weeks, their reading skills atrophy and it takes even more work to get them up to speed in the fall.
Provide Down-Time
Summer days are crammed with fun outdoor activities and events, and all of this fun wears us out. Summer reading provides a sacred time during each day for much-needed rest, especially during sweltering afternoons.
Make a consistent time each day to read with your kids. Read their books along with them – I like to read a page and then have my kids read a page from their current chapter book choice. Set aside time for each child to read alone, then pick up your own book or magazine to enjoy. Start the summer with fifteen minute blocks of down-time for reading, and soon you’ll find that all of you will be enjoying longer amounts of reading time.
An Important Transition
Imagine picking up a book to read, only to discover that the text is written in a language you don’t know. Even if you could pronounce the words correctly, you wouldn’t be able to tell someone about the passage you just read.
This is what reading can feel like to kids during their early childhood years. The focus of classroom teachers and curriculum is on skill-building, the process of decoding, and beginning comprehension. All of this can seem like a job.
Summer is the ideal time to make reading enjoyable. When kids take time to read with a parent, friend, sibling or alone, they become more comfortable with reading. Like the movement from sounding out letters to recognizing words, there is a transition from reading as work to reading as fun.
It only takes one time for kids to experience getting lost in a story, and they’ll be hooked! Setting aside time for summer reading is a great way to make that happen.
Kelly Wilson is an editor at Teaching Resource Center. For over 25 years Teaching Resource Center has provided quality <a href=”http://store.trcabc.com/classroom-tools.html”>reading supplies</a> at discount prices.
Happiness at Work
Be Resilient, Motivated, and Successful — No Matter What
By Srikumar S. Rao, Ph.D.
Published by McGraw-Hill
April 2010; $22.95US; 978-0-07-166432-5
Are You Happy at Work?
Do you wake up each day radiantly alive and brimming with cheer?
Do you derive deep meaning from what you do?
Are you so passionate about your work that you would almost pay for the privilege of doing it?
These are just a few of the provocative questions that Dr. Srikumar Rao poses in this book, which is based on his wildly popular classes at schools such as Columbia Business School, the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, and the London School of Business. Offering a radically different, Zen-like approach to business success, Dr. Rao’s profound teachings redefine what it means to be successful, rich, and happy — especially when the economy and job market throw you for a loop. This is no ordinary business book. This isHappiness at Work.
When you’re worried about your job, future, and monthly bills, should you really be asking yourself, Am I happy?Yes, because happiness works.That’s the simple but profound message behind Happiness at Work, an interactive book based on Dr. Srikumar Rao’s renowned teachings at the world’s most prestigious business schools. Using thought-provoking exercises and inspiring life lessons drawn from ancient wisdom, world history, and business, this transformative guide shows you how to reclaim your joy for living — and create your own vision of success.
Learn how to:
Dr. Rao’s life-altering program will enlighten, amaze, edify, and inspire you, even in the most challenging of times. You’ll learn how positive thinking and affirmations can actually be bad for you — and how some of the things that you may desperately want can be the very things that devastate you. You’ll discover a new path to success based on your unique definition of what success means. And, with each exercise in the book, you’ll make a more profound connection to the joy that already exists in your heart.
Happiness doesn’t come from your job, house, or bank account — it comes from within yourself.
Author Bio
Srikumar S. Rao conceived the pioneering course “Creativity and Personal Mastery,” which has transformed the lives of thousands of students and executives at many of the world’s leading business schools and corporations. He has taught at the Columbia Business School, London Business School, Kellogg School of Management, and Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. He has spoken at and conducted workshops attended by executives of dozens of leading companies including General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson, Google, Microsoft, IBM, MasterCard, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America. He was a contributing editor for Forbes, Financial World, and Success and an executive at Warner Communications, the Continental Group, and McGraw-Hill. Dr. Rao lives in New York City and frequently travels around the world.
Please visit www.srikumarsrao.com for many tools and useful resources. You can follow him on Twitter @srikumarsrao, or become a fan of Srikumar Rao on Facebook.
Reviews
“Follow Srikumar Rao’s instructions and you will enjoy the journey to more happiness and meaning in your life, no matter what!”
–From the Foreword by Marshall Goldsmith, author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
“Happiness at Work brings new understanding of the essential role that happiness plays in workplace learning and performance. Srikumar Rao’s guidelines for our journey to leadership include aspects rarely explored and newly significant. Cheers for Happiness at Work.”
–Frances Hesselbein, Chairman and Founding President, Leader to Leader Institute
“This book is a treasure chest full of wisdom. Each and every one of its 34 chapters introduced me to, or reminded me of, a very important principle for living a happy and successful life.”
–Jack Canfield, Cocreator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series and Coauthor of The Success Principles
A person over the course of their lifetime can accumulate a ton of books. I know I’ve got way more than I need. Some I dearly love, and some I hold on to because there are bits of information within them that I’d like to hang on to. As a reviewer, I get a ton of books. Ethics codes say these can’t be sold, so that leaves finding other venues for them when you run out of room for them. What do you do though with the books that you’ve decided to let go of. Just toss them in the garbage, or give them a new life. What about those books, you want to read, but aren’t sure you want to dedicate that precious shelf space to. I hope to present a lot of alternatives to you.
Let’s begin with one of the newest ways to love books, yet remain green. The electronic reader. There are many different e-reader devices out there now, more to come. I’ll cover the biggest and most widely used.
Kindle – Available from Amazon.Com – Actually available in the Kindle 2 or Kindle DX. The Kindle DX is a larger, more expensive, more powerful version of the Kindle. The Kindle holds about 1500 books, while the Kindle DX holds 3,500. The Kindle DX has a larger screen than the Kindle. The DX is priced about $200 more than the Kindle. The DX is available with U.S. and Global wireless, while the Kindle seems to come with Global wireless. The Kindle will accept Amazon e-books and convert PDF’s, while the DX will accept PDF documents as they are.
Nook – Available from Barnes & Noble – The Nook is 7.7 inches high by 4.9 inches wide, 1/2 inch thick, and weighs about 12 ounces. Roughly the size of a paperback book. It holds the contest of 1,500 books, and will take a microSD card to expand the number of books available. Books are available via a free 3G wireless network as well as free wi-fi in all Barnes and Noble stores. It also holds about 26 hours worth of audio for your audiobooks. Battery life is about 10 days without recharging, but use of wi-fi/3G will lower that.
Sony E-Reader – Available from a variety of retail outlets. Sony has two versions of their e-reader. The lowest priced is the Sony Pocket E-Reader at around $199. The other is the touch screen, and retails for about $259. This is probably one of the most popular choices, next to the Kindle.
One of the biggest drawbacks right now it seems is each device is proprietary. Sony has their format for e-books, Amazon has theirs, Nook has theirs. Some will take many formats such as PDF, others not as many. From my perspective, I’m holding off. In doing my reviews, an e-reader would come in handy for many reasons. For one, I’d clear out a lot of shelf space by upgrading to electronic copies of some of my books. Secondly, I’d be able to accept some books for review faster, and if I see a new book that I want to read, I can get it within a matter of seconds. Also, there’s the factor that it would be better for the environment. However, I’d like a device that allows me to take notes on the book as I’m reading it. Some of them do have limited note taking ability. If you decide to purchase one though, the best advice is to try each of them out. Don’t be so eager to jump on the bandwagon, that you just buy one, because it’s an emerging technology and I think eventually, like MP3 players, at some point you can find e-readers priced for everyone. So if you are shopping for one, what are some things to look for:
E-Ink Display – This gives you a display very much like the printing on a book. This type of display is much better I’ve read on the eyes, than an LCD display.
Storage Content – Will 1,500 book capacity be enough, or will you need more. If you don’t think that’ll be enough, make sure it’s expandable.
Battery Life – You don’t want to be on a 5 hour plane trip, and have it run out of juice on you 2 hours into the flight.
Hidden costs – Are there costs to access the wireless networks?
Book Availability – How many books are available for this device? What formats does it accept?
But wait, you say, I don’t want e-books, I love the feeling of curling up with a physical book. I like the feeling of turning the pages. I can’t get that from an e-reader. But what do I do with the books that I’ve read, but don’t really want to keep around permanently. Well, I’m glad you asked. There are many ways and places you can recycle those books.
You can send your used textbooks (I know I still have a ton) to Books Beyond Borders. Their purpose is to provide educational and reading opportunities to underpriviledged countries.
You could check with your local library. Some will take your books and have library books sales as a fundraiser. A Great way to support your local libraries, which today, sadly, are mostly underfunded.
Friends of Libraries, USA – Their purpose is to help rebuild libraries in areas hit by hurricane’s, earthquakes, etc.
At Freecycle.org you can list your ads for free and give your books or anything else away!
A fun way to recycle a book is through Bookcrossing.com – The idea behind this site, is that you leave a book in a public place, then post it. Someone else goes and picks it up. You can find books others have left, and track the ones you left.
Housingworks.org – They work to end homelessness and AIDS in NYC. Books can be mailed [126 Crosby Street, NYC 10012 (212-334-3324)] or dropped off.
PaperbackSwap.com At this website, you mail your books in, and get credits for them. You then use those credits to get other books you want to read.
BooksThroughBars.org This site provides books to prisoners. You do need to check though and make sure you send the types of books a particular prison allows.
Some other places to donate are homeless shelters, local schools, and hospitals. Over at For the love of books they have a discussion of this very topic. Some of their commentors can give you ideas on things in specific areas of the country such as NY, or Florida.
For books that are too damaged to pass off to anyone else, you can always go to paper recycling centers. However, from what I’ve read, you need to rip the hardovers off books, since they can’t be used, and just leave the paper content.
I hope this gives you some ideas on recycling/reusing books. What ways do you know of, or can you think of to make use of books you no longer want?
You can discuss it here or join my facebook page and discuss it there.
By Kelly Gannon
It’s an unfortunate fact, but most people will need eyeglasses to help them see at some point in life. If you’ve already had to purchase glasses, then you know how expensive they tend to be. While according to a 2005 study from MIT the average true cost of eyeglasses is only around $2 per pair, if you go to your local optician or optometrist you should be prepared to pay between $178 to $390, on average. There was a time when people had no other choice but to pay this hefty fee, but today the frugality-minded have a host of cost saving alternatives to choose from. Here are the top six ways to save:
Shop at Costco, Sam’s Club, or Walmart
Glasses can be bought at Walmart for as low as $40, and glasses at Costco can be bought for around the same price. At Costco, just the glass part of the glasses can be bought for as low as $20, and their frames start out at $19.
Even Cheaper : Order Glasses Online
The average price for glasses bought online is $20 – $30 total for both the frames and actual glasses. If you’re into “extreme frugality”, there are even reputable online stores that sell glasses for as low as $8! The quality is often the same as you would receive in a traditional optical store. The one major downside is you don’t get to try them on before buying them. Still, if you have an old frame, a significant amount of money can be saved this way. While this is a great option for most people looking to save some cash, it’s not really the best option for people who need progressive or bifocal lenses. Those types of glasses require measurements that need to be taken “in person” and must be estimated when the lenses are bought online. While this works for most people, it’s not ideal. For some, it doesn’t work at all – online retailers will be sure to let you know their limits.
Re-lens an Old Pair
If you only need new glasses because of a broken frame, consider having your current lenses put into a replacement frame. You can have this done at Walmart or Costco, but expect to pay a “mounting fee” of around $25 in addition to the cost of the new frame. Also, this will usually only work if you get the exact same frame that you had the first time.
Another option, if you have a frame you love but need new lenses, is to bring the frame to an optician or Walmart / Costco and have new lenses put in. This way, you will only pay the cost of the lenses. When frames often cost hundreds of dollars by themselves, this can be a great way to save some extra cash.
Buy OTC Readers and Use Single Vision Glasses Instead of Expensive Progressive Lenses
How badly do you really need those progressive lenses? Do you really just need glasses for reading? A lot of people who are told they “need” progressive lenses can actually make do with mega-cheap reading glasses from the drugstore. Make sure to explore this option with your eye doctor.
Avoid Brand Names on Both the Frames AND the Lenses
Brand name frames and lenses don’t necessarily mean an assurance of durability or quality. There are many stylish frames that aren’t coming from a famous brand, and there are perfectly functional lenses being produced in Asia and distributed by little-known sellers. If you need to save money, let go of ideas about needing to purchase brand name products.
Donate Your Old Glasses and Claim a Tax Deduction
Did you know that you can take your old glasses to LensCrafters or the Lion’s Club International and donate your old glasses as part of the “Gift of Sight” program and then claim the donation as a tax deduction? You can, as long as your glasses aren’t broken. If you’re needing new glasses simply because your eyesight has worsened and you need a new prescription, this is a great way to save some money and also do a good deed.
Kelly Gannon is a content editor for Just Eyewear, an online glasses retailer. She writes on topics including current events, healthcare, and personal finance.
The Rise of the CMO — But Where M = Mobility
By Emily Nagle Green,
Author of Anywhere: How Global Connectivity is Revolutionizing the Way We Do Business
I recently chatted with John Bruggeman, CMO of Cadence, the electronic design automation firm. Just back from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, I was talking about the battles in the mobile revolution.
John says there are three significant battles still underway in that sector that have do-or-die stakes for the businesses in the actual battle: the mobile operating system (Nokia, Google, and Microsoft — the latter making another run at it with a rethought Windows Mobile), the mobile device platform (the usual handset suspects, Apple, and possibly some daring consumer electronics players), and the prevailing semiconductor architecture — which he sees as boiled down to a question of whether high-performance Intel processors make inroads against the widely used low-power ARM architecture.
Who’ll win that third battle, I asked. The ARM platform has a massive lead in the mobile space, its core IP going into the processor for virtually every handset sold in the world. “Intel is smart, has loads of cash, and knows this is a long-term game,” said John. “Over the next 5 years, they will co-exist. Beyond that, these two worlds — low-power handsets and high-performance portable computing — bleed together. The devices following that time period won’t be about fast web page refreshes; they’ll be about transactions, making fast hits on cloud-based data. When that happens, our mobile devices will want both low power and performance.” Given the time parameters involved, he doesn’t count out Intel’s push to take its desktop/laptop dominance into the smaller more diffused computing domain.
From that topic we wandered over to one that’s a new favorite of mine: that 2010 is the year that mobility as a business issue rises to the boardroom. My logic goes like this:
John bought it — and he took the thinking a couple of steps further: “The first automation of business in the 20th century happened with the advent of mainframe computing. The central information systems function arose then. The re-automation of business, driven by desktop computing, pushed IT further out into the business and, organizationally, led to the rise of the CIO. What you’re talking about — the rise of mobility as a strategic issue for businesses — will mean that we’ll see the rise of a Chief Mobility Officer.”
Fascinating idea, and one Yankee Group will pursue in a research report over the next few months with Josh Holbrook taking the lead. But beware: John followed his prediction of the emergence a new type of corporate CMO with this one: “Sadly, many businesses who take this step will put a networking guy in the job. What they’ll need will be an imaginative business person, someone who’s able to look at all the activities of the business and re-think them completely.”
© 2010 Emily Nagle Green, author of Anywhere: How Global Connectivity is Revolutionizing the Way We Do Business
Author Bio
Emily Nagle Green is president and CEO of Yankee Group, a leading firm in researching global connectivity change. Yankee Group supports businesses worldwide that use, operate, or help build networks with powerful ideas, forecasts, conferences, and strategy consulting. Green is also vice-chair of MITX, the largest association for digital marketing and media technology in the United States. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
For more information please visit http://anywhere.yankeegroup.com.
A Writer’s Orgasm
Recently, readers have asked why I decided to write erotica after writing seven mainstream titles. For me, it was a natural transition to write erotica, being that thus far, all of my books have included very steamy scenes and intense sexual connections. I’ve worked hard to make sure that each encounter, whether it involves a threesome or an oral sex scene between two women, is necessary for the evolution of the story and mainly, for purposes of defining those characters. Erotica or not, it’s a story.
I enjoy writing sex scenes, but more importantly, I enjoy writing about the lives of individuals who are either positively or negatively affected by sex. Whether it be swingers or sexaholics, or women who have been sexually repressed and are now ready to breakout and get naughty, sex is a part of all of our lives. After all, the revolution of sex cannot be ignored. I feel that sex can be a character in itself. It can be a villain and it can be a sanctuary. We can choose to go with it, or choose to resist it for religious reasons or ethical reasons or for purposes of detoxification. One’s response to sex says a lot about their morals and willpower and upbringing. I, for one, am very sexually liberated and have always had a lust for life. It’s important to me that women enjoy themselves and pay close attention to where their ideals about sex came from. We’ve been told early on to keep our legs closed and to save ourselves for our husbands. I don’t believe that boys are not put under the same type of pressure. Actually, they learn to conquer and pursue and society has this, “boys will be boys” attitude (which should also change), whereas girls are taught that if we don’t keep our vaginas to ourselves, we’ll be labeled as non-virtuous sluts, far from marriage material.
I am a strong advocate of safe sex, though I do think sex is meant to be enjoyable and that women need to love and explore their bodies and learn about what pleases them so that they can express their needs openly, without shame and without judgment. I have a post-chapter in Erotic City called Women Have Wet Dreams, Too, which is written from the point of view of the main character, Milan Kennedy who owns a swingers’ club. She’s very comfortable with her sexuality and enjoys spreading the word about guilt-free sex for women.
When I conducted research for Erotic City, I attended quite a few sex clubs and interviewed many lifestyle members. The common trait I found was that these individuals don’t have as many hang-ups about sex as most people do, though some would argue that swingers are dysfunctional or that they’re sexual deviants. I’ve addressed this controversy in Erotic City, which is one reason why the topic of swinging was so intriguing to me.
I’m enjoying the experience of writing erotica and I hope that you enjoy my stories as much as I enjoy bringing them to you. Whether writing mainstream or erotica, I put a lot of work into the psychology of my characters. It is my intention to make sure that the main characters each have something they want and something they fear. I make a point to remind myself that I’m not writing about what I would do. I’m writing about what the characters would do. It’s their story, not mine. It’s my desire that you enjoy the stories of my characters, and that those characters stay in your head long after the last page because you fall in love with them or worry about them or love to hate them, because you care about their journey. It is my desire, as Pynk, that you are satisfied. That, to me, would be orgasmic.
Copyright © 2008 by Pynk
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