Info-Leeches and other E-Invertebrates

A creative dead end can produce wonders.

That was proved to me once again in a most dramatic way. It
involved the cover design of my new book, a provocative biblical
novel, titled, “Abraham, The Dreamer / An Erotic and Sacred Love
Story.”

I had submitted my thoughts for the cover design to the
publisher (iUniverse.com). I explained that the story is about a
love triangle, involving Abraham, his wife Sarah, and her
handmaid, Hagar, “the other woman.” I suggested that the cover
capture that relationship.

Of course, there’s much more to the story, and I filled in the
details at some length. After all, this is not a contemporary
novel in a contemporary setting. We are talking about life 4000
years ago, with its many gods and goddesses, its child
sacrifices and erotic Sacred Marriage Rites. Abraham’s wife,
Sarah, could very well have been, what I portray her to be, a
high priestess serving Inanna, the great goddess of Love and
War. We have Abraham, who turned against his society to follow a
new and different God. What made him do that, I wondered, as I
tried to recreate his life and tell his story. Furthermore, what
made him transfer his love from Sarah to Hagar?

I tried to give the designer a sense of the individuals and of
the story that lay hidden in the laconic biblical account.

When the cover design came back to me I knew I was in trouble.
The artwork suggested a knightly romance set in England during
the Middle Ages. But the story is about Sumer, Canaan and Egypt,
and nomadic, biblical characters who lived some three thousand
years before the Middle Ages. How could the designers have been
so far off the mark? I learned, what I had not known before,
that the design department was not set up to provide original
artwork. The designers could only work with existing stock art
and clip art. Though plentiful, this art could not produce the
“look” that I was looking for.

I was now faced with two problems. First, a deadline. I had
about two weeks to come up with an idea that could be made to
work. Otherwise, the book would be canceled and I would have to
start with it all over again as a “new” project.

Second, I didn’t know if I could come up with a satisfactory,
workable cover idea. I considered hiring an outside graphic
artist. A quick check indicated that there would not be enough
time for this and that it would be costly, if not prohibitive.

So I did what was only proper under such circumstances: I
freaked out! Or, to be perfectly honest, I freaked out — some
more! I was desperate. I knew I had to stop thinking about the
original cover concept. I had to stop my circular thinking, or,
to put it another way, I had to start thinking outside the box.
In short, I had to think creatively.

The creative process itself is elusive. It works in a most
mysterious way. It usually consists of stating the problem,
defining it and turning it over to your mind to think about and
solve. I have often found that the answer, the solution comes to
me when the mind is relaxed and at rest. Invariably, I wake up
at two or three in the morning. At first I’m annoyed. I wonder
why I woke up. Then I lie quietly. Presently, I become conscious
of some answer or solution to a “problem” floating into view.

The first thought that came this way was “lapis lazuli.” I had
used lapis lazuli jewelry in the book on several significant
occasions. The gold-speckled, deep-blue gemstone was highly
prized in those times. In the book, it is presented as a gift to
Sarah, the high priestess, during the Sacred Marriage Rite.
Elsewhere, I have Abraham giving Hagar a lapis lazuli necklace
and matching earrings upon consummating their love. A lapis
lazuli-colored scarf also figures meaningfully in the story.

“Yes,” I thought to myself. “That’s it! That’s my cover. A lapis
lazuli necklace and earrings and a lapis lazuli scarf. A perfect
metaphor for the full story.”

I was elated, exhilarated. I loved the simplicity of the idea,
the richness of the deep-blue color, the poetic symbolism.

But there was only one problem: I could not locate images of the
scarf and jewelry. I even had trouble locating an image of a
lapis lazuli gemstone. Though I still had a couple of days left
to find the right image, I now feared that my book would be
canceled since I had nothing for the cover.

I paced nervously through the house that evening, going back and
forth between bedroom and study. I paused before my nature
pictures which cover the walls, photographs that I had taken of
sunrises and sunsets, lakes and oceans, trees, flowers and
clouds. I don’t know why I turned to these images — perhaps to
relax me, to comfort me, to inspire me, which they have always
done. Suddenly, my eyes fixed on a blazing red sunrise, with a
white cloud spiraling into the sky, hovering over a dark lake.

Whenever I looked at that spectacular image, in the past, it
always left me awed and breathless. This time, however, the
sunrise addressed me in a new way — its blazing colors spoke to
me of erotic passions, its cloud spiraling upwards spoke to me
of the sacred and the heavenly, of dreams and dreamers, the
fiery pillar emerging out of the darkness spoke to me of the
immanent and transcendent God, the great Mystery, the awesome
Mystery, the holy Mystery, the loving Mystery in which we move
and live and have our being.

Yes, this was the cover! This was my cover! It had emerged from
the wondrous mystery of the creative process. It reminded me,
once more, to stay loose, remain flexible and trust that
process, that Mystery, in all its creative variations.

Copyright 2002 Rolf Gompertz. All rights reserved.

Ad-Aware and Spybot are probably the two most well known antispyware solutions. However, they frequently fail to catch the more crafty spyware. Here is a list of five solutions known to get rid of the problem when all others fail.

1. Webroot Spy Sweeper
http://www.deprice.com/webrootspysweeper.htm

PC Magazine’s Best of the Year 2004 for antispyware, Spy Sweeper now scans for spyware 30% faster. Spy Sweeper detects and successfully removes vicious programs like CoolWebSearch. For advanced protection, Active Shields defend your browser and operating system from attempted spyware installations. Enhanced Internet Explorer shields block changes to your browser settings. Several operating system shields reinforce its ability to catch spyware when it attempts to download, install or run on a user’s PC.

2. Spyware Doctor
http://www.deprice.com/spywaredoctor.htm

Spyware Doctor provides 3-way spyware protection through real-time threat blocking, scanning and immunization, anything less is like putting locks on the front door of your house but letting intruders in through the side or back door. This is one of the many reasons why the award-winning Spyware Doctor has been chosen by millions of users to protect their PCs against spyware, adware, trojans, keyloggers, spybots and tracking threats.

3.BitDefender
http://www.deprice.com/bitdefenderstandard.htm

Bitdefender Standard is a powerful antivirus tool with features that best meet your security needs. Ease of use and automatic updating make BitDefender Standard an “install and forget” antivirus product. Suspicious/infected files can optionally be backed up into a safe quarantine area before being disinfected or deleted. The contents of the quarantine can be sent to BitDefender Labs, for detailed analysis. Files that proved harmless can be easily moved out of quarantine, back to their original place.

4. X-Cleaner Deluxe
http://www.deprice.com/xcleanerdeluxe.htm

X-Cleaner is a top ranked privacy software solution from Xblock, one of the most trusted names in anti-spyware technology. X-Cleaner not only deletes browser and system usage tracks, shreds pictures and generates secure passwords it also features unique anti-spy and anti-adware technology and inoculation features that help prevent infections.

5. Geek Superhero
http://www.deprice.com/geeksuperhero.htm

Geek Superhero watches your computer for changes, immediately notifying you when a change is made to confirm you want to keep or reject the change. This saves you from lots of headaches. (A “Computer Setting Firewall” is an excellent description.) Geek Superhero protects your web browser’s home page and other important settings. It lets you easily fix things if your browser has been taken over by a hijacker, and watches for hijackers trying to invade.

David Deprice regularly reviews antispyware solutions and makes his findings publically available at http://www.deprice.com/utilities.htm

Be Empathetic Not Sympathetic
Put yourself in the other’s shoes, but don’t walk their path for them

Isn’t Sympathy a Good Thing?

“Oh you poor thing. What happened to you is just terrible! You must feel awful. I wish there was something I could do.”

Do these words sound familiar? Maybe you’ve used them on a friend or relative who suffered a back break, or perhaps you’ve heard them yourself from a well-meaning friend at a time when something went wrong for you.

Words like these are usually expressed by well-meaning people in the form of “sympathy” to someone they care about. But imagine yourself hearing these words right now. How do they make you feel? Loved, cared for, empowered? Or helpless, victimized, and just plain bad?

Though sympathy is a socially acceptible gesture, I suggest that you stop using it and accepting it from others. It doesn’t help you or them. Empathy is a far superior form of expression. Let me explain.

Sympathy or Empathy?

So what’s the difference between sympathy and empathy? Sympathy, while highly valued in our culture, can actually be very disempowering. The sympathetic perspective tends to place you above the other, placing you in a position that might sound something like, “Oh you poor thing, this is just terrible what’s happening to you.” This behavior on your part will actually enable the limited worldview of a person operating from a victim state of mind, and is less likely to help them move to a healthy resolution of their problem.

On the other hand, coming from an empathetic perspective, you understand what the other is feeling but don’t necessarily “go there” with them. Instead, you view them as capable of working through the issue at hand. If you were being empathetic to someone in pain, you might say something like, “I sense that you’re hurting right now. Is there anything you need or any support I can offer to help you through this?”

This stance is one of understanding and one that places the responsibility for getting the necessary help in the hands of the person who needs it. Don’t rescue! Many people play the victim role so that others can play the rescuer role. Give people the opportunity to find the strength they need and you will both gain.

Practice Empathy

Practice using empathy the next time you’re in a situation where someone is suffering emotionally. Assuming this person is an otherwise functional and healthy human being, be present with them in an effort to understand what you might be feeling in a similar situation. Don’t try to have their feelings. Instead, trust that they have the inner resources necessary to solve their problems and to get the help they need to move forward. Let them feel their feelings, express their concerns, and shed their tears. Don’t try to fix anything for them. Just be with them with your heart open and with an inner and outer certainty that their’s is just one perception of their current reality and that they will find strength in your silent witness to their temporary fantasy of limitation.

About the Author:
Steve Davis, M.A., M.S., is an Facilitator’s Coach, Infoprenuer, and free-lance human, helping facilitators, organizational leaders, educators, trainers, coaches and consultants present themselves confidently, access their creativity, empower their under-performing groups, enhance their facilitation skills, and build their business online and offline. Subscribe to his free weekly ezine at www.MasterFacilitatorJournal.com.

About the Author

About the Author:
Steve Davis, M.A., M.S., is an Facilitator’s Coach, Infoprenuer, and free-lance human, helping facilitators, organizational leaders, educators, trainers, coaches and consultants present themselves confidently, access their creativity, empower their under-performing groups, enhance their facilitation skills, and build their business online and offline. Subscribe to his free weekly ezine at www.MasterFacilitatorJournal.com.

If only I had known that autoresponders are a necessity
to your online business when I first ventured online, I
would have saved a lot of time and money. You have to
automate in as many areas as possible and if used
responsibly, autoresponders can be your best friend.

Your customers expect prompt replies to their email
inquiries. But finding the time to answer every inquiry
by hand will quickly eat all your time. The good news
is an autoresponder is an inexpensive - or even free -
method of quickly responding to your customers and
prospects email.

Autoresponders are an effective and powerful marketing
tool, allowing you to make contact with thousands of
potential customers. This is an invaluable asset
considering how many potential customers you usually have
contact with before you make an actual sale.

Use your autoresponder to:

1. Publish a newsletter. Your newsletter can keep your
visitors informed about your services or products, while
building your reputation as a credible expert in your
particular business.

2. Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform
them of current sales you are running and of promotional
material that your affiliates can use to increase their
commissions. Include tips, advice, and techniques that
your affiliates can use to successfully go out and
promote your business.

3. Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, e-books,
movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder.
Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your
affiliate’s page in your autoresponder.

4. Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your
articles when you’ve written new ones that they may want to
publish in their own newsletter or website.

5. Automate your sales process. Use an ad to insure
repeated exposure of your message. In your ad, put your
autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to
numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances
of converting visitors into customers. For example, if
you’re selling a particular product, put testimonials about
how spectacular it is on your autoresponder, and add a
detailed, enticing description of your product.

6. Distribute advertising rates. Let’s say you sell
advertising on your website or in your newsletter. Set
your autoresponder to send the information about rates
and how to place an ad automatically to all prospects
email addresses. Then have your autoresponder follow-up.
It can also send notification of any special deals you
are currently offering.

7. Distribute an email course. Just be sure that
each lesson has quality content - not a sales pitch. Your
content will do the selling for you, and will do it much
more effectively. You can include tips centered on a
different topic for each lesson, illustrating how your
product will benefit the reader. Include the tangible
benefits the visitor will reap by purchasing your product.
Make sure to include a paragraph or two at the end of each
lesson enticing your prospect to consider making a
purchase.

8. Distribute free reports. This gives your visitor an
idea of the type of information you can provide and the
quality of your product or service. Make sure these reports
are not sales letters or you will more than likely lose a
potential customer than gain a sale.

9. Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the
answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be
motivated to request your autoresponder. Or create a
contest and have any visitors that enter send their
responses to your autoresponder. Your autoresponder
can be set-up to send them a confirmation of their entry.

10. Link to hidden pages on your autoresponder. For
example, a hidden page could be your affiliate page that
contains graphics, promotional articles, and text links
that interested affiliates can make use of. Inform visitors
that they may have free access to your affiliate page by
simply requesting your autoresponder. You will then gather
a list of visitors who may be interested in becoming your
affiliates.

11. Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request
form for visitors to be notified of special offers or
discounts in the future. This creates a very effective
mailing list that contains the names of people who are
already your customers.

12. Put your links page on your autoresponder. It should
contain up to fifty links that would be of particular
interest to your visitors. Make sure to add your own
promotional copy at the top or bottom of this page.

Now that you have proof that autoresponders can be used
creatively to take you to the TOP, can you see how you
will implement them to benefit your business?

Copyright (c) 2005, Melanie Burns —
All Rights Reserved Worldwide

Melanie Burns, founder of Internet-Business-How-To.com, has passion and dedication to assisting You to make Your Internet Business a Success! Join the weekly “Abundant Success Online” newsletter,mailto:aso-subscribe@internet-business-how-to.com (Permission to reprint this article in its entirety, including byline, is expressly granted.)

Why do husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, lie to
each other?

Our romantic relationships are seldom what they seem. We all
want a relationship that is built on openness, intimacy, and
trust, but the truth is, our relationships do not always work
that way. More often than not, our intimate relationships
involve secrecy and deceit. In fact, if you want to look for
deception and betrayal in your own life, the best place to start
is close to home. Husbands and wives, boyfriends and
girlfriends, often lie about their true feelings for each other,
the feelings they have for others, and their level of
commitment. Indeed, it is safe to say that people save their
biggest and most serious lies for those they love.

For better or worse, our romantic relationships are full of
paradoxes which we try to overlook, downplay and ignore. For the
most part, this strategy works well. Until the day comes when it
doesn’t, and with little warning or preparation we have to
confront face-on the reality that our close relationships are
not exactly what they appear to be.

Eventually, almost everyone will catch a spouse or partner in
one of their lies. Inevitably, we have a difficult time coping
with what we have learned and dealing with the fact that someone
close has betrayed our trust. We do not expect our partners to
mislead us, nor do we have insight into how and why deception
occurs.

In fairness, it should also be mentioned that it is just as
likely that a partner or spouse will catch you in one of your
own attempts to deceive. And ironically, we are just as
unprepared to deal with this kind of situation.

Ignoring the paradoxes inherent in our romantic relationships
turns out to be a costly strategy and most people pay the price
for this decision, unexpectedly, and all at once. It’s not so
much that coming to terms with the use of deception in romantic
relationships will solve all of the problems you are going to
encounter, but it will certainty help to reduce the stress,
anxiety, and uncertainty that occur when deception eventually
comes to light.

When it comes love and romance, most of the things we believe,
are not true. Most people believe that all of their marital or
relational problems can be solved through “communication.” We
also believe that deception is difficult to achieve, that
misleading a partner requires a lot of effort and thought, and
that romantic partners can tell when a lover is lying, and so
on. None of these widely held beliefs, however, are supported by
the evidence. Rather, our romantic relationships are held
together by a delicate balance of both candor and deceit. And
both are critical to making our intimate relationships work.

Romantic relationships entail two important features which allow
deception to flourish: abundant opportunity, as well as the need
to deceive. As we get close to another person, we intentionally
and unintentionally provide them with a great deal of
information about who we are, revealing ourselves through both
our words and deeds. Creating this kind of intimacy or shared
knowledge is critical, as it serves as the foundation for a lot
of important rewards. Through our close relationships, we create
gains with respect to our health, wealth, and emotional
well-being. Because relationships provide so many important
rewards, it should come as no surprise that people are inclined
to view their romantic partners in a positive light. We place a
lot of trust in our romantic partners. We think we know them
well. But while our trust surely provides us with a sense of
security and comfort, it also lays the ground for deceit. For as
we trust our partners more, we also become more confident but
less accurate at determining when the truth is being told.

Every relevant study attests to the fact that lovers are
terrible at telling when their partners are lying. In fact,
detecting deception with anyone is difficult to do, but lovers
manage to take this general failure to a spectacular low. Again,
as we become more confident that we can tell when a lover is
lying, the exact opposite turns out to be true. This
“truth-bias” or “blind faith” provides the perfect opportunity
for romantic partners to engage in deception. After all, who
makes a better victim than someone who is eager and willing to
trust everything you have to say?

Not only do close relationships create a wonderful opportunity
for deception to occur, they also create the need. While
romantic relationships offer many rewards, they also tend to be
overly constrictive. Most everyone has felt the constraints of a
close relationship from time to time; quite simply you are no
longer free to do what you want, when you want, and with whom
you want. So intimacy provides tremendous rewards, but at an
enormous cost - the loss of your freedom and autonomy.

Lying to a romantic partner helps us deal with the constraints
that our intimate relationships impose. Quite frankly, deceiving
a romantic partner turns out to be the most efficient and
effective way of maintaining the rewards we get from our
romantic relationships while pursuing extra-relational goals and
activities behind a partner’s back.

How do we decide when to lie and when to tell the truth? Well,
most of the time we do not intentionally think about misleading
our partners. Rather such decisions are governed by our emotions
and just seem to happen when the right situation presents
itself. Often a sense of excitement, opportunity, and
exhilaration can lead us down paths we had no intention of
traveling. A sense of fear, loss, and trepidation, on the other
hand, prompt us to cover-up what we’ve done and be more
conservative in the short-term. Luckily our emotions are very
good at reading situations and keeping our deceptive behavior
within limits. Our emotions prompt us to regain some of our
freedoms while also allowing us to maintain the benefits we get
from our intimate relationships.

When you take a step back and put it altogether, the picture
that emerges tends to be rather ironic. Because our romantic
relationships are so rewarding yet constrictive, we are
simultaneously more truthful and more deceptive with those we
love. Additionally, we place the most trust in the person who is
most likely to deceive us, just as we are most likely to deceive
the person who loves and trusts us the most. These are just a
few of the paradoxes that emerge when taking a close look at the
use of deception in our romantic relationships. Most of what is
uncovered runs counter to our most cherished beliefs about love
and romance; that is, the idea that complete openness and
intimacy are a central and defining feature of being in love.

Initially most people avoid looking for deception by a loved
one. But as you begin to examine your own behavior more closely
it becomes harder to dismiss the degree to which lies, betrayal,
secrecy and deceit are ever present in our close relationships.
Hopefully, you will take on a greater appreciation for the
complexities of your relationships as well as a richer
understanding of what it means to be in love. Regardless of the
final outcome, taking a close look at deception in your life
will change the way you view yourself and others.

The sacred order is: Shelter first - then water, fire, food. In a survival situation, it is critical to conserve energy and resources. Panic and frustration get in the way of success in any situation – they can be deadly in the outdoors. If it’s late in the day or you are in a place with limited resources, what you do first matters.

The point of building a shelter first is that for the outlay of energy it takes to gather branches and leaves, you can build a debris shelter without tools and ensure a way to maximize your body heat. The worst thing that can happen in the woods is not starvation or animal attack – it’s hypothermia.

Hypothermia occurs when your body temperature suddenly and profoundly cools to below 96 degrees F or 35.5 degrees C. This can happen on a warm sunny day, when perspiration drenches your clothing, drawing heat away from your body. You can also be at risk for hypothermia from exposure to wind, breathing in cold dry air, or simply being improperly dressed. Shivering is a sign that your body is cooling off. Your survival depends upon your ability to warm up.

While it’s tempting to build a fire, even if you have all the tools and dry wood available, you still need to keep feeding the fire. By contrast, building a debris shelter allows you to get a night’s sleep and stay warm. When you’re rested, you make better decisions.

Another advantage of building a debris shelter is that even if you need to use wet leaves, the air space between the leaves will collect your body heat and keep you warm. I’ve slept in a wet leaf debris shelter. When I woke the next morning, my fingers were wrinkled like I’d been in the tub too long, but I was warm. While it was no where near as comfortable as sleeping on dry leaves, cattail fluff or pine needles, I was able to relax and sleep, knowing I was safe.

Once you have shelter, water becomes your next concern. When in a survival situation, never eat unless you have enough water to keep you from becoming dehydrated. If you’re in deciduous woods, the dew that collects on plants can be collected on absorbent cloth, like cotton. I make it a point to carry one or two bandanas. You can wipe them along the surface of the plants or you can tie them to your legs and walk through wet vegetation. Ring the cloth into your mouth, or suck on it.

I also carry pint and gallon size plastic bags. These can be placed around the green leaves on a tree branch with one corner of the bag hanging lower and tied off. The moisture that forms from condensation will collect in the plastic bag. This is potable water.

In winter, DO NOT EAT SNOW, unless you have water and a container to melt the snow. Eating snow will reduce your body temperature and lead to dehydration.

There are other ways to gather potable water, but these are the easiest.

Now that you’ve got your shelter and a way to get water, if you are still in a survival situation, fire is the next challenge. On a recent camping trip, two of my three lighters failed. It wasn’t sunny, so my magnifying glass was not an option, and although I’m told fine steel wool and a 6-Volt battery (or even two AA batteries) will also start a fire, I typically do not carry them.

The only other alternative when you have no fire-making tools is to build the apparatus to start a fire. Making a bow drill or hand drill apparatus for fire by friction takes skill and practice. Understanding how fire by friction works and knowing something about wood is essential.

Starting a fire is only part of the process. You need to keep the fire going, which means gathering some kind of fire starter – dried grasses or leaves, lint from your clothing or small twigs. Once the fire is started, you need to keep it going with branches for kindling. When the fire is stronger, you can add large pieces of wood, like split logs.

It’s necessary to have your tinder, kindling and fuel gathered before you start the fire.

Once you have access to fire, then you can turn your attention to food. All grasses in North America are edible. You chew the plants, extract the juices and spit out the pulp. Pine needles can be steeped in boiling water for an excellent source of Vitamin C.

Many wild edible plants have poisonous look-alikes. Never eat anything if you have even a shadow of a doubt, especially in a survival situation.

In the winter, you won’t have access to plants or even insects. If you don’t have the ability to trap animals, you will be at a serious disadvantage. Learning to make and set different kinds of traps is an extremely useful skill.

The best preparation for a survival situation is to practice skills before you get into that situation.

Even without mastery of these skills, if you respect and follow the sacred order: shelter first, then water, then fire, and food last – your chances of survival are greatly improved.

For a half-century, writer and passionate naturalist JJ Murphy, has been providing nature programs, original curricula, articles, product reviews, books and open discussion to children and eco-aware adults across the USA. She lives in Harriman, NY. http://www.writerbynature.com/index.php Creative Content for Your Nature Endeavors

A willingness to change first is one of the major pre requisites for leaders!

If the situation is deadlocked or blocked, they need to find the best opportunity, shift their personal perspective to accommodate it and take action from there. This is no matter how personally attached they are to their current position!

Three sixty degree feedback is a great example. The manager/leader is given feedback from their management, peers and reports; expected to take it on board, and integrate the necessary changes to become more effective within the team!

Sometimes the feedback is very concise and confrontive.

The program manual’s documentation on how to make change happen is almost non-existent. We are very poorly aware or educated about what to do here. Many leaders are left with a desire to change and no information on what to do to make it happen other than manipulate themselves, this is painful, energetically draining and not sincere.

So how do we do it?

By analogy it is based in energetic principles of physics and chemistry. When we take something that is negative and something that is positive and add them together they neutralize each other and we end up with something else instead.

In our personal lives we can see this in the break down of relationships especially with divorce: the strength of the original attraction becomes the force of the repulsion for the ex partner. If both the attraction and the repulsion were added together they would neutralize each other out and there would be no need for action, anger or pain.

In business, a recent senior client summarized their use of information as either a weapon or a gift. They were insightful, and presumed others were too, about a particular set of circumstances. When the other party seemed to be not getting the ‘common sense’ of it, they would use their information as a weapon to inflict harm. In their more patient moments, or more equal relationships they used information as a gift, to enable the other person to move forward freely.

Through our work this client took the energy they held for both issues, the weapons and the gifts, and added them together. What surprised them was the sense of the transformation and the moment of profound realization – their “ah ha!” about the difference.

These opposite and equal forces are called polarities. Love and fear are polarities of each other and represent two of the most potent forces for creation or destruction on the planet. We make tremendous efforts to keep them apart from each other to create results and to limit opportunities with our fiercely held unconscious assumptions!

The key here is that we need to work out what we love and what we fear that are equal and opposite forces, we then need to bring their energies together within us and allow them to meld, neutralization will occur and a moment of profound “ah ha!”.

You actually already know how to do this unconsciously. It is what actually happens when we are really stuck and it matters. If we really don’t know how to make it happen, but ‘it’ really matters, we often let go of knowing how and allow the outcome to present itself! Our role then is to take advantage of the opportunity! Most of us know how to do this!

Think about times you have run out of ideas, options and actions on what to do yet the outcome or contribution still has your full commitment. What has happened? Write to me and tell me your experiences (email address on web site).

My example is that I have gluten intolerance that has involved much disturbed sleep due to cramping of my digestive tract. When I have eaten well and still have insomnia I have been very intolerant, as my sleep bank is already regularly overdrawn!

I remember once being awake three nights in a row for many hours for no apparent reason. I thought I knew all about how to work with polarities, bringing the energies together and neutralization. On the third night I ran out of ideas about what the poles might be before I got distracted and fell asleep again. I distinctly remember giving up knowing how to do this, but still deeply desiring my sleep. In the morning the last thing I could remember before falling asleep was this thought.

My body is a machine to some extent that ‘runs’ programs; my job is to choose a useful program! Given it has all the usual associated stimuli, it is dark, it is quiet, everyone else is asleep, then it has the potential to ‘run’ the sleep program or the insomnia program. Clearly, something unconscious is giving it directions which one to select. In letting go of knowing how, we can enable our innate wisdom to come to the fore and sleep returns.

As part of my personal coaching business, I set homework for clients to integrate their new perspectives and skills into their lives. Information is only useful when it works for them and they can use it to acquire wisdom in their lives.

I am constantly surprised at the tough circumstances in which they choose to ‘give it a go’! Areas I would be fainted hearted to suggest, as I know how committed they are to their unconscious assumptions (their love).

What I often fail to concurrently perceive is their constant and deep frustration at being stuck so often at this common point (their fear). Their need to move beyond this barrier of assumption is so profound, that the first opportunity to do so is taken with both hands and ridden to success!

Next time you are really stuck, work out what you love about the situation, it may be the rush from the fear! Work out what you fear about the situation, it maybe that you will never have this level of rush again. Bring the two energies together in you.

If the result is neutralization, you have dealt with a polarity and now practice of the choice is required to reinforce the new ‘programming’. If it hasn’t shifted then you need to look further for the equal and opposite nature of the two poles.

Change at this level is profound and sustainable. Your choice has been enabled for this issue and you can now deliver modulated behavior rather than only on or off results. For example my client can now be wise about the use of the information, rather than only use it as a carrot or a stick.

This article may be reproduced in printed or web format, provided the resource box below is included.

Rosemary Johnston is a professional corporate and personal coach. Working with executives from some of Australia’s largest and most successful companies for over 15 years.

Rosemary’s new book, “How To Develop Your Leadership Style and Skills to take charge of your life and career” is now available to download at her web site. Read about some of the success Rosemary has had coaching leaders in Australian blue chip companies. http://www.leadershipfirst.com.au

Remember pom-poms, megaphones, and cute cheerleading outfits
from your school days. If you decide to take an eBay class,
expect the opening of the course to bring about that kind of
“rah, rah” feeling. However, eBay does have a lot to cheer
about. In just 10 years eBay has become a worldwide marketplace,
purporting to be the most popular and largest on the Internet.
It boasts that eBay makes over 50 million items available
online, with more than 5 million items added everyday, not to
mention that eBay has single-handedly boosted digital camera
sales. After all you can’t be a profitable seller on the site
without having one.

Don’t get me wrong; the “rah, rah” business is not necessarily
all bad because the instructors come to that position quite
honestly. They have been very successful sellers; many of them
power sellers, on eBay. They enthusiastically speak from their
hearts and their own experiences. However, the eBay party line
is a dominant theme during the introduction to the class and
borders on being overkill. In all likelihood people would not
have signed up for the class unless they were already serious
about learning how to be buyers and sellers on eBay.

Despite my reservations about eBay touting its own praises, I
still recommend that you do take a class on the eBay basics. One
day of your time will be well worth it. You can find classes in
your area by going to “Community” on the eBay home page. From
there click on “Community Calendar” and then “eBay University.”
The eBay University page provides information on eBay Basics or
Beyond the Basics classes.

If you decide to attend a class, act fast because eBay classes
fill up quickly. Why? Stop and think about it. There are more
than 1.2 million registered eBay users, and more than 25,000
members make five figure income as full time eBay entrepreneurs.
In addition, more than 250,000 part timers make several thousand
dollars a year of supplementary income. This has gotten the
attention of many, and the many are flocking to the classes to
learn how to get started right away.

The six modules that the eBay Basics course will deliver are:

1. The History and Safety Features - The history and background
of eBay is designed as a welcome to new users. It is the “rah,
rah” part to which I have been referring. It is interesting to
have that in the booklet that follows along with the PowerPoint
presentation for the class, but this could be read later if
anyone is interested in that. The safety feature was an
important part in the first module because it offers peace of
mind to know that eBay has a safe environment with a success
rate for transactions of 99.999%. There are more than 600 reps
available 24 hours a day, but they do need more when you look at
the ratio of users to tech support personnel. The eBay safety
features include: feedback; buyer protection program; PayPal
Protection; third party dispute resolution; and a security and
resolution center.

2. Setting Up an Account and Researching the Marketplace - To
set up an account the students learn how to register for eBay
and how to set up a Seller’s Account. They also learn how their
ID becomes verified. In the research part of the module students
are prompted to select an item to sell and guided on how to
research the market value of the item. Included in module number
2 is information on restricted items that cannot be sold through
eBay.

3. Enhancing Listings - This module covers the topics of
pictures, pricing strategies, and PayPal. The recommended way to
put pictures in a listing is to use a digital camera although
using a traditional camera or a flat bed scanner are other
options. There are some funny examples of what not to do when
using a digital camera. The pricing strategies include starting
bid; reserve price; buy it now, fixed price, and Dutch Auction.
A most important aspect of this module was the information on
PayPal. It is a safe and easy way to receive payment from
buyers. PayPal is accepted in approximately 90 percent of the
listings.

4. Detailed Listings - With this information students are shown
how to choose a good title and write a good description for an
item they hope to sell. The goal is to make an effective listing
by including information that is honest, concise and
professional. This is also where the students learn about
packaging and weighing items; payment options; shipping; and
returns.

5. Completing the Sale - This module guides students through
the process of monitoring listings and what to do after the
listing closes. It emphasizes that communication is important
because a seller must be ready to answer buyers’ questions on a
daily basis. It necessary that a seller look at hits, bids, and
email queries. When there are questions, the seller needs to be
professional and helpful with responses. An easy way to monitor
listings is to use My eBay. It makes a consolidated listing of
all the particulars of the items which are listed. The other
areas of interest in this module are the fees that are charged
for the various details in the listing and the feedback
information.

6. The Appendix - The materials in the reference section of the
course booklet is invaluable. The samples included are: selling
examples; tips on photography; item descriptions; HTML tips;
basic fees summary; and a glossary of terms.

Selling products and services from a home based business can be
an exciting, and profitable enterprise. To get a solid
foundation on how to efficiently use eBay consider a course
offered by certified eBay instructors. They have a wealth of
knowledge and experience to share with new users. Three cheers
for eBay and its class offerings…hip, hip, hooray…

For more information on eBay visit the How to Sell on eBay
Resources Page at http://www.sbmag.org/howtosellonebay.html.
While you are there, click on the eBay banner and then on
“register” at the top of the page and its just that easy to be
up and running. Oh, and don’t forget your pom-poms!!

Copyright usage: No permission is needed to reproduce an
unedited copy of this article as long the About The Author tag
is left in tact and hot links included.

Several weeks ago, I went out to dinner with a female friend. During dinner I asked her if she had seen Brokeback Mountain yet. She said, “No, I have no desire to see two men kissing all over each other.” I asked her if she would be willing to do me a favor and see the movie anyway. I told her I had a theory and I wanted to see if I was right about something, so she agreed. We met for lunch after she went to see the movie. I asked her what she thought - it turns out that she loved it. I asked her if she was turned off or disgusted by any of the sexual scenes; she said, “No, surprisingly enough, I wasn’t turned off by them at all.” I decided to take it a step further. I asked her if she was turned on by any of the scenes in the movie. Her face turned red and she said, “I have no idea why, but yes, I was turned on by them.” This isn’t the first time I’ve heard a woman say that after having seen the movie. I think I know why women are finding the sexual scenes in Brokeback Mountain so arousing, but before I explain, let me digress just a little.

During an interview a radio talk show host brought up the fact that females aren’t as visual as males. She said that was the reason there aren’t nearly as many male strip clubs as there are female strip clubs. As I discussed in Women’s Infidelity, the word “more” creates a lot of confusion between the sexes. Whenever it has been determined that one sex is “more” of anything, we fail to remember that the other sex still has that trait, only to a lesser degree. For example, males have more hair than females, but that doesn’t mean that females don’t have hair. Males like more sexual variety than females, but that doesn’t mean females don’t like sexual variety. Likewise, males may be more visual than females, but that in no way means that females aren’t visual. Having said that, I would like to address not only how women feel about watching men have sex, but also how women feel about male strip clubs as well as male prostitution.

Heterosexual females are attracted to masculinity. Women don’t get turned on by watching men act like women. So, going to a strip club and watching men dance around in what can best be described as bikini panties is not a turn on for most females. If you want women to pay to see men, then build a bar with a glass front on a construction site and you’ll make a fortune. The female animal likes to watch physically fit men work. If men want to get women’s attention, all they have to do is take off their shirts and lift something heavy or pick up a shovel and start digging a hole. Trust me, men would receive the same kind of attention that they normally give to partially exposed, pushed-up breasts.

This explains my friend’s arousal during the sexual scenes in Brokeback Mountain – the sexual scenes were extremely masculine. The men weren’t caressing and cuddling with each other; the love scenes were very passionate and aggressive. Passion and aggression are what arouse the female animal.

Now, on to the issue of male prostitution, someone just recently asked me, “If women like sex as much as men, why aren’t there more male prostitutes running around?” Well, I can think of several reasons. First of all, until recently, women didn’t have any money, so obviously paying for sex wasn’t an option. Likewise, females experiencing pleasure from sex is also something that is relatively new. Prior to 60-65 years ago sex was only thought of as pleasurable for males; therefore was no information available about how to please women sexually. Plus, when females did experience sexual pleasure they were encouraged to hide their pleasure from their partners in order to make the men feel more secure. However, those reasons aside, there’s still the undeniable fact that a male has a hard time pleasing just one female, while a female has the ability to please many males…although now, Viagra may help to alleviate this problem. (For further explanation see Women’s Infidelity, Chapter 6: Why Women Find Affair Sex Particularly Appealing.)

Therefore, in the past, circumstances were such that male prostitution couldn’t even be a plausible fantasy, much less a reality. Men like porn because it is made to appeal to their desires and fantasies. Now that women have economic freedom for the first time in history, they are able to voice their desires - more and more it’s becoming clear that who they are and what they desire is quite different from who they were forced to be in the past.

Michelle Langley is the author of Women’s Infidelity: Living In Limbo: What Women Really Mean When They Say, “I’m Not Happy” To read an excerpt from Women’s Infidelity visit http://womensinfidelity.com.

There are ways to insure security though. You can get the Windows Update CD from Microsoft and install that before you get online, You can also get most Antivirus Definitions downloaded and save them to disk, then install those before you go online, (of course you have to be using that Product in the first place), and you can get Anti-Spyware on a disk and do the same. But how many people do that in their excitement to take their new computer out of the box and hook it and see what it will do? Sans Internet Storm Center says those people will have their computer infected with adware or worse in less than 20 minutes! Virgin computers online are an easy target, open to attack. When that person soon realizes their brand new computer is sick, first comes the shock, then the anger, then the question; how do I fix it? If the new computer owner is lucky they can fix it fairly cheaply. It might involve a lot of time listening to elevator music while you’re in the hold queue…. either way it’s no fun.

Education is what’s needed here folks.

In this article I plan on touching on simple easy steps you can take to keep your computer happy and safe.

First let’s talk about your online connection itself. Dialup, Satellite, DSL, whatever you have, make sure they are secure. Call them and ask them. What kind of Security do they employ to keep your Web surfing secure? Most often they have the info at their site, usually in their ‘Privacy Policy”.

Ok, now the Browser part. A touchy subject with many. I use Firefox mostly and Internet Explorer only when I have to. Unless you’ve been living in a hole you know IE has its vulnerabilities. I have nothing against IE folks, it just gets targeted so much because that’s what people use most. Hackers, Spammers, Phishers, and the rest know this and swarm like sharks. Firefox has its problems too since now they are getting noticed and thus are having to work harder too at keeping their browser safe too. Whatever you use, keep it updated. Whatever you use, get some monitoring software, like Bigfix or Winpatrol. Learn how they work and you’ll be a happy web surfer.

While we’re talking about software products, let’s think about what you do online. There are many Products out there that try and cover all aspects of protecting your computer, but it’s hard to write software though to do all that. I’ve found a mixture of products do well for me. Right now I use Win patrol, Sygate Firewall, and Avast Antivirus with Ad-Aware SE to cover my bases, but what works for me may not work for you. So how do you find the right combination…. or if you’re lucky the single product that will do the job? Education. Pure and simple. You have to become educated in what is going on out there on the World Wide Web and be prepared for it. We’re not talking a lot of money either in most cases for this knowledge and help… there are some great products out there that are free! The Web is diverse, with forums, blogs, instant messaging, video conferencing, and of course websites, especially the new XXX ones. Each has its own uniqueness as far as vulnerabilities. Whatever your preference, make sure you’re safe.

Chances are though, you’ll pick up some spyware. It’s hard for the hardware and software suppliers to keep up to the minute patches available, although I’ve seen patches available in less then 3 hours from some suppliers. Hopefully what gets you will be harmless, just annoying. This kind just puts a cookie on your computer and tracks you as you go from website to website, with marketing info as what they are after. But some Spyware can be nasty! They log your keystrokes, and this means your logins, passwords and credit card numbers.

And now for Email.

How the human race ever did without email we may never know. Its one of the greatest convieniences ever and what a timesaver! You don’t need a stamp and there’s no dash to the mailbox in the rain, but as always, along with the good comes the bad. People claim in e-mails simple requests, for example, “They just want to use your bank account to put money in, or will you to open this attachment, and please just click on this URL !”
Spammers, Hookers, Phishers, Oh My! My advice, scan anything that is not from someone you know with Anti-virus. Never click on a URL from your Bank, go directly to your bank’s website yourself from your Browser. Check to see if your mail program has an option to warn you if there is anything in the email that may be a virus, like in Outlook Express. It can be inconvenient sometimes, but worth it. Some of the better web based services like Yahoo have a junk mail folder that helps immensely…. I never even open the folder, I just delete the contents everyday.

Remember, you need to become educated if you’re going to be on the Internet. I hope to see in my lifetime the end of Spyware.

About the Author:
Doug Woodall has a website at http://www.spywarebiz.com

There he provides free information and recommended products to combat Spyware.

He is a member of the IWA (International Webmasters Association)

Doug can be reached at spywarebiz@comcast.net