How Do You Define Success?

“Success isn’t a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.”
~Arnold H. Glasow

This really is a great quote. Not only is it interesting but also inspiring.

One of the truths that I find most frustrating as a teacher and a coach is that many people believe that success, in whatever field of endeavor they are currently striving, is rather like winning the lottery. In fact, it certainly seems from the evidence that they in fact believe that success is even more random because they aren’t even buying a ticket. They are simply passively waiting.

If you listen to people talk you won’t hear many people voicing this opinion of success but look around you and watch what people are actually doing–or rather not doing–and you will quickly see what I mean.

Many people want things–they want to be rich, they want to be at the top of their profession, they want a successful marriage, they want to raise great kids, they want to be respected in their community, and so on. But what do they do to achieve this success? Are they working both hard and smart toward their financial goals and living frugally while they do so? Are they constantly learning and striving at their job? Are they showing their spouse love, consideration, understanding, and generosity? Are they spending time with their children both modeling how to be a good person and being generous with their love and understanding? Are they regularly proving themselves an asset within their community by being a good neighbor in every sense of the word?

We all know that we must accomplish these tasks as I set them out to achieve success in these areas. Probably I missed something as well. I am hardly a model of success in every area. I would in fact describe myself as fair to middling. {g} I am certainly not rich but the bills get paid and our basics and then some are covered without too much stress. My boss, peers, and subordinates think I am doing a pretty good job as well as those that I serve professionally. While my marriage is in fairly good shape I know I could certainly put more into it. I think I have a great kid but know well my failings as a mother. I contribute to my community but no where near the level that I could or should.

How do you define success?

Is it money, career, love, marriage, family, friendship, respect, community?

For me, success is primarily about love. How many lives do I touch with mine? How many hearts? Who has been changed by my existence in a postive way? I hope that people judge me as a good person and that if I died tomorrow that there would be great mourning.

If we really want this success then we will set ourselves on fire. We won’t wait for spontaneous combustion.

Deanna Mascle is an inspirational freelance writer. You can find more inspiration at Inspiration by Dawggone and her inspirational ezines Words of Inspiration Online and Daily Quote Online.

Love, Lies, Betrayal, And Deceit - Why Do We Lie To Those We Love?

Why do husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, lie to each other?

Our romantic relationships are seldom what they seem. We all want a relationship that is built on openness, intimacy, and trust, but the truth is, our relationships do not always work that way. More often than not, our intimate relationships involve secrecy and deceit. In fact, if you want to look for deception and betrayal in your own life, the best place to start is close to home. Husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, often lie about their true feelings for each other, the feelings they have for others, and their level of commitment. Indeed, it is safe to say that people save their biggest and most serious lies for those they love.

For better or worse, our romantic relationships are full of paradoxes which we try to overlook, downplay and ignore. For the most part, this strategy works well. Until the day comes when it doesn’t, and with little warning or preparation we have to confront face-on the reality that our close relationships are not exactly what they appear to be.

Eventually, almost everyone will catch a spouse or partner in one of their lies. Inevitably, we have a difficult time coping with what we have learned and dealing with the fact that someone close has betrayed our trust. We do not expect our partners to mislead us, nor do we have insight into how and why deception occurs.

In fairness, it should also be mentioned that it is just as likely that a partner or spouse will catch you in one of your own attempts to deceive. And ironically, we are just as unprepared to deal with this kind of situation.

Ignoring the paradoxes inherent in our romantic relationships turns out to be a costly strategy and most people pay the price for this decision, unexpectedly, and all at once. It’s not so much that coming to terms with the use of deception in romantic relationships will solve all of the problems you are going to encounter, but it will certainty help to reduce the stress, anxiety, and uncertainty that occur when deception eventually comes to light.

In fact, when it comes love and romance, most of the things we believe, are not true. Most people believe that all of their marital or relational problems can be solved through “communication.” We believe that deception is difficult to achieve, that misleading a partner requires a lot of effort and thought, and that romantic partners can tell when a lover is lying, and so on. None of these widely held beliefs, however, are supported by the evidence. Rather, our romantic relationships are held together by a delicate balance of both candor and deceit. And both are critical to making our intimate relationships work.

In reality, romantic relationships entail two important features which allow deception to flourish: abundant opportunity, as well as the need to deceive. As we get close to another person, we intentionally and unintentionally provide them with a great deal of information about who we are, revealing ourselves through both our words and deeds. Creating this kind of intimacy or shared knowledge is critical, as it serves as the foundation for a lot of important rewards. Through our close relationships, we create gains with respect to our health, wealth, and emotional well-being.

Because relationships provide so many important rewards, it should come as no surprise that people are inclined to view their romantic partners in a positive light. We place a lot of trust in our romantic partners. We think we know them well. But while our trust surely provides us with a sense of security and comfort, it also lays the ground for deceit. For as we trust our partners more, we also become more confident but less accurate at determining when the truth is being told.

Every relevant study attests to the fact that lovers are terrible at telling when their partners are lying. In fact, detecting deception with anyone is difficult to do, but lovers manage to take this general failure to a spectacular low. Again, as we become more confident that we can tell when a lover is lying, the exact opposite turns out to be true. This “truth-bias” or “blind faith” provides the perfect opportunity for romantic partners to engage in deception. After all, who makes a better victim than someone who is eager and willing to trust everything you have to say?

Not only do close relationships create a wonderful opportunity for deception to occur, they also create the need. While romantic relationships offer many rewards, they also tend to be overly constrictive. Most everyone has felt the constraints of a close relationship from time to time; quite simply you are no longer free to do what you want, when you want, and with whom you want. So intimacy provides tremendous rewards, but at an enormous cost - the loss of your freedom and autonomy.

Lying to a romantic partner helps us deal with the constraints that our intimate relationships impose. Quite frankly, deceiving a romantic partner turns out to be the most efficient and effective way of maintaining the rewards we get from our romantic relationships while pursuing extra-relational goals and activities behind a partner’s back.

How do we decide when to lie and when to tell the truth? Well, most of the time we do not intentionally think about misleading our partners. Rather such decisions are governed by our emotions and just seem to happen when the right situation presents itself. Often a sense of excitement, opportunity, and exhilaration can lead us down paths we had no intention of traveling. A sense of fear, loss, and trepidation, on the other hand, prompt us to cover-up what we’ve done and be more conservative in the short-term. Luckily our emotions are very good at reading situations and keeping our deceptive behavior within limits. Our emotions prompt us to regain some of our freedoms while also allowing us to maintain the benefits we get from our intimate relationships.

When you take a step back and put it altogether, the picture that emerges tends to be rather ironic. Because our romantic relationships are so rewarding yet constrictive, we are simultaneously more truthful and more deceptive with those we love. Additionally, we place the most trust in the person who is most likely to deceive us, just as we are most likely to deceive the person who loves and trusts us the most. These are just a few of the paradoxes that emerge when taking a close look at the use of deception in our romantic relationships. Most of what is uncovered runs counter to our most cherished beliefs about love and romance; that is, the idea that complete openness and intimacy are a central and defining feature of being in love.

Initially most people avoid looking for deception by a loved one. But as you begin to examine your own behavior more closely it becomes harder to dismiss the degree to which lies, betrayal, secrecy and deceit are ever present in our close relationships. Hopefully, you will take on a greater appreciation for the complexities of your relationships as well as a richer understanding of what it means to be in love. Regardless of the final outcome, taking a close look at deception in your life will change the way you view yourself and others.

Article by Timothy Cole, PhD. For more information on how, when, and why husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, lie to those they love, visit Truth about Deception.com at www.truthaboutdeception.com

Treating Shyness

Are you ever shy? Shyness is actually very common.

Most people experience some degree of shyness from time to time in certain situations. In fact, only about 7% of people claim that they never feel shy. For the rest of us, shyness can range from being a minor inconvenience, to being a major problem.

Some people suffer from overwhelming shyness that is extreme. Such acute shyness is not only very painful to experience, but it can be devastating in its effects on a person’s social life, happiness, and career.

The degree of shyness can vary a lot from person to person, and even in the same person it can vary depending on the situation.

Some shy people are paralyzed with fear in small social gatherings, yet they may be able to speak in front of an audience of thousands of people. Some people are only shy the first few times they meet someone new.

Various psychological therapies have been used to treat extreme shyness, but most of them have limited success. The most successful approaches for treating shyness use some variation of cognitive therapy, or behavioral therapy, or both of these, combined with graduated and increasing exposure to the feared situation.

In cognitive therapy, the patient is taught to notice the thoughts he is thinking while he is in the feared situation. The client learns to challenge his thoughts to see if they fit reality. If these thoughts do not match the reality, the client is taught to substitute more realistic thoughts in their place.

Behavioral therapy aims to change the client’s behavior using a program of positive reinforcement of the desired behavior, and negative reinforcement of the undesired behavior.

Both cognitive therapy and behavior therapy focus on teaching the client to deal with situations and symptoms in the present. Neither form of therapy delves into situations in the client’s distant past. Those forms of psychotherapy that attempt to deal with shyness by delving into the client’s past history have not been shown to be effective.

In the past decade, researchers have discovered that some anti-depressant medications, particularly the so-called SSRI’s (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors), can also be very helpful in the treatment of extreme shyness.

One of these SSRI drugs, Paxil, was the first to receive American F.D.A. approval as an effective treatment for social anxiety. In fact, ads for Paxil as a treatment for social anxiety have been marketed directly to the public, not just to doctors.

Does drug treatment for shyness really work? Some very socially anxious people who have tried everything that regular psychotherapy has to offer, including cognitive therapy, still suffer from terrible shyness until they try SSRI drugs. In some cases, the improvement in their shyness symptoms happens very quickly. This class of drugs seems to help the socially anxious person turn down the excessive volume of their inner judgmental thoughts.

Does this mean you should consider taking a pill to make you more friendly? There are pros and cons to be considered when deciding whether or not to take a drug for social anxiety. The SSRI drugs can cause nervous agitation, insomnia, weight gain, and loss of interest in sexual activity.

SSRI drugs may have serious long term effects on the brain which are not known yet.

Some medical doctors and psychologists are concerned that we are using powerful medications to treat shyness, which is a common, normal human condition.

It can be very easy to find a doctor who will prescribe a pill for you to overcome your social anxiety. However, when you stop taking the drug, your shyness will probably reappear.

If you spend several months working with an experienced shyness therapist learning new ways of thinking and behaving when you are around other people, it is more likely that the improvements will last for the rest of your life.

This article is written by Royane Real, author of the new book “How You Can Have All the Friends You Want” To read more self help articles about shyness and making friends, visit her new site at http://friendshipvillage.bravehost.com

This article is written by Royane Real, author of the new book “How You Can Have All the Friends You Want” To read more self help articles about shyness and making friends, visit her new site at friendshipvillage.bravehost.com

Online Conference Calls Create Opportunities to Reduce Unneeded Travel Expenses

Oil costs are soaring and as a result, company expenses are squeezed short worse than ever before. With an global economy lumbers along slowly and credit remains hard to come by, prudent directories acknowledge unnecessary budgets should cut. Business people everywhere must make some important decisions to shrink expenses. Perhaps the obvious plan to reduce business expenditures is to hack away at frivolous travel expenses, and the secret is web conference calls.

Internet conferencing enable anyone to communicate with others electronically in a conference in a distant town, in another time zone or even more significantly in a distant shore. Typical online conference calling make use of new web video services. Because that they are streamed online, they merely utilize no additional organizational resources. By using the web, is it possible to make a overseas meeting from just about any locale that has Internet access. Not only is it everywhere, it can slash travel expenses by thousands.

Leaps in networking technology make web conferencing calls possible for people to exchange presentations and information simultaneously. Internet conference members can see and hear as if they are virtually there, even if theyre really halfway around the planet earth. The look and sound of the video, audio, and presentation is very accurate due to the best in digital encoding.

Obviously just about any business would save money by using online conferencing instead of wasting thousands dispatching a team on a big trip. You shouldnt spend on meals, hotels and even transportation costs. Big savings that matter over a year. Any trip not taken is more efficiency for a company. Most everyone knows that some companies are implementing Internet conference calls to reduce expenses on unnecessary company journeys.

Addiction to Self-Judgment

“I’m such a jerk. How could I have said that?”
“I’m a looser. I’ll never get anywhere.”
“I’m so stupid. I should have learned this by now.”
“I don’t fit in. I don’t belong with these people.”
“I’ll never be good enough. I’ll never do it right enough.”
“I’m permanently emotionally damaged. I’ll never be okay.”
“No one could love me. I’m not lovable.”

…and so on and so on.

Are you aware of your self-judgments? Are you aware of how often you judge yourself as bad, wrong, or inadequate? Are you aware of how you end up feeling as a result of your self-judgments?

In my counseling work with people, I find that self-judgment is one of the major causes of fear, anger, anxiety and depression. Yet most people don’t realize that these painful feelings are the result of their own thoughts, their own self-judgments. Most of the time, when I ask an anxious client why they are feeling anxious, they tell me that it’s because of something that happened to them. They usually believe that an event or a person caused their anxiety. Yet when I ask them what they are thinking that might be causing their anxiety, they will tell me a self-judgment such as, “I’ll never get this right,” or they are projecting their own judgment onto me and telling themselves, “Margaret doesn’t like me,” or “Margaret is getting impatient with me.” When they judge themselves or make up that I’m judging them, they get anxious. There is nothing actually happening that is causing their anxiety, other than their own thoughts.

Pointing out to them that they are causing their anxiety with their self-judgment doesn’t not necessarily stop the judgment. This is because self-judgment is often an addiction. An addiction is a habitual behavior that is intended to protect against pain. What is the pain that self-judgment is intended to protect against?

Generally, the hope of self-judgment is to protect against rejection and failure. The false beliefs are that, “If I judge myself, then others won’t judge me and reject me. I can be safe from others’ judgment by judging myself first,” or “If I judge myself, I can motivate myself to do things right and succeed. Then I will feel safe and be loved and accepted by others.”

However, just as a child does far better in school with encouragement than with criticism, so do we as adults. Criticism tends to scare and immobilize us. Instead of motivating us, it often creates so much anxiety that we get frozen and become unable to take appropriate action for ourselves. More self-judgment follows the lack of action, which results in more anxiety and immobilization, until we create a situation where we are completely stuck and miserable.

The way out of this is to become aware of the feelings of fear, anxiety, anger or depression and then ask yourself, “What did I just tell myself that is creating this feeling?” Once you become aware of the self-judgment, you can then ask yourself, “Am I certain that what I am telling myself is true?” If you are not 100% certain that what you are telling yourself is true, you can ask your higher, wise self or a spiritual source of wisdom, “What is the truth?” If you are really open to learning about the truth, the truth will pop into your mind, and it will be much different than what you have been telling yourself.

For example, “I’m such a jerk. How could I have said that?” becomes “We all mess up at times. It’s okay to make mistakes - it’s part of being human. Making a mistake does not mean that you are a jerk.” When we open to the truth, we will discover a kind and compassionate way of speaking to ourselves, a way that makes us feel loved and safe rather than anxious, angry or depressed.

Addictions are always challenging to resolve, and an addiction to self-judgment is no exception. So be easy on yourself, and don’t judge yourself for judging yourself! It will take time and dedication to become aware of your self-judgments and learn to be kind toward yourself, but the end result is so worth the effort!

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including “Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?” and “Healing Your Aloneness.” She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding healing process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course: www.innerbonding.com or mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com. Phone Sessions Available.

The Flourishing Global Real Estate Space — Serviced by The Property Index

Even though PropertyIndex.com is generally viewed as a recent concern, registered in March 2007, they have swiftly become experts. De facto, they are a pretty cool concern fully concentrated on guiding anyone who is expecting to rent, buy, sell etc. property in a globalized world. What they pledge to do is to be of help to you to find squarely what you have called for very quickly and, likewise, straightforwardly.

Real estate can easily be found wherever you want in our times, one of the hippest areas being properties available in the U.S.A. It should really be a no brainer to tally the great estate available in the U.S.A., one motive for selecting property here being the houses and apartments available for sale and the chance to live amid this spirited population. This is one of the truly favored areas in our times, and in view of the gorgeous landscape and the sunshine surrounding you here, how could you conceivably go wrong. Real estate in the U.S.A. is immersed in culture, art and history, this country has been and still is home to a good number of indigenous cultures.

Check out Property Index for help with overseas property investment!

Only 25 or 30 years ago you’d find just a dribble of British people keen on estate in the U.S.A. Ask everyone who has chosen to remove to the U.S.A. and they’ll tell you the same. Many would descry it as a simple craze and others descry it as a virtually an obsession. People who are intent on moving to this area will typically range from young working couples in search of a bit of a new challenge in life to senior citizens looking to chill out. Note that you might encounter some troubles when purchasing estate overseas - you’ll learn that there are a hundred differentiated, complex, procedures whether strategizing, calling in or actually purchasing. If you only miss a single minute step it is liable to bring about dramatic troubles plus, more important, financial damage.

Obviously and expectably with this sought after destination, estate could well be fairly high priced in this area and this, of course, is clearly because of the growing buyer demand. Regardless of this the customer patently is fussy in such a region so determined by happy geography and panorama. It offers the whole thing a client might really covet, and more.

Online Dating - 11 Reasons To Go Online For Love

Where do you go when you are looking for love?

Are you considering joining an online dating site but not sure it’s for you?

Let me tell you how I first discovered online dating and why I firmly believe it fits in with our modern day lifestyles.

A couple of years ago online dating still had a stigma attached to it. Although people were using the internet as a method of dating, they did not discuss it with friends or colleagues for fear of coming across desperate.

I recall a friend of mine who was initially embarrassed to tell me she had joined an online dating site. At the time, I was rather surprised as she was an attractive girl who would be considered quite a catch. However, after chatting to her I completely understood why she had resorted to this method of dating; she was simply tired of meeting timewasters who were not interested in committing to a relationship.

Whilst she had no desire to date some of the men who contacted her, there were quite a few she was interested in and she began a dating spell to make any “singleton” jealous. She then struck up an online relationship with someone who lived 100 miles from her. After exchanging many emails and chatting on the telephone, she decided to meet him. Obviously, the distance didn’t make the relationship ideal but the spark was there and she enjoyed 6 months dating someone with similar interests, shared romantic weekends together and had a fantastic holiday. Although he didn’t turn out to be “the one”, when I asked if she regretted joining an online dating site her answer was “Definitely not!” Her view was that if she hadn’t joined an online dating site, those 6 months would have been spent moaning about meeting the same timewasters in the same old haunts and wondering “what if”. She was simply being proactive in her search for love; after all life is far too short!

If you’re not convinced online dating is for you, here are 11 reasons why I think online dating has its advantages:-

1. You don’t have to wait until the weekend to meet someone.

2. You don’t have to get dressed up for a night “online”. Wear whatever you feel comfortable in at home.

3. If you work unusual hours online dating fits in with your schedule. You can log on at any time of the day to suit you; there is always someone online waiting to chat.

4. If you start chatting to someone and then decide they are not what you are looking for, put them back in the net gently and choose another. There are plenty of fish in the sea!

5. If you are tired of seeing the same old faces when you go out, there are people of all age groups all across the country waiting online to meet someone.

6. If you are new to an area online dating is a great way of meeting people whether it’s for friendship or dating. If you meet a few people online in your area, you can arrange a get together for you all rather than meeting on a one-to-one basis.

7. If all of your friends have settled down or you have recently become single what better way to meet new someone quickly than to go online and meet more singles!

8. Anonymous messaging and chat rooms let you flirt to your heart’s content without any embarrassment or getting tongue-tied.

9. You will probably find out more about someone online before you arrange a date with them than you would if you had met them in a bar. Online dating usually makes people more cautious about who they choose to date and in this day and age that can’t be a bad thing!

10. We now live and date very differently to previous generations where the traditional place to meet people was in nightclubs, parties, at work or through friends. By joining an online dating site you are not excluding these avenues but simply extending your opportunities of meeting someone.

11. Finally, 1 month’s membership costs less than a night out and gives you hundreds of opportunities to meet your perfect partner - every night!

With so many positive reasons to go online for love, finding your perfect partner has never been easier. Try it out for yourself and please let me know how you’re doing.

Alison Edwards runs www.SnappyDates.com/ a UK based dating site. SnappyDates.com is an active community where people of all ages meet looking for a relationship, friendship and even marriage!

When people want Snappy Results, they try SnappyDates!
Registration is free.

Soul Mates - Do they really exist?

Soul Mates - Do they really exist? - By Joseph Ghabi

Throughout centuries, story tellers, and people from different background and cultures always refer to their fascination in meeting one day their soul mates. Is Soul Mate a myth? Do they really exist? Or is Soul Mate a figment of our own imagination that can help keep our hope for a perfect relationship and keep our hope alive. Or is it an escape way for not handling or not looking at ourselves in such a way that we keep delaying our responsibilities and things can be fixed when we meet that perfect relationship with those Soul Mates. Everything is possible! It is up to you and me to decide the bottom line of this puzzle.

If we talk in such metaphysics tone of words used, we will say we are all coming from the same source, one soul, branched out into different ventures or experiences to achieve and in reality we are all Soul Mate. Maybe that’s true but I believe there is more into it than that!!

How do we define Soul Mates?

Soul Mates is another Soul that share the same exact similar way of understanding as the other Soul and in this lifetime so they decided to share their growth and understanding together. It does NOT mean Soul Mates have to be in a relationship to make it work. What do I mean by that?

From the motion that a Soul integrate into life through a particular family, geography, religion, or situation for certain reasons. I do believe we choose our family, we choose our religion, and we choose where we want to be born for certain that the Soul itself will identify and in the same time you will be aware of it one day if you are well attuned within yourself. We will not dispute the reasons we go through that because we will have unlimited reasons here.

Let’s start with our choice of a family to be born with. If each one of us look deeper into our families there must be at least one person and many time there is more in our immediate family or cousin that we feel different with. That person can be your father, your sister, your niece, or your cousin. It really does not matter who that person but that person is your Soul Mate where you always enjoy being in their company, listening to them and mainly valued everything they say. Those experiences with Soul Mate we already started at young age. Then we grow up, how many of us we have one or two particular friends around us at school or where our parents moved to the new neighborhood. I bet you everyone can relate to someone. And that goes on until we are adult and the dating game started.

We need to understand one thing when it comes to relationships, as long as we do not rush ourselves into a relationship for a wrong reason and what I mean by that? Well the look of the person, what they drive, who’s his family, how rich they are, or how cute they are, what their education is, or just to be in a certain crowd. All of that will never bring you to Soul Mates. Why it never work because you are looking into the wrong substance.

With Soul Mate there is no Karma to deal with or work at. All you have an enjoyment of being in each others company. The only thing you know about your Soul Mate is whenever you are in need they are always there for whatever or deep your troubles are. Look around you through the years, can you identify already someone that fit that equation. I bet you do.

There are three levels of Soul Mates that I believe exist. I will look into that in my next articles.

Until then!

Copyright © Joseph Ghabi
http://www.freespiritcentre.info

Joseph Ghabi is an author, lecturer, and healer. Joseph provides Intuitive Numerology Consultation, Healing Childhood Experiences Consultation and PhD Candidate living in Montreal Canada.
At the age of eight Joseph discovered his clairvoyance. Joseph is natural medium. Joseph started the ‘Free Spirit Centre’ website at www.freespiritcentre.co.uk. A community centre devoted to personal growth, self help, soul growth, eating disorders, relationships, healing and human issues. You can find over 650 articles on the site.
Joseph task is in bringing Souls back to realization of their own personal power and into alignment with their own soul purpose and path of evolution.

College Scholarships for Southpaws

Searching for alternative avenues like school bursaries to help fund your degree is time-consuming and intimidating. University scholarships are different from a student loan because they are a grant for your education, so it doesn’t have to be paid back. While searching means to finance your further instruction, be aware that funds are available in unusual spots, such as left hander grants.

Financial Assistance for Left Handers

It may seem a little crazy to offer a grant based on being left-handed, but do consider these facts: Bill Gates is left-handed, so is the president of the USA, Barack Obama. Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Jimi Hendrix and Winston Churchill were also left-handed. Figures propose 11% of people are left handed. Frequently considered much more artistic and more intelligent, lefthanders have frequently suffered from discrimination in the past. Stigmatization is now a thing of the past and left handers are no longer thought of as different, and may even have many qualities associated with the exceptional people mentioned above.

If you are a southpaw and looking for grants specifically for left handed scholars, many scholarships for left-handed people exist which you could receive. The Frederick and Mary F. Beckley Scholarship for up to $1,000 is currently available at Juniata College in Huntington, Pennsylvania. Granted to scholars of Juniata College and it was instituted in the seventies, this particular college scholarship aids many southpaws get a university education.

Some scholarships do have prerequisites or restrictions. In some cases particular grades may be needed or certain monetary requirements must be satisfied. Multiple program applications may give you a greater opportunity of supporting a college education with a minimal level of debt. Clubs, hobby related groups and even community organisations may provide college scholarships. Left-handed programs aren’t a unusual example; scholarships are also accessible if you are a child of a member of the military or are disabled, to provide some examples.

You will probably have to invest a little your time researching scholarships, of course the payoffs may be sizable. Along with student loans, they are efficient in keeping down the student debt that a college education generates. Leave no stone unturned and research all accessible scholarships. Left-handed scholarships are not the only option - be creative! If you even suppose you may be suitable, then apply, keeping your academic debt to a minimum, and you will likely be facing better prospects when you leave school.

Rss To Blog Pro - A 6-Month Review

Background
Search engines are particularly interested in websites with constantly updated, relevant content. Websites that appear static without a supply of fresh content may be viewed as dormant and in their drive to provide the latest, most relevant search results to users, search engines may rank such a website lower than a website that is updated regularly.

What Is It?
RSS to Blog Pro is a fully automated blog posting tool offering self-updating websites. It’s a PHP script that is installed on a single web hosting account. From this centralised installation, multiple blogs can be maintained with fresh content from various sources. Also available is an earlier, non-pro version, which has the same basic functionality, but requires a separate install for each blog it maintains.

What Problem Does It Solve?
Adding fresh - and importantly, relevant - content to websites can be a resource consuming task. Either you spend time finding and creating new content or you pay someone to do it for you. Without fresh content, your websites can appear stagnant and drop off the search engines radar. This impacts your website rankings in search results and ultimately has a detrimental effect on any free traffic coming from the search engines. If your websites rely on search engine traffic then this can mean their downfall.

What Are The Benefits?
RSS to Blog Pro tackles the problem of needing to regularly update website content by automating the whole process from finding relevant content based upon keywords that you provide through to posting content to your website blog. In the eyes of search engines, updating a website with irrelevant content isn’t nearly as good as having relevant content. The tighter your niche, the better chances you have of ranking higher as you’ll be competing with a smaller number of websites. Using a scattergun approach to website content can mean you end up competing with websites across a large number of niches.

If you’re building content websites with the aim of earning an AdSense income then you’ll know that the ads shown are dependant upon the surrounding content on your webpages. Irrelevant content results in ads that are irrelevant to your website visitors, which means they’ll have no interest in clicking on them and your generated income will be poor.

Features

* Supports multiple blog types including WordPress, Blogger Blogs, Movable Type, Type Pad, Live Journal and MSN Spaces.
* Keywords and RSS feeds can be specified for automatic content generation or you can supply your own content.
* Posting to your blogs can be scheduled at random intervals e.g. once or twice a day so that posting appears natural.
* There are no ‘footprints’ to identify the content as being automatically generated.
* Log records are kept so you can see exactly what has been posted and to where.
* Built-in ping functionality for blog and ping.
* A single installation will post to an unlimited number of blogs.
* Regular updates.
* User support forum.
* Two tier affiliate programme offering 40% commission to the top level and 10% for any sales from affiliates you recruit.

My Experience With RSS to Blog Pro
Since August 2005, I’ve been using RSS to Blog Pro on an increasing number of blogs in various niches. I’m pleased to be able to say that my income from AdSense has increased month upon month since then. With the software installed on my virtual private server (VPS), I currently manage around 50 blogs, posting relevant new content every day or two. I’d recommend that you don’t install RSS to Blog Pro onto a shared server because if you’re updating a large number of websites or you’re running the script frequently (every couple of minutes) then your host is likely to take a dim view on it. Considering how inexpensive and how much more reliable a VPS is to operate there just isn’t any reasonable justification for risking a shared server. A VPS is like having your own server, completely isolated from any other peoples websites so you can’t affect them and they can’t affect you. There is the exception of disk IO, but that isn’t something that should be of any real concern.

The issue of relevancy is really what makes the difference between an effective auto content generation tool and one that will never do anything for your bottom line. I can’t stress it enough; without relevant content, search engines won’t be able to categorise your niche and won’t be able to rank you fairly amongst your peers. That means you won’t do well in searches in your subject area. It also could mean your website will serve ads for tennis equipment when your niche is dog care. Visitors looking for information about dog care are highly unlikely to be interested in tennis equipment when they come to your website because it’s not something which is relevant to their needs at that time.

There’s no doubt that this helps to keep those websites looking fresh and my website stats show a constant stream of visits to my blog pages each month. And of course, lots of targetted visitors and lots of targetted content means a lot of clicks on targetted ads!

Support-wise, Michelle (creator of RSS to Blog Pro) has answered my email queries promptly and there’s an active user forum for peer support. Michelle also visits the forum to provide assistance although some queries can take a couple of days for a response, however the user base, support forum and software is mature enough to be able to cope with almost every common question a new user might have.

Fortunately, the software is easy to install and set-up so you can expect to be running within an hour or two.

One feature that I haven’t used is the ability to ping blog directories from within RSS to Blog Pro. The reason for this is that if I pinged these websites for every post made to each of my blogs then I’d actually end up pinging up to 50 times a day from the same domain (the domain on which RSS to Blog Pro is installed). Rather than risk being blacklisted for pinging too much and hogging the resources of the directories, I use the ping facility from with my WordPress blog software instead so that the individual pings come from the individual domains. Again, this will appear to be a lot more natural and it also helps RSS to Blog Pro to work more efficiently by decoupling some of the work away from it.

Conclusion
After 6 months of constant usage, I’m pretty happy with RSS to Blog Pro’s performance. and would definitely recommend it to anyone who is wanting to have self-updating websites that attract targetted traffic. Care needs to be taken when selecting a host for the script, but once installed, operation of the script is simple and reliable. An excellent script in the toolbox of AdSense earners and affiliate marketers alike.

Will Lee is the Internet Marketing Fool, offering Internet Marketing product reviews. RSS to Blog is an automated blogging tool. United Articles offers articles.