Working from home is not always as easy as it may seem. Many times people think that you’re not capable of having a real job just because you’re not doing what a regular corporation employee is doing. Wake up, dress up, coffee in the subway, morning talk with your colleagues, meetings and so on, this is what people expect from a responsible person.

However since I’ve seen so many stories with people earning lots of money doing it from home by combining business with pleasure, I can tell you a few tips you should take into consideration.

What should I do in the morning? This is a very good question and the answer is simple. Stay in pole-position and be the first to start.

1. Don’t oversleep. The human body, usually refreshes after 7-8 hours of sleep, that if you’re not losing your nights, going to sleep in the morning. Sleeping from 11 pm and waking up at 7 am always worked for me. I always wake up early in the morning just to breathe a less polluted air.
2. Exercise. You’re thinking how you can not properly exercise in the morning and decide not to do it, then you’re kidding yourself. I’m not talking about heavy lifting or a marathon, simple stretching positions, jogging or a dog walk will do.
3. Take a shower. Lots of people say that a shower in the morning ease their awakening and if you can alternate hot and cold water it will help strengthen and normalize the nervous, circulatory, endocrine and immune systems.
4. Eat a healthy breakfast. I’ve said it many times that it’s imperative to eat healthy so keep in mind that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The food you eat in the morning is what gives you the energy and power to work all day long.
5. Keep your room clean. Don’t think that after getting out of bed the room shouldn’t be cleaned. Make your bed and leave it in order, you’ll thank yourself when you get back to it for a nap or at night, to sleep. Make it a habit to keep everything clean from the beginning.
6. Change your clothes. You are starting a new day and you need all the energy you can get. Every day needs to be special, and you’ll give just about everything to “conquer the world”. Is this how you wanna do it, in your pajamas? Use comfortable clothes.
7. Head to your office. I am not sure how big your house or apartment is, or if you can afford to “sacrifice” a room for the office, but you may want to keep it away from your sleeping area (even from your eating area). You need fresh energy and you won’t get it in your bedroom. Just the idea of going to the office, be it at home or not, makes people think they are important and improves their focus.

How to improve your work day is just as important as the Formula1 start I was talking above, because it’s not enough to be the first, what’s more important is to keep your position.

1. Concentrate on your work. Being at home is most of the time associated with a combination of work and life at the same time. However, you should be aware that you should dedicate most of your attention to your business. Of course kids and house problem may occur from time to time, so solve, and get back to work.
2. Schedule your working hours. You’re ambitious and decided to work 9-10 hours a day. Sticking to it is the most important thing. Keep in mind that you need social life, too, make room for it.
3. Keep distractions away. You can put your cellphone on silent with visual alert only, disable any Instant Messaging programs and open your email every three hours. The days when I have email and IM on, are the least productive for me.
4. Prioritize. There you go, everything set and you see a bunch of papers on your table. First thing you should do is to prioritize everything, but make sure you have time to do get everything done by the end of the day. The things that need your immediate attention should be started first.
5. The one-hour break. If you’re doing great and feel like you shouldn’t stop in a million years, I advise you to do it. One hour for you to have lunch, some fun with your pet or a 20-minutes power nap could be an ideal break. Don’t worry you won’t lose your wave, you’ll just relax your muscles and your mind to have the power to sustain the flow.
6. Drink plenty of water. The body needs water to function just as it needs air. If you the air you breath as much as you need, same thing should apply for water and scientists have found that the human body needs 8 to 10 glasses of water each day. Don’t wait until you’re thirsty because, thirstiness is a sign that your body lost water and it needs it.
7. Keep your desk clean if you want to be productive during the day, and don’t if you want to search for your documents a few hours.
8. Find ways to relax. If you want my example then I tell you that I listen to music while I work, because it always gives me a more positive state of mind, and keeps stress away. I do have a habit of taking half a minute breaks when I lean back in my chair. Find yours!
9. Anger is useless. A business cannot be a real one if it won’t have negative points. One day you can lose a contract, and the next day you can get yourself a bigger one. The point is that anger won’t solve anything. No one will give your contract back just because you was angry, but persuading the person that you’re skills and your work are high quality might. Anger will only make you see the problem in low light and won’t get you any solutions.
10. Moderation. Being funny but also responsible is the key to a good business, therefore you should find the right recipe that suits you best.

I am not sure if you’re doing a few of those, all or none, but I know how it helped me so far. Now if you have anything to add to my small list then I would appreciate your comments below.

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Last time I talked about Choosing Integrity and how a leader must choose to lead by an ethical example. I covered the importance of setting, defining and meeting standards. This week I want to cover taking risks and assuming responsibility for those choices.

If you want to be a good leader will have to take risks and assume the repercussions of those risks, good and bad.

My father had an opportunity, back before cell phones became so commonplace, to acquire a cell franchise with a national carrier. He balked and had 100 excuses why it was a bad idea. His biggest excuse was that he didn’t believe cell phones could become popular enough to make any money on, that only rich business men would ever have them. The family and his employees tried to convince him and even though cell phones fit in well with his audio visual store he didn’t have the foresight and, most importantly, he didn’t want to take the risk. Well, we all know how popular cell phones have become. His fear of risk cost him in a lot of ways.

As a leader these risks filled situation will come up often. You should, at minimum, be willing to explore and evaluate them. For example,

• Could switching your team to a 4-day work week decrease work hours but increase productivity?
• Could making your office “green” significantly increase costs short term but decrease them long term?

While you should never take uninformed risks, the fact is that some times the choices you make will go wrong. You took the risk and failed. If that avant-garde ad campaign you approved was an unmitigated flop, stand up and accept responsibility. Don’t try to pass on the failure to your team or others around you. Avoiding responsibility for your choices will only serve to make you look like you are led by your team - they make decisions without you knowing or approving - and will lose you the respect of those you are blaming as well as your superiors. You become ineffective to upper management and a source of resentment to your staff.

You could, like my father, simply avoid situations that have risk attached. Functioning in this manner will probably rarely lead to failure but neither will it lead to innovation and growth. Being a good leader means you don’t get to sit back and go with the flow, you don’t get to follow someone else’s orders. You are giving the orders, you ARE the flow. Embrace it!

Check back with us next time when I will discuss how important it is for a leader to Choose Adaptability. It will be just one more tool that you can add to your arsenal to help you become a better leader.

People seem to listen to other people when it comes to diet and healthy habits. They tend to ask around if anyone has a new diet to follow or what foods should they eat. The answers are extremely various, depending on what everyone experienced.

I am going to tell you 9 brief healthy tips, that you won’t get by stopping at your doctor’s office for a common consultation. Here are small secrets that you can use for the better.

1. Walk more often. In a world where the car is the supreme transportation device, people tend to walk less and less. That’s not a good thing if you think that walking is great exercise for the skeletal system or for your cardio condition. You shouldn’t walk 8 hours a day, but do it three times a week for half an hour. That won’t only help your bones and heart but will also relax your mind.
2. Avoid places where people smoke. Of course if you are not a smoker you should avoid places with lots of cigarettes smoke. Latest studies revealed that passive smoke is much worse for your lungs and heart even if you spend only one hour a day. Now if you are a smoker, quit.
3. Sleep enough. On average, 8 hours of sleep each night are enough, but it’s very important to choose when to go to bed. Sleeping less, puts your immune system at risk because it’s weakened and stress hormone production raise. When you don’t sleep enough metabolism slows down and you may get fat.
4. Eat more vegetables and fruits. I bet you hear this anytime, but you should know that’s extremely healthy. Vegetables and fruits are the engine of our body because they are full of energy. Eat them fresh to benefit from their vitamins and nutrients.
5. Eat more fish. Fish is rich in iodine which is vital for the thyroid function, is a “white” protein that contains “good” saturated fats and omega-3 fatty acids, which keeps cholesterol levels under control and helps against depression. However, if you are pregnant try to stay away from big marine fish (like sword fish) because they are high in mercury.
6. Don’t hide your anger. Scientists figured it out, and it looks like hiding your anger will only lead to headaches and heart diseases. Do something with that negative energy: running, swimming or talk the problem to solve it.
7. Get a pet. Did you knew studies reflected that people that own a cat or a dog are rarely diagnosed to heart diseases? Having a dog around your house is a really good way to keep stress and depression away, and that is because it restrains the stress hormone from being produced.
8. Don’t ignore dietary supplements. We can create our own balanced diet but we will never be able to give our body all the nutrients it needs just from the food we eat. Take vegetables for example. If they are not fresh they lose a few of their vitamins so you could take dietary supplements to cover your body’s needs.
9. Don’t get obsessed with health or diet. If you will think every single minute about those things you won’t be able to focus to what you’re target is, be it at work or home. Keep in mind that less or more is never good. Try to find your balance, and if you really need to eat a piece of chocolate, do it because the world won’t collapse.

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Photo from Dawdles

Hypnosis, what does this word conjure for you? A shaman? A stage performance with people running around clucking like chicken? A being with power able to control the very will of the people in front of him with a single word, or even, a single glance?

Sitting in my hypnosis class my teacher stresses the fact that he has no super human powers. He is not gifted with the power to bend people to his own malicious wants. The only thing he is good at, he claims, is the power of suggestion. ‘Suggestion’ is the very thing that holds all the power when it comes to hypnosis. The hypnotist is the channel of suggestions to the audience in front of him.

Here are a few signs that you may be hypnotizable.

1. Are you suggestible? As mentioned this is highly important when it comes to hypnotism. The hypnotist simply implants a few minor ideas and then builds up from here.
2. Do you believe that hypnotism works? This ties in to the “are you suggestible”. Hypnotism will not work if you do not believe it will. Yet, on the other hand, pain medications and wart removal techniques may not work either if you believe that they won’t.
3. How good is your imagination? Can you easily picture a red apple in front of you? Can you easily picture a beach with a clear ocean lapping at the hot sand in front of you while you drink cold Pina Coladas in the shade? Once more this ties back to a person’s suggestibility. Those who are more suggestible can more readily see a scene unfold in front of them when asked to.

Hypnotism can be used to cure migraines, pain from cancer radiation and warts. It can help with time management, phobias and so much more. It isn’t magic. It is simply the path to unlocking the mechanisms inside the person. We each have the ability to cure ourselves of ailments and the hypnotist is simply one way of tapping into this power that we do not yet fully comprehend.

The hypnotist can be seen in the same light as a traditional healer who also uses the power of the mind to cure people of curses and physical ailments. The gypsy physic who uses people’s expectations and beliefs to predict the future or past. Even, the priest, who miraculously cures people because people believe in the power of God.

Hypnotism simply uses the power of suggestion and belief.

Many of us wish a perfect peaceful life, with routine keeping us safe from trying new things that could bring up disappointments in a world full of uncertainties. However, this is a bigger and sometimes smarter mechanism than us, that we belong to and it’s called comfort.

Bad Perspectives of Comfort

As long as you lose your motivation or faith for a better life just because what you’re

experiencing right now is convenient, is the biggest trap comfort can bring: you’ll say thank you to mediocrity and will be the prisoner of your daily surety. Same job, same road pattern, same restaurant, same resort for your vacation. You need to diversify your life.

Positive Comfort

Having a peaceful state of mind that will allow you to concentrate or will motivate you for fighting for your dreams then that’s a good thing. You should be able to take risks in order to get what you’ve decided, and to get past that dead point.

Now if you think you need to get out of the routine and do something new, I have 5 small steps that you can take. Some are easier to take and will take a strong will but unless you do so you will be trapped in your convenient lifestyle.

1. Set your goals. Setting goals is not an easy thing to do, but unless you know what you’re running for, you won’t be able to cross by on difficult road. Think how would you like your life to be or how to get old turned into new, and you have your goal. Taking up a sport, a better job, a dog or maybe a soul mate are just a few things people usually do to keep the comfort trap away.
2. Identify what’s wrong. You should be able to analyze your life up to the smallest detail and see if there is something you would like to change. That’s how you’re going to achieve what you planned.
3. Win some, lose some. You are going to change something to your life, therefore you should know you gain something and you give up to something. Think of changing your job that involves moving to another city or country. You leave behind all your family and friends but you’re up for a new experience, which is something you’ve wanted for so long.
4. Fight your own fears. When someone needs to change something big in their lives they always think what will others think or feel. So many times we stop doing what we desire just to make someone else happy. Unless you fight these fears you won’t step off your routine.
5. Don’t delay, just act. How many times you’ve heard of relationships where the couple won’t break up because one could be hurt or because they will have to split friends. We all need to make decisions, even if they will change our destiny more than we expect. What’s important is not to give up to your dreams when it’s harder. You’ll end up saying “I cannot believe that I did it. “

Last week I wrote about Choosing Your Vision. I explained why it is important to choose how you “look” at projects, your team and your company. This week I want to touch on integrity.

Choose Integrity

Merriam-Webster defines integrity as: “Firm adherence to a code of especially moral or ethical value.” The American Heritage Dictionary says: “Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.” Integrity is as important in your business career as it is in your personal life!

It is part of your job as a leader to set standards and to expect those standards to be followed. More importantly, you must adhere to those standards yourself.

Integrity improves employee morale, it strengthens customer relations and loyalty and it improves the company’s image within the community.

Make sure your team members understand what is expected of them and what they can expect as consequences of unethical behavior. Lead from the top. Set an example for your team members. Treat each team member in a fair manner, avoid conflicts of interest, protect the company’s assets and do not personally benefit from your position within the company. It is hard to expect employees not to take home office supplies when you are padding your expense report.

One of the most important issues of integrity is confidentiality. If you are the office gossip people won’t trust you. Trust between a team leader and their team is paramount. It also extends to keeping your word. Do what you say. Keep promises and commitments. Doing so will earn the respect and trust of the people you work with, will set the example of what you expect from them and will set a harmonious work environment. Time won’t be wasted on resentment and talk behind your back about how you said you’d do something and didn’t follow through.

Have the same ethical expectations of yourself that you have of your team. Your reputation within your team, and your company, depends on it.

Next week I will talk about Choosing To Take Risk and Assuming Resposibility for those risks so stop by and give it a read. Every little tidbit you can add to your arsenal will make you a better leader so check out our Leadership Arsenal series.

Chances are if you have bad breath, you know it!!! I’m sure you’ve tried to mouthwash, mint and breath spray it away all to no avail. Before giving you some tips to help, let’s first look at the causes.

Causes of bad breath

1. Dirty Mouth: The most common reason for bad breath is an unclean mouth. Bad breath is caused by a build up of bacteria so keeping you mouth clean is your #1 priority.
2. Gum Disease: Just a more extreme case of an unclean mouth. The bacteria gets below the gum line, where you personally can’t get to it, and causes infection.
3. Dry Mouth: Lack of saliva leaves no moisture to wash away bacteria.
4. Smelly Foods: Foods like garlic and onions are an obvious reason for bad breath.
5. Ketosis: Is caused when the liver converts fat into fatty acids and keytones. This is usually as a result of a high protein, low carb diet.
6. Illness: Bad breath can be the result of diabetes, acid reflux and less commonly liver or kidney disease.

Now that we know the common reasons for bad breath let’s take a look on how to cure it.

Cures for bad breath

1. Keep a Clean Mouth. Brush, floss and scrap your tongue at least 2x a day. If you wear dentures make sure you take them out and clean them thoroughly also. Change out your toothbrush every 3 months to avoid a build up of bacteria on the brush itself.
2. Visit a Dentist. Get a regular dental cleaning and checkup for gum disease.
3. Drink plenty of fluids, preferably water. If your environment is very dry, avoid dry mouth by using a humidifier.
4. Avoid Smelly Foods. If you don’t put it in your mouth, you won’t have to try and get rid of the smell.
5. Eat Carbs. Eat a balanced diet that includes carbs to avoid ketosis.
6. See Doctor. If you have tried everything else and still suffer from bad breath set up an appointment with your doctor. Explain the steps you’ve taken and the lack of results. You may be sent for tests to eliminate the possibility of a more serious illness.

Everyone suffers from a bout of bad breath now and then. The fortunate among us, grab a toothbrush or a stick of gum and problem solved. For those that have a chronic condition hopeful some of these tips will help.

Hi, I’m Bud Bilanich, The Common Sense Guy. I am very pleased to be guest contributor to socialpacks.com. Alex suggested that I do a post on career advice – especially for those of you who have just received your degree and are beginning your career.

Over the past several years, I have developed a model of career and life success that I call Star Power. The Star Power model holds that all successful people are skilled in five major areas: Self Confidence, Personal Impact, Outstanding Performance, Communication Skills and Interpersonal Competence.

I have identified three sub components for each of the five points on the Star Power model which means that people will have at least three things in common:

Self Confidence

1. Self confident people are optimistic.
2. Self confident people face their fears and deal with them.
3. Self confident people surround themselves with positive people.

Personal Impact

1. People with powerful personal impact develop and constantly promote their personal brand.
2. People with powerful personal impact are impeccable in their presentation of self.
3. People with powerful personal impact know and practice the basic rules of etiquette.

Outstanding Performance

1. Outstanding performers are technically competent.
2. Outstanding performers set and achieve goals.
3. Outstanding performers are organized.

Communication Skills

1. Good communicators are excellent conversationalists.
2. Good communicators write in a clear, concise easily readable manner.
3. Good communicators are excellent presenters – to groups of two or 100.

Interpersonal Competence

1. Interpersonally competent people are self aware. They understand themselves, and as a result they understand others.
2. Interpersonally competent people build solid, long lasting mutually beneficial relationships with the people in their lives.
3. Interpersonally competent people are able to resolve conflicts with a minimal amount of problems and upset to relationships.

It is my experience that people who are a success in their careers and lives are competent in all of the components of the Star Power model and really good at one or two of them.

You can learn more about my thoughts on career and life success by reading my ebook Star Power: Common Sense Ideas for Career and Life Success. You can get the ebook by going to www.SuccessCommonSense.com and clicking on the cover of the Star Power book on the right side of the page. This will take you to a place where you can sign up for my Common Sense Ezine and download a .pdf of the ebook.

You have my best wishes for your career and life success.

The last part of Leadership Arsenal dealt with Seeking Out and Accepting Criticism. I talked about the benefits of getting the opinions and criticisms of your team and now I think it’s time to talk about vision.

Choose Your Vision

As a leader you will be faced with many choices. One of these will be how you “view” your team and your projects.

One choice may be to use “tunnel” vision. You may choose to focus solely on the task at hand. Focus only on the details that are specific to the one project. This will guarantee that no small part of the task is overlooked or MISDONE. You are assured to be aware the minute there are problems and be able to immediately correct them.

Another choice is to use “peripheral” vision. You are not focusing on the day to day grind of one specific project but are instead seeing the bigger picture. You are aware of how this one project factors into the larger scope of the company’s objectives. The drawback to this is obvious. If your team has made mistakes, you will be unaware and thus unable to make corrections.

Your choosing of a vision style is similar to the previously discussed managerial style and again, balance is the key. While you should be narrowly focused on a specific project, you also have to keep in mind how it fits with other projects and with the company’s goals.

An example of this would be you deciding to have your project’s product manufactured by Company X. Company X subcontracts the work to a company in a country that uses child labour. Meanwhile, your company has been actively and publicly advocating against child labour. Your project comes in under budget but you have placed the entire company’s integrity in jeopardy. There was an episode of The Apprentice that also illustrated “vision” well. The team had to produce a commercial to be viewed by the audience of a movie theatre. One team member was narrowly focused on getting the “perfect” shot for each scene. Sometimes insisting on redoing the scene many times. The other team member was tapping her watch, keenly aware that if they didn’t hurry up there would not be enough scenes filmed to complete the commercial. Fortunately for the team, they managed to compliment each other well enough to finish the project. What they each would have needed was to be balanced on their own without having to rely on the other to such an extent.

Choose your own vision carefully. Guide your team members into also making a choice. If you see them leaning towards peripheral or tunnel vision too much, guide them back. Explain to them how having such a vision can handicap not only the team but the project and company also.

The next installment of Leadership Arsenal will cover Choosing Integrity. I will discuss the importance of corporate and personal integrity in the workplace so don’t miss your chance to add another tool to your leadership arsenal. Come back next week and check out our next piece of advice on integrity.

This is a guest post by Skellie. She writes tips and tutorials on creating better blog content at Skelliewag.org.

StumbleUpon is my favorite social media. Unlike Digg, or del.icio.us, you don’t need hundreds of votes to start getting some serious traffic to your blog. In fact, only two or three votes can result in hundreds of visitors to your blog or a single blog post.

While it’s always lovely to have one of your posts stumbled, I want to suggest some ways bloggers can get the most out of their StumbleUpon profiles. You do have one, don’t you?

1. Browse for ideas

StumbleUpon is host to a lot of great content and it can often be quite inspiring. When you’re running short of ideas, a quick series of stumbles can be a good way to get your creative juices flowing. If you want to view results only from the topic you blog about, you can select this in your profile.

2. Locate great links

Connecting with other SU users with similar interests can open up a large collection of great links for you to explore. The SU profiles of like-minded people are great places to find source material for link posts.

3. Connect with readers

Some of your loyal readers will have SU profiles. If you notice the same users repeatedly stumbling your articles then take the time to add them as friends, or message them to show your appreciation.

4. Connect with other bloggers

This works like the above step, but in reverse. You interact with other blogs as readers interact with yours, voting for pages on blogs you admire. The more traffic you send to them via SU the more likely they’ll be to investigate your profile and discover the face behind all that extra traffic.

5. Build your personal brand

When you ‘discover’ a site (in other words, when you’re the first SU user to vote for it), a link to your profile image and details will appear on the vote page for that item. If your item goes viral then you’ll receive a lot of exposure as the person who ‘discovered’ the site.

Over to you

• How do you get the most out of StumbleUpon?