Calm After The Storm
Forever & AlwaysWe often think of the 'calm before the storm', but rarely do we recognize or even witness the 'calm after the storm'. This sunset occurred less than an hour after a severe storm, near Otter Falls, MB, that brought down a hundred trees near a cabin we had rented. The clouds became soft like cotton balls (mammatus clouds) and the sky was at peace.
With the sand sliding between our toes, and walking hand in hand, there was no thoughts of #tweets, #likes or #snapchats.
I think we have all felt at times we are in over our head. Whether that’s with work, family, or an extreme combination of the two. The analogy is easy to understand and relate to; an inexperienced swimmer falls into water thats too deep. You feel like you can’t get up for air!
The common theme is that it is always about a specific situation. It is often short lived. I like Derek Siver’s blog post of a few years back best that says, ” Stay In over Your Head!”
Whatever you’re doing in your life right now, if it’s become a routine, it’s time to move on to something new and scary.
Abraham Maslow wrote, “Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.”
Whatever scares you, go do it.
As the Olympics are going on right now, do you think that just possibly a few Medal winners felt at the most stressful point of their events that they just might be in over their head!
Whether its a new job, a new project, family pressures or extreme time restraints you really only have two options:
1. Fake it until you make it!
2. Stick your tail between your legs and give up!
It’s your decision!
Use it or lose it!
It surprises me how many times I have heard people say, “Oh, I’m covered for that through work, but I never seem to go for a massage. I really should!”
So, I thought I would see if I could dig up some stats on how many people in Canada are covered for extended health benefits such as massage, chiropractic, acupuncture, Naturopathic Doctor, etc. I was able to find a few, and although the numbers aren’t exact or all that current, the fact remains that too many people are paying for coverage they just aren’t taking the TIME to take advantage of. I will end with a few ideas on how to rectify that.
Here is approximately how many Canadians are covered for supplementary health coverage. I have made the assumption that there has not been a vast change in percentages over the last decade:
As an example, ever year only 8% of Canadians utilize the service of a massage therapist.
In other words, even with my backwards math, if 63% of Canadians are covered and only 20% are actually consulting any sort of alternative health provider then by my estimations almost 2 out of every 3 people covered are paying for a massage they will never get, new eyeglasses they are entitled to but will never see, a check up from a Naturopath that never happens, and or many other extended health services that simply get forgotten.
If you are paying for it already, then there is no other excuse for not getting the massages & alternative health services you deserve, other than sheer laziness or an understandable lack of finances ( Recognizing that some people just can’t afford to pay the small percentage that insurance companies ask you to cover for such services!)
Here are a few ideas on how to rectify the situation:
1. Go look at your benefits now. Do you even know what you are covered for?
2. Print out 10 copies of any forms necessary to submit receipts and keep them in an easy to remember place along with 10 pre-addressed and stamped envelopes. After every massage, Naturopathic Doctor visit or other alternative provider, immediately submit your receipts for re-reimbursement. I know of some people that carry these envelopes with them to their appointment and mail the receipt and form immediately after.
3. Whether it is massage, chiropractic or any other service that you wish you were committing to on an ongoing basis. Just call them and book a standing appointment once a month, once every quarter or how ever often you can afford the time & your deductible.
Taking the time to plan out how to use ‘YOUR’ alternative health services could ultimately help you & your family relieve stress, keep you on a track to a healthier you, and ultimately stop wasting hard earned money you are spending every two weeks to pay for the coverage.
That is the point… you are paying for it already. You might as well get your moneys worth.
I normally don’t like making predictions, and blogging about American Idol may be a tad off topic for me, but young father & singer songwriter Andrew Garcia is such an amazing talent.. he is going to win. As a music lover, amateur musician & blogger I wanted to do my small part to spread the news and encourage everyone to vote for Andrew to win!
I’m sure you’ll see plenty of him on TV, but found this gem of a video he did with a friend on YouTube.
You can also follow & support him on twitter via @andrewagarcia & Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/andrewadriangarcia
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2Cwoo2R4Xg[/youtube]
I have mentioned this software to so many people, thought it was high time to do a quick blog post & video. FYI I’m going to try and do more audio & video in 2010.
Whether you suck at typing like I do, or just need to take a break from typing for a multitude of reasons. I have put together this short demo of how I use a speech recognition software called Dragon Naturally Speaking to do my meeting notes. Apparently, I could use the software to completely control my computer with out my keyboard, but doubt I will ever get there.
As a side note, Dragon is also available as a free iPhone App which you can locate here: http://www.dragonmobileapps.com/ I have used the app and do like it, but just wish it wouldn’t force me to stop and continue after 30 seconds of dictation. I’m assuming that they will come out with a paid version that solves that problem 🙂
Here it is! Would love to hear what how you are starting to integrate speech recognition in your business or life?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rav3OBMTyCM[/youtube]
Where have all the children gone?
The statistics prove where they are! This post was written to make myself and other parents feel bad. I have no excuses and need to step it up a notch… do you? We know darn well where the children have gone, and we as parents are responsible.
You know you’re getting old when you starting making statements like, “When I was a kid…!”
Well, when I was a kid and especially during Canadian winters, the streets were filled with children, and even adults, playing street hockey, building snow forts, and generally having fun regardless of how cold it was.
Today, and many days this winter, I have noticed that when I am outside with my daughters playing in the snow, and generally re-living my youth through them, there is an eerie silence. That silence is infrequently interrupted by garage doors opening, and the odd mini-van coming and going!
Where have all the children gone?
I’m not a perfect parent by any means, and during the winter my kids only play outside a few times a week. Just a couple times a week is too little. Just a short 25 years ago, I would be out playing from the time school let out until the street lights came on… every single day! Today, the Nintendo DSI, homework, the Wii, gymnastics, piano lessons, computers and a freaking busy life tend to get in the way of spending time together, let alone outdoors. Then throw in the fear of predators and an unsafe violent world, and NO wonder life has changed.
Either way, we are responsible as parents.
What do the statistics say about where the kids are 24/7?
(4.0 hrs) They are watching an average of 4 hours of TV a day. Number of minutes per week that the average child watches television: 1,680 http://www.csun.edu/science/health/docs/tv&health.html#tv_stats
(9.0 hrs) They are sleeping on average 9 hours a day. http://www.bls.gov/tus/charts/chart16.pdf
(5.0 hrs) Most are in school 7 hr a day 5 days a week or averaged out to approx. 5 hours daily per week. This doesn’t take into account homework.
(30 min) Homework. http://social.jrank.org/pages/985/Trends-in-Elementary-Secondary-Education-Why-So-Much-Homework.html
(30 min) Only 13% of Canadian Children are getting the recommended 90 Minutes of physical activity daily. 87% are not. http://www.activehealthykids.ca/ecms.ashx/ReportCard2009/AHKC-Longform_WEB_FINAL.pdf
(1.0 hrs) 48% of Canadian children spend at least an hour online per day. http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/research_documents/statistics/internet/parents_aware_kids_use.cfm
(1.0 hrs) Eating http://www.bls.gov/tus/charts/
(3.0 hrs) Miscellaneous. Hmmm… guess this would consist of bathroom breaks, playing with friends, talking on the phone and or a million other little things.
As depressing as all the above statistics are, and how much worse it could be if I threw in childhood obesity, the decreased time spent with our children for multiple commitments, and the stress that technology has truly placed on our lives, there is only one solution.
Schedule as often as possible to turn the technology off, unplug the world, and show our children how to make snow forts, build tree houses, capture frogs and breath the air of life we so desperately need just as bad as they do!
Do you disagree, relate or what?
I had coffee with a good friend today, who had no idea Google Alerts existed. So I thought this would be a great post for her, for you, or anyone else who isn’t using this free service to its greatest advantage.
What are Google Alerts?
It is a free notification service that will send you an email anytime Google finds something on line that you want to watch for; like your name “King Kong”, your boss’s name “Micro Manager”, your competition, your kid’s names, etc? If Google finds any page on the internet with content matching what you are watching for, you will receive an email with a link to that page. Google seems to be freaky at finding every page eventually.
Here’s how easy it is:
Input the topic, name or any search terms you want to monitor. Select whether you want Google to monitor everything (comprehensive), or choose to target news, video, blogs, the web or online groups. Then select how frequently you want to receive email updates, and then finally how many links per email you want to see (20 or 50).
Click Create Alert and you are done… sit back and wait! Then depending on how common your search term, it could be minutes, days or months before you receive your first alert.
As an example below, here is a Google Alert landing in my inbox from monitoring my own name online.
Here are a few other great resources, tips, & alternatives:
Google Alerts Help http://www.google.com/support/alerts/?hl=en
10 Tips For Small Businesses http://www.sbinformer.com/guides/marketing_your_product/articles/090608-10-Ways-to-Use-Google-Alerts-for-Business-Social-Media
Yahoo Alerts http://alerts.yahoo.com/
Windows Live Alerts http://alerts.live.com/Alerts/
Jonathon Fields Blog Post http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/stalking-or-due-diligence-google-alerts-gone-bad/
How are you using Google Alerts?
Flying 30,000 ft above the frozen prairies of Canada it struck me! I’m not blogging for ALL the right reasons! Sure, when I’m consistent, I can churn out some damn good posts that point my readers in the right technological direction! Yet, something major is missing.
I’m not enjoying it as much as I use to, honestly don’t think I’m making a major difference & by the lack of comments on the majority of posts I’d dare say you agree! No hard feelings… some time the truth just plain sucks! To date my blogging efforts have been strangely scattered and not social in nature. I’m not only NOT reaching enough readers, I’m not reaching out and really connecting with YOU, with other bloggers, or wickedly interesting people behind the technology, services or ideas I often recommend!
This changes as of right now. No more just tweeting my blog post links. No more Mr. Passive Promotion! I quit blogging today and won’t post again until I can truly step it up a notch.
Here is my future plan to find blogging enjoyment again, produce better content, and in the process enlighten YOU and hopefully earn the right to ask for your comments and ability to share with your network!
1. No blog post will get published, unless it can truly make a difference to you or someone you may know.
2. I will frequently start reaching out and promoting through this blog the insanely brilliant people, bloggers, authors, tech owners and professionals who are doing amazing things on & offline. These people are the ones that truly deserve your time and attention!
3. Lastly, I have shyed away from controversy for too long. In doing so, I have avoided posting some truly thought provoking content! When I start again I will come back with thicker skin, and be tackling some tougher issues.
I quit blogging today! I look forward to coming back soon.
No, I’m not talking about Microsoft Outlook vs. Google Gmail. If that’s what you were looking for, LifeHacker just did a great post on the top 5 email clients you can read here: 5 Best Email Clients
Instead the question today is, are the e-mail wars vs. social networking still raging? Is e-mail as a business marketing tool still relevant?
Let’s try and answer these two questions:
The e-mail war indeed rages on! What I mean by this is that although social networking, micro blogging and instant messaging have taken the main stage the last several years, we ALL still rely on email as the main stay of a significant percentage of our time on the Internet and or mobile devices. Despite giving up a percentage of time to social networks, email is still the preferred communication tool on the Internet for the majority. The war rages on, with all of these additional social communication tools still requiring us to have a valid email address before we can use them! Heck, email even notifies us when we should be logging into our social networks. When Twitter or Facebook no longer depend on email addresses, then this will be the signal that the E-Mail Wars are coming to an end! This will happen one day, the world is just not quite ready for a Facebook or Twitter operating system just yet.
Is e-mail still relevant as a business marketing tool?
After conducting a seriously unofficial survey of many business owners I know, email is still by far the easiest way for them to reach out to all their customers the fastest! Unfortunately, for social networking, many, many SME business haven’t even graduated to email newsletters, such as Aweber or Constant Contact, let alone trying to create effective campaigns on social services such as Facebook or Twitter!
Word of caution to all of you tech company owners! Unless you are tech to tech B2B, then there is still a ton of educating needed on the ‘basics’ for a good number of SME clients and prospects (opportunity is alive and well in North America). Those companies that educate or automate… Will continue to win!
The email wars rage on and they are far from over.
If you are a small to medium sized business and want to read up on email marketing, I would suggest getting advice from the bloggers & professionals at companies that deal with email marketing on the front lines, day in and day out! Even more importantly, read the comments on these blogs as their customers often create light bulb moments you can take to the bank.
Checkout the blogs at:
Aweber/blog (email marketing tips)
Constant Constant Best Practices Blog
If you are a business or entrepreneur that has already figured out email marketing, and are ready to graduate to marketing on social networks. Then as far as I am concerned, there is only one person you need to study & learn from and that is Trust Agent:
What do you think? Will a Facebook operating system replace your need for email one day?
These tools, ideas, software, blogs and online services are my top ten for you to consider making your life, business and technology work a lot harder for you this year, and beyond! I say ‘our’, as I can not take credit for all of them, as many readers and other blogs I regularly read have pointed out several of these! On that note… Thank you to LifeHacker, Chris Brogan, Seth Godin, Tim Ferris & Deb Raven! ( All blogs I highly recommend you add to your personal reading list!)
Here they are:
10. Backup Drive, Google Docs or DropBox
Many of our precious digital memories or business related digital documents are considered irreplaceable. If you don’t take the time to back them up, you are at risk of losing it all if your computer crashes ( I speak form experience :). Make this the year you sleep soundly at night knowing that your data is backed up via a back up drive, and or you have utilized a free or paid online storage service.
9. iPhone or iTouch (Top 10 there’s an APP for everything list!)
Gone are the days of frustrating mobile devices that make using the internet and other online services painful. I recommend that everyone have either an iPhone or at the very least an i Touch so that you can; unwind anywhere and rediscover the power of music, use abundantly available free WIFI to play games with friends, and or connect with business colleagues and create the next Google, even if you aren’t on the same continent.
Here are my Top Ten apps; WordPress, Skype, Google Apps, Dragon Dictation, Facebook, Echofon (Twitter), LinkedIn, Scrabble, PS Mobile (Photoshop), & PayPal
8. Skype
After recently teaching my parents to use Skype while they travel for two solid months, they were astonished that they could call any phone number in North America for less than the cost of one Star Bucks Latte a month. I’ll say that again in case you missed it… for about 3$ a month they have unlimited long distance to any phone!!!! So if you have been hiding under a rock until now, and haven’t downloaded Skype, what are you waiting for? Skype is so much more than just cheap long distance, as its great for free video chatting, instant messaging and real time business collaboration.
7. Windows 7
Finally, Microsoft has hit the mark with their new operating system. If your PC is still running XP or Vista then it is well worth the effort to upgrade. Here are just a snippets of the 100’s of improvements you could experience; very simple Home Networking (easy to connect all your PC’s to a home group), faster boot up & down times, and vastly improved user interface even if the changes feel ever so slight! Either way, it’s worth the upgrade!
6. RocketDock
This little free APP saves me time every day, and helps me keep my often cluttered desktop more organized. If you have too many icons on your desktop and want an easier way to get acces to your most frequently used programs, then this is the ticket. The price is right (free), but if you do like it consider donating a little cash to the developers, as they have been nice enough not to charge.
5. GoToMeeting
Ok, so this one is definitely not cheap, but if you are in business and need to conduct super effective remote meeting(s) with one or more people then Citrix has this market locked up. I have used GoToMeeting for several years and highly recommend it to anyone. Some of my favorite uses for this service are; giving remote presentations, white boarding ideas with partners, connecting to a friends computer and helping, and so much more.
Although I wrote about this back in 2007 (here), I still use GoToMyPC when I am on the road to work off of my main super computer 🙂 Again, this isn’t a cheap service, but if your business life depends on you reliably accessing your main computer RIGHT NOW to help you close a deal, then this other Citrix product is for you. There are other alternative free services out there for sure, but I have never found anything as reliable and robust.
3. Elance.com
After reading Tim Ferris’s book (The 4 Hour Work Week) I was reminded of this outsourcing service, and finally took the plunge to get a few side projects completed. On Elance you can virtually post almost any type of job or project you can think of and experts around the world will bid to get the work. For often very reasonable prices you could have a script ghost written, hire a programmer or web designer, have a database expert create you the perfect database, hire a virtual assistant, and so much more. Make this the year that you truly act on delegating those tasks you need done, but really know you don’t have the time or desire to get to.
When it comes to typing I had two choices. Either spend the time to truly teach myself how to type or accept my limitations and use technology to my advantage. What do you think i decided? I finally bought Dragon Naturally Speaking and now talk to my computer, and watch as my words are magically typed out on the screen. No word of a lie, this has probably saved me a 100+ hours in the past year. I have found Dragon to be 98% accurate, and it works on any program I have on my PC that accepts typed text like Word, FireFox, gMail, etc.
I think I have saved the best for last, but you can be the judge of that. I know in my heart that there is NO technology on the planet that can truly make our lives better like other human beings can. Yes, software and online services can save you time & money, of which can be applied to the other areas of your life that mean the most to you. Let this be the year that you consider hiring an executive or life coach to assist you in making this your best year ever. I use & highly recommend Deb Raven.
I hope one of these Top 10 saves you time & or money! Please let me know what tools you use and I truly look forward to hearing your comments. All the best to you in 2010!
A couple years ago I wrote a post about NOT buying a new computer until you have given your current snail of a PC a tune up (PC Optimization). Just the other day I had a conversation with my father about him wanting to AGAIN buy a new computer, because his is sooooo slowwww!!! My rule of thumb, is that if its a problem for my Dad, it is definitely a common problem for most average PC users, as he is about as non technical as they come 🙂
As the ‘Slow PC’ question comes at me so often, not so long ago I even put together a guide, that I give to email subscribers, friends & family who are prepared to put forth a little elbow grease to get their computers running top notch. If you want this free guide, just sign up to my email list top right and shoot me an email and I will gladly send you a PDF version.
For those of you who are non techie, and don’t want to spend a few hours reading and manually cleaning your machines, then my best advice is to spend a few bucks and use the king of PC Fixer Upper software called System Mechanic. Umm, the name kind of says it all, so I though I would just paste this video which has a link for more info below.
Cheers,
Lee