Change Your Career and Reduce Your Reliance

The rise of technology in the past ten years has fueled the growth of certain industries and the fall of others. This, coupled with the recent recession, has led to thousands of jobs being lost, putting many people in financial hardship and forcing them to visit their local payday loan lender for a cash advance. Fortunately, many of the jobs that were lost are being replaced with new ones, albeit in other fields.

This has caused many people to consider changing careers. Those industries that were going strong just a few years ago, such as construction, real estate and education, are now struggling and such workers are being forced to consider new options in order to make ends meet. Although this can be a stressful time for many who find themselves in these situations, a little bit of research can help ease the process.

One of the hottest career fields at the moment is the health field, due to an aging population and an increasingly unhealthy lifestyle. Leading the list for the top ten careers in 2012 are registered nurses. According to U.S. News, more than half a million nursing jobs will be needed before 2020, ensuring that the demand for nurses will remain strong for years to come. Other health jobs that are also in demand include pharmacists, medical assistants, and therapists. The exact job title will determine whether you study for only a year, or return to school to complete a four year degree. Licensed vocational nurses can be ready to enter the work force in as little as a year, whereas a registered nurse will have to complete at least a two year degree, and physical therapists will have to get a post bachelorette degree in order to practice.

Not surprisingly, another field that is in high demand today is computer sciences. Unlike jobs in the health field, those looking to break into this industry generally do not need a college degree. However, if you do not have a degree you will need to prove your abilities in other ways, such as creating a personal website, so that employers can see your computer skills. Jobs in this field include web developers, computer programmers, software developers, etc. Careers in this field will continue to increase as technology does, guaranteeing a need for computer skilled workers far into the foreseeable future.

One job that fits into neither one of these fields but is still very much in demand is that of an actuary. An actuary is someone who analyzes the possible financial outcomes of business decisions and risks. Those looking to break into this career do not need to have a degree in Actuary Sciences specifically. In fact, there are several majors that can give you an edge, including computer sciences, mathematics, and even physics. However, in addition to having a degree, you will need to have passed at least one exam and have some experience in the field. You can choose to take two exams, which will help to give you an edge if you do not have any or very little experience, but it is wise to take advantage of an internship if you have that luxury.

Resistance to Light, Love and Life

The beliefs we adopt and call our own are the root cause of our resistance to light, love, and life.
Every person assesses the world and their life experiences through the filters of individual perception. Our perceptions are shaped by our beliefs and attitudes about life, based on our personal history: our family training, culture, education, relationships and experiences. If we've been taught fear-based beliefs and selfish attitudes, we'll encounter obstacles on our path towards making spiritual progress. These obstacles are largely beliefs and attitudes having to do with what we perceive to be true and real about ourselves and the circumstances of our lives.
When we're struggling against the natural flow of life, there is usually one reason for our resistance: what is being presented to us in the moment is not in agreement with what wethink or feel should be happening based on our belief-related expectations. The more we resist, the more painful a situation becomes. Have you noticed?
In chapter 5, "Meditation," I shared my sister's concerns about feeling lifted out of her body whenever she meditated. Her expectation had been to achieve peace and serenity, as this is what meditation promises. Being treated to a higher vibrational light bath was not in her programming, and her fear posed resistance to the gift she was being offered.
Trust, faith and acceptance enable us to release our fears, judgments, and internal resistances to allow circumstances to unfold in the flow of divine order.
I myself was plagued with feelings of unworthiness for much of my adult life. No matter how hard I prayed or how long I meditated, I didn't believe, in the depths of my being, that I was worthy of having my prayers answered. This form of resistance is sure to sabotage any effort to receive the best that life has to offer, or even to have a simple prayer fulfilled.
Spirit guided me to practice self-forgiveness as well as forgiveness of others. I couldn't love myself and feel worthy of our Creator's gifts until I was able to forgive myself for creating such unhappiness in my life. I did a lot of work on forgiveness, with a great deal of success, but I still felt something was missing. I felt better about myself and about life in general, but self-love still eluded me. I was missing the key to self-worth.
Louise Hay promotes self-love through mirror talk. The technique is to stand in front of the mirror, meet your own eyes in the reflection, and proclaim your love to yourself. This isn't as easy as it sounds, because in order for it to be effective you have to believe the words you're saying. I was a tough nut to crack, but I was determined. I practiced and practiced mirror talk over an extended period until I finally believed. I cried in relief. The fact that I never let myself off the hook, never gave up - that I kept trying over time - demonstrated to me that I was absolutely worthy of my own love.
Listed below are three of the most common obstacles to making successful spiritual connections. Fear, doubt, and unworthiness are emotions derived from unbalanced beliefs that need to be honestly assessed and corrected if we are to become spiritually well balanced. Once false beliefs are addressed, they must be healed in order for us to most fully embrace our spiritual nature.
Fear: It's so common to experience uncertainty and fear when confronting the unknown world of Spirit. The most prevalent fear is loss of control. In this case, we should consider the truthful perspective that all of existence is the expression of our Creator's Spirit. As we expand our awareness to encompass the spiritual aspects in all of life, we become more empowered to effect positive change in our lives; instead of losing control, we gain control.
Most of us have been deprived of the spiritual nature of our being and taught to focus almost entirely on the material aspects of life. Now, as we open our minds and hearts to expanded truths about the nature of our world, we are freed to explore the infinite possibilities of nature, the universe, and life as a spiritual being in what only seems to be a purely material world. Our old beliefs and programs are shattered and restructured by our explorations and experiences in Spirit, proving our initial fears groundless.
Doubt: As beginners on this path, it is common to doubt the guidance we receive. When we ask for assistance, it may take moments, days or weeks to receive clear guidance in response. When it comes, we aren't sure that the words of wisdom coming into our thoughts are a message from spirit guidance or our imagination. "This isn't real," we think. "It must be my own mind, or just a coincidence that has brought this thought into my head." Trust that this concern will be short-lived. With experience and consistency, you will gain the confidence you need to act on your guidance and be certain of a positive outcome. It is not the words in this book that will convince you. It is your own experience of the heart, mind, and soul that will make a believer of you.
Unworthiness: A lot of us feel unworthy of receiving special attention from God and the angels. This is especially true if we're carrying around guilt and regret for being far less than a perfect human being. We may, indeed, still have karma to clear and debts to pay. If we are feeling undeserving of experiencing the best that life has to offer, it is a sign that forgiveness is needed for ourselves and others.
The good news is that God and your angels and spirit guides know you are worthy in spite of all your imperfections. Spirit knows all of our secrets and most dastardly deeds; these truly don't matter on any worthiness scale. The only thing holding us back from receiving the gift of miracles is our own feelings of unworthiness.
Feelings of unworthiness are a form of resistance; they keep all of our desires and dreams out of arms reach and prevent us from raising our vibrations high enough to receive the gifts of love and guidance coming to us from Spirit.
Ask the angels for guidance and you will be directed to find just what is needed to begin healing your beliefs and attitudes. Every child of God, even the non-believer, is gifted with devoted angels and spirit guides waiting in the wings for your call for help!

Three Important Questions

What are the advantages in buying property in and around Lake Michigan? What sets Lake Michigan real estate deals apart from similar transactions in other parts of the country? Why should you prefer moving to this area to other destinations in the country? It is advisable to find answers to these questions before finalizing your real estate transaction.
Three basic questions will help you determine whether you decision to buy Lake Michigan real estate is a good one or a bad one.
What Is So Special About Lake Michigan?
Imagine waking up in the morning to fresh air, a pleasant lake breeze, and the view of the sunrays glimmering on the huge expanse of Lake Michigan. Imagine doing this every day for the rest of your life. Can you think of any other location in the country that offers affordable real estate deals with such fantastic benefits?
Just because you are living on the lakeshore does not mean you will have to compromise with your lifestyle. Urban centers in and around this lake are at par with the biggest and most developed urban centers in the country. Lake Michigan offers easy access to basic infrastructure, job opportunities, amenities needed for a happy life and good educational facilities for children. Of course, the sun, the sand and the view shall become a part of your daily routine for the rest of your life.
Can I Afford It?
What is the point of a comfortable and pleasant lifestyle if it is beyond your reach? Seeking a good life at the cost of financial stability does not make sense. The average sale price of homes in Holland near Lake Michigan is around $86,000 and the average mortgage debt for those living in this region works out to $110,000. Can you afford this? If yes, then you can confidently proceed ahead with your search for property in this region.
Of course, the house you like may cost more or may even cost less. However, the figures mentioned above should give you a general idea of what you may have to spend to convert your dream into reality.
What About Future Prospects For My Investment?
Every property purchase is a major financial decision. You may not wish to sell your house ever again but circumstances may arise where you may be forced to do so. In such a scenario, you cannot afford to ignore the future prospects of the real estate market in this region.
The average sale price in and around Lake Michigan is beginning to increase after consistently falling for the past five years. This is good news because you will be entering the market at the beginning of the upswing. Time your purchase right and you can enjoy fantastic returns on your investment.
There are many other factors that you should consider when buying property near Lake Michigan. Hence, do not hesitate to contact real estate professionals for expert advice covering all aspects and facets of your transaction. The Internet will be a good place to begin your search for such a professional.

Where Is the $26 Billion

You may recall some news back in February regarding a $26 billion settlement that was supposed to provide relief to nearly two million American homeowners.
Despite the warnings, outrage, and in some cases pleading, some of the biggest voices in the consumer advocacy community touted the settlement as a victory for homeowners and their rights.
At the time, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, "The banks broke the law by railroading homeowners through the foreclosure process. Today's settlement provides compensation for foreclosure victims without requiring individuals to waive their legal claims. While banks must be made to pay more to help homeowners, the settlement includes needed principal write-downs so homeowners can stay in their homes."
Alys Cohen of the National Consumer Law Center said it would move the ball forward and that it was a game changer. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who headed up the whole process, said "This agreement is the only way we're going to get to substantial principal reduction."
NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous was quoted as saying "this monumental settlement is a strong step towards assisting the millions of current and former homeowners that were exploited, discriminated against and taken advantage of by major mortgage servicing banks. The principal reductions, refinancing and other relief will provide desperately needed relief."
These are some pretty big names congratulating themselves on a job well done. Unfortunately, the actual results of the settlement have not lived up to the hype.
The Social Science Research Network released a study last month that was a collaborative effort of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the government's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Ohio State University, Columbia Business School, and the University of Chicago measure the impact of HAMP, Obama's Home Affordable Modification Program.
According to the report, nearly 800,000 homeowners could have avoided foreclosure had the banks done a better job of modifying the loans. Unfortunately, the HAMP program included a principal forbearance element that was rejected by the banks. So, was it that HAMP was ineffective at resolving the mortgage crisis, or that the banks refused to let the program succeed? With the increased incentives for principal reductions and the National Mortgage Settlement, it seems clear that the latter was the culprit for the program's shortcomings.
So what about the $26 billion? In some cases, the banks are dragging their heels. The Office of Mortgage Settlement Oversight released its first report on August 29, 2012. According to the report, Bank of America, the bank responsible for the biggest portion of the agreement, had yet to modify a single mortgage.
The other four banks covered by the settlement, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Ally Financial Inc., reported that they had completed 7,093 modifications of first-lien mortgages worth a total of $749 million. JPMorgan Chase completed the most such modifications with $367 million.
The figures are similar across the nation. At least 60 percent of the money is supposed to go to homeowner relief. But the bulk of the funds are going for short sales and deed-in-lieu workouts, which basically defeats the purpose of the funds, which was to keep homeowners in their homes. Worse yet, the settlement money that was to be used to provide relief for homeowners is in some case being used by some state officials to fill budget holes, coffers, and tax shortfalls.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the latest to jump on the "we have free money and screw homeowners" band wagon, wanted to divert $75 million earmarked for New Jersey homeowners to offset tax breaks for the state's wealthiest residents, according to NJ.com.
In Texas, $125 million went straight to the general fund. Missouri will use its $40 million to soften cuts to higher education. Indiana is spending more than half its allotment to pay energy bills for low-income families, while Virginia will use most of its $67 million to help with revenue. Georgia plans use its $99 million to lure companies to the state.
So, as it turns out, the settlement money will not reach the intended recipients and we have yet another case of our both big banks and government working in concert to put on appearances that they are trying to help America's homeowners, while the funds are spent for purposes for which they were not intended.

Hot And Heavy Marketing

If you're serious about promoting your business and its products, you should definitely implement social marketing. Yet, to do it right, you have to have the right education about the topic. The tips that follow will help you start your journey towards being a social media marketing guru! When posting from your social media accounts, you should strive to come across as humble and approachable. Your company might be big, but if you have a big ego, your social media campaign will be a big failure. Your power is limited to your clientele and subscribers still paying attention to you. Without your customers, your brand is nothing more than a name. It's important to respond to customer comments, complaints and reviews on social media sites as soon as possible. Keep your responses brief, professional and helpful, but respond as soon as you can so you'll get a good reputation. A quick response can have a significant impact on the success or failure of any social media marketing promotion. Your rapid response is especially valuable when dealing with unflattering comments or reviews. If you leave these posts alone, you could potentially harm your reputation. However, a fast and proper response can actually make you look good, because it shows you care.
TIP! Before you launch your campaign, experiment with different techniques you may want to use. Testing should continue this way after launch, as well.
Social media marketing is a huge craze, but like any other craze, just blindly following the fad won't get you anywhere. You should understand how social media marketing can help you and how you can deal with problems that come along with it. If you plan out your strategy and take advantage of the opportunity, it can only increase your chances for success. If formatting isn't a strong point for you, consider using a list style for your social media posts. By using a list format, you will be able to present your points quickly and concisely in order of importance. Because a large portion of social networking users are in younger age groups, concise and relevant information may be your best bet. Use social media marketing to provide information about your business. Posting pictures of fundraising events are a great way to increase this visibility. Take photos at your workplace and share good news about your employees. Use anything that conveys a good image of your company.
TIP! Make sure that you enable any following features on your social network of choice. Many individuals these days incorporate social media into their lifestyle, so allowing them easy access to your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn profile is a surefire method of letting them have your content delivered to them when you post.
Converse with your customers. Receiving feedback from your customer is great, but it's up to you to respond back to them to open the door to discussion. Take your responses to the next level by opening a dialogue with your customers. Be open and willing to listen, and this will help make your company more successful. Various surveys have proven that social media is used most heavily on weekdays and during standard office hours for employees. These tools automatically update any social media sites you have so that they post within the time-frames where viewership is the highest and you can create them whenever you're free. If you are a blogger, use the "retweet" button for every blog post. By placing this button on top of each post, it becomes simple for your readers to easily share this blog through Twitter. This technique greatly expands the potential reach of your marketing messages.
TIP! Use a sweepstakes or other prize drawing to help build a following for your pages. To do this, you would want to require that a user has to enter their email or like your content, etc, in order to enter into the contest.
Think about what kind of relationship you want with your customers. For building up sales, keep bells and whistles to a minimum, and use social media for advertisements. If you wish to have a conversation with your customers to get on their level, try starting by saying hello. The customers will respond and you can go from there. Put up new tweets as often as you can so that your subscribers don't forget about you. Twitter is about volume: you will still need to post quality content but you also need to post it often. A good trick is to always keep it short and sweet. This way, you can split one main topic into a few different tweets. You can keep a discount code hidden until the end of a video by using YouTube's annotation feature. Since you can choose when the annotation shows up, folks have to watch your video all the way through to find the code.
TIP! With Facebook, it is very easy to gain followers of your content and give them the opportunity to share it. Because of the new Timeline feature and other cool Facebook features, a user's actions are shared on their page where their friends will see it.
As was discussed earlier, marketing with social media can benefit your company in a number of different ways. Use the tips you find most useful, every person's approach to social marketing is different.

How to Use Article Marketing to Get "Above the Fray" In Your Niche

In this article, I am going to give you my own formula for using article marketing to generate traction and push you "above the fray" in your own niche. I will also dig into the concept of dominating a keyword concept in your niche.

Now before I dig into all of this, I want to be clear that my definition of article marketing is probably not exactly the same as what many people think of as article marketing.

I think most people think of article marketing as writing articles and putting those articles on article directories. But that is really only a small percentage (< 5%) of it.

Article marketing is writing articles and using those articles online in many formats and places to create exposure. Not to "get links". Not to "get Google to give you a ranking you don't deserve". Not to spam the search engines. Nope. None of that.

Articles should be written because they deliver value and educate a prospect so that prospect will choose to get to know you better.

So how do articles help you get "above the fray" online? Let's imagine you write 10 killer articles about your main topic. You put one on your site. You put one on this site. You put one somewhere else. You write one for a top blog in your niche. You get featured on a top news site in your niche. You record some YouTube videos about your topic. You go to forums and chat about your topic.

After awhile, if someone is looking for your topic, they will find... you. If they go to niche sites for info about your topic, they find you.

Dominate the market for your topic!

Be the ONE person people find when looking for your topic. Now, this means you need to get out of being a generalist. Do you really think you will make money online if you are 1 of 1 billion people teaching on the same thing. Nope. But if you niche down and really target one very specific part of the market, you will be amazed at what happens.

That's what I did to get my start online.

There were a lot of people doing article marketing when I started. And a few teaching how to article market, especially for inbound links. I came into the market and niched down. Taught folks "how to make money with article marketing" and became the ONE person people could learn that from. Hardly anyone teaches it. Hardly anyone wants to learn. But for the few people that want to learn -- I am the one they come to. Why? Because I dominated the market.

THAT'S what I believe YOU have to do. Dominate your market.

Tips for Business Email Marketing

Our Tips For Business Email Marketing Are:

1. Personalize your emails and segment your list into 'readers' and 'customers'.

Your customer list is far more important than your readers list. Pay the people on the customer list more attention, give them more free gifts, and stay closer to them.

Always send your customers information on new products based on their past purchases. Clients who already know that you are trustworthy have a higher likelihood of ordering from you again.

2. Have more information than a sales pitch in every email. Emails should carry information about your niche, the industry or your business. Sales pitches without other news and information will turn off your readers and they'll unsubscribe from your list.

While you may be using the emails to sell (the whole point of email marketing)your customers want education to stay interested.

3. Use Feedback from your subscribers to discover what emails to send in the future. You'll never find out how successful your email marketing campaign is without finding out whether your subscribers like your emails. Find out what people enjoy about your emails or what should be changed. If you listen and learn from your customers, they will be loyal to you.

Survey regularly. Each survey can ask questions on a different topic. You need to survey your customers and those who are on your lists which have not yet bought from you.

4. Know what your competition is doing with their own email marketing campaigns. Use a special email address specifically for this purpose, and sign up for their lists, using it.

You can keep your campaign a step ahead of theirs by knowing what their strategies and promotions look like. Offer promotions that are of higher quality than the ones your competitors offer.

5. Use multi-part coding when you send out email marketing messages, in order to grab a larger market share.

You must offer a text version of any HTML email you send, allowing any email reader to display what you've sent.

Why? Because subscribers that choose to display emails in plain text only will unsubscribe from a list that only sends emails in HTML. You'll lose a good portion of your list if you only send HTML emails.

6. Use short subject lines. Short subject lines -- with less than sixty characters, have a better chance of being read than longer ones.

The subject line determines whether your email is opened or trashed without being read.

It is therefore the most important part of your email. What is the point of a great offer if nobody knows you are making an offer, because nobody opens your emails?