Welcome to Michael's Article Collection

10 Ways To Find Happiness In Retirement

Retirement is not the end but is merely the beginning of a new life, a new you. As such, it is nothing that should be dreaded or something that should cause you unnecessary stress. Instead it should make you happy and can bring you a new sense of pleasure, if only you let it. In this article, we’ll discuss ten ways that you can find happiness in retirement. 1. Be open and receptive – Change you. . .

How To Limit Your Ending Vacation Stress

It’s the time that you’ve been waiting for all year long. You have an uninterrupted two weeks away from work. While it should be a time of non-stop relaxation, the idea of your vacation is already beginning to stress you out. You wonder if you’ll return from your trip more frustrated and agitated than when you left.At this point, you’re stressed out about the cost of the trip…whether your plane. . .

Friends, a reflection of you!

A Japanese proverb states, “When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.” While in Spanish we use a very popular saying “dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres” which translates in to “Tell me who you hang out with, and I will tell you who you are. When you think about it both quotes, pretty much have the same meaning and are right. Others can tell a lot about you by. . .

Overcoming Adversities and Leadership: Profile of Dr. Joh...

This groundbreaking leadership research by has received extensive endorsements and enthusiastic reviews from well-known prominent business, political, and academic leaders who either participated in the study or reviewed the research findings. You will discover the proven success habits and secrets of people who, in spite of difficult or life threatening challenges shaped their own destiny to b. . .

Overcoming Adversities and Leadership: Profile of US Majo...

This groundbreaking leadership research by has received extensive endorsements and enthusiastic reviews from well-known prominent business, political, and academic leaders who either participated in the study or reviewed the research findings.You will discover the proven success habits and secrets of people who, in spite of difficult or life threatening challenges shaped their own destiny to be. . .

Tackle Your Stresses In The Corporate World One Step At A...

Your fears, anxieties, and other business related problems have the best of you and you don’t know what to do. You try to manage your anxieties, but are not able to do so. At this point, what you need to do is to be smart in how you manage your stresses.The most important thing to remember is to manage your fears and anxieties one step at a time. Some people make the mistake of trying to get ri. . .

Overcoming Obstacles and Leadership: Profile of John Malo...

This groundbreaking leadership research by has received extensive endorsements and enthusiastic reviews from well-known prominent business, political, and academic leaders who either participated in the study or reviewed the research findings. You will discover the proven success habits and secrets of people who, in spite of difficult or life threatening challenges shaped their own destiny to b. . .

The Man Who Walked On Water

Nope! Not who you think it is. However, I was there, and I saw it happen. So did several other people. At the time, I just put it down as a highly unusual occurance, and over the years I forgot about it. A few of years ago, it came back to mind, and I realized that it had influenced me in a small but significant way over the last 25 years or so. One place it had a very significant impact . . .

Overcoming Adversity and Leadership: Profile of “Zig” Ziglar

This groundbreaking leadership research by has received extensive endorsements and enthusiastic reviews from well-known prominent business, political, and academic leaders who either participated in the study or reviewed the research findings. You will discover the proven success habits and secrets of people who, in spite of difficult or life threatening challenges shaped their own destiny to b. . .

Challenges that Face Life Coaching as a Profession

With the Labor Movement growth in the 1800’s, the eight hour work day was created. These union strikes, such as the Haymarket and Pullman , ended in much bloodshed as workers united against business and the government. Some might ask what need do we have for Life Coaches? Starting in 1996, many corporations discovered the high threshold for workers to double their productivity at the cost of . . .

Passion: Fire In Your Soul

Many people try to hold a raging fire within themselves, but it restlessly and relentlessly gnaws at their core. Some have tried to cover it up with alcohol, numb it with drugs, hide it with shopping, kids, work, or religion, or fuel it with sex. The Baby Boomers looked for eternal youth and to change the world. They thought they would never grow up, but they did. They thought they would change. . .

Organizing Goals

So you set your goals and now you need to implement them. To do this we need to organize a way of cross checking those goals to make sure you are on track.Firstly have an outline. In other words allow room for maneuver. I like to set goals just as a plane prepares for take off. You know when you are sitting in your seat and you hear the pilot say prepare for take off, then he tells the Air Stew. . .

Realize Your Goals With These 5 Great Techniques

You hear it time and again, set goals, make sure and plan. But do you really take the time to do it? Be honest. If you are like so many others, then you think about it, even planthings out in your head, or maybe make some notes on a notepad, but do you seriously plan and strategize?Goals keep us motivated. But sometimes, people find it too hard to achieve their goals. Maybe because they have se. . .

How To Quit Your Job

Why should you take my advice on how to quit your job? Because I'm a job-quitting expert, and my expertise has been gained through experience. I've quit many jobs in many industries. In fact, I can think of fifteen jobs that I've quit off the top of my head.The most recent job I quit was at the Post Office. Don't let anyone tell you that you'll get used to the schedule of a vampire - you won't.. . .

What To Do After You've Been Betrayed

It might have been your best friend, your partner, your boss, your brother or even your lover. It burns deep inside. You can’t sleep for the anger, the shock and dismay. You may find yourself still not believing it’s happened to you. But it has! When those we have entrusted with our money, our plans, our strategies, our loyalty or even our love betray us, we feel violated deep inside. We feel c. . .

Learn How To Love Yourself

I’m sure you read a lot of times this sentence : you need first to love yourself. But what does that mean? Is it about getting you a hot chocolate when you are cold? Is it about getting you a new dress when you feel like it? Is it doing whatever you want when you want it? Is it about putting warm clothes on when it’s freezing outside?Loving yourself means to learn to treat you like a loving par. . .

Dealing With Your Depression In The Business World

It is not easy to deal with your fears, anxieties, or depression in the business world. If you have such a problem, the first step is that you should talk to a professional who can get you started in the right path of getting better. Getting help from a counselor or other professional is very important and can provide you much help and insights in dealing with your current problem. Getting help. . .

Action Vs. Apathy: Just Get Moving!

How many times have you felt truly defeated by the circumstances in your life? You know, the "I don't know why I bother to keep trying, I'm going back to bed and staying there" feeling. It happens to everyone - housewives, corporate executives, rock stars, actors, world leaders. Each and every one of us has had a day when we felt that we just weren't able to cope with our daily lives.However, s. . .

Necessity for self realization with transcendental knowle...

Introduction:Nothing in this universe can affect or frighten you, unless your mind allows itself to be affected. Such is the power of mind.Mind is the most powerful thing in the world. Almost all our agonies and pains are due to feelings (emotions) in our mind. An uncontrolled mind also gets constantly torn apart by various emotions, viz . likes, dislikes, love, hatred, jealousy, revenge, anger. . .

Motivate Yourself With Positive Self-Talk

Let me tell you a quick story. When I was working in theBeer industry I was intrigued by our top ten successful Barand Hotel owning customers. The majority of them, to put ittactfully, didn't seem to be particularly sophisticatedbusiness people. In other words, they didn't seem to havehad any kind of business training or acquired anyqualifications. I was discussing with my boss one day how thes. . .

Excuse Again?

When we fail to do something we are expected to do, we almost always have an excuse for it. That's just how our habit acts. But we have a choice to change that for good.If we analyze it closely -- an excuse is a self-destructive alibi for having failed to do something, especially when it involves attaining a goal. Instead of trying to persevere in finding ways to continue achieving a goal, some. . .

Fulfilling Relationships - 7 Common Sense Core Elements

Relationships can be complicated is pure understatement. And yet, rather than shy away from them, we continually seek new ones. They are the pivot point around which society, an organized pattern of relationships, is formed. An internet search brings up 255,000,000 entries for relationships! It has always been a hot topic and will remain so as long as there is more than one person on planet. . .

Learning to Open Your Heart

Five years ago a psychic in Key West, FL told me something I’m only just now beginning to understand. As I sat there in front of her, in a darkened room all full of incense, she intoned: “You’ll have the success you want, Suzanne... but only when you open your heart.” I wasn’t sure what this meant, exactly, but I did what any good self-help devotee would do. I set out to crack the code on what . . .

5 Elements to Customer Service: A Fresh Look

About 20 years ago while I worked for American Stores Company (now part of Albertson’s) I headed up a customer service program named “Smile and Speak Up.” Employees attended a two-hour customer service training class and then tried to be seen being courteous to customers by mystery shoppers who visited stores twice each week for ten weeks. An employee could win small cash rewards plus the recog. . .

Work/Life Balance: Making Every Day Sacred

So many of us rush blindly through our days, fall into bed exhausted, and wake up the next morning to do it all over again. For many of us, our lives are composed of millions of meaningless moments, all strung together - perhaps with a sprinkling of sacred moments mixed in. I'm sure you can think of a few sacred moments in your own life. Maybe your marriage, the birth of your child(ren), or per. . .

Learning To See Challenges As Opportunities

Are you a person who loves challenges, or hates them? I must admit I've spent most of my life as a person who hates them. I always thought of challenges as frustrating, maddening obstacles keeping me from where I want to be. I even used to take them personally, feeling like the universe must hate me and like to see me struggle. ;-)As I grow older and (hopefully) wiser - I find my competitive na. . .

The Circle Of Life – The Balance In Life

Balance can be hard to achieve with a long commute, a challenging career, families at home, recreational activities, education goals, and health concerns. Some areas will need more attention at times than others, but overall, what we are trying to achieve is a healthy balance so we can live a successful life. The Circle of Life is a tool that allows you to see where your successes are and where. . .

What If You Don’t Try?

I have seen and heard lot of people giving excuses for their inability to act out their dreams. The truth of the matter is that there is hardly anybody existing on this earth that does not have a dream or an object of desire. But the unfortunate thing is that majority put up reasons why they couldn’t or wouldn’t live their dreams.When a dream comes to the mind of so many people, the first thing. . .

Eliminate The Stutterings

Some people lose confidence upon facing other people due to a speech problem known as stuttering. This is a severe condition in speech that experiences problems in fluency. Its symptoms include the person's facial muscles becoming tensed as he or she tries to speak. This is very common to children who are just beginning to talk. Stuttering is a disfluency that causes them to repeat some of thei. . .

Go Beyond Your Limitations

We all sat staring at her in awe – knowing what was going to come out of her mouth and yet somehow not quite believing it. She was describing what she wanted to vision that evening and part of her vision was a car. She was hesitating at stating out loud that she wanted to own a “new” car and we were pushing her to state the reason why. We weren’t going to let her off the hook.Finally, she sai. . .

What Is It We Want?

When we dig to the core of what we want it will always come to one thing: HAPINESS.And how we achieve that special state of being we call happiness?When we discover and claim our passion, when we recognize and emphasize our strongest points, and we commit to become our best most capable self, we are on our way to happiness.Is it really important to achieve that deep feeling of satisfaction and . . .

Take Control of Your Time and Take Control of Your Life

If you're ever going to take control of your life and make it grand, you'll need to start by taking control of your time. Without question, effective time management is fundamental to succeeding in any area of life. In fact, it is often the main difference between life's achievers and those who, although always busy, never get anywhere. Not surprisingly, an entire industry has been created out. . .

Share your grief

Everyone gets to experience a moment of grief, loss and sadness at some point in their lifetime. Grief is something that follows a loss. Grief can take many forms: it can initially settle in as numbness and later evolve to become a mixture of sadness, anger, confusion, sense of being lost, frustration nd desperation. Losing a child causes grief that can be very painful. A parent who is emotiona. . .

Why Advice Doesn't Work

Lucy felt trapped. It was nearing 3 am, and despite spending the last 8 hours at the library, she’s made absolutely zero progress on her music history paper. She still has a half- completed stats assignment that was due yesterday, but Lucy can’t worry about that until she finishes her paper and studies for tomorrow’s child development exam.The next day after failing the exam the next day, Lucy . . .

Management Training to aid the Trouble with Sarcasm

Among the various styles that people use to communicate with each other, sarcasm is one of the most unique and dangerous. The excuses people use in an attempt to explain away their use of sarcasm varies from, “I didn’t know I was doing it,” to “It’s how I get someone’s attention.” Whatever the excuse, and whatever the reason, sarcasm is a deadly communication style that rarely has long-term suc. . .

Get Organized

Why should you get organized? Getting organized gives you the ability to achieve balance in your life. Getting organized allows you to see what you are doing and how much time you spend doing it. Getting organized will help you to relieve stress because you will know where you stand. Getting organized will give you the opportunity to achieve your goals. Getting organized will help you to deal w. . .

How To Have Fun With Speeches

While most people consider speaking in public worse than a death sentence, it does not have to be so. In fact, public speaking can be a fun and fruitful endeavor in the hands of a speaker with the right mindset.And the first agenda when it comes to public speaking is to approach it in terms of having fun. How can you ever have fun speaking to a large audience hanging on to your every word and g. . .

Think Success And You Will Have Success

Those who fail, follow the laws of failure. Those who succeed, follow the laws of success.It is impossible to reach success with a scheme of failure thoughts in your mind.It’s impossible to have good health with a scheme of illness thoughts.Your behavior is directed by your thoughts. Thoughts of failure, disease, loneliness and fear push you into a behavior which leads you directly to fail, bec. . .

Personal and Professional Development – What’s the Differ...

When people ask me about my business, I tell them I’m in the learning business – that we help organizations, teams and individuals reach their potential through learning. This is a fine statement and it does describe the breadth of what we do, but it often leads to the follow-up question like . . . “Do you do personal development stuff or just business skills training?”My answer is yes.Because. . .

How To Get Happy During OPTIMISM MONTH: March 1- 31, 2006

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Do you often expect bad things to happen? Pessimists are like the fairy tale about Chicken Little. In the fairy tale, Chicken Little kept shouting, ‘Help, help the sky is falling'. In contrast, optimistic people expect the best. Don't worry however, I co- founded OPTIMISM MONTH, which runs from March 1st –31st, 2005. If you’re a pessimist don’t get discourage. . .

How To Be A Lucky Guy

Want to be a lucky guy or gal? There are things you can do to become one. In fact, there are at least a dozen luck "techniques" that you can use. I have been using them for years, and yes, they say I'm a lucky guy. Here are two of the most important things you can do.Lucky Guy Tip - Get Ready For LuckWhen we bought a house for $17,500 from the bank, and later sold it for a nice profit, people s. . .

5 Tips for Surviving and Unfair Boss

Every job has stress, but the workplace environment can seem almost unbearable when working for an over-demanding or unfair boss. You don’t have to like your boss, but you do need to be able to co-exist and co-operate with him for you to be productive and successful at your job.Other than a change taking place, as I discussed in the article ‘Unhappy at Work? A Change is Coming,’ there is no per. . .

5 Steps To Your Brighter, Happier Future

Are you longing to create a better life for yourself but in the dark about how to go about it? Here’s five empowering steps to light up the way to a brighter, happier, future.1. The very first step is the step that most people just don’t want to do. Yet it is the single most important step of all. It’s about spending lots of time seriously thinking about what you want to do. I recommend at leas. . .

Motivation

One of the important aspects in our life is motivation; we tend to loose our energy for many reasons quickly. Lack of energy diminishes efficiency, affects productivity, creates frustration, develops stress, makes you short temper and ends up with depression; all these affect both personal & professional life.So, what is motivation?Motivation is a force which drives character to overcome confli. . .

Create More Magic!

Create more magic by linking time management to intentions! Last month we explored creating more of what you want by defining and setting an intention to simply create more of it in your life. How is it working for you? One of the ways to bring positive change into your life and work is to create synergy between your intentions and your actions. They meet up through planning and time management. . .

Eight Great Ways to LEARN to Be a Kid Again

Most of us have taken at least one walk down the aisles of Toys "R" Us. There's no better place than a toy store to observe these truths: Learning is fun. Learning is kid stuff.Kids are smart enough to reject anything they don't like, yet many of the most popular toys are dedicated to teaching them something new. Note the tremendous success of the LeapFrog® toys. They teach reading, writing and. . .

I AM

The words “I am” are very powerful and creative words. It is how we use these words in our thoughts and our speech that is the creative element in shaping our lives. What I know is that our thoughts are the source of what we create, and the real question that needs to be asked of ourselves is: “What have I created and what thoughts are responsible for what I have created?”The first step in crea. . .

In The Eye Of The Storm

Many of us senior students spent a few hours with Sensei last night. We, his senior students of 20 yrs+ stature, had our customary "open class"...alright! Sensei allows us to do anything we want, while he moves around to us either individually or in pairs (if doing drills). This is definitely "closed door", always fun and is only reserved for us "old timers". About an hour into our training, Se. . .

I Wouldn't Have Given You that Style

Sitting in a beauty salon chair for the second day in a row, my mouth almost dropped open as the owner began to explain why the person who had cut my hair the day before let me down. I had explained my desires clearly, I thought: I wanted bangs, longer hair (even explaining that I’d let it grow out for two months from the last cut), no top of the ears, and no boy look. I’d brought pictures (thr. . .

Unleash the Power of Listening

A vital skill in becoming an effective communicator is the ability to listen. Listening skills are not taught in school, and sadly are largely undeveloped skill in many people. To listen effectively is a powerful skill that can be learnt and practiced. You will gain more respect and esteem through listening rather than through talkingIt’s funny how sometimes you associate a certain phrase with . . .