The Power of People Skills | John Maxwell on Leadership

The Power of People Skills | John Maxwell on Leadership:

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The Power of People Skills

By John C Maxwell

By far the greatest obstacle to success that I see in others is a poor understanding of people. A while back the Wall Street Journal published an article on the reasons that executives fail. At the top of the list was a person’s inability to effectively relate to others.

One day I was talking to someone who was complaining about not winning a business contract that he had bid on. “It wasn't fair,” he told me. “All the people involved knew each other, and we didn't have a chance. It’s all politics.” But then what he went on to describe wasn't politics. It was relationships.

Authors Carole Hyatt and Linda Gottlieb indicate that people who fail on the job commonly cite “office politics” as the reason for their failures, but the reality is that what they call politics is often nothing more than regular interaction with other people.

If you haven’t learned how to get along with people, you will always be fighting a battle to succeed. On the other hand, making people skills a strength will take you farther than any other skill you develop. People like to do business with people they like. Or to put it the way President Theodore Roosevelt did: “The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.”

Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are

The Get Off Your Ass Manifesto: How to Motivate Yourself to Actually Achieve Your Goals

The Get Off Your Ass Manifesto: How to Motivate Yourself to Actually Achieve Your Goals

By Thorin Klosowski

Starting something new is hard. It can even be a little terrifying. Maybe you don’t know where to start, or maybe you’re scared of failure. But the only way you’ll ever get anything done is if you just get up and do it. Here’s how to conquer those fears, get off your ass, and actually achieve those goals.

We all have unfinished projects, and a lack of motivation is one of the biggest reasons we don’t accomplish them. Maybe it’s that book you’ve been planning on starting for National Novel Writing Month, maybe it’s the new job you always find excuses not to search for, or maybe it’s the abundance of artistic talent you waste sitting on the couch watching a Netflix marathon. These things are all daunting at first, and they’re easy to continually put off in favor of keeping the status quo. But as Mythbusters host Adam Savage points out, when we set our minds to something, we all go through the same process:

(1) I don’t know how, (2) I can’t afford to pay someone else to do it, (3) I have to do it, (4) hey, that wasn’t so hard!

Getting off your ass and getting things done is not easy—nor will it ever be—but it doesn’t have to be hard. If you have the right plan and attitude, you’ll be a lot more likely to succeed. In fact, getting off your ass and doing something is incredibly easy and only requires a few steps:

The first step is that YOU HAVE to BELIEVE!

Wow!!! Do not miss this!

Action vs. Self-Delusion by Jim Rohn

 Knowledge fueled by emotion equals action. Action is the ingredient that ensures results. Only action can cause reaction. Further, only positive action can cause positive reaction. Action. The whole world loves to watch those who make things happen, and it rewards them for causing waves of productive enterprise. I stress this because today I see many people who are really sold on affirmations. And yet there is a famous saying that “Faith without action serves no useful purpose.” How true! I have nothing against affirmations as a tool to create action. Repeated to reinforce a disciplined plan, affirmations can help create wonderful results. But there is also a very thin line between faith and folly. You see, affirmations without action can be the beginnings of self-delusion. And for your well-being there is little worse than self-delusion.

Daily Protein Needs

Getting enough protein helps your body meet the demands of daily living. And studies show, you probably need more if you are working to build muscle, if you're dieting and as you age.

When protein intake is out of whack, it undermines energy, exercise performance and overall health. New research has even found that a protein-rich diet helps to maximize fat loss while minimizing loss of lean body mass.

An easy way to estimate your daily protein needs is to divide your current weight in half. The number you get is the amount of protein (in grams) that you should be eating daily.

The Benefits of Protein

Fact Sheet: Protein

4 Essential Steps for a Great Cleanse

By Kate Lumsden

After leading cleanses for almost four years, I’ve learned that there are essential steps you can take to make your cleanse a rewarding experience. Following these simple tips can make the difference between an uphill cleansing battle and an effective, enjoyable cleanse.

Here are 4 essential steps to take the next time you cleanse:

The Qualities of Skillful Leadership by Jim Rohn

If  you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a  person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the  gifts, skills, and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a  parent. I call leadership the great challenge of life.

What’s  important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working  on themselves until they become effective. Here are some specifics:

How to get rid of belly fat

Posted By Samantha Clayton On October 2, 2012 @ 9:00 am 

Many people find that they have problem areas where they just cannot get fat to budge.  Hand’s up if you’re one of the millions who find themselves with a stubborn layer of fat around their waist?
It’s frustrating that, although you may be making an effort with your diet and trying to exercise more, sometimes it feels impossible to reduce fat around your belly. With an active lifestyle there are several steps you can take to help you become or remain trim all over.

Measurable progress in reasonable time.

First bites, most calories: what we eat most of when we’re hungry

By Susan Bowerman , September 27, 2012

The foods you eat first at a meal can affect how many calories you eat overall.

Picture this: it’s lunchtime, and you’re really, really hungry.  You woke up late, you skipped breakfast, and you’ve been going all morning without a chance to grab a snack.  It’s finally time to eat, and you’re facing a buffet – some starchy foods, some proteins, and some veggies.  You load up your plate, sit down, and raise your fork – anxious to dig in.  Now, imagine what happens next, as you stare down at your meat, your starch and your vegetables.  Which food do you dive into first?

How Can I Keep Better Track of What I Eat?

 Thorin Klosowski

Dear Lifehacker,
I've been trying to eat healthy, but I'm having a hard time keeping track of everything I need to know. Is there a way I can use my computer or smartphone to eat better?
Sincerely,
Trying to Eat Right
Dear TER,
Eating healthy is always a bit tough, and while everyone's definition of "healthy" is slightly different, you can easily track what you're eating and get an idea of where you can improve. While a billion dieting apps exist, this is less about losing weight, and more about knowing more about the foods you're eating, how they're affecting your body in the long run, and using technology to keep yourself on track. There's no magic bullet for perfect health, but you can use technology to get a much better idea of your overall eating habits, and find the best ways to achieve the goals you want.

Track What You Eat for a Better View of Your Health

Health is Wealth

Don’t like plain water? Here’s how to get your 8 glasses a day

Posted By Susan Bowerman On September 20, 2012 @ 7:30 am

Water is important for your health, but do other beverages count toward meeting your daily fluid needs?
You’ve probably heard the old expression, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”.  Well, I’ve got plenty of clients who are just like that horse.  They knowwater is important to their health and they’ve heard the common advice that they should drink about 8 glasses of water a day. But, as one client said to me recently, “this is going to sound strange, but I just hate water – there’s no way I can choke down 8 glasses of plain water a day”.  Which leads to the question: does it have to be plain water?  Do any other beverages count?
In a word, yes – other beverages do count towards your daily liquid consumption.  Many people take the water advice a bit too literally and assume that, even if they are drinking other beverages, they still need to drink 8 glasses of plain water too.

Eating Fresh

Health is Wealth: Health Alert
by Nobel Laureate in Medicine Dr. Louis Ignarro and Naturopathic Physician Dr. Andrew Myers Eating Fresh 

What type of foods do you regularly eat? Are they fresh, natural foods? Or do you often eat processed food with ingredients you can barely pronounce? Our bodies were designed to eat fresh food, not processed food. As it turns out, fresh food actually tastes better than processed food though many people no longer remember what eating fresh tastes like.

Eating fresh is one of the most fundamental aspects of staying healthy, having energy, and feeling good. Eating fresh, healthy food is only one part of the equation. Individuals need to re-learn how to enjoy preparing, cooking, and consuming delicious food. How much fresh food should you eat? People need at least five to nine servings of fresh fruit and vegetables every single day to stay healthy and prevent cancer and other disease. This will provide a huge boost in vitamins, minerals, fiber, enzymes, and other nutrients necessary to thrive. Raw nuts and whole grains like brown rice are also nutrient-rich fresh foods.

 No matter what you are eating, it is a substance that was alive at one time. Imagine, for instance, walking to your backyard and tugging a bunch of sweet, orange carrots from the ground. You take them inside, rinse them off, slice them and add them to your salad. In this scenario, you are eating food that was alive just half an hour before eating. As you eat these carrots, they are passing their life-giving vitality directly into your body. The less your food is refined, the more nutrients it shares with you.

 Now, consider the frozen carrots in your freezer right now. These carrots were alive a few months ago. After they were picked they were hauled to a processing plant where they were rinsed with chlorine and other chemicals to eliminate contamination. They were then boiled, frozen, and sat on a truck and in a freezer for months at a time. These frozen carrots simply do not offer the same vitality that fresh, living food delivers.

Next time you eat, ask yourself how you feel.
Do you feel bloated and tired?
Do you suffer from constipation, diarrhea, heartburn, or low energy?

Simply adding more fresh fruit and vegetables to your meals can quickly reverse even the most irritating health woes.

Benefits of Fresh Veggies
Fiber to cleanse your body of toxins
Phytonutrients: health-protecting plant compounds Enzymes to fuel vital chemical reactions Essential fatty acids to help combat a host of diseases

Keys to Success 
Eat the rainbow: Consume as many different colors of fresh foods as possible. Each color represents different nutritional contents. A big variety in color can help to provide the nutrients necessary for long term health and vitality.

Shop the perimeter: When visiting the grocery store, the healthiest and freshest foods are always around the outer edge of the store. Produce, dairy, seafood, and the butcher are areas to focus on. Avoid the middle aisles which typically contain processed food that isn’t likely to be as healthy as the fresh food around the outside aisles.

Keep fresh food in sight: Keep fruit, vegetables, and nuts on countertops and coffee tables whenever possible. Seeing these healthy items means you’re more likely to snack on them. Add fruit to dessert and breakfast: Instead of trying to eliminate cereal and ice cream from your diet simply use it as a vehicle for delivering fresh fruit. Add strawberries, bananas, or blueberries to your regular meals for an easy extra serving of fresh food.

Sometimes small changes can have great effect...

Update from Dan R

Update from Dan R: I have a life long friend who has always had two favorite hobbies, gardening and eating. The latter of these caused him to be 60 to 70 pounds overweight and nothing he tried helped him lose any of it. He finally found he no longer could get out and work his gardens so he agreed to try an Advanced Nutrition Program in January. He has stayed on the program and a couple of nights ago he proudly informed me he has lost 55 lbs. and has more energy than he has had in years. He also said he is coming to see me tomorrow to bring me some really hot jalapeno peppers. I can't wait to see him, I'm not so sure about the peppers, but I do know Herbalife has given him back a positive attitude which has been missing for years

Fat Forecast: 42% of Americans Obese by 2030

By Carrie Gann | ABC News –

Study: Health costs now $190 b … About 32 million more Americans will become obese by 2030, upping obesity rates to 42 percent of the U.S. population, according to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report also predicts that the proportion of Americans who are severely obese, meaning more than 100 pounds overweight, will reach 11 percent, about double the current rate. The report's authors give a sobering price tag for these predictions: such an increase would create $550 billion of obesity-related health care costs. Eric Finkelstein, one of the authors of the report, said the prospect of such increasing rates, particularly those of severely obese Americans, is alarming since efforts aimed at helping people lose weight have so far proven relatively ineffective. "Their weight continues to increase. Over the last 10 years, it has gone up tremendously," he said in a press conference. "This is a group at great risk of health complications, and yet they are increasing at an even greater rate than the rate of obesity." The report was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine and was released at the CDC's Weight of the Nation conference today, a gathering focused on the impact of the obesity epidemic. The authors analyzed data collected from each state and made projections based on a number of factors influencing obesity rates, including the cost of healthy and unhealthy foods, gas prices and Internet access. "Predicting obesity is tricky and no one variable showed up as causing obesity," Finkelstein said. Although recent data suggest that rates of obesity have reached a plateau, current rates of obesity are still alarmingly high. About 34 percent of adults are currently obese, creating a whole host of expensive, chronic health problems, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The report's authors said a number of factors could lead to the predicted rise in obesity. About two-thirds of Americans are currently overweight and could continue to gain weight and move into the obese category. Dr. William Dietz, one of the study's authors and director of the CDC's division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity, also noted that children who are currently overweight or obese will likely be a major source of the increasing rates. "We know that about 50 percent of severe obesity in adults is consequence of obesity in childhood," he said. Currently about 17 percent of children and adolescents are obese. Anti-obesity measures such as better urban design, access to recreational facilities, workplace health promotion and new drugs could help reign in the problem, the authors noted.

Inspiring Motivational Video: Cross the Line™

Goals

Great presentation and 3 minutes to clear my head....
10rulesforsuccess.com

Make Good Decisions: 4 Tips

Wise decision making is not a constant, research shows. But you can set yourself up for success in these straightforward ways.

shutterstock images

Judgement counts. We all make a lot of decisions in business and like to think that we make the big ones with enough time, care and attention that we can be reasonably certain that they are rational, consistent and safe.

But just how consistent and careful are we? How far are our decisions influenced by external trivia? That's the question three business school academics set out to answer when they studied decision making by parole judges.

7 Days to a Healthier You

7 Days to a Healthier You

Don’t put off your health and fitness goals. A week is all it takes to get serious about improving your health. Here’s how:

1. Sunday
Buy a pedometer and aspire to meet the American Heart Association’s standard of walking 3,000 steps per day.
2. Monday
Are you out of breath after taking a couple of flights of stairs? Turn stairwells into your fitness friend by choosing the steps instead of the elevator. Whether it’s two flights or 10, watch how quickly your breathing improves.
3. Tuesday
When you’re trapped at your desk or stuck on a plane, do calf raises. By flexing and pointing—first lifting toes, returning to a flat foot, then lifting your heels and squeezing your calf muscles—you are pumping blood up your legs and improving your circulation.
4. Wednesday
Give up the perfect parking space. Forever. By parking farther from the store, office or gym, you are burning more calories. Little walks add up.
5. Thursday
Eat natural. Take a day to give up processed food filled with preservatives and sodium. Choose food that looks the same as when it was harvested. Stick to the outer perimeter of the grocery store when you shop.
6. Friday
Cool down. Tough week? Take one day to do an activity to soothe your mind. Read a book. Enjoy a sunset. Take a bubble bath. Listen to your iPod.
7. Saturday
Let your dog think you’re indecisive. Take your dog for a 10-minute walk, then jog for two minutes. Try a new route. Walk down a different street. Play at a new park.

Seven Top Foods for Kids

Seven Top Foods for Kids

Seven Top Foods for Kids

Posted By Susan Bowerman On April 12, 2012 @ 8:00 am 

Kids can be picky eaters, but here’s a short list of some nutrition-packed foods that most kids enjoy.
It’s always funny to me when people ask me how my kids ate when they were little. I’m sure that most of them think that since I do what I do, my kids must have been perfect eaters – or that I had some special tricks up my sleeve that made them beg for broccoli. Truth be told, my kids were no different from most other kids – they had their likes and their dislikes – and they’d go on food jags where they’d want to eat the same thing every single day.
Naturally, it did concern me a bit that their nutritional needs weren’t always being met, but there were several really healthy foods that they were almost always willing to eat. I just downplayed the “healthy” part – because once you tell kids something is “good for you”, that’s one of the quickest, surest paths to rejection.

Inc. : 6 Ways Successful People Stand Out http://goo.gl/mag/uLZ55

6 Ways Successful People Stand Out

Substance trumps style in the long run. Here's how to make the kind of impression that lasts.

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Bosses spend the vast majority of their time helping other people succeed: employees, customers, vendors and suppliers... the list goes on and on.

Helping other people succeed is your job , but it's also your job to focus on yourself, at least part of the time.

Why? Your success creates success for others--and success requires, at least in part, standing out from the crowd and being known for something.

Of course there are different ways you can stand out. For example, you can be like this guy .

Okay, maybe not.

There are better ways:

Crashing the Myth of Work/Life Balance

Author Jon Gordan helps us find our happiness.

Deborah  Huso  January 9, 2012 

Most of us live our lives like we’re on a tightrope, teetering between giving our all at work, giving our all to family, getting just enough sleep, and then doing it again the next day. We call it work/life balance. Excuse me. But do you really want to live like a tightrope walker hovering over the abyss? Best-selling author Jon Gordon doesn’t. In his latest book, The Seed: Finding Purpose and Happiness in Life and Work , Gordon says the idea that we can achieve balance every day of our lives among our multiple responsibilities, passions and interests is just, well, crazy. “We experience guilt from wanting to be with the family we love, yet there is this pressure to be successful and make money,” he says.
Gordon suggests we let go of the idea of achieving balance and pursue “purpose and passion” instead. Strive to find joy and fulfillment in everything you do. Look at balance as a longer-term goal. Instead of trying to achieve it every day, work to achieve it over the course of a year.
“A lot of people who amass great financial wealth often have trouble with relationships at home,” he says. “Your wealth must include an abundance of relationships.” Give your all to work during your busy season; take extra time for family in the off-season. Engage yourself no matter where you are. When at work, work hard and love it. When with family, play hard and focus on your loved ones. Turn off the BlackBerry, and don’t answer the phone. He says finding time for both work and life is more about “rhythm” than balance.

Herbalife Shares Gain on Obesity Play

How to Avoid Second Helpings - Herbalife

A Guide to Finding Whole Grains - Herbalife