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| Motivation Information |
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Five Ways to Stand Out from the Crowd
Some people are content to just to be another face in the crowd. By assuming this attitude, they are saying, in effect, to the rest of the world, I'm just average; there's nothing special about me. For those of us who would rather stand out from the crowd, there are some relatively easy ways in which we can accomplish this mission. None of them require a whole lot of skill or money. They do, however, require a little bit of commitment on our part. The first way to stand out from the crowd is to take time to do the little things right. The old saying goes that if it were easy, eve ryone would be doing it. Well, that's not necessarily true, as there are some easy things most people don't do because they just don't think those things are worthwhile. Here are two examples. The next time you go to the grocery store, notice how many people actually take time to carry the carts back to the cart-return. You will probably notice that only a very few of them do. Most will leave them between parking spaces, in handicapped spaces, or they'll simply turn them loose, allowing them to roll freely through the parking lot. By default, they are saying to the world, I don't have time to do things right or everyone else is doing it that way and I am no different. If you always take time to take yours back to the cart-return, you will stand out as positive example. The other example has to do with making proper turns while driving, including using your turn signal. Remember how you were taught in driving school or driver's education class to make turns? You are supposed to make sharp rights and wide lefts. Amazingly, many drivers will do just the opposite! Make turns the way you are supposed to and always use your turn signal. These are just a couple of examples, but taking the time to do the little things right will make you will stand out for the right reasons. The second way to stand out from the crowd is to find alternatives to profanity. A person who relies on profanity in his or her speech patterns comes off as someone who is boorish and has a limited vocabulary. There are plenty of ways to tell someone exactly what you think about him or her without being profane. Even a person who is not all that intelligent seems a lot smarter when he or she avoids the use of profanity. At a minimum, that person seems more high class than people who just can't help themselves from using profanity. The third way to stand out from the crowd is to memorize things that most other people commonly forget. Most people have short memories when it comes to subjects like politics and world events. For example, I'd wager that 90% of the citizens of my home state cannot name the losing candidate in the last gubernatorial election. Ten years from now, the majority of Americans will not be able to name John Kerry as the loser of this year's presidential election! Too many people are just so caught up in their own little worlds that they don't bother to retain certain things that don't directly affect them. You don't need a photographic memory to memorize stuff. Anyone who doesn't have some type of memory-affecting brain disease can do it. All you have to do is practice. Write things down. Repeat them to yourself over and over. If you can commonly remember things that others have long forgotten, you'll really stand out. The fourth way to stand out from the crowd is to live below your means. This is probably the toughest item on my list to follow as our culture dictates that we mortgage ourselves to the hilt. We are taught to keep up with the Joneses. We are taught to buy everything the banks and our credit cards will allow us to buy, whether we can afford it or not. However, we should strive to leave as big of a gap as possible between our income and our bills. I know there are people out there who have large families and/or limited incomes and are struggling to make ends meet. I know that not everyone can have as big of a pad as I have between my income and my bills. However, it hasn't always been that way for me. I grew up in a very poor family. We lived in the housing projects from the time I was six until the time I was 18. However, we were always able to pay our bills on time because my parents did not buy things they could not afford. When I began my career, I did not make much, but I still always had some money to spare after paying my bills. If I could not afford something, I did not buy it until I could afford it. There were even some things that I was able to afford but still did not buy because I wanted to have some money left for unexpected expenses. I did not buy my first car until I was more than a year into my first full-time job. This is a lot of freedom that comes with living below one's means. When everyone around you is struggling to make ends meet and you are not, you really stand out. The fifth way to stand out from the crowd is to make decisions based on logic and reason instead of emotion and/or dogma. Too many people react emotionally to situations, rather than thinking them out rationally. For example, many people will get upset if someone calls them a name or flashes a particular gesture at them, even though there's no logical reason to get so agitated by such behavior. It doesn't make you a blankety-blank just because someone calls you one. However, many people react as if it does! Other people get caught in the dogma trap. They make up their minds first and then look at the facts and evidence later. Even when they do get around to the facts, they will seek only those which seem to support their views while disregarding or explaining away those which seem to support a contrary view. You've met people who are staunch supporters of one particular political party or the other, for example. To them, their party is always right and the other is always wrong, even though common sense tells us that one particular side of any issue is never right all the time. Reasonable people realize that the truth usually lies somewhere between the two extremes. Many times, I've come across rah rah partisan sites in the web, which disregard the dictates of common sense in favor of the fact that their extreme side has cornered the market on all truth. By using logic and reason to make your decisions in an open-minded fashion, you give yourself a major advantage over much of the population. There are other ways to stand out from the crowd, even though I've just highlighted five of them here. They include things like using proper grammar and spelling, volunteering for thankless jobs, and always being courteous. I'm sure you could think of many others. The point is that, if you want to stand out from the crowd, there are ways within the power of almost anyone to do so - if he or she is only willing. Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, and trivia buff from Virginia, USA. He operates a website - http://www.commenterry.com - on which he posts commentaries on various subjects such as politics, technology, religion, health and well-being, personal finance, and sports. His commentaries offer a unique point of view that is not often found in meanstream media.
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Business Management Ahead of the Curve to be on Top I once heard a statement that no matter how good you think you are, there is always someone else who is better. This appears to be a pessimistic view even to a point of degrading one's self-worth. However, this saying provides a starting point to understanding one's gifts or setbacks, one's strengths or weaknesses in comparison to potential counterparts. Why are You Living? It was 4,O'Clock in the morning, my regular time to leave my bed and prepare myself for the day's activities. But today, it was special?some thoughts were troubling the peace of my find. Why are we living? What is the purpose of this life? For whom, I am living? For my parents, my spouse, my kids, my country, my religion, NO, I am and in that manner we all are living for ourselves. If today anything happens to me, will my spouse, my parents, my kids, stop living? No, they will not. Then, what is the purpose of living? Why are you living? You are living for yourself, your name, your growth, and your happiness. The purpose of this life is: "You in Particular and others in General". What Would You Do If You Knew You Could Not Fail? The next time you find yourself relaxing on the couch, having popped some corn and about to watch the "Sopranos", instead, pose this $1,000,000 lottery question to yourself and see what flows. What would you do if you knew you could not fail? Would you work, not work? If you knew anything you touched or did held the possibility for success - whatever that is, what would you do? If there were no time constraints, no obstacles, no self-doubt, what would you do? Seven Aspects of Making Brilliant Decisions: The Relationship Between Work and Self Workweek: an opportunity for discovering and shaping; the place where the self meets the world. The Time to Act Engaging in genuine discipline requires that you develop the ability to take action. You don't need to be hasty if it isn't required, but you don't want to lose much time either. Here's the time to act: when the idea is hot and the emotion is strong. Nine Reasons To Embrace Failure I've always heard that "public speaking" is the number one most common fear. According to a recent survey I conducted in my e-newsletter, however, this is not the case. Overwhelmingly my readership chose "failure." Were Good at the Things We Like Read that again. It doesn't say "We like the things we're good at," though that's true as well. No, it says we're good at the things we like. That statement was made to me just today in reference to something I hate to do and am not very good at. I just nodded, thinking I'd heard it the other way around, or that my sister had said it backwards. Then she repeated it and said, "It works the other way around, too, but we're good at the things we like." Ask Your Question Get what You Desire "Questions get answers, advice, opinions, beliefs, impressions, stories, and more questions. Questions are about life, people, careers, achievements, facts, and faith. Ask and learn." - Ruby Bayan What would just the right question be worth to you? There is nothing more effective for bringing deep insight and understanding than a powerful question. You truly can ask questions that create meaningful change in your life. The right questions can lead you toward the things you desire. Questions: Simple words mixed carefully into a phrase with the power to change lives in extraordinary ways. Questions crystallize thought. Powerful questions ask "What, Why, Where, Who, How, and When?" They bring insights, visions, and new perspectives. Lord Byron wrote, "But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling, like dew, upon a thought produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions think." Need Help? Look Within First After eating a turkey and dressing sandwich for breakfast, I am raring to go! For those of you who wrote and asked where the article was last week, I appreciate the fact that you look for it! I apologize for missing it, and to make up for it I have posted on my website a web log and pictures of the barn raising party we had last week. Look for the link on the front page of www.creativemasterminds.com. Get Negativity Out Of Your Life! They say that the way to have a positive attitude and a positive life is to surround yourself only with positive things and positive people. What do you do then, when the negative influence in your life comes from your friend, maybe your best friend, or even worse, your spouse?If you are to take the positive advice literally, you are going to dump them! We both know that such advice simply is not acceptable. So what DO you do? Change Your Life, Release Fear, and Create What you Really Want Do you have a dream? Or do you just have a nagging feeling that life could better? Say It Aint So For years, many of us heard the phrase "Knowledge is Power." We actively devoured books upon books to advance our knowledge in the hopes of gaining power. Some of us even adopted the attitude that I can learn anything from a book. Yes, knowledge is powerful, but knowledge alone will not advance you to that next level of success, whatever it is. What Being Vs Doing Really Means So often we hear about "being" rather than "doing." Often it's given as advice when we are overwhelmed, overworked and overstressed. "You should just 'be.' You're doing too much." Well, yes, obviously, but what does that MEAN? How do we just be? The Story Of A King And Three Maidens Six Keys To A Successful Relationship A King was trying to choose between three maidens to be his wife and queen. It was very difficult to judge since these women were all very intelligent and beautiful. He gave each maiden a bag of seeds and told them he was going on a pilgrimage for one year. When he returned, each of them were to give the seeds back to him. Whoever protected the seeds the best would become his wife. Under The Guise of Care and Concern These words came up powerfully for me these past few months. I have had the experience this year of being in several situations in which people's genuineness and motives came into question over and over again. Have you ever met the type I am referring to? People who are correcting you because they care? People who are sharing with you for your own good and growth? People who show you every mistake and dark nook and cranny of your soul because they want to see you live a life of freedom, prosperity and possibilities? Lights are Off and No One is Home The other day I was on my way home, and for some reason all the traffic lights were out. It was 5pm, so needless to say it was rush hour, and pure chaos. 4 Qualities of Highly Successful People What if you can be, do or have anything you want, what would you desire in your life? How to Stay Motivated You've read a book that motivates you to action; you've read a motivational quote and got pumped up; you've attended a seminar and listened to a motivational speaker and feel you can conquer the world. Prime That Pump! Part 3 How healthy is your vision of yourself? How does your mental image of yourself stack up against that of, say, some hero of yours? Let's find out. 7 Tips For Unstoppable Motivation And Enduring Success Procrastination is of no use to you in your quest to fulfill your dreams. Lose those old habits and replace them with habits that lead to self-motivation and control over your life.
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