This is the third edition of this weekly carnival. We had quite a lot of submissions this week but I was exceptionally picky as well, so I narrowed it down to the best six out of all entries. Even if I get 500 entries in one week, I will only choose the best entries and never have more than 10 entries for any given carnival. This ensures the highest possible quality and relevance. The deadline for each edition is Saturday night and is published on Sunday. It’s a little late this week because I’m traveling and had to find a high-speed access point for my laptop to put this all together. Thanks for your patience.

Thank you to every author who submitted an entry whether it was accepted, or not. If you didn’t make it this week, try again next week! Please start a discussion by leaving a comment, and don’t forget to Stumble this post or submit it to Digg, so that your work will reach the largest possible audience. I appreciate all the great writing you’ve submitted - I really enjoy reading it.

Christmas is Near - Bring on the Cheer!

1. Steve Pavlina has been one of my favorite personal development writers for years and today I’m happy to include his article Career Transitions in my carnival roster. If you haven’t already found Steve’s site - Personal Development for Smart People, I highly recommend it. Good work Steve!
2. Albert Foong at Urban Monk submitted another phenomenal essay this week entitled, Psychology’s unique contribution to your Compassion and Self-Esteem. I really enjoy Albert’s writing style and depth and in a very short time we’ve developed a mutual friendship. I think we’ll be seeing a lot of good things from him in the future. What’s Christmas like “down under”, Albert?
3. Warren Wong submits, Conversation Skills / Tips: How To Have A Good Conversation. Hey, who doesn’t want to have a great conversation? Sometimes the simple things are left undone, and I’m glad guys like Warren are covering all the bases. Now, if I only had someone to talk to…
4. Tupelo Kenyon writes, Consciously Programming Your Subconscious Mind Before Sleep. I like the ideas behind the article and it’s well written. When I travel, I play audio books on my laptop at low volume while I sleep and set it on ‘repeat’. The next day, I listen to the same passages and whether it’s my imagination or not - they sink in a lot faster. This is a great way to learn new material. Tupelo has captured the negative side to this - don’t go to sleep with ugly content streaming into your brain. Garbage in - garbage out, folks!
5. Shaun Connell is also a repeater with the following essay titled, The Pursuit of Happiness. I agree with you Shaun - happiness is found in a lot of different ways, but without emotion and reason, it’s not going to stick. Well put, my friend.
6. Matthew Spears rounds out this week’s carnival with Interconnectedness of Being. This article is fantastic and captures the truth that every wisdom in life can be found within the boundaries of your own mind and body. I love your writing and respect your wisdom Matthew. Thanks for sharing again this week.

I think we’ve all asked at one point, “Why am I here? What will become of me when I go? What am I meant to do now that I’m here? What’s the meaning of it all?” So we strive to find the answers. We hope that one day we’ll ‘get it right,’ but often we never do. Let’s all raise a glass to getting it right and praise all those who’ve gotten it wrong. We couldn’t have done it without you.

This is the second edition of a weekly carnival with even more great articles than last week. The deadline for each edition is Saturday night and is published on Sunday.

Thank you to every author who submitted an entry whether it was accepted, or not. If you didn’t make it this week, try again next week! Please start a discussion by leaving a comment, and don’t forget to Stumble this post or submit it to Digg, so that your work will reach the largest possible audience. Thanks for the great work, and we’ll see you all next week.

Good Reading to Warm the Winter Blues

1. Edith Yeung submitted, “What Would Make You Smile?” This article made me smile, Edith. Nice work.
2. Matthew Spears essay, “Emotions as Beauty Itself,” deals with a different way of looking at intense emotions, especially those related to past sexual abuse. Thanks for submitting this one Matthew. I wish you well in your healing process.
3. Warren Wong explores hidden reality in, “Why Your Thoughts Create Reality - Thought, Energy, and Matter.”
4. Tupelo Kenyon writes, “Integrity Through Self-Reliance.” This is a great article with a lot of insight.
5. Steve H Joseph submitted, “Learning to Ask Better Questions About Life.” Steve brings some personal insight into our ego-dominated pursuit of always having to be right. Here’s something I learned a long time ago Steve; please let me share it and add to your ideas - “You can be right, or you can be married.”
6. SJ Yee offers a moving video from a speech made by Jim Valvano back in 1993. The title of the post, “How to live each day and get from where you are to where you want to go,” is meandering, but the SJ Yee’s recap, and the video itself is very moving.
7. Patricia’s article, “How to Start Over: Rebuild or Just Remodel,” is my favorite this week. It’s well written, insightful, and emotional. Very gutsy article, Patricia!
8. Alex Blackwell posted, “The Most Dangerous Word.” I like this article a lot. I won’t ruin the suspense for you all, but I’ll give you a hint: the most dangerous word starts with a “T.”
9. Karen Lynch submits, “How Do You Do?” This essay is based on the idea of acting without action, a core principle in the Tao Te Ching. It’s funny that Karen submitted her article this week; I just finished reading the Tao Teh Ching this week. I read Dr. Wayne Dyer’s book “Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life,” based on the Tao Teh Ching, last week.

Interested in being happier and more successful? We can all learn a lesson from an episode of TV’s “Star Trek” that gets in under our radar and teaches us the importance of focusing on the positive.

In one episode, the crew lands on a vacation destination planet where they could create any reality they wanted, just by thinking about it. At first they have a great time creating wonderful things, but gradually become bored and tired and begin to focus on negative things, which creates negative situations for their reality there. Many of us run our lives the same way, by starting out focusing on the things we want, but then shift our focus to what we don’t want and our lives turns out as badly as the “Star Trek” crew’s in that episode.

So how do you focus on the positive? You need to make a decision to focus on the positive, it doesn’t just happen. As a motivational expert, I stress the importance of having goals to guide your life and “focusing on the positive” should be one of them.

People attending my seminars are surprised when I tell them to announce to the people they are in contact with that you intend to focus on the positive. My personal experience with this is that the reactions you receive will run the gamut from total acceptance to almost outright hostility. I advise you not to let the reaction of others to affect your own thoughts and behavior. By announcing to the world that you intend to focus on the positive, you reinforce your decision by putting yourself on notice and encouraging other people to give feedback on how you are doing regarding being positive.

Scientific research can help you take full advantage of a positive focus to make decisions. Research shows that we tend to become happier as we move through the day. Our mood is generally lowest when we wake then peaks at noon, then declines till four in the afternoon, and then begins to build to its highest point of the day around 10 PM. So use those peak times to make plans, set goals, tackle hard jobs, etc. Make decisions when you are the most upbeat during the day in order to reduce the negatives in your life from pulling you back.

It also helps to realize that you can only control yourself, you can’t control things like the weather, things that other people do or don’t do, mechanical failures and so on. Focusing only on what you can control takes a lot of pressure off you and leads to greater happiness.

Business and Life Coach Theresa A Smith spends time having her clients become very clear about what they want of life and then helping them focus heavily on pursuing the steps needed to attain that life. She finds knowing what you want out of life and then working towards it is the number one step her clients can take to give them long lasting happiness.

I publish a free daily One Minute Motivator via email and YouTube and in a recent one I said,

“Every day we have a choice. We can choose to focus on negative thoughts that leave us feeling insecure, frightened and cynical or we can choose to focus on positive thoughts that empower us and fill us with a sense of optimism about our world and our role in it. What type of thoughts we choose to focus on, grow stronger, and the other type will grow weaker. Make the choice to focus on the positive, and you will find it gets easier the longer you do it.”

In my book, “Sixty Seconds To Success,” I make a similar point.

“Your focus is your future. You get what you focus on. You can focus on the things that will move you and your projects ahead, or you can focus on things that will not. Focus brings all your power together and enables you to do things in one area that you couldn’t do without it. Picture yourself achieving your goals, and your chances of achieving them go up dramatically. Believe it and you’ll see it.

What you think about on a daily basis is what your future will be like. Tibetan monks believe that if you want to know your future, look at what you’re doing right now. Everything we do now affects what will happen next. Our life’s a chain of now’s and all the things we did in those now’s. Now is what counts and now is what will make your future.”

The two worlds are there for each of us to choose which to live in. Choose the world of your dreams and focus on the positive in your life - it’s as close as your next thought- and before long your dream will be your reality.

Edward W. Smith brings the One Minute Motivators to you. Mr. Smith is the author of Sixty Seconds To Success, the Producer/Host of the Bright Moment cable TV show, is President of The Bright Moment Seminars, and a motivational speaker.

I understand the sentiment behind the proverb, but I feel the need to add to it, with:

“You can never go home. You’re already there, and you’ve never left.”

When you go back to places and people from your past, they’re never quite the same as you remembered them. Sometimes you’re let down and disappointed by what you find but often they’re exactly as you left them. It’s a strange feeling returning to a childhood haunt or place of past importance to you. It feels like you’re walking onto the set of your own movie or surreal painting created a long time ago, and now it’s right in front of you. It’s even stranger to contact someone you haven’t spoken to in years and say hello.

Go to a place you haven’t visited in a long time - somewhere important to you. Time has a way of changing your perceptions of old places.

Call or email someone you haven’t talked to since you were a kid - maybe an old friend, neighbor, relative, or teacher. They’ll be surprised, and so will you.

It’s exciting and satisfying, but I’m not entirely sure why.

The odds are it will come up heads five times and tails five times. You may flip heads several times in a row, but the more you flip, the closer to 50/50 the odds become. This is Yin and Yang in action - this is the balance of the universe.

In our world of form, nature ensures that every extreme has an equal and opposite extreme to counterbalance it. Extremes are perceived as good and bad, sunny or stormy, smart or dumb, beautiful or ugly - but they aren’t really what they appear to be. As human and physical beings, we carry with us every extreme, all at once. We’re all ugly and beautiful. We’re all successful and failures. It’s okay, and it normal to feel that way. You can’t change it, but you can learn from it. With this knowledge, you will bring happiness and compassion into everything you do, and you’ll enrich the lives of everyone you meet.

10 Things I’ve Learned About Natural Balance and How To Apply It To Your Own Life:

1. Today you might feel bad. Maybe something awful happened to you. Tomorrow is another day, and “This too shall pass.”
2. Today you feel great. You might have just had the best moment in your life. Tomorrow is another day, and “This too shall pass.”
3. For every exceptional success, you’ll find a dismal failure.
4. For every honor roll student, there’s a flunkie. Within every person, there is a genius and an idiot. Don’t be afraid to be both of them - it’s human.
5. In every business or organization, no matter how big or successful, you’ll find incompetence - you’ll also find geniuses.
6. Never complain about an inept or disorganized coworker. If every employee and business were remarkable, you might be out of a job.
7. Don’t envy someone smarter than you - take them out for lunch! You learn from the masters. Aspire to be one yourself.
8. In every class of doctors, dentists, psychologists, and lawyers, there are many who just barely graduate, but they still get the same diploma. The assumption is, “He has a diploma, so he must be good!” When was the last time we asked our doctor how he placed in his class? Is he really good or did he just scrape by? A piece of paper on the wall means nothing.
9. Creativity ebbs and flows. You can encourage creativity but it can’t be forced. The most successful people act on every creative impulse when it happens instead of waiting for the next “big wave” or “big idea.” Little ideas that people value are much more important than big ideas that never catch on.
10. How often have you failed? Fail often - every failure will bring from nature the potential for great success.

Are you exceptional, dismal, or average?

You have the power to decide to be successful and brilliant but it is not within your power to avoid failure. Take chances and let nature find balance in your life. Know that for every dismal failure you’ve had, another stunning achievement is just around the corner. Everything arises and then returns to it’s source in the formless.

Don’t worry about it. Just do something. If you feel like doing nothing today, then today, do nothing. Just think about it. Tomorrow is another day - this too shall pass.

Play the Game of Life is a blog about personal development, spirituality, and self-actualization. People go about living their lives in so many different ways but we’re all looking for the same things - happiness, peace of mind, and fulfillment. I think we’ve all asked at one point, “Why am I here? What will become of me when I go? What am I meant to do now that I’m here? What’s the meaning of it all?” So we strive to find the answers. We hope that one day we’ll ‘get it right,’ but often we never do.

Finding the answers isn’t so much where you look, but what questions you’re asking. The only way to figure out what the right questions are, is to admit you don’t know and ask people wiser than yourself. I certainly don’t have it figured out yet, but with the help of wise teachers that came before me and the wisdom of people around me, I might. I hope you find your answers too.

This is the first edition of a weekly carnival with contributions from any author who wishes to join in the conversation. The deadline for each edition will be Saturday night and published every Sunday.

I am indebted to each author who submitted an entry. If you didn’t make it this week, try again next week! There’s some really good material here and I really enjoyed reading them all. Please start a discussion by leaving a comment, and don’t forget to Stumble this post or submit it to Digg, so that your work will reach the largest possible audience. Thanks, and see you next week!

Good Articles - Great Thinkers

1. Albert Foong writes, “Love and Aloneness - Unravelling the Ego and Pride.” This is my favorite entry this week. He provides some invaluable thoughts on the difference between being alone and being lonely. I really appreciate your work and hope you enter another article next week Albert!
2. Alex Blackwell entices us to ask, “What Would You Say Today?” His thoughts on relationships and human connection is very insightful. I love this article.
3. Alvaro Fernandez submits, “Enhance Happiness and Health by Cultivating Gratitude: Interview with Robert Emmons.” Can we enhance our happiness and health by cultivating gratitude? You bet we can! Thanks Alvaro, for sharing this with us.
4. Tejvan Pettinger gives us a few suggestions on how to get a fresh look at the direction of your life with, “Where is Your Life Heading?”
5. Jeremy Neal explains in, “You Are a History Maker”, that every one of us, in our own way, is making history every day of our lives.
6. Shaun Connell submitted a late entry early this morning but I wanted to include it this week because it was so direct and unapologetic. His entry, “Cold Reason” is exactly how I feel some days. Thanks for posting Shaun, even if it was a little late - I won’t hold it against you.

Do you have a unique insight into spirituality, philosophy, relationships, science, art, success, work, or play?

Do you look at things a little different from your neighbors?

Your contribution can be on any topic as long as it’s theme is based on finding meaning in life. Articles, artwork, original photos, and video are all accepted.

The submission deadline is Saturday at 9pm PST. The carnival will be published on Sunday, December 2nd. Send your submissions to marcel@marcellegros.com or sign up at Blog Carnival.

I look forward to your wisdom!

Most of us find our place in adulthood. Our confidence grows with our experiences, and if we’re lucky, the self limiting labels created in childhood fall away.

Even positive labels create negative consequences. Any behavior contrived to elicit a response, to maintain an image, or to pump up the ego, is not authentic. It perpetuates the notion that we require props to be of value; that we have to defend our existence. No-one can diminish who you are by their opinion of you.

Peace comes when the urge to defend yourself falls away and is replaced by compassion.

Posted by Charlene Legros

I said to my husband the other night: “We’re perfectly normal (in a secret service kind of way). We just wear our tics on the inside.”

What common denominator quantifies someone as normal? I’d like to meet the asshole who created the median and rough him up a bit. Unfortunately, there is no singular asshole to blame - just a mass of humanity trying to fit in and fly under the radar.

We are taught to care about other people’s opinions from an early age. “What will the neighbors think?” is the gold standard in disempowerment. It disables unique expression and separates us from emotional authenticity. We become liars by omission. Showing the world only what we think is acceptable, and slamming the lid on creativity. How can we lead full and enriching lives if were always looking over our shoulders to gauge the reaction of the guy in the next row. Who’s life is it anyway?

Why Do We Succumb? The Cost of Doing Business

It begins on the playground and escalates through high school. The desire to be accepted. If you are different you run the risk of beatings—or worse; becoming a social misfit. The fear of being alone can motivate us to do a lot of stupid things. But at what cost? Veiling our nature in order to blend in, detaches us from our experiences. Choosing ‘safe’ scenarios, to protect ourselves from pain—leads to boredom and discontent. The old Pink Floyd song “Comfortably Numb” is a great example of a life half lived.

Think of all the great minds who were at one time or another deemed ‘odd’. Their contributions to our world have been immense. I’m not suggesting anarchy (that would be creepy). Just the ‘eyes wide open wonder’ that comes from being truthful with yourself and genuine with others.

Self acceptance.

So stir the pot, jump on the bed, cross your eyes, and laugh till it hurts. Don’t worry; it’s normal.

Changing the world, one follower at a time.

Article Outline

Day One - Tools Required for Website Development

Day Two - Skills Required for Website Development

Day Three - The Most Powerful Learning Secret for Website Development

Day Four - Beyond Basics - Tools That Take Your Site To the Next Level

Day Five - Beyond Basics - Skills That Take Your Website to the Next Level

Day Six - Wrap-Up - Summary of Tools, Skills, Books, and Tutorials for Website Development

Day Five - Skills to Take Your Site to the Next Level

You more than a solid understanding of HTML and CSS to build a successful web site. The difference between a good web site and a great web site isn’t flashy graphics or slick database-driven content - it’s depth.

You need to:

• Understand your topic
• Understand your audience
• Deliver your information, tools, or solutions to that audience in a user-friendly way.
• Give something that is of value to the people viewing your site, make it easy for them to find what they want, and create a compelling reason for your audience to keep coming back.

Learn To Spell Correctly. Use Proper Grammar, and Concise Language.

Ther’s nuthin wurs than reding a web site with horibel speling and gramur.

Make sure you spell-check everything you write. Ask another writer to check your work and edit for improvements.

Often, a word isn’t misspelled, but misused - here is a good post on the most commonly misused words. Make sure your writing is concise - kill all unnecessary words for sake of clarity. Eliminate “weedy” words like “but, well, then, very, and, so, that, just, really, now, was, were, and had” - they’re lifeless and add nothing to your writing. Passive words like “could, should, would, had, were, had, got, was, been” destroy interesting sentences and put your readers to sleep.

Learn to identify weedy words and passive language!

Offer Something of Value

Too many people start a personal site or blog just to tell us how badly their day went or what they ate for dinner last night. I’m not being cruel when I say “I don’t want to see another picture of your cat. I don’t care if you have a strange lump on your elbow and you want the world to know about it. I don’t want to see another page cluttered with inspirational quotes, jokes, and seizure-inducing animated banners.”

Provide valuable content - something worth reading, a tool to solve a problem, or even just your own opinions and feelings. Make us laugh or cry. Make us feel what you’re feeling. Make it worthwhile.

Make Your Pages Easy to Navigate

Design your site so any viewer can navigate to any page they’re looking for, in 3 clicks or less. Provide a “home” link on every page on the site. Make your links visual if possible, and provide simple navigation to every area of your site on every page. Never allow new pages to open into a new window. Never allow pop-ups ads or reminders of any kind - they’re annoying and put your reader in a bad mood.

If I have to click 10 times to get to your article and then I’m greeted with a ‘helpful’ pop-up window, I’m going to go somewhere else.

Keep Your Images as Small as Possible

When you insert images and graphics into your html, make sure you optimize them to be as small as possible. Large image files can cripple a web page and your readers will go elsewhere. Don’t be afraid to use eye-candy and great graphics. Use programs like Photoshop and Gimp to reduce their file size.

Here’s an example - the following image was downloaded from iStock.

The original file size was 252 KB. After saving it as an optimized jpeg in Photoshop, the file is now 18.6KB. The image will load over 13 times faster because I optimized it!

Make It Easy on My Ears

It’s tempting to include music on your web pages. Music is okay, but never have it automatically load and always give the viewer an option to turn it off. Not everyone will share you musical preference. If I’m surfing late at night, I don’t want music to start blaring from the PC and wake up my family. If you force me to listen to your favorite tunes when I discover your site, I’m likely to go somewhere else.

Avoid Color Schemes That Melt My Eyes

Two intense colors placed beside each other will “vibrate” and cause irreparable damage to your viewers’ mood.

Avoid putting intense, saturated versions of these colors close together:

• red / green
• blue / red
• green / magenta
• yellow / cyan
• blue / magenta
• blue / green.

Here’s an example of what not to do. Isn’t this annoying?

Create White Space On Your Page

Break your writing up into short paragraphs and leave room for the eye to relax.

White space gives focus and clarity to a web page.

Avoid Tiny Fonts

Not everyone has 20/20 vision. Even if all your viewers have perfect vision, larger font sizes are easier to read.

Avoid Busy, Distracting Backgrounds

No cloud scenes, repeating checkered patterns, or other noise, please. They’re a major put-off, and make your content impossible to read.

Don’t Let Advertising Dominate Your Content

There’s nothing worse than banners at the top, text ads at the bottom, and ads that pop up when you hover over every word. I came to view your content, not get hammered over the head by advertising. There’s nothing wrong with monetizing your site - just do it tastefully and consider the user experience first.

Use Lists and Numbers

1. People love reading bulleted and numbered lists.
2. A viewer’s eye is more attracted to the numeric version of a number.
3. Use 365 instead of three hundred sixty-five.

Lastly, make your content meaningful and put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Identify the type of people you are writing for and aim to attract those people with your topics and writing style. If you identify your audience and create an environment they feel comfortable with, you’re well on your way to having a successful web site of your own.

I hope you join me for the wrap up in this series. I’ll have it up in a few days. I originally planned to write a summary of all we’ve covered in the last five articles, but I have a feeling I’m going to surprise you with something completely different!