Category Archives: Education

Having fun with marketing yourself

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Feet on the ground, sight in the futureIf you are like me, you shy away from pompous titles that pigeon-hole you in a restrictive and tight role.  I am more than the sum of my qualifications.

The gist is we are trained to seek out our roles to communicate and interact accordingly.  The problem is we are much bigger than a single title and having more than one can give the wrong idea.  As Albert Einstein supposedly said: “We are quantum beings living with a Newtonian mind-frame.”  So how do you let someone have a taste of your multifaceted business life?

Let Them Do The Legwork.  When it comes to explaining what I do, after years of trying I still cannot find something that encompasses everything.  Coaching, check!  Consulting, check!  Writing, check! Wholistic way of life evangelist, check!  Healthy food, check!  So on, so forth.  The problem is no title says it all.  But is it a problem after all?

Last party I went to, I was determined not to feel the pressure of uncontrollably blurring out my intricate job titles.  I decided to talk about the fun aspect of my career.  So when I was asked what I did, I answered I get paid to ask people questions and have fun with it.  The look on the person’s face was delicious and so inquisitive, it sparked a conversation where they realized all I did.

And that is the point.  We might be engineers, dentists, scientists, managers but none of these terms describe the incredible wealth of our specific and person careers.  To top it all, my Coaching is very specific and only applies to certain individuals eager to encompass their greater self.  My Consulting takes me on different paths from streamlining organization, brainstorming, targeting, designing, and much more.  And best yet, I have clients where all these aspects come together under a coherent package that just has no name.

So next time you attempt the impossible and try to cater to those left brain thinkers, simply have fun and play with it.  You’ll never be able to take a definitive snapshot.  Let them do the work.

Failure is not necessarily a sign of failure

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Chemicals or natural products?It might be hard to conceive failure as anything but complete and total failure.  After all, we live in a quick result oriented society.  However, failure does not automatically mean failure.

The gist is it’s up to us, ultimately to turn our experiences into something concrete.  We have the choice to try, experience, construct, build and watch our visions fulfill themselves or tumble.  While we may have little to say about the results, we certainly have more control over what we make of them.

Fear of Failure.  We only have fear to fear.  Rarely have wiser words been uttered, and the fear of failing is what holds us back form the great success we envision and deserve.  We work hard.  We build many scenarios.  Some become reality, others fail.  When they become reality, we see it as natural.  When they fail, it is the end of the world and we get discouraged.  Thankfully, we are freed from these silly notions as babies struggling to master our awkward bodies. So what can we do now?

The Promise of Success.  It’s all quite simple in the end.  Despite what we might have experienced in the past, as I look around, I notice successful people are resolute in their way of looking at life and in their pursue of anything they set out to do.  So simply enough, rework the old synapses and say with resolute intensity: “Failure means I must re-evaluate!”

If you’re fine with the traditional notion of failure and the experiences work for you, then go ahead.  When you are tired of it, realize there isn’t anything constructive in it, come and talk to me.  How?  Simply click on the Oovoo button or send an email.

Let’s go viral with kindness, respect and compassion

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Hey everyone,

I wanted to let you know about another great opportunity tomorrow to tap into the full power of your heart and kindle qualities such as kindness, respect and compassion to go viral in the world.

This FREE teleclass called “Harnessing Your Heart Power,” next tomorrow, Tuesday, January 24th, is led by top leaders of HeartMath, a scientific organization focused on the powers of the heart for greater joy and less stressful living.  You can get more details and sign up for free here.

What you’ll find on this call, is to learn about powerful tools to navigate these changing times with calm and ease, deepen your relationships, reduce stress, feel more connected to your purpose and many more benefits. When you’re in tune with your heart power, you hold a new frequency of love and calm for others, helping spread a wave of heart coherence around the world.  It should be amazing. I hope you can join me there.

Fascinating 2012 myth!

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Kali,change of time

End of the world could be end of an era

It’s easy to get caught up in the intrigue and commercialism of 2012.  It’s meaning is often mired in distorted interpretations, yet most, if not all serious translators, interpreters and Mayan calendar researchers agree to say 2012 is not what it is made out to be.  Good news for us.

The gist is the end of the world, brashly announced by fanatics eager to assert their might on others, those fear spreading zealots are most probably and certainly wrong.  The “end of the world” is not going to happen.  At least, the way it is depicted.

Run Away!  If you are to listen to the vulgarization of interpretations of the Mayan calendar, and other interpretations, the end of the world is now, or 2012, or even the end of 2012.  You chose, whichever scares you most.  However, a deeper look into the Maya calendar community reveals a few interesting points.  Technically, this is as far as the Mayan calendar goes, which explains how it is to be reset to 0 next year.  It could be just a technical limitation with no other meaning than that.  The end of this era is set to officially be over December 27th 2012.

Some of the more serious interpretations talk about, not so much an end of the world but as to an end to this current era.  This last point makes more sense as it is backed by many astrologists and even more interesting, ancient Indian philosophies that depict the passing of time periods as Yugas.  According to the ancient Indian calendar, we are at the tail end of the darkest moment of human history, the Kali Yuga.  Kali is the Goddess associated with change.  Offered referred to as the “black one”, meaning dark times, she is also the consort of Shiva, also known as Kala, the bright one.

This Yuga, or period of time is all about change, going deep down, removing the old and “ugly”, heralding the new “bronze age” where humanity thrusts itself into brighter times.  The Kali Yuga is the shortest of these periods, thankfully and the next one will be longer culminating into an era of pure light, reason and wisdom, to then again continue the cycle back into a descent to darkness.  The Mayan calendar hints at the same.  It is not the end of the world, just the much welcomed end to an era that no longer satisfies us.

So what can we do?  One thing we can do is to keep that notion clear in mind, that this is just the passing of time, no more, no less.  Yes, there might be earthquakes, floods, viruses and wars, but time goes by invariably.  By keeping in mind clear what works, what would like to see become a positive reality, you activate the so-called “law of attraction” that works in a no-miracle way, that which is alike, attracts alike.  Shunning what doesn’t work and negative thoughts, we can let go of that weight, concentrating on building a positive future.   Basically, be mindful of you mind, voice and action by keeping with what works and see it unfold without resistance.

If this is a hard task for you, let’s talk it over.  I have some experience in that domain :)

What a way to spend New Year’s Eve!

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Goal setting by understanding who you are

Picture by Nick Zart

Sick, with a cold and still went out with friends, which sets me back two days recovery time.

4Th Street Vine, in Long Beach was great and the ambiance matched our moods.  Friends showed up and in a whirlwind, left 15mn before midnights, leaving us feeling empty, alone and awkward.  Go figure what goes through the mind of people, no matter how close they are.

Tuesday now and I’m fighting the urge to constantly cough, which is the natural progression I’m used to with my colds.  First the tonsils, then the nose and finally the lungs.  If it gets worse, it continues the loop.

Things I look forward to this year.  For one thing, I’m making a very conscious effort to be more in the moment and less in anticipation mode, always running after the next thing.  This also implies a will to seek out positive things to do that resonate with my core self.  Having said this, I’ll revamp my Coaching practice and will start to look for more clients.  I’ll also start writing for TorqueNews.com, which I highly recommend you go check out.  Their articles are good quality and after being burned by the Examiner ever dwindling pay, this will be a good change.

A few others things I look forward to are working more closely with Shyam, a wonderful friend I’ve learned to discover over this past year.  He is a long lost brother of sorts, with whom I have much to build during this life time.  We are currently working on a few projects, ranging from websites, including our own about electric cars for enthusiasts, a High-Performance Computing venture and a range of equally fun adventures.  We are offering website for individuals and professionals at a very competitive rate, considering they are customized.

Somewhere along the lines I will finally get around to rewriting and redo my website, a much deserved endeavor.  My website was created very late last century and has barely changed, only added to.

And the list goes on…

Don’t forget AAA for the New Year’s Eve “I drank too much”!

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If you have AAA use their service this weekend!  Don’t be foolish and try to drive drunk or tipsy, ever.  They will take you and your car home for free form 6pm to 6am just call 800 222 4357.

Common sense doesn’t mean spending millions

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Find real food at supermarketsThis following story highlights the creativity of man but especially how we can get caught up in the systems we created for ourselves.  Case in point when NASA had to engineer a pen that worked in space, meaning absolute cold, no gravity.  After millions of dollars spent, they had their product.  Russia on the other hand used pencils!

A toothpaste factory had a problem: they sometimes shipped empty boxes, without the tube inside.  This was due to the way the production line was set up.  It is very difficult to have everything happen with timing so precise that every single unit coming out of it is perfect 100% of the time.  Small variations in the environment (which can’t be controlled in a cost-effective fashion) mean you must have quality assurance checks smartly distributed across the line so that customers all the way down to the supermarket don’t get annoyed and buy another product instead.

Understanding the importance, the CEO of the toothpaste factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem.

The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, third-parties selected, and six months and $8 Million later they had a fantastic solution—on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time.  They solved the problem by using high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box would weigh less than it should.  The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button when done to re-start the line.

A while later, the CEO decides to have a look at the ROI of the project: amazing results!  No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place.  Very few customer complaints, and they were gaining market share.  “That’s some money well spent!,” he says, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report.

It turns out, the number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 after three weeks of production use.  It should’ve been picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report.  He filed a bug against it, and after some investigation, the engineers come back saying the report was actually correct.  The scales really weren’t picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.

Puzzled, the CEO travels down to the factory, and walks up to the part of the line where the precision scales were installed.
A few feet before the scale, there was a $20 desk fan, blowing the empty boxes out of the belt and into a bin.

“Oh, that,” says one of the workers,  “one of the guys put it there ’cause he was tired of walking over… every time the bell rang.”

Simple coaching techniques anyone can use

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Picture, Nick Zart

Here are some tools you can use with and outside of coaching.  Some of them are free, some of them are available for purchase.

Meditation.  Here is a topic that is so often misunderstood.  While some view meditation in the strict sense of Zen Buddhist, rigid, static, striving for that illusive spontaneous self, other see a way to relax.  The bottom line is that meditation helps you connect back with your self, take scope and regroup.  It’s a must for anyone wanting to reclaim their runaway life and none other than high up successful executive and business owners know its merit all too well.

You can start simply on your own by devoting 15 minutes every day by yourself, with yourself.  Find a secluded spot in your home.  If you can, buy yourself something to shield any lights away from from you.  I found MindFold to be particularly effective and anyone can actually build one from scrap.  You can also use noise cancelling headsets, such as Boses Quiet Comfort or others.  Once comfortably seated, close your eyes, and start by observing yourself.  Observe your breath.  Don’t be disturbed by thoughts coming into to your mind.  Simply, in a detached way, let them slip away.  They are not you, nor do they define you.  The are just thoughts.

Binaural Beats:  Binaural beats are interesting and for those who have been reading this blog, I wrote a little about it a year or so ago.  What they do is put a tone in one ear and another one, slightly off-tune in the other in order to balance both hemispheres.  This allows you to go into deep states of relaxation, meditation and even concentration.

The Monroe Institute pioneered this type of work and perfected it over the decades.  Their CDs are available.   Mark Certo hails himself as a sonic alchemist and worked closely with the Monroe Institute.  His CDs called The Tranquility Training Method (TTM) are fantastic and I’ve particularly enjoyed them.

Soul Contract Reading.  The new tool I added for my practice is called Soul Contract Reading.  The system, also called the Holy Numerology of Moses goes back to millennial and has been “reintroduced” in order to facilitate this forward momentum the human race is experiencing.  By phonetically translating each letter to its Hebrew equivalent, a number and “energy” is given and put on a chart.  This charts helps you understand why your life works the way it down and how to make full use of it.  My initial reading was so fascinating and intense, I felt this would be an amazing tool for coaching.

Listening to your heartbeat is very helpful, so is your breath.  After sometime, you will find that inner peace many speak of.  In these states, everything becomes relative and problem solving is done with great ease.

Those are the basic free, if not at least affordable techniques anyone can use.  Still, nothing replaces a certified, professionally trained Coach.

Maneuvering the iPhone plans from the big three

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This is going to be a different post but my Blackberry, affectionately called Crackberry due to a crack on the screen is finally walking on its last leg.  The tracking ball fell off the other day, which spells the end of its usability.

The gist is the problem with Blackberrys is once the track ball is gone, your cell phone is close to worthless and can’t maneuver it leaving you stuck.  If Blackberry’s fame is email, without hosting your own servers or using theirs, it’s a corporate tool.

iPhone Plan Hell.  If you think shopping for an iPhone plan is easy, think again.  First you need to see if you really need to have an iPhone, then decide which one and finally which three carrier makes the most sense.

Which iPhone.  You can currently get 3 iPhones as of December 2011, the 3GS, the regular 4 and the very cool 4S.  The difference is the 3GS and 4 don’t have the famed artificial intelligence SIRI the 4S has.  The specs are not the same but a regular user won’t feel much difference between all three.

All iPhones come with a 2 year contract, although AT&T is the only one that offers the 3GS, which you can get for free from Apple, if you sign up for a 2 year contract.  All three offer the 4 and 4S.  Sprint and Verizon use a same technology iPhone, while AT&T a different one.

OK, But What About The Plans?  Sit down, brew yourself a cup of tea.  It will take time to decipher them.  Verizon has the most confusing website and wants you to buy without seeing the complete price first, so avoid it.  Their chat service is slightly better.  AT&T trails behind as far as the complexity of explanations and Sprint has the clearest descriptions.  As of December 2011, Sprint is the only “unlimited” carrier, meaning you should be able to use it’s web without being throttled (slowed down).

Here is a recap of the most basic service plan you can get for an iPhone 4S.  Numbers are per month:

Sprint

Single line: $80 text, web, nights 7, unlimited, 700mn talk time, AAA 10%, roughly $80 per month, roughly $90 without AAA.  Activation fee (?)

Family plan: $150 with the extra iPhone, any mobile unlimited from any carrier, 1500mn talk time and same as above for both lines, AAA 10%.

Verizon

Verizon insists you buy voice and texts seperatly from data.

Single line: $30 will get you 2gb of data, $40 450mn mobile Verizon calls, $10 text 1,000 verizon to Verizon, $70, $100, activation fee $35

Family plan: gives you 700mn for $100 or 1400 = $120, the same data per line for $60 2gb altogether for $200

ATT

The basic plan: text and cell phone is $20, $40 will give 450mn of calling landlines how you would know is your guess, free AT&T mobile to mobile, and a neat feature not seen in a while with roll over minutes, $25 gives you 2gb ($10 for additional gb), $95 per month, with an activation fee of $36

Family plan: $150 will add another line, with 700mn land line calls, 2gb per, not shared.

Finally, I decided to have a look at Metro PCS which claims the best price and to be truly unlimited, unfortunately no iPhones are available.

Metro PCS

There is no contract, you pay on a month to month, whatever day the service bought, you pay the follow month’s day before.  For instance if you buy you phone and service on the 15th, you will pay on the 14th of the following months.

To use their 4G spectrum, Metro PCS has an LG phone that costs $440, the unlimited $60 a month plan, you can add $10 for unlimited international calls for a total of $70.

In the 3G spectrum, there is a Samsung for $141, with $50 regular unlimited, a $60 plan which adds some TV station streaming and you can also get international calls for $10 more.

Family plan: You subtract $10 for both, i.e. a two $60 per month plan becomes $110 a month.

How Much Do I Need?  Therein lies the real problem I suspect Verizon and AT&T want to cash in on as much as possible.  As a rule of thumb, roughly 200 MB will be 10,000 normal emails (no intensive media attachment there), or you could view about 1,150 web pages, or 105 minutes video streaming.  2gb of data will allow you to send about 100,000 emails, or view 11,500 web pages, or 1,050 minutes of video streaming.

Final Thoughts.

How Difficult Can We Make The Plans?  Both Verizon and AT&T score very high on the confusion factor.  Sprint ranks better but I assume it is because they are new into the game and want to snatch the new lucrative market.  Nonetheless, it is very, very confusing shopping for a cell phone plan and it feel carriers deliberately confuse on purpose to make it hard enough for anyone to eventually give up and buy any plan.  The complexity of the explanations is enough to make sure 80% of clients will not understand everything.  Verizon’s website is the worse example.  Maneuvering it was a lesson in futility, luring you “buy” the plans without seeing the complete price.

Unlimited.  Here is another catch phrase that means very little these days.  Unlimited is not really unlimited and so far the only truly unlimited service is Metro PCS and it would seem Sprint, although I’m not sure if they throttle you after a certain amount.  What this means is that when the carrier tags you as a heavy bandwidth consumer, you are throttled.  Instead of getting full speed, they slow you down.  I’m witnessing this with my home internet with Clear Communications.

To make things worse, these findings only apply for this month!  You can be sure that after the holiday, prices and plans will change.  There is really little to no competition in this industry, which we’ve come to see over the decades.  AT&T has the biggest global coverage but Verizon might have you covered in that little tucked away city.  Sprint has a strong Internet back bone and Metro PCS is riding on Sprints network.

Will we see an iPhone on T-Mobile, my current carrier and Metro PCS?  You bet, st some point at least.

Confused yet?  In the end, and for this month only, if you want the latest iPhone, Sprint is the way to go with $80 a month with a AAA membership.  If Android is your choice and coverage is not an issue, i.e., you will say within the confine of big cities, it’s hard to beat Metro PCS prices.  AT&T makes sense for global businessmen and Verizon if you travel to smaller cities within the US.  Watch out for Verizon’s soon-to-come Hotspots.

The Shift’s From Ego to Essence free teleseminar, don’t miss it

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Dear friends,

I’m excited to let you know that The Shift is about to start another powerful free teleseminar with celebrated evolutionary leader Barbara Marx Hubbard and transformational meditation teacher Patricia Ellsberg on The Shift from Ego to Essence.

You will most likely greatly benefit from this call in which they will reveal the keys to shifting from the egoic “local self” to the Essential Self — giving access to divine guidance and the ability to live with grace, confidence, creativity, purpose and joy — particularly needed in these times of great change.  A much needed quality to develop these days.

Please, register for free here:

It’s happening this Monday, November 21st, at 5:00pm Pacific / 8:00pm Eastern! Don’t worry if you can’t make it live — you can register and you’ll be sent a link to the recording.

Warmly,
Nick