Over the course of my career I’ve assembled a very handy annual New Year’s “Checklist” that helps get me focused and ready for the challenges to come in the days and months ahead, and well positioned for success. read on >>>
Turn Their First Impression into a Lasting Impression.
If you are a successful business leader and entrepreneur today, you know how vital it is to have executive level speaking and communication skills.
You must be able to motivate or impart crucial information. You must speak clearly and directly. You must be assertive without being aggressive to strike the balance between warmth and authority. Your audience must hear and understand you.
How you sound has a tremendous impact on how your message is received. To be most effective, the quality of your voice must genuinely match the meaning and content of your presentation. Is your voice all that you want it to be?
To illustrate how important your voice is, think about a time you had a phone conversation with someone and you knew exactly how they were feeling simply from the sound. Though the effect can be subtle or it can be very obvious, voices always reflect a person's inner state and you know if they are angry, depressed, happy, or nervous.
When someone has a nasal quality, hoarseness, or they sound monotone, it's harder to focus on what they're saying. The most brilliant and innovative ideas and information can be lost as a result of a voice that's hard to listen to for some reason. This inability to be heard or understood can have serious consequences in your business.
Ask yourself how others perceive you and the words you are saying. When your voice and your content of your message match, it gives you credibility. It makes you compelling to listen to. Your listeners will intuitively trust and respond to you.
One of the best ways is to start listening to people and consciously identifying who, in your opinion, has a compelling voice. To identify the memorable qualities, ask yourself these questions while you listen.
Do they sound polished?
Are they charismatic?
Does their voice seem professional?
Are they passionate but not pushy?
Do you sense their warmth and sincerity?
Would you trust what they say?
Is their voice resonant and connected?
Do they sound truly confident?
When you've identified the qualities you like, evaluate your own voice by recording yourself or getting feedback from a trusted friend or colleague. Your next step might be to find a reliable self-study vocal development program or a qualified coach.
Developing a resonant balanced voice is an ongoing process and it may take several weeks or months before you or others start to notice the differences. However, continuing with the process will positively affect your communication, your presentation, and ultimately your business and career.
The author of this article, Katherine Scott of Voice of Destiny™ , is a singer, songwriter, author and professional voice coach. For over fifteen years in her private voice practice, Katherine has inspired singers and speakers to discover or uncover the strong engaging voice they were always meant to have. In her unique approach, the voice is an intersection point for connecting the sound, how they express who they are, and their personal vision of their successful career and life.
You can find insights and solutions to vocal challenges at http://www.youruniqueexpression.com. Visit http://www.vocalmapping.comfor free audio voice tips and voice exercises to use on a daily basis so your voice will sound fully present in any situation.
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sales have been slowing at national restaurant chains like Red Lobster, TGI Fridays, and the Cheesecake Factory recently due to the increase in gas prices.
To make matters worse, more and more people are discovering that they can save money by making their favorite restaurant dishes at home following the step by step instructions of Master Chef Ron Douglas.
The so called "secret recipes" of these billion dollar restaurants have now been exposed and shared with the world in the cooking instructional guide "America's Secret Recipes."
For details, go to:
Douglas is facing major pressure to take down his site and discontinue all sales of his secret recipe cookbooks. But he continues to thumb his nose at the greedy restaurant executives in support of the budget constrained home cook.
Anyone looking to duplicate their favorite restaurant recipes should pick up "America's Secret Recipes" now before it's forced off the market. Go to:
Finally you can:
- Stop waiting on those long lines at restaurants to pay for dishes you can quickly make in your own kitchen!
- Re-create your favorite restaurant dishes at home for a fraction of the cost by following these easy step-by-step instructions.
- Get kudos and praise from friends and family members when they find out you actually made these delicious dishes yourself!
- Uncover the cooking techniques used by world class chefs from famous restaurants.
Discover the secrets to making your favorite restaurant recipes at home - go to:
And Another Thing...
~ Eoin Colfer
And Another Thing . . . is the rather unexpected, but very welcome, sixth installment of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It features a pantheon of unemployed gods, everyone's favorite renegade Galactic President, a lovestruck green alien, an irritating computer, and at least one very large slab of cheese.
$20.99
From the Economist: "The recession of 2008-09 has been accompanied by bold claims about businesses’ economic importance. As carmakers teetered many people put it about that one in ten American jobs depended on the industry. The figure turned out to include taxi drivers. Similarly adventurous claims have been made for telecoms and road-building. As a single-handed creator of jobs and wealth, though, few can match the writer Joanne Rowling."
"Don't just do something, sit there! Sit there long enough each morning to decide what is really important during the day ahead."
Richard Eyre
Everything in your life is the cause of what you think and believe. Take a good look at your life from a perspective that you are the creator. Even though you may not believe you can do anything about your life right now, do it anyway and make an inventory of your life as it is now.
? What do you like about it and what not?
? What would you like to change?
? What would your perfect life look like?
Setting goals and intentions in your life is the single most important task in the entire process of creating the life you always dreamed about.
Can you imagine that almost 95% of all people simply don't do this? And the rest of the 5% do it, but only 10% of this small number ever reach their goals. That's why so many people struggle and businesses fail.
Not enough people set clear intentions about what they want in life. Like other important things that could help us attain truly fulfilled lives, the simplest things in life are mostly overlooked.
How to Program Your Subconscious for Success
Setting goals and intentions is a conscious exercise. Achieving these goals is a spiritual and subconscious exercise. This is where the Dream Manifestation Wizard comes in. By using intentions combined with images and audio plus repetition, you program your subconscious in the most efficient way possible.
There are three ways to program your subconscious:
1. Intensity – Imagine putting your hand on a hot stove
2. Repetition – Remember learning poems?
3. Synergy – Conscious mind and subconscious mind work together
Click here to find out more about the Dream Manifestation Wizard
Craft Powerful Affirmations that Work Like Magic
After you have figured out what your perfect life would look like, formulate it into short and powerful goals and intentions.
The key to writing effective affirmations is that they must be positive and stated in the present moment. A good starting point is to use something you don't like or you would like to change and then rephrase it. For example, you may not like being in debt. You can rewrite this into “Money is flowing to me easily and I enjoy it in abundance.” Use only words with positive associations. Don't use the word “debt” as you don't want your subconscious to create debt!
Now you may start to understand the inefficiency of signs and statements like these:“Don't cross this line” or “Don't get nervous about this.” Your subconscious mind does not know the difference between Do and Don't. It is the job of the subconscious to manifest your thoughts, even if the thought is negative. The statements above will only increase what you don't want, so be careful how you think about it and how you phrase it.
Choose Intentions that Align You with Your Life Dreams
Intentions are another powerful way to use the Dream Manifestation Wizard effectively. Intentions are more powerful than goals as they work on a higher consciousness level. Intentions create a new pathway in your life.
A path that you can follow until your life dreams are fulfilled.
When you craft intentions use a time frame, otherwise you are not able to break it apart into smaller goals. Lets assume you want to own your own home at some point. Decide when that should be and be precise about the details.
For example: “By the end of 2009 I live in my own 3b/2b townhouse.” Make sure you add a picture that's a close match to the house you want. Next, create some supportive goals that act as milestones: “By the end of this month I have the perfect financial plan for buying my own home,” and “Within six months I have enough for a down payment,” and so on.
A Profound Way to Rewire Your Brain
Every time you see your goal or intention on the Wizard's screen you physically rewire your brain by creating new neural pathways. This is the most powerful way to change the definition of yourself. In the beginning, your conscious mind may experience some resistance to your new goal or intention.
This simply means you are getting out of your comfort zone and growing. Over time it will get easier for your mind to accept these new commands. After a couple of weeks your brain will be completely rewired and your new goal, intention or belief will be fully integrated.
In a nutshell: Use affirmations to change your attitudes; use intentions to set a path that you will follow until it is fulfilled; use goals to set milestones for this path.
Click here to find out more about the Dream Manifestation Wizard
To your successful intentions . . .
P.S.: Check out over 500 powerful template examples that are included on the Dream Manifestation Wizard for your use. Simply copy the ones you like and change them until they're a perfect fit for your goal or intention.
Click here to find out more about the Dream Manifestation Wizard
"The period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period in one’s life."
-- Dalai Lama
