Tuesday, May 25, 2004 - Volume 2 Issue 8
Colin Evans, Editor (mailto:
)
In this issue
- From the Editor
- Featured Health Article - Be Encouraged For Weight Loss! - By Greg Landry
- Featured Success Article - Take It Up a Notch - By Chris Widener
- Featured Online Marketing Article - Is Your Email Address "Blacklisted?" - by Jim Edwards
- Motivational Quotes
- Take A Break - Tidbits on Flying...
- Tell Me what You Think
From the Editor - Colin Evans
Hi Everyone 
Welcome to this edition of Cols-A-To-Z.
I'm back
I am now resident in the UK.
If anybody had told me how difficult it was going to be to get a
telephone line, I wouldn't have believed them.
I have waited for nearly four weeks for my phone to be connected.
I opened my account at the end of April and then the fun
started...
I'm finally back online, over a month since I left Zimbabwe.
Unfortunately, I lost one of my domains during all of this
because I never received (and obviously never answered) any
of my emails.
Take my advice, if it is available, use auto-renew on all your
domains. It saves a lot of trouble.
On the brighter side, I love it over here. I've always wanted to
live near the sea and now I do. I live in a flat on the coast,
not that the sea or beaches are much to talk about, but I find
large expanses of water to be very calming.
Every day I get to walk a couple of miles down the shoreline,
it's a great way to unwind.
I have also been very fortunate in that some of the people I
have helped in the past have been more than willing to help me
"in my hour of need".
When they say "you get what you sow, tenfold in return", you
better believe it.
Until the next time...
Featured Health Article - Be Encouraged For Weight Loss! - By Greg Landry
On the road to weight loss, fitness, and health, you can easily
become discouraged. In fact, discouragement is what leads many
people to give-up when they may have been near a point of
significant progress and encouragement in their program.
I've put together my "top 10" points of encouragement to help
keep your spirits high on your road to weight loss, fitness, and
health..
1. It does get better - and often very quickly! Many people that
are significantly overweight or that have been sedentary for a
long time, find any activity, even walking a few hundred feet, to
be very difficult and uncomfortable. Be encouraged, many
physiological changes happen very quickly once you start moving.
Walking, for example, starts getting easier and more comfortable
within a couple of weeks.
Keep moving - every day will be a little better! Be encouraged!
2. I love this lady's story. It just makes you want to cheer for
her while sitting at your computer. Margie from Madison, Wisconsin
weighed 296 pounds when she started walking in her neighborhood.
She says she started by walking about half a block twice a day and
that it was incredibly difficult at first.
After the second day she had decided to quit but a neighbor
encouraged her to continue. Every day she walked the same route
but added a little distance each week. She says there were many
days when she wanted to quit, but she wanted very badly to lose
weight and be healthy.
After several months the people in her neighborhood started
noticing her consistency and her progress and started giving her
compliments and words of encouragement. She said that after a few
months of walking, it went from painful to enjoyable.
About ten months into her walking program, she began her morning
walk as usual, but she noticed people out in their yards. As she
passed each yard they were clapping and cheering for her, "go
Margie", "we're proud of you Margie", "congratulations Margie!"
She said tears of happiness flowed through her entire walk that
morning as over a hundred people cheered her on all along her
route! Be encouraged!
3. The visible signs of progress in a weight loss program are
often very slow to come. Healthy weight loss takes time, but that
can be very discouraging. Be encouraged to know that for each day
that you exercise and eat healthy foods in moderate quantities,
you have made progress. It might not be measurable that day, but
you have made progress and it will be measurable over a period of
weeks and months. Be encouraged!
4. Katherine was 43 years-old and had been sedentary for 20 years.
The scale had not changed in those 20 years - she still weighed
136 pounds, but she knew she had lost muscle and gained fat. Her
waist was bigger and she couldn't fit into the same size clothes
that she did 20 years earlier. What bothered her most was that she
was always tired and never had energy.
She decided to start walking and weight training but quit after a
week. She said, "it's too uncomfortable, I can't keep doing this."
I encouraged her to continue and told her that it would get better.
She "quit" three times during the next two weeks. We talked
frequently.
Six weeks later she started to notice some muscle tone and she
noticed that her endurance and energy level had increased
dramatically. She said, "I'm very encouraged!"
Eight months later she had gained two pounds on the scale but lost
three inches in her waist - and she walked a marathon!
Yeeeeeeesss! Be encouraged!
5. The whole idea behind physical training is that you push your
body to do a little more than it's comfortable with and it
responds by making physical and physiological changes. These
changes make you capable of doing a little more with less
discomfort. Be encouraged!
6. Gerald in New Orleans, Louisiana lost 85 pounds after he
started walking and weight training. Once he had lost the weight,
he decided to do something that would allow him to fully
appreciate his weight loss. For an entire day, he carried around
a sack that contained 85 pounds of metal weights.
Getting around during that day was a struggle and very tiring. At
the end of the day he was exhausted! Life without the weight is
great! Be encouraged!
7. Keep records of your progress. Every day write down the
positive changes you've noticed and also keep a record of the
exercise you do every day. Write down what you did, how long you
did it, and any thoughts about your exercise that day. Keep a
running total of your minutes. You can look back at what you've
done with a great sense of accomplishment and you'll be motivated
to do more. Be encouraged!
8. Daily exercise will change your life! I believe God designed
humans to be active on a daily basis. Why? because when you are,
lots of good things happen...
- you are healthier
- you feel better and have more energy
- you are less likely to develop cancer, heart disease, stroke,
etc.
- you sleep better
- you have a better outlook on life
- your relationships with people are enhanced
- your skin looks healthier
- you are sick less often
- your immune system is stronger
- you lose fat
- you gain toned, lean muscle
- you look healthier
Be encouraged!
9. Betty Jo in Tuscaloosa, Alabama wrote to me.. "Greg, After 24
years of being married to a grouchy, pessimistic man who didn't
enjoy life, I saw all that change over a period of about a year.
Harold was the classic 70 pound overweight couch potato when he
was scared into exercising and healthier eating habits by the
death of his 46 year-old friend."
Harold's doctor recommended that he start walking every morning
and after a couple of weeks Harold told Betty Jo that he wanted
to start eating better. Harold really took-off with this "health
thing" and lost 72 pounds and become a new man - inside and out.
In Betty Jo's words, "I have a new husband. He walks for an hour
every morning and he is a joy to be around. His enthusiasm for
life makes our marriage fun." Be encouraged!
10. Progress and improvement generate encouragement. YOU can
progress and improve and be encouraged to do more. Tomorrow
morning, put on your walking shoes and take a walk, even if it's
just a few minutes. The next day, do it again - progress and
improve. Be encouraged!
Author and exercise physiologist, Greg Landry, offers free weight
loss and fitness success stories, articles, programs, and his
"Fast & Healthy Weight Loss" newsletter at his site:
http://www.Landry.com
copyright 2004 by Greg Landry, M.S
Featured Success Article - Take It Up a Notch - By Chris Widener
One of the problems many people have is that they have a long-term
goal, which they should, but they don't have any short-term goals
that they move toward. What they want is to get to the top, and
they focus on that, rather than focusing in on simply taking their
lives or careers up a notch.
When you shoot for it all at once, chances are you will not be
able to make it. The person who does is extremely rare. Instead,
most people shoot for it all and fail, then get discouraged and
quit. Hear this: Don't have the mindset of going for it all at
once!
Here is the reality for most of us: We get to the top one notch
at a time. The road to CEO starts at the mailroom, and then goes
through the position of salesperson, then sales manager, then V.P.
Sales, then president of a division, then CEO. These are all
notches that we go through. Every once in a while you may be able
to skip a notch, but rarely. The men and women I have worked with
who have achieved so much usually have a lot of notches they
passed through to get there.
So while our ultimate goal may be to be the CEO, we need to plan
and work on getting to the notch above us. What will it take to
get to the next level? When you find that out, do what it takes
to get there and do it better than anyone else!
One of the benefits of going one notch at a time is that your
confidence builds in ways that it never would if you went for the
gold and failed repeatedly. Then at every level you have the
confidence that you will be able to move to the next level.
Final thoughts:
Take a long-term view but work for the short-term. Yes, keep your
eye on where you ultimately want to be, but set many notches
between where you are and where you want to go. Then over time,
take it up a notch at a time.
Make sure that your notches are far enough to be a challenge, but
short enough to be a possibility. This is a balance that only you
can answer for yourself. You want to stretch but make sure it is
something you can really achieve! This will maximize your time
and your gains!
Take a look where you want to go. Then create the notches you have
to go through. Then develop a plan for getting to the next notch.
Now go for it!
Chris Widener is a popular speaker and writer as well as the President of Made
for Success and Extraordinary Leaders, two companies helping individuals and
organizations turn their potential into performance, succeed in every area of their
lives and achieve their dreams.
Join subscribers in over 100 countries around the
world! Get Chris' FREE weekly Made for Success E-zine by sending a blank email
to
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Get his FREE daily SuccessQuote™ with action point
by sending a blank email to
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Get his FREE monthly
Extraordinary Leaders E-zine, one of the world's most widely distributed leadership
newsletters, by sending a blank email to
or visit his
websites at
http://www.madeforsuccess.com
and http://www.extraordinaryleaders.com
Copyright 2002-2004 Made for Success. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Featured Online Marketing Article - Is Your Email Address "Blacklisted?" - by Jim Edwards
A lady emailed me yesterday very upset over the fact that her
friend's Internet Service Provider (ISP) wasn't delivering
important email messages (or any of her messages for that matter).
It seems her friend's ISP was filtering her emails, but there
didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why some messages got
through and others didn't.
This lack of delivery caused a real problem for the two of them
with ruined plans, missed appointments, and just plain
inconvenience.
If you don't use email much, this might not sound like a "big
deal," but for others it's having a profoundly negative impact on
their lives.
This problem of non-delivery has dramatically affected the way
businesses use email for about the last year, but it's now about
to reach epidemic proportions for consumers using email.
To put things into perspective, imagine if every time you dialed
a friend's phone number you had no idea whether it would ring or
not. Sometimes you got through, other times you couldn't... with
seemingly no reason for it happening either way.
Now imagine the hair-pulling frustration you'd feel over time if
your friend's phone number hadn't changed, but you kept dialing
the number and it never EVER rang for you...but others could get
through with seemingly no problem. :-\
That's exactly how you'll feel when your personal emails start
getting blocked for no apparent reason.
The problem of legitimate email messages not getting through
stems from the uncontrolled and unstoppable onslaught of spam that
currently grips the Internet with seemingly no end in sight.
The fact that viruses can now "spoof" email addresses and make it
look like someone sent a virus to thousands of people doesn't help
matters either.
In an effort to cut down on spam, ISP's implemented a number of
counter-measures, including: text filters, spam databases, sender
blacklists, and IP blocking.
If your email message doesn't get delivered, most of the time it
means you inadvertently got caught in an ISP's "defense system."
If you ever find your email messages don't get through, or if
you'd like to head off problems before they occur, the following
tips should help:
<-- SideBar -->
If you're a business owner, ezine publisher, or newsletter
operator and you're frustrated with your email messages getting
blocked, my friend, Jimmy D. Brown, had just written an ebook
about how to get more of your email messages through.
I thought I knew most everything there was to know on the subject,
but Jimmy gave me some jewels I'd never thought of. In fact, I
plan to implement them within the next few weeks.
If you want to get more of your messages through so you can sell
more... increase readership... and just plain lower the
"frustration factor" of worrying over whether or not your email
is even getting delivered at all, check out Jimmy's ebook right
now...
=> http://GetYourEmailRead.ebookfire.com
<-- End SideBar... Continue Article :-) -->
The first and best tip is to encourage all your email contacts to
"whitelist" your email address in their email program.
Just like you can say which email addresses you don't want to get
messages from, you can also specify a list of email addresses you
always DO WANT to accept.
In Yahoo or Hotmail you can set up your filters to accept email
messages from a certain source, regardless of the subject line or
content of the message. Your friends and subscribers can do the
exact same thing with your email address by adding you to their
"whitelist" so you don't miss each other's emails.
It takes a little patience to set up, but it pays big dividends
by not losing important messages.
If you use Eudora, Outlook, Outlook Express, MailWasher, or just
about any other email "client" program, you can set up rules to
always accept messages from certain senders (just check the help
file).
If you send messages to people who use AOL, try this technique.
Get them to add you to their address book "safelist" or "approved
senders."
This helps AOL identify that the message recipient "knows" you
and has a higher likelihood of actually wanting to receive your
message.
Email AOL tech support for help on this if you encounter a
problem.
If filtering and "white" listing don't work and your email
messages are still getting blocked, then your friend needs to
contact their ISP to sort out the problem.
Their ISP can certainly figure out why messages don't get through,
but it may take some concerted encouragement to get the ISP's
customer service to take the time to investigate the cause. (In
other words, they may have to do some serious complaining to get
the ISP to get up off their butts and do anything about the
problem, but you must encourage them to do it!)
Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use fr-e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links...
Need MORE TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links?
"Turn Words Into Traffic" reveals the secrets for driving Thousands of NEW visitors to your website or affiliate links... without spending a dime on advertising!
Click Here => http://www.turnwordsintotraffic.com
Motivational Quotes
Opportunity follows struggles. It follows effort. It follows hard
work. It doesn’t come before.
- Shelby Steele
Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who have a habit
of making excuses.
- George Washington Carver
Take A Break - Tidbits on Flying...
All too rarely, flight attendants make an effort to make the
in-flight "safety lecture" and announcements a bit more
entertaining. Here are some real examples that have been heard
or reported by passengers:
- On a Southwest flight (SW has no assigned seating, you just sit
where you want) passengers were apparently having a hard time
choosing, when a flight attendant announced, "People, people we're
not picking out furniture here, find a seat and get in it!"
- On a Continental Flight with a very "senior" flight attendant
crew, the pilot said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached
cruising altitude and will be turning down the cabin lights. This
is for your comfort and to enhance the appearance of your flight
attendants."
- On landing, the stewardess said, "Please be sure to take all of
your belongings. If you're going to leave anything, please make
sure it's something we'd like to have."
- There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4
ways out of this airplane"
- "Thank you for flying Delta Business Express. We hope you
enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you
for a ride."
- As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Ronald Reagan,
a lone voice came over the loudspeaker: "Whoa, big fella. WHOA!"
- After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in
Memphis, a flight attendant on a Northwest flight announced,
"Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because,
after a landing like that, sure as hell everything has shifted."
- From a Southwest Airlines employee: "Welcome aboard Southwest
Flight 245 to Tampa. To operate your seat belt, insert the metal
tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every
other seat belt; and, if you don't know how to operate one, you
probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised."
- "In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will
descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull
it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you,
secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are
traveling with more than one small child, pick your favorite."
- Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken
clouds, but we'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank
you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than
Southwest Airlines."
- "As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your
belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among
the flight attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses."
- And from the pilot during his welcome message: "Delta Airlines
is pleased to have some of the best flight attendants in the
industry. Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight!"
- Heard on Southwest Airlines just after a very hard landing in
Salt Lake City: The flight attendant came on the intercom and
said, "That was quite a bump, and I know what y'all are thinking.
I'm here to tell you it wasn't the airline's fault, it wasn't the
pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight attendant's fault, it was the
asphalt."
- Another flight attendant's comment on a less than perfect
landing: "We ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo
bounces us to the terminal."
- An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had
hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a
policy which required the first officer to stand at the door
while the Passengers exited, smile, and give them a "Thanks for
flying our airline." He said that, in light of his bad landing,
he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking
that someone would have a smart comment. Finally everyone had
gotten off except for a little old lady walking with a cane.
She said, "Sir, do you mind if I ask you a question?" "Why, no,
Ma'am," said the pilot. "What is it?" The little old lady said,
"Did we land, or were we shot down?"
- Part of a flight attendant's arrival announcement: "We'd like
to thank you folks for flying with us today. And, the next time
you get the insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a
pressurized metal tube, we hope you'll think of US Airways."
Tell Me What You Think
I would love to hear what you think of this issue of the "Cols-A-To-Z" Newsletter.
And of course, if you have any suggestions for upcoming issues that you'd like to
share with me, please send those, too!
Just e-mail me at:
To subscribe to my "Cols-A-To-Z" Newsletter, go to the following URL:
http://www.cols-a-to-z.com/join.html
Written by Colin Evans
Editor, Cols-A-To-Z.com
88 Central Parade
Herne Bay
Kent
United Kingdom
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© copyright 2004 Cols-A-To-Z.com
