PowerPoint problems run rampant in presentations, from busy, overdone slides that are impossible to read to poor usage where the speaker talks to the slide or blocks the screen. While there are lots of ways to improve slide quality and enhance PowerPoint usage, there is one little known, but powerful, strategy that can improve any PowerPoint presentation and put the focus more on the speaker, where it belongs.
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How do you make your presentation more interesting to your audience? Perhaps the most important technique is to include them when you speak. You can choose your words to engage your listeners — or leave them out. If you leave them out, boredom is the probable result. In this article, I'll give you some specific techniques for crafting your content in a way that grabs the attention of your audience.
Valuable lesson: Reading helps children develop socially and mentally, according to experts. (Posed by models)
Forget music lessons, sports clubs and trips to the theatre.
The only out-of-school activity that will really enhance a teenager’s career prospects is reading, research shows. => http://bit.ly/gEIhPN
Are we looking at the end of the Australian bookshop as we know it?
In the last few weeks yet more have closed their doors. At last count more than a dozen shops, including the Angus & Robertson stores in Gympie in Queensland and the Adelaide city store, with more expected. The closures follow the Red Group of companies putting Angus & Robertson and the Australian branch of the multinational Borders bookstores into voluntary administration.
Many reasons have been given including the Red Group's business practices, the impact of parallel imports, high wages and rent, the e-book revolution, the global financial crisis and the state of the Australian dollar; even the selling of books in supermarkets.
But another key contribution is the growing trend towards buying cheap books online. The US based Amazon company is well known but more recently the British based Book Depository has become popular.
listen here => http://bit.ly/fuLP2a
He is more comfortable with platform 9¾ than the electronic devices of the muggle world, but, despite that, Harry Potter is about to go digital - and potentially earn JK Rowling a further £100 million. => http://bit.ly/hjb5Ua
Damn! Why can't I ever stop thinking?
This was my mantra at 7 am as I tried in vain to meditate.
Some days I'm able to get deep into the zone of a meditation where my thoughts slow and then stop for a while. These are the best meditations. I'm detached but present in the flow of Universal Mind. I feel a clarity and a sense that all is well - just the way things are. Perfectly imperfect.
I am aware of a connection to all life which gently gives way to a quiet joy. I ride the waves of this Universal flow as long as I can before thoughts get the better of me again. I take the quiet joy with me out into my day and go about my business.
Today I could not surf that wave. It was just one big thought after another knocking me off my spiritual surf board until I got tired of trying to climb back on and gave up. All I kept hearing was: I have work to do. I need to exercise. I'm running low on milk. Got to get to the ATM and deposit that check.
With each thought I squeezed my eyes tighter and said NO not now! But, they wouldn't stop. I followed my breathing again and my thoughts slowed somewhat but not to the extent where I could make that connection to the soothing calmness I craved.
Later while journaling it hit me. I was trying too hard. You cannot force yourself to get in the flow - It just doesn't work that way.
It reminded me of getting injections at the doctor's office as a little girl. The idea that my little fanny was going to be pierced by a long shiny needle terrified me. And, no matter what my mother said, or the nurse about relaxing I'd tense up anyway which only made it hurt more.
It's the same with those pesky thoughts. I was forcibly trying to resist thinking which makes no sense at all. The idea is to let them come and then go without reacting to the intrusion in your meditation. All pain comes from resistance. I knew this, so why wasn't I doing it?
Resistance is a form of control. To resist your thoughts is the same as trying to control them. You can't control your thoughts anymore than you can control another person or situation. All you can do is be present, observe and let them go, be it a person or situation. As soon as you start tangling with them it becomes a battle of the wills. Then the ego gets involved - and the ego hates to lose.
Resistance can crop up in any area of our lives - not just morning meditation. While journaling I started thinking of all the other areas in my life where resistance had caused problems. I was reminded of how I'd clung to an unhappy relationship because of my resistance to accept that it was over. I also thought of how long it took me to stop resisting that it was time to sell my house and move on, and how I'd resisted following my heart in my choice of career for so long. This brought me full circle to realizing that the mornings that I got the most out of my meditation it came naturally without any resistance to my thoughts. They popped in - and they popped out.
I saw so clearly that resisting anything dams up the natural flow of our lives. The energy we expend to dam up the flow sucks the joy out of any experience in our lives. What a useless practice this is. Resistance is futile because in resisting we hope to avoid pain in some area of our lives, but what actually happens is the complete opposite - we create more pain that actually seeps into every area of our lives. Pain should be a warning that something is wrong, but when we dam up the feelings and get used to the pain it becomes all too familiar. No more of creating pain for me. After this realization I'm adopting new mantra in meditation and in life: Resist nothing.
Are there any areas in your life where you've been resisting change? Can you see how it has it affected you? How will your life change if you stop resisting and release the waters from the dam?
Author: Angela Artemis is an author, and intuitive coach and counselor. She's also a financial salesperson with 25 year background in financial planning, private banking and real estate finance. Her ability to navigate a demanding finance career while developing spiritually and psychically has given her a reputation as a very grounded and practical intuitive.
She's also been a meditation instructor, devoted many years to practicing and studying with spiritual teachers, and to developing her intuitive abilities.
Her mission is to teach others to develop their own intuition in order to create success, abundance and miracles in their lives.
Puffin Books today announced plans to publish a major new series by Eoin Colfer, the bestselling author of Artemis Fowl. WARP, an acronym for Witness Anonymous Relocation Program, used by the FBI to hide important witnesses in the past, is a high concept series described by the author as 'Oliver Twist meets The Matrix'.
The first book features a Victorian boy, Riley, who goes on the run in 21st century London pursued by a ruthless assassin from his own time. Riley must rely on his wits and the help of a young FBI agent if he is to survive.
http://bit.ly/eDwCet
"Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, ‘This is the real me,´ and when you have found that attitude, follow it."
-- William James
