Gurada

A few months back I had a disturbing dream. In my dream a woman with stringy blonde hair rang my bell. She asked if she could come in. I didn’t want to open the door. But I felt guilty about my reaction. So I let her in. She pulled out a hand gun and shot me. I woke with a start and a racing heart. I clutched my pillow and my life. My inner voice spoke immediately and sharply. “Politeness kills,” it said.

This was an extreme way to let me know I had to honor my boundaries. I’ve never liked the word “boundaries.” It sounds like barbed wire or armored trucks. But I do like the feeling of listening to my intuition, respecting my inner instructions. And it feels appropriate and sacred to be mindful of my gold.

I see many creative, incredible individuals who leak their strength and focus with amorphous personal boundaries. We want to be nice, helpful, and well-liked. But bear in mind that your time and attention are your personal reserves of oxygen and hydration. Time and attention create your life’s dreams. Dreams keep your soul alive and contribute to all of humanity. I’d like you to create your life’s dreams. That’s why I’d like you to reflect on where you put your time and attention.

You have a Responsibility to Yourself.

You have a mission here. You have sacred work to do. No one but you knows what you came for. The people in our lives may not appreciate the work we feel compelled to do, the dreams we wish to give birth to. They may fling casual, loose, social standards your way, just like tossing horseshoes at a backyard barbecue.

I used to have a hard time saying no to lunch dates and coffee. People would often say to me, “You have to eat, right?” and I’d feel found out and exposed, like I was hiding time from this person. And then I’d eat with them–and eat my heart out at the same time. Of course they were wonderful people. Of course I got value out of the time together. But that doesn’t mean anything. I’d get value out of reading about the history of socks, too. But I had something specific I yearned to do. I wanted to write a book. I ached when I did not write. Every time I said yes to a lunch date, I said no to my dream. That became too wounding. I learned to say “No.”

It’s not selfish to want to give time to your dream. Your dream will give love and energy into this world. I often think about the people I esteem in life. Mother Teresa had a guiding mission. Martin Luther King had a burning cause. They did not squander their energy or time by being polite. They gave in huge ways because they said no to little things.

It’s not Selfish to be Honest

“I don’t want to be selfish,” said a client of mine recently who admitted not wanting to get together with a friend. “She needs me.” Now there are times when someone needs us and we feel called to be there. That’s wonderful. When we’re called, it feels good to be there. It doesn’t feel like an obligation. It feels like a secret mission or a privilege. But more often than not, someone “needs” us and we’re afraid to decline.

Here’s the thing though. You can’t change your feelings. When you truly don’t want to do something, it’s not doing anyone any favors to lie. Your energy doesn’t lie. If you do something you don’t want to do, you may just end up being late, angry, sarcastic, withdrawn, and, in general, as mild-mannered as a jackal or a jalapeno pepper. That ride to the airport will be no joyride. And nobody will get what they wanted.

What if you could trust your feelings? What if you knew that if you honored your own needs, you would naturally increase your generosity?

What if it’s okay to just love what you love and dislike what you dislike and gravitate where you are drawn? Why do we secretly think we are being ruthless? What if we are being elegant? What if we are daring to live gracefully by daring to listen to our inner voice? What makes you think that your persistent feelings are wrong? I trust that your soul is pure and precious and knows your highest purpose. And I hope you listen to its promptings more than some sick, guilt-inducing nagging, sagging voice that makes you feel burdened inside. One voice will make you feel heavy and one will make you feel light. One is thudding in the wrong direction. And one is turning right.

Your Real Relationships will Support the Real You

Often times we’re afraid to honor our boundaries, because we don’t want to upset the people around us. Indeed some people will balk at your limits and may even suggest that your decreased availability is the first sign of Satan worship or advanced Narcissism. But real relationships support the real you. I have no doubt that my friends would prefer to hear from me more often than they do. But they prefer my authenticity and happiness even more. That’s why they’re true friends. Some individuals who seem to demand the most of us are energy vampires. They feed on your warmth and pay no heed to your needs. They will demand that you be giving. And you will never give enough.

Recently while driving to Northern California where I had a speaking engagement, I decided to stop for a quick break. I chose to wander into a small boutique with painted scarves in its windows. When I got into the shop, the owner started telling me about the sales she had going. I nodded politely. She continued to tell me about the rugs she had imported from Turkey and I found myself hanging on every word though I didn’t want any rugs or details of her trip. Her enthusiasm kept me paralyzed. I only had a few minutes to stop here and look around. Finally, I excused myself and walked away. The owner followed me and kept talking. She refused to give me space. That’s when I walked out of the shop. I decided I did not need to indulge someone who was not respecting me. I breathed in the salt air of that gorgeous ocean town and skipped back to my car. I felt like a fly who had escaped a spider’s web.

***

Always be kind. But think twice before you’re “nice.” Nice, is often a mask of pleasantness we put over negative feelings. Nice is often a form of self-rejection. Real kindness feels good. It’s when we give because we want to give and we give in ways that respect everyone, including us.

If you want to give to others, give truly. Give the exceptional gift of taking care of yourself and tending to your dreams. Give the love that can only come from you expressing your unrivaled talents and devotions on this earth. Follow your calling and draw lines when you must. Doing what matters should never be sacrificed for a false idea of manners.

Tama J. Kieves, an honors graduate of Harvard Law School, left her law practice with a large corporate law firm to write and to embolden others to live and breathe their most meaningful self-expression. A leading alternative career coach and best-selling author of THIS TIME I DANCE! Trusting the Journey of Creating the Work You Love/ How One Harvard Lawyer Left It All to Have It All! (©2003 Tarcher/Penguin), Tama devotes her dynamic energy to life/work coaching and to facilitating workshops and retreats throughout the country. For more than a decade, she has helped thousands of individuals unleash their creativity and their callings. Founder of Awakening Artistry, an organization dedicated to creating a global family of creative and visionary minds, her inspiring work has frequently been featured on T.V., radio, and in national publications. Learn more about Tama’s workshops and coaching or sign up to receive her free inspirational e-zine at http://www.AwakeningArtistry.com

Mr. and Mrs. Buyer have just seen a listing photo of a house that’s right up their alley. It seems to have the features they want, and it’s within their price range. Now, continuing in the process, they read the details. They read what you’ve written to describe the house.

This is when the quality of your listing language either moves them forward, or drops them off.

The first parts of the listing are easy to write, and they’re often enough to get a buyer to come out for a visit. Number of bedrooms. Square feet. The basics.

But your goal is to get as many interested buyers as possible to come out, which obviously increases the likelihood of a sale. So you have to go beyond the basics. Here are some tips to help you do just that:

Do the necessary research.

When I’m hired to write about the benefits / qualities of a product or service, I almost always spend more time researching than writing. I never write a single word until I know, with certainty, what’s worth writing about and what’s not.

The point is, you can’t write everything about a house in a listing — there’s no room for that. So you have to examine the property inside and out to find those things that make it truly unique. You have to dig up the unique selling points.

Put the reader in the house.

Whenever possible, try to describe the enjoyment that results from a particular feature (as opposed to describing the feature by itself).

Note the difference in the examples below.

Before: This house has a rear deck with a lake view.

After: Enjoy watching sunsets over Jefferson Lake from your screened-in rear deck.

Before: The family room features a large brick fireplace.

After: The family room’s grand fireplace will keep you cozy during Colorado winters.

Don’t underestimate the small stuff.

If you’re creating a short, bulleted “laundry list” of features, be as specific and all-inclusive as possible. The house might have a feature that makes you yawn but makes a buyer perk up:

Extra outlets in the media room. Low-maintenance deck material. Wrought-iron gate. Picket fence. Sometimes the smallest things make the biggest difference to people.

Use brand names.

Certain brands can add value to a house through name alone. First, you must identify these brand names and make a list of them. This comes from the research we mentioned above.

Then it’s simply a matter of weaving them into your property description.

Note the difference in the example below:

Before: Rear deck

After: Rear deck built with low-maintenance Trex® material (with transferable lifetime warranty).

I’ve exaggerated the contrast between these examples for demonstration purposes. But you get the idea.

Conclusion

Buyers are looking for more than a house. They also want a home. A house is walls and ceilings. A home is where memories are made. It’s up to you to bring this across with your listing language.

“Virtual Real Estate Investing” is a relatively new concept. There are many variations on what this term means, encompassing everything from using the internet to aid in real estate investing efforts to participating in online games such as SecondLife.

To separate fact from fiction, I asked Bryan Ellis for comments. He’s the man many consider to be the father of this new form of investing.

When I began using the term virtual real estate investing in the late 1990s, I did so because I saw clear parallels between the strategies used for profiting from physical real estate and those that would create income in the online world, said Ellis.

Bryan Ellis cites the similar strategies one can employe to make money from “virtual property” and “physical property” as a primary parallel of the two markets. “These types of assets – websites and physical real estate – can be monetized in very similar ways like buy lo/sell high, leasing/rental and advertising opportunities” he says.

The parallels really are obvious. For example, if you’re the owner of a desirable property, its desirability is (in a business context) largely due to its being in a location that is of interest to others. Likewise, if you own a desirable domain name, others will find value in it because it serves their purposes. Regardless of the type of asset, you can sell or lease or use any number of strategies to turn the assets into cash.

In our next installment of this series on virtual real estate investing., Bryan Ellis will share the internet analogies to the physical concept of real estate development.

When selling or buying a home, the realtor commissions can take a serious bite out of your profit. Here’s a primer on how to sell a home for free without commissions.

Sell A Home For Free

When many people think of a real estate sale, they immediately groan at the thought of dealing with real estate agents. More painful, for many, is the thought of paying a six percent commission to an agent. In the last five years, the real estate market has seen a significant increase in the number of people who sell their home without using agents.

A property sold without a real estate agent is known as a FSBO, which simply means for sale by owner. If you take a look at the real estate classifieds in the Sunday edition of your local paper, you should see plenty of FSBO listings. With the increasing popularity of the Internet, there are numerous sites such as FSBOAmerica.org that provide national listings online for free viewing by potential buyers. This is giving rise to a fundamental change in the real estate industry.

Prior to the Internet exploding onto the scene, selling or buying real estate could be a major time killer. One typically signed on with a real estate agent to get listed in the multiple listing services. If you wanted to find a buyer, you needed to be in the listing and have open houses and so on.

Many buyers, however, now look to Internet listing sites to develop a list of homes they are interested in. These sites typically contain detailed information on the homes as well as numerous pictures. Put another way, the buyer no longer has to spend entire weekends looking at homes that simply don’t interest him or her. The buyer can now do all of the initial work online. If they decide to come see your property, they are already pretty serious about making an offer and typically just want to make sure the pictures and information are accurate.

For many sellers, the power of the Internet makes real estate agents an unnecessary expense. Why pay six percent of the sales price as a commission when buyers are coming from online listings of the site? As a seller, you can create these listings online and expect to pay twenty five dollars or so a month to keep your listing up. With this being the case, why would you pay a commission to an agent?

If your goal is to sell a home for free, without a real estate commission, the Internet is your best option. Real estate transactions are very straightforward and you can pick up all the forms you’ll need at the local book store.

next time you step to me, step respectfully. maybe the burden between those legs got you thinkin sideways, in a daze brainwashed for the lack of appreciation for this sista sounds like you’re too big for your own boots I am not the skanky image that you’ve been fed on and on we are dehumanized, rather than being praised for our place in this world called by life itself, i am women knowing the history of my gender, In the forefront of your mind should be the kind of words that i appreciate equal,divine, worthy, empress give me the respect that YOUR mamas grandmamas worked so hard for, sweatin in the picket lines for a voice to match yours poundin maze so your ancestor slaves could eat Senecafalls with hearts so heavy just longing to belong to be revered as Equivalent yet still, after all that some are blind to a women worth. think twice next time you step to me or don’t step at all Peaceful Comrad Agnes NKhata

www.originalpoetry.com

brother:

-interjection

Outdoor camping has received huge popularity over years to be a change from your accustomed frantic life. Taking one or two days away from frantic work schedule offers much fun & recreation choice than any other vacation idea. If you plan to have a camping holiday this autumn then it is critical that you try and find the best of camping gear to carry with for the finest pleasant camping experience.

Outdoor camping gear come in the shape of camping beds camping stoves, camping gadgets and so on. Since the camping sites picked are often wide-ranging so are the camping tools that are required for specific tasks. Many people prefer to go camping in the plains, some go in the mountain areas, some in fields & some in woods. This means that the camping equipment used will in the end depend on the place you have selected to camp in.

To enjoy the fun and excitement totally, it is key to carry camping equipment that you will need during your camping holiday. There are various hikers & campers who enjoy to camp & find out the most extreme parts of the world. So the camping requirements vary from person to person. Find cheap camping equipment online at Sportswear-Equipment.com.

Therefore before going camping outdoors it is essential that you acquire the tools that you will need. To get the best camping gear its better to locate a cheap camping equipment dealer & request the accessories you require to carry along. The light weight tents, portable camping stoves, handy weightless chairs, disposable tools, sleeping bags, hiking shoes light fabric weightless clothes and additional camping accessories can be bought online at the most discount rates. It’s vital to carry camping tools that weighs as least as possible so as to give you as much freedom while trekking and hiking.

Numerous kinds of camping equipment are not cheap to obtain and can be paid for only when you have a large budget. Thus you ought to make a list of items that you cannot do without while camping. Depending upon how frequently you go for camping, renting camping gear is a great choice. Otherwise if you are a camping fanatic then having a stock of your own camping gear is worthwhile. Have a magnificent camping experience this summer by keeping all your camping requirements toned up.

What is the primary reason for success most people have that seems to elude unsuccessful people? Goal setting is the primary reason for success. Lack of proper planning is the number one reason for failure. Proper goal setting involves setting a business plan in place for your life. Too many people this doesn’t sound fun or sounds tedious. In practice though, goal setters have more time freedom, more money, and more success in all areas of their lives than those who don’t. Well it’s no different with real estate investing. Real Estate Investing must be treated as a business and it requires planning that anyone can do. Much like an airplane pilot who goes through a pre-flight checklist, the real estate investor must go through many steps for every real estate deal. You must market to find the deal, do your research on the property to establish a value, have your contracts ready, make your offer, schedule a closing, have title work done, prepare your financing, get property insurance, etc. The reason the doers make money is because so many people aren’t ready to make money. Real estate investing seems like pie in the sky until you put your plan down on paper and it starts to crystallize. The planning process itself should give you renewed energy. Before I daily setup my plan I didn’t want to get out of bed each day, but now I get up ready to work on knocking out my plan every day. Set your plan up into baby steps that you can review and knock out every single day. Your daily plan must include marketing to get motivated sellers to contact you. Regardless of the deals you have in the works, if your marketing stops, you will go through long dry spells. Even with consistent marketing you will have periods with few leads and periods where you are just swamped with sellers offering you great deals.

Constant daily review of your goals is critical. This is why so many suggest taping your goals on your bathroom mirror so you see it when you wake up and again before you go to bed. You can even buy giant poster sized post it notes that you can write your goals on and stick them on your wall. Reviewing your goals before going to sleep at night causes your brain to dream about your goals and program them into memory. So put your goals down on paper and start putting your real estate investing plan into action.

David Neese is a real estate investing author who offers a free course for real estate investors delivered by email, audio and Tele-seminar which you can get for free at: http://www.FreeRealEstateInvestingCourses.com You can find more information about David at http://www.DigitalSuccessCoach.com

Keywords: Real Estate investing, goals, motivation, planning, goal setting,

Summary: Goal setting and planning are your number one priority for achieving your real estate investing goals.

People’s lives today are jam-packed with great projects, ideas, to-do lists, errands, things we should do, things we could do, duties and obligations. No surprise then, that many of us feel
we barely have time to do the things we have to do (or think we have to do), let alone spare time for fitting in anything extra.

Why do we insist on keeping ourselves so busy? We have trained ourselves to believe that to be busy improves our chances of success in this world. The “no pain, no gain” mentality. Also, our minds love to be active. For many high achieving types, taking “mental time out” is tantamount to laziness!

Being busy is not necessarily a bad thing – often we accomplish a lot in our busy lives. But when we get to a point where the level of activity is running our lives, it’s time to take some action! Ask yourself:

Why do I choose to take on all the things I do?

Do I really understand what is driving these choices?

What are the things I can’t do that I would like to, because I am too busy?
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Enter the simplification process. It sounds deceptively easy but the reality is usually different. It’s hard to let go of things that you have invested time, money and emotions into.

I suggest people look at 3 areas:

Firstly, stop doing things – just stop

Pick 2 or 3 activities (like projects, committee memberships or DIY home activities) and decide not to do them. That’s the first big step.

Second, examine all the great ideas you have in your head

The things you keep thinking about that take up mental space like:

- financial goals that have yet to come true

- becoming a size ten

- winning the lottery

You’ve done OK in your life without those things so far, and chances are that you’ll continue to survive. Give them up.

Third, reduce or eliminate your errands

These sneaky timewasters chew up a lot of physical and mental energy. If you haven’t’ done them, you are thinking about doing them, and once they are done, you often need to repeat them from month to month! With the technology around today, there are very few errands that need to take up time. Bill paying, shopping, buying presents – all these things can be done in a fraction of your time on the internet, or can be outsourced.

The reality is if we have nothing better to do, we’ll keep doing all those things we normally do – the things that keep us busy. Simplify your life and make time to find those better things to do. Guaranteed, you’ll enjoy it.

Megan Tough – published writer, coach, facilitator and speaker – works with people to create outstandingly satisfying and truly successful professional lives. Make more money – have more fun! To learn more and to sign up for more FREE tips and articles like these, visit http://www.megantough.com

Let’s say you drive for an hour to work during peak traffic hours. At work nobody appreciates your work. Still you have get up 5.30 AM in the morning. It is tempting to fall into the trap of Home Business scams. These scammers say exactly what you want to hear! Easy money, make six figure income easily, fire your boss, be your own boss, perfect home business opportunity etc. are the catch phrases. This is very tempting. The reason you’re interested in setting up a home business is because you’ve seen an ad somewhere, or you’ve been approached by someone.

It was all about a great home-business-opportunity that promised you absolute freedom and you’re excited. Finally, you can quit your job! Don’t quit a job until you are actually making enough money to replace your income from your job.

If you’re thinking of working from home under someone, though, you have to realize that at least 99% of the offers out there are scams – after all, if it was that easy to pay a few dollars and make thousands, why wouldn’t everyone be doing it by now? If something is too good to be true then it is. Here are the biggest scams out there, how to recognize them, and how to avoid them.

Where did you see the Work from Home Ad?

Where did you see that work from home offer? If you got it in the post, or by spam email, or saw it on a poster taped around a telephone pole, then I can guarantee you right now that it’s not a legitimate offer. If you saw the ad in a newspaper, in a jobs magazine or on a jobs website, then it’s a little more likely to be legit – but not much. Always check out any offer, and assume it’s a scam until you have iron-clad proof to the contrary. Check the company with Better Business Bureu. Check on the person who is offering the business opportunity.

Envelope Stuffing.

This is the most established work-from-home scam, and it’s been going for decades now. Basically, once you pay your money and sign up to work from home, you’re sent a set of envelopes and ads just like the one you responded to. You might make some money if someone responds to your ad, but eventually there just won’t be a market for it any more. Anyway, Work from Home offers like these are illegal pyramid schemes.

You are never going to make any money putting letters in envelopes – forget about it. It takes less than 5 seconds to stuff a letter in an envelop. Why would someone pay $2 – $5 to you for doing this? Don’t you think there would be enough people doing this already if it were so easy? Why would people go to schools and colleges? They could just start stuffing envelops right at the age of 10 and make a lot of money. The best thing to do is to ignore such offers.

Charging for Training Material/ Supplies etc.

The practice of charging for training material/ supplies is hard to pin down to any one scam – it’s the way almost all work-at-home scams work (including the envelope stuffing). You’ll be asked to make a small ‘investment’ for whatever training materials (books, video/ audio tapes, CDs etc) would be needed to do the work – and then you’ll be sent some materials that aren’t worth anything like what you paid, and you’ll find that there’s no market for the work anyway. They would say things like your investment will returned when you receive your first check. It doesn’t look like you are going to make money on this and that’s why they are trying to make money from you by selling the training material.

If any home business opportunity asks for money upfront – just go away. A legitimate company should be willing to deduct any ‘fees’ from your first pay check instead of asking for money upfront – if they won’t do that for you, then that’s because they don’t ever plan to pay you. Why do they say things like your investment will returned to you as soon as you make your first $200? Think about it.

Working for Free.

This type of scam is common with crafts. You might be asked to work at home making clothes, ornaments, jewelry or toys and games. Everything seems OK and legitimate – you’ve got the materials without paying out any money, and you’re doing the work. Unfortunately for you, when you send the work back, the company will tell you that it didn’t meet their quality standards, and will refuse to pay you. Then they’ll sell on what you made at a profit, and move on to trap the next person.

Never do craft work from home unless you’re selling the items yourself. Note that you don’t need to be selling to consumers (you could be selling to wholesalers), but you still need to be the one deciding what you make and getting the money.

There is more about Home business and internet scams in Part II.

In a real estate transaction, a touchy issue is how much trust the seller has in a buyer. The existence of a good faith deposit helps put a seller at rest.

Good Faith Deposit

If you are selling your home, condominium or other real estate, you should always require a buyer to make a good faith deposit. The good faith deposit simply establishes that the buyer is serious and, to some extent, has the financial capacity to follow through on the purchase.

The amount of the good faith deposit is dependent upon the agreed sale price of the real estate. Although percentages vary from state to state, a cash deposit equal to three percent of the sales price is typical. For instance, the deposit would be $9,000 for home selling at a price of $300,000. As with most transactions, this percentage is negotiable. I don’t recommend that you accept anything less than two percent.

Once the buyer and seller agree to the amount of the good faith deposit, you have to figure out what to do with the deposit. Importantly, the seller should not hold the deposit as doing so could make the buyer very uncomfortable. Instead, the money should be deposited with a third party and held “in trust.” Potential third parties include escrow and title insurance companies as well as an attorney if your state requires their involvement.

A good faith deposit acts like an insurance option for a seller. Moving through escrow can take 30 to 60 days, during which the property is off the market. The good faith deposit essentially compensates the seller for this time in the event the buyer is unable to follow through on the purchase of the property.

Depending on the laws in your state, a buyer who can’t close will lose the deposit. Typically, the only exception to this is when the seller allows language indicating the deposit will be returned if the buyer can’t get a home loan. Of course, including such language can open the seller up to repeated frustration when bad credit buyers repeatedly fail to get funding.

Good faith deposits are a fundamental part of a real estate transaction. Buyers should expect to pay them and sellers should demand them.

Raynor James is with www.fsboamerica.org – providing homes for sale by owner, “FSBO”, properties. Are you thinking, “Should I sell my home?” Visit www.fsboamerica.org/seller.cfm to sell your home sale for free for one month.