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Sep
30
Beyond Code Reviewed
Filed Under Distinguishing Yourself | Leave a Comment
My apologies to Rajesh Setty the author of this fine book that is written as a means to let programmers and other high tech people distinguish themselves. The reason that I apologize is that it has been over two years since Rajesh sent me the book for me to write a review and due to personal circumstances I have put off doing so until recently. The purpose of his book as stated at http://www.lifebeyondcode.com is to provide a recipe for technology professionals to raise above the commodity crowd and become remarkable. So why am I reviewing this book on a blog about personal development and self-improvement? Read on and discover why.
There is so much information to digest from this book that you must first break it down into the 9 steps that author Rajesh Setty uses in this book and them more importantly look at this information in light of the big picture. In distinguishing yourself you are most importantly developing yourself. But is this book about business development, about computer software writers and programmers, or about personal development? Does it apply to the software developers and programmers or to people in general?
The answer to these questions is simple. In the constant journey to distinguish yourself professionally you develop characteristics that can and should be applied in both your business and personal life. Rajesh comes from a background of among other things being a computer software developer; however, in my opinion this book is not just for software developers, but it is rather for anyone looking to stand out from the crowd. In doing so a person engages in a journey through personal growth.
In Beyond Code Rajesh examines what he refers to in the journey to distinguish oneself as being steps in the inner game and the outer game. Over the course of the next month these steps will be the focus of nine to ten blog posts. I will mention Rajesh in each of these posts. If you would like to check out his blog that offers several of his insights on the subject of his book as well as helpful tips for online professionals I would suggest visiting http://blog.lifebeyondcode.com/
Technorati Tags: rajesh setty, blogging, distinguishing yourself, personal development, technology
Sep
29
Teen Suicide Prevention
Filed Under Suicide Prevention | 1 Comment
Well it isn’t often that I do it but I am totally cheating for this post by publishing a pre-printed letter by Internet marketer turned cause promoter Ken McArthur. The cause that he is justly promoting is to prevent teen suicide. Tomorrow I am going to be sending this out in my weekly newsletter sent to the people who belong to my article directory Article Database. I encourage you to pass this letter on. Here is the letter:
Dear Friend,
My good friend, Ken McArthur is standing in a circus tent today asking 2,000 people to spread a message of hope to teenagers who don’t think that life is worth living.
I think it’s a great message of hope for anyone and would love to see all of my readers think about spreading it today.
Here’s Ken’s simple message for for giving hope (and maybe saving someone’s life!):
G - Greet and meet: talk to others, smile, say hello, ask someone how they are doing
I - Involve yourself and others: find a cause you can support, volunteer, pledge resources. Get the people around you involved, especially if you see someone beginning to withdraw. Invite them to participate in some activity, to “get out” of their comfort zone
V - Validate others: tell others that they matter – especially family members and friends that you tend to see daily but may take for granted, give genuine complements
E - Empathize: be a listening ear, take time to be fully present, don’t try to solve – just acknowledge someone’s feeling/hurt
You can find out more about Ken’s wonderful project with his Impact Action Team at:
http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=GgG6Z&m=1cD3X5uEn.hr_r&b=RporB3_5ICVEsm.UKJDLmw
Spread this message today!
And if you send it on let me know how many you sent it to!
All the best,
Keith Stieneke
Technorati Tags: suicide prevention, life, giving, communication, involvement, causes, validating others, empathy, gratitude
Sep
26
We make our own luck
Filed Under Choices | Leave a Comment
Luck according to Webster’s dictonary is defined as the seemingly chance happening of events that affect someone. It is also defined as good fortune. Therefore, if you say that someone is luck it means that they’ve had good luck.
On the other hand misfortune is referred to as bad luck or something bad that happens just out of chance.
But is luck really something that happens by chance? To some degree it may be such as a person winning the lottery jackpot, but even then it isn’t totally chance as they must first buy a lottery ticket. The odds of someone winning are astronomically stacked against them; but it is the rare chance of winning large amounts of money that keep people buying lottery tickets. Who wins the lottery is purely driven by random chance. The good luck or the misfortune that accompanies them afterwards of winning the lottery however is not chance but is based upon their actions and attitude.
According to Professor Richard Wiseman, author of The Luck Factor: The Scientific Study of the Lucky Mind, a significant portion of one’s good fortune is not random, but rather due to one’s state of mind and behaviors. He concludes that luck is an artifact of psychology, where a person is lucky not because of cosmic accidents, but because one achieves a particular mindset which precipitates and amplifies “lucky” events.
According to experiments done by Professor Wiseman lucky individuals pay more attention to their surroundings. He has found that “lucky” individuals usually posses many intersecting qualities, including extroverted personalities, a lack of anxiety, open-mindedness, and optimism. Each of these play an important role in one’s luck production.
Bad luck often comes from acts of carelessness, recklessness or willful abandonment of rules. One must be careful where they tread in life and the crowd with whom they associate as well as other behavior in order to avoid events that may be considered bad luck. Bad luck can basically be blamed on a bad attitude about life and looking at things in a pessimistic fashion.
Professor Wiseman found some interesting traits of people who were considered lucky or rather “fortunate” and factors surrounding these people. Foremost among these factors is that the more opportunities one encounters and the more receptive one is to those opportunities, the “luckier” one is. According to Wiseman’s studies lucky people smile twice as often as others, and engage in more eye contact than unlucky people do. Therefore it can be determined that outgoing, extroverted behavior exposes a person to more opportunities due to the increased social interaction. Similarly, open-mindedness allows one to encounter a greater number of unique prospects, and makes one more apt to embrace new opportunities.
Here are four principles Professor Wiseman has come up with to help you increase your good fortune:
Principle One: Maximize Chance Opportunities
Lucky people are skilled at creating, noticing and acting upon chance opportunities. Networking, adopting a relaxed attitude to life, and by being open to new experiences are various ways in which you can do this.
Principle Two: Listen to Lucky Hunches
Make effective decisions by listening to your intuition and gut feelings. In addition, take steps to actively boost your intuitive abilities by, for example, meditating and clearing your mind of other thoughts.
Principle Three: Expect Good Fortune
Lucky people are certain that the future is going to be full of good fortune. Expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies by persisting in the face of failure, and shape your interactions with others in a positive way.
Principle Four: Turn Bad Luck to Good
Employ various psychological techniques to cope with, and often even thrive upon, the ill fortune that comes your way. For example, spontaneously imagine how things could have been worse, do not dwell on the ill fortune, and take control of the situation.
Unless someone suffers from mental illness one’s mindset is entirely within one’s control. Even then a person can make choices that affect them in a positive way. An unlucky person who resolves to change their luck can become more social; they can make a conscious effort to be optimistic and make the best of any situation; and they can be more open to new ideas and experiences. In the final analysis whether a situation is considered good luck or whether it is considered bad luck and how a person arrived at the situation is due to the state of mind that influenced their arrival.
Technorati Tags: fortune, misfortune, unlucky, lucky, luck, state of mind, choices, attitude, good luck, bad luck
Sep
19
How do you treat people?
Filed Under Choices | Leave a Comment
This story was from an email forwarded to me by a friend. I don’t know if the story is true or not and as it is one of those stories that gets forwarded around the Internet via email the author of it has become anonymous. But it definitely does strengthen the point that a wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it’s least fortunate amongst them.
What would you do? You make the choice. Don’t look for a punch line, there isn’t one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made the same choice?
At a fund-raising dinner for a school that serves learning-disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question: ‘When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?’
The audience was stilled by the query.
The father continued. ‘I believe that when a child like Shay, physically and mentally handicapped comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.’
Then he told the following story:
Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, ‘Do you think they’ll let me play?’ Shay’s father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but the father also understood that if his son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.
Shay’s father approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, ‘We’re losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we’ll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.’
Shay struggled over to the team’s bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. His Father watched with a small tear in his eye and warmth in his heart. The boys saw the father’s joy at his son being accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay’s team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay’s team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.
At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball…
However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay’s life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay… As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.
The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.
Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman’s head, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, ‘Shay, run to first! Run to first!’ Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.
Everyone yelled, ‘Run to second, run to second!’ Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball … the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher’s intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman’s head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.
All were screaming, ‘Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay’
Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, ‘Run to third! Shay, run to third!’
As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, ‘Shay, run home! Run home!’ Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team.
‘That day’, said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, ‘the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world’.
Shay didn’t make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making his father so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!
I encourage any of you reading this to use the ShareThis button at the bottom of this post to forward this story to your friends and family. Thank you.
Technorati Tags: choices, relationships, life, encouragement
Sep
15
Brainplace
Filed Under The Brain | Leave a Comment
This post is about an interesting website called Brainplace. But before I tell you about Brainplace let me present a little bit of background about its founder Dr. Daniel Amen.
Dr. Daniel Amen is a board certified child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist. Among his other accomplishments and resume he has helped pioneer the use of brain SPECT imaging in psychiatry.
He is the Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, UC, Irvine, School of Medicine and trained at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, DC. He is also a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and an award winning researcher, writer and teacher. For more about his experience visit http://www.brainplace.com/da/ .
Basically SPECT imaging of the brain are special pictures, spectral images of the brain that show the colors and the various shapes of how brains look within the human skull after being subjected to things like strokes, drug use, depression and other various mental illnesses and brain dysfunctions. In the Amen Clinics Brain SPECT Image Gallery you can view actual SPECT brain images in full color 3-D animation. See for yourself the brain of a mass murderer and the effects of depression, substance abuse, toxic exposure and more. Compare them to a healthy brain.
http://amenclinics.com/bp/spect_rotations/
There are also interesting articles such as 10 Ways to Exercise Your Brain Healthy and Prescriptions For Healing the Brain among other articles.
Depending upon where you live you can also sign up in the Healthy Brain Study to see if your brain is healthy.
This is by no means an exhaustive review of the site but rather a synopsis of some of the great articles and services that can be found by visiting the site.
BrainPlace is found at http://amenclinics.com/bp/ and also is linked to http://www.brainplace.com.
Technorati Tags: brain, SPECT imaging, daniel amen, stroke, drug dependency, healing your brain
Sep
12
Have you ever seen any of the various television and big screen incarnations of the Superman character in which he takes a lump of coal and compresses it in his hands transforming it into a diamond? As if applying pressure as in the form of “if I don’t get such and such a task completed” would only transform a person into a diamond of brilliant and shining character.
Possibly we are like lumps of coal when we are born waiting for the trials of life to pressure us. For some people this causes them to break. For others it can make our character shine like a diamond. I will venture to say that all of us are more like diamonds in the rough, than lumps of coal, and that we each possess unique skills and abilities that need to be polished.
As we learn new ways of doing things and reach our short term goals we start to shine with brilliance and more easily accomplish the things that we set out to do. Just like a diamond is polished to shine our accomplishments should naturally increase and shine brilliantly. Each of us can therefore be compared to a diamond. That should make you want to shine.
Technorati Tags: diamonds, inspiration, character, motivation, skills, abilities, inate talent
Sep
11
Creating Morale As A Leader
Filed Under Leadership | Leave a Comment
Do you have people who follow you as their leader, such as church group, business organization, or students? If so you know that an important part of leadership is to create morale. Morale is the spirit of a group that makes the members want the group to succeed as well as a state of individual psychological well-being based upon a sense of confidence, usefulness and purpose. What are some steps that you can take to create or to boost morale?
1. One step is to create a significance for the group, whether it’s an organization, a team, or a company. Just being a part of an organization is no longer enough anymore. Each member must feel he or she is a part of something important, and is not just putting in time.
2. It is important to help each person see himself or herself as having a significant role, no matter what it might be. Everyone has to understand that he or she is essential to the groups success, that it’s the sum of all the parts that make up the whole.
3. Recognize the people who get less attention in the group because they are not in the glamorous positions. The secretaries in the company, the substitutes in the team, the students who aren’t called on that often, yet always provide a correct answer. Thank them publicly for their unselfishness and their contribution and in front of their peers. That is their share of the lime-light.
4. Remember to maintain positive reinforcement for the effort people are giving. Always let them know you are aware of it and how much you appreciate it.
As you may have noticed in reading this short article about creating morale as a leader there is some redundancy in these steps. That is because more than anything else positive reinforcement of your group members is important to being a good leader. All of these steps have one thing in common and just choose to reinforce the fact that the members of your organization, group, classroom are important and need to be made aware of that. Keep this in mind at all times and practice it and you will make a good leader.
Technorati Tags: morale, leadership, recognition, groups, positive reinforcement, leaders
Sep
9
The way that I roll
Filed Under Responsibility | Leave a Comment
This is how the story goes. Life is full of ups and downs. As it turns out many of the downs as well as the ups are due to our own accord. Although we cannot control such influences as the weather, natural disasters, illnesses or many predicaments, or the actions of other people, we can control our reactions to them. Our reactions and the consequences that come about due to them are of our own accord.
This article is about the subject of responsibility, defined as a form of trustworthiness; the trait of being answerable to someone for something or being responsible for one’s conduct. We should be most answerable to is ourselves in the way that we handle situations.
Reactions are often in response to life’s outcomes. Many of life’s outcomes represent the answers to the questions that we ask when a crisis or dramatic situation arises. The quality of our life is defined by the quality of the questions that we ask about any situation. We don’t want a tornado to rip our house apart, but if such a tragedy occurs, we can either wallow in pity or move on and find a new home and realize how lucky we are to have personally survived the devastation.
The first of these type of questions begs for an answer that aspires to be negative. Whenever someone looks for blame, even placing it upon themselves, it doesn’t solve the problem. Rather, emotions like anger, despair, and fear arise.
There are two types of questions that we ask in life. Those that try to place blame on someone or something and those that attempt a solution so that a similar problem doesn’t arise again. Do you ask why, or do you ask why not?
When something happens to me, I have started to ask “Why not me?” That makes me look for ways to prevent something from happening again and looks for the positive in the situation.
When you answer a question with a why not, or an okay, then you start to look for ways to make things better.
Questions that are answered by ways to solve a problem are in response a mechanism of positive thinking and of course asking what could be called the ‘right questions’.
Unfortunately too many people are unable to forgive. That is a choice they make that assigns blame to another person or to even to themself. Possibly in their own way this is how they solve the possibility of not having the same situation arise again. However, because of the blaming they fail to see the true cause of the problem.
When a negative situation arises such as a friend having a negative reaction such as misunderstanding, and a potential “blow-up” possibly the best reaction that you can have is to take five deep breaths and remove yourself emotionally from the situation.
Some people live to blame others or blame situations. The alternative is to say to yourself, “From this day forth I choose to accept responsibility and look for solutions”. That is the positive thing to do. After all, in the words of a friend when asked why he might behave a certain way in reaction to a certain situation, he answered “That’s the way that I roll.”
How do you roll?
Technorati Tags: responsibility, forgiveness, reactions, situations, solutions, blame
Sep
3
Components of Trust
Filed Under Trust | Leave a Comment
Who is that you trust? Do you know why you trust them? How do you go about developing trust from others? Several psychologists define trust based on the components that they believe make up trust. As someone who studies human behavior I happen to agree with these findings and the definition.
What components of trust are believed to make up the definition of trust and how may developing these key components empower both your personal and business relationships?
The first component that I will mention in this article is competence. Competence is defined in the dictionary as ‘the quality of being adequately or well qualified physically and intellectually’. Competence means that you will be able to give correct information and are also able to perform a task efficiently. You wouldn’t expect someone with a fifth grade education to do brain surgery as it is something that they aren’t trained to do, or are intellectually capable of. Are you capable of doing what you attest to be able to do?
The second component of trust to be mentioned in this article is predicability, that is the quality of being predictable. If somoeone is usually on time for work or constantly tells you that they will do something and they carry through on that they are predictable in respect to these behaviors. Therefore, as long as they carry through with the same behaviors there will be no unpleasant surprises. I have a web based program that can be used to look up the definition of any word and one of the definitions of trust that I found certainly supports this component of trust. That definition is ‘certainty based on past experience’. Predictability can go two ways. One is positive: “Bill is predicable as we can always expect him to show up at work on time.” Secondly, is a negative example: “John, is going to get fired as he is always ten minutes late for work.”
The third component of trust to be mentioned is benevolence. Benevolence has been defined as a ‘disposition to do good’ and an ‘an act intending or showing kindness and good will’. Benevolence is about doing what is in somebody’s best interest. Sometimes this means that you might have to deny someone something. A case in point would be having a friend who is an alcoholic and financially destitute asking you to supply them alcohol. It is in their best interest that you deny doing such a thing for them.
The fourth and last component of trust is honesty. Honesty is simply defined as ‘the quality of being honest’. Honesty has both been defined as ‘not disposed to cheat or defraud; not deceptive or fraudulent’ and as ‘worthy of being depended on’. Honesty is a matter of truth, and is defined as marked by truth. It means that what you say is accurate and that you aren’t fabricating what you are telling them. They definitely do not want to be friends or business associates with someone who is dishonest or who lies to them.
Because of the various backgrounds and life experiences of different individuals the amount of time to develop a trusting relationship varies. It is also true that people who are trustworthy are more quickly able to detect other people with the same traits. Fortunately or unfortunately many trustworthy people want to believe in the innate goodness of human kind and therefore sometimes give people chances to be trustworthy to the point of jeopardizing themselves and being vulnerable to many unpleasant experiences. Giving people these chances to prove themselves is good, however, you must be wary and ready to respond as sometimes these situations have a way of backfiring.
Someone may not trust you now; however, that doesn’t mean that by expressing these four components of trust, that they won’t learn to trust you. Earning trust and developing trust both happen by degree and unfortunately in both there can be setbacks at times. However, as in any worthwhile endeavor one must continue to strive for perfection. Whether you are trying to develop a relationship of trust with another person or in business dealings you must first earn trust. Once you have earned trust the reputation for you being trustworthy will spread.
Keith Stieneke is the webmaster and administrator of http://www.your-personal-best.com, http://www.opportunityassistance.com, http://www.blogsmart-resources.com, http://www.article-database.com, and http://www.marketing6s.com. He is an accomplished writer and blogger with several articles published online.
(You may link to this article or copy it in full to post to your website or publication as long as you leave the byline intact).
Technorati Tags: trust, trustworthiness, competence, predictability, benevolence, honesty
Sep
1
Mind Movies
Filed Under Law of Attraction | Leave a Comment
The Secret if you are not aware is a movie about the power of attraction. I am not referring here to attraction as the quality of arousing interest; being attractive or something that attracts you to someone or someone to you. Rather I am referring to attraction as the force by which one object attracts another. In other words, although we are much more than objects, it is the force that by what we can attain what we desire, starting with visualizing that desire and having it.
In the book The Aladdin Factor by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen they describe the process of getting whatever you want to out of life by asking including such things as personal happiness, creative fulfillment, professional success and even freedom from fear. The power of intention is simple: think about what you would like to manifest in your life…good health, loving relationships, as much money as you need or want, work that inspires you, peace on the earth, a healthy environment. All of these things are our birthright, and through the Law of Attraction we can bring them into our daily experience.
All of the things that we attain in life that are brought about by setting up a process of attracting them into your life. For some people it is easier to attract the things into their lives than it is for other people. I believe that the process is much more complicated than what films like The Secret seem to suggest; however, I do believe that there is a hidden truth to the concepts shown there. One of these in my opinion is that every desire that we do attain starts with visualization. That’s where Mind Movies come into the stage of being useful. Mind Movies are movies made to help you visualize the things that you desire so that you can harness the power of attraction. You can get six pre-made Mind Movies focusing on the subjects of health, spirituality, money, friends and family, attracting a woman, or attracting a man simply by going to Mind Movies and entering your email address.
Technorati Tags: Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Law of Attraction, The Secret, visualization, desire
