Change Your Life in 5 Minutes or Less Blog Directory - RSS Feed https://selfgrowth.com/blog/most_viewed/feed Change Your Life in 5 Minutes or Less Blog Directory - RSS Feed en The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People https://selfgrowth.com/blog/seven_habits.html Video: <a href="https://selfgrowth.com/blog/seven_habits.html">https://selfgrowth.com/blog/seven_habits.html</a> Related Infromation: Visit Stephen Covey's expert page on SelfGrowth.com - <a href="http://www.selfgrowth.com/experts/stephen_covey.html">click here.</a> Buy The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0743269519/selfimprovemeonlA">click here</a> What's your take on the Seven Habits? Post your comments below and let us know. Summary: Stephen Covey wrote a runaway bestseller in the Self Improvement Industry, titled the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This book has sold over 10 million copies worldwide! In the book, Covey lays out 7 proven principles for success. Let me explain exactly what I think these mean and what I learned from them. Number 1 – Be Proactive. That’s almost self explanatory. It means you are taking the initiative. You are not living reactively, but are taking a proactive stance in your life. Number 2 – Begin with the End in Mind. The End is really your goal or your goals. Effectiveness is not just a matter of reaching a goal but rather of achieving the right goal. Imagine yourself sitting in the back of the room at your funeral, and what people could honestly say about you based on the way you are now. Do you like what you hear? Is that how you want to be remembered? If not, change it. Number 3 – Do first things first. This means to focus on your most important priorities, your top priorities. This doesn’t always mean urgent. The phone is ringing, and picking it up might seem urgent, but the caller is not always important. It could be a telemarketer. Focus on your top priorities. Number 4 – Think Win Win In personal, business or other relationships, exercise “interpersonal leadership” to make both parties winners. Two wins make everyone better off; two losses hurts everyone. A win/lose relationship creates a victor and leaves someone injured. Think Win Win. Number 5 - “Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood” Communication is a two-way street. To develop win/win relationships, find out what the other parties want, and what winning means to them. Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Number 6 - “Synergize” Cooperation multiplies the power of one. In fact, “creative cooperation” may yield a force greater than the sum of the parts. The buzzword to describe this kind of relationship is “synergy,” which means bringing together a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. Number 7 - “Sharpen the Saw” There’s an old story about a man sawing a log. The work is going slowly and the man is exhausted. The more he saws, the less he cuts. A passerby watches for a while and suggests that the man take a break to sharpen the saw. But the man says he can’t stop to sharpen the saw because he is too busy sawing! A dull saw makes the work tiresome, tedious and unproductive. Highly effective people take the time they need to sharpen their tools, which are, in fact, their bodies, souls, mind and hearts. It’s time for “self-renewal.” Dale Carnegie in Five Minutes or Less https://selfgrowth.com/blog/dale_carnegie.html Video: <a href="https://selfgrowth.com/blog/dale_carnegie.html">https://selfgrowth.com/blog/dale_carnegie.html</a> Related Infromation: Learn more about Dale Carnegie - visit his SelfGrowth.com <a href="http://www.selfgrowth.com/experts/dale_carnegie.html">expert page.</a> Learn about the <a href="http://www.dalecarnegie.com">Dale Carnegie Leadership Training Program</a> Have a Youtube account? <a href="http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=selfgrowth">Subscribe to SelfGrowth.com's Channel.</a> Summary: In Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, he outlines 9 principles for becoming a friendlier person. I want to share with you my view on these 9 principles and why they are so powerful. Let’s start with Principle # 1. Don't criticize, condemn or complain. My view of this is to stay positive. Do not go negative. People just don’t want to hear it. Number 2) Give honest, sincere appreciation. This is not flattery. The keyword is sincere. If you’re not being sincere, people will know it. Try to find something to appreciate in all of the people that you meet and know. Number 3) Arouse in the other person an eager want. What does that mean? It means that you want to get people motivated, keep them motivated, and spur them on. Number 4) Become genuinely interested in other people. Take a sincere interest in them. Don’t just pretend you’re interested. Everybody has something interesting about them. Find out what it is. Number 5) SMILE. Yes, a real smile. A smile is contagious. We’ve all seen it. Find things to smile about and share your smile with the world. Number 6) Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language. I love hearing my name. David, what can I do for you today David? Would you like that promotion David? I also love being called Daddy by my children. I love you Daddy. Can you play with me daddy. My wife has a couple of other names for me that I can’t share with you today. Number 7) Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. Here’s my take on listening. I call it sincere listening. Don’t sit and wait for your turn to talk while you are listening. Be attentive and show actual interest in what the person is saying. And here’s a secret – what’s the best way to show an interest? By actually being interested. Number 8) Talk in terms of the other person's interests. Find some common ground. Don’t only bore them with things that are interesting to you. You don’t have to fake interest, find real common ground. Number 9) Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely. The only true way to make somebody feel important is for you to feel they really are important, to sincerely believe they are important. If they are in your life and you are spending time with them, they should be important. Those are the 9 principles. When it was written in the early 20th century, it had a tremendous impact on people, and the thoughts behind it are as true today as they were back then. Speed Reading in Five Minutes or Less https://selfgrowth.com/blog/speed_reading.html Video: <a href="https://selfgrowth.com/blog/speed_reading.html">https://selfgrowth.com/blog/speed_reading.html</a> Related Infromation: Read articles on speed reading in our <a href="http://www.selfgrowth.com/reading_articles.html">Articles Directory</a> Rate the best website in our <a href="http://www.selfgrowth.com/reading.html">Speed Reading Web Directory</a> Visit the site of SelfGrowth.com's Official Guide to Speed Reading Ed Caldwell <a href="http://www.speedreadingtactics.com/">SpeedReadingTactics.com</a> Summary: Speed reading is best described as a collection of reading methods which attempt to increase rates of reading without greatly reducing comprehension or retention. We’ve all seem the demonstrations. Somebody is flipping pages on a book faster than a jack rabbit and running their hand or finger across the page. Minutes later, the book was read at 20,000 words per minute, and the reader remembers everything. It’s like magic. Is this really possible? Maybe for a small part of the population, but I don’t think it will ever work for all of us. But, us normal everyday human beings can definitely double or triple our reading speed and maintain high comprehension. So, How can you increase your ability to speed read? Let’s start with some basics. 1) Have your eyes checked. Poor eyesight might be slowing you down. Get glasses, contacts or lasik surgery if you need it. 2) Measure your current reading speed. How many words per minute do you currently read? If you don’t know how fast you are now, you won’t know how much you improve. Either count the words read in 5 minutes or use software to do it. 3) Remove distractions when you are reading. Loud music and television do not increase your reading speed and comprehension. If you can’t find a quiet place, try earplugs. 4) If you are reading for comprehension, use pre-reading techniques like skimming the material first. Go through it very quickly without reading everything. You can skim a whole book very quickly. Don’t try this on Mysteries. It might ruin the ending. 5) Decide how fast you want to go. Remember you can only read as fast as you can comprehend the material. If you need high comprehension for very technical material, you’ll have to slow down compare to reading a novel for pleasure. 6) Use your finger or hand as a pacing tool. Some people call in hand sweeping. It keeps you focused. Try to read very quickly using the hand as a pacing tool. Maybe at about 1 page every 10 seconds, or 2,500 words a minute. You’ll have lower comprehension , but try to comprehend as much as possible. Then, slow down to about 1,000 words a minute. You’ll find out something quite amazing. When you slow down, your comprehension will be better than it was before at that speed. 1,000 words a minute suddenly doesn’t seem so fast. 7) Another recommendation is to stop or reduce what’s called sub-vocalization. This is the process where you read word by word, sometimes actually moving your lips or the muscles used in regular speech. However, if you apply an effective system, subvocalization takes care of itself. After all, you don't want your mind to go silent. You want to awake the brain to comprehend the material. 8) Many people also recommend a concept called chunking, where you actually read groups of words at a time instead of one word at a time. Again, with proper training this takes care of itself. Too often people get too caught up in figuring out the mechanics, so they lose comprehension. 9) One method used to increase focus and concentration is to constantly ask yourself, What is this about? What is this about? It forces your brain to gain an understanding of the material. 10) Find a good program to help you along the way. It could be software, a live training class, an online speed reading course. It helps to have a “teacher”. Our recommended speed reading programs are in the side bar or below this video. Use one. 11) Practice, Practice and Practice. You have to learn how to maintain focus and concentration. This is always hard in the ADD world that we live in. Visit the site of SelfGrowth.com's Official Guide to Speed Reading Ed Caldwell <a href="http://www.speedreadingtactics.com/">SpeedReadingTactics.com</a> Boost Your Mind Power in Five Minutes or Less https://selfgrowth.com/blog/mind_power.html Video: <a href="https://selfgrowth.com/blog/mind_power.html">https://selfgrowth.com/blog/mind_power.html</a> Related Infromation: Learn a technique used by Einstein himself to increase Mind Power. See <a href="http://freezox.zoxpro.com/SelfGrowth/Mind_Power_Free">Click here for details</a> Read articles about Mind Power in our <a href="http://www.selfgrowth.com/mind_power_articles.html">Articles Directory</a> Read the blog of our <a href="http://mindtomind.com/blog">Official Guide to Mind Power, Shannon Panzo</a> Summary: We have all heard about Mind Over Matter. Mind Power is intrinsic to everything you do. Your Will Power is based on your mind power. Your ability to cut through the fog to make great decisions is based on it. By now, I am sure that everyone watching this has heard about the Law of Attraction. Mind Power is the creative energy, the fulcrum point, that makes it all happen. The more you can focus your mind and concentrate your attention on whatever it is that you want to create, the easier it is to get the results you want. Without mind power, the Law of Attraction ceases to exist. And that leads to the big question – how do you increase your mind power? How do you improve your ability to focus and concentrate? Below are seven secret (and not-so-secret) techniques to increasing your Mind Power. Secret Number 1. Proper nutrition Your mother was right – studies have actually found that fish is great brain food. It isn't the protein as most people would think, it's the essential fatty acids that are IN the fish – the OMEGA oils. A regular regime of anti-oxidants, such as Vitamins E, C, Bs, and A, and Minerals such as Zinc, a free radical scavenger, are a great place to start with supplements. Vitamin B-6 is known to maintain better insulation on your internal wiring. Secret Number 2. Increase Oxygen flow to the brain. This can be accomplished by herbs, such as Ginko Biloba, or mechanically by inversion of your body/brain positioning. This can be achieved by lying with your back on the floor and having your legs up onto a chair. The result of more oxygen to the brain is faster and clearer thinking ability, and better memory. Secret Number 3. Avoid harmful substances Excessive abuse of substances such as alcohol or drugs can affect brain health by killing off brain cells. Secret Number 4. Learn to RELAX Once you know the mechanism to relax, you can use this in stressful situations to clear your ability to think. Have you ever been talking with someone so important that you forgot their name in mid-stride? When you learn to stay relaxed, important things are much easier to remember. Secret Number 5. Challenge yourself Perform puzzles that stimulate the mind, such as crosswords puzzles, and math puzzles. The more you push your mind to respond to the demands you are giving it, the stronger it will become. It you push it to work faster at solving problems, your mind will respond quicker at anything you give it to work on. Secret Number 6. Learn to believe in yourself Successes, confidence, taking responsibility for your actions – These are things that build and support self-confidence. When people feel they have control over their lives, their brain chemistry actually improves. Secret Number 7. Learn to Concentrate and Focus The best test of your mind power is your ability to concentrate and focus on something for a specific period of time. The longer you can hold your focus on something without being distracted the better. Most people find they can concentrate for about 3 minutes before they loose their focus. There's an even-more powerful technique you can learn; a technique used by Einstein himself. To learn more about it, see <a href="http://freezox.zoxpro.com/SelfGrowth/Mind_Power_Free">http://freezox.zoxpro.com/SelfGrowth/Mind_Power_Free</a>

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