Alex Mochenyat

We’ve all heard the dangers of eating out. Portion sizes are astronomical, the calories unbelievable, and sodium and sugar content surprisingly high. But eating a fast food meal two or three times a week can’t really pose serious danger to our health, can it?

The results are in and the experts agree: we can’t really estimate the amount of calories we’re eating (or drinking), and calorie counts displayed on menus do not change what we decide to order. Yet it is still heralded as great progress against the obesity epidemic when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg decides to ban sugary soft drinks!

The problem with eating out—and the clues to how we can enjoy an occasional restaurant meal without jeopardizing our personal health and weight loss goals—may lie outside the realm of counting calories and banning Coca-Cola.

Serving Sizes: What We Don’t Know

A recent study by Harvard Business School scholar Pierre Chandon aimed to measure how well people can tell how much soda they’re drinking and how many calories are in their fast food meals. Read the rest of this entry

In my years teaching people to be successful, I have seen that basically people break their lives down into two major parts: wealth- building and the rest of their lives. Having done a lot of reflection on these two topics—wealth and life—I am coming to some new conclusions about how to perceive the two.

Until recently I thought that there was a significant difference in how we should tackle the two areas. In fact, I thought that the two topics should be addressed in almost opposite fashion.

You see, wealth-building is just math. While life—Life is art.

Think back with me to high school. Most of us were required to take math and most of us probably took art as well.

Now, think about your final exams in the two areas. Your math paper was graded on hard facts: Read the rest of this entry

For every disciplined effort, there are multiple rewards. That’s one of life’s great arrangements. In fact, it’s an extension of the Biblical law that says that if you sow well, you will reap well.

Here’s a unique part of the Law of Sowing and Reaping. Not only does it suggest that we’ll all reap what we’ve sown, it also suggests that we’ll reap much more. Life is full of laws that both govern and explain behaviors, but this may well be the major law we need to understand: for every disciplined effort, there are multiple rewards.

What a concept! If you render unique service, your reward will be multiplied. If you’re fair and honest and patient with others, your reward will be multiplied. If you give more than you expect to receive, your reward is more than you expect. But remember: the key word here, as you might well imagine, is discipline. Read the rest of this entry

Opportunities are never just handed to you; they must be created. Opportunities abound for every individual in every walk of life. They may not be the opportunities that you prefer, but each opportunity of which you take advantage leads to bigger and better opportunities. Physical and mental handicaps may mean that you have to explore territories unknown to others, but they also mean you have opportunities those others will never find. Think of Stephen Hawking’s brilliant research on the nature of the universe despite the fact that a crippling disease makes writing and speaking, as we know it, impossible for him. Those who approach their jobs and careers with enthusiasm always find plenty of opportunities, while those who complain about no one ever giving them a chance are merely observers of life. When you are determined that you will not allow others to determine your future for you, when you refuse to allow temporary setbacks to defeat you, you are destined for great success. The opportunities will always be there for you. If there are adversities that you cannot overcome right now, remember to capitalize upon them at a later date by looking for the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.

By Joseph McClendon

When you are living in the fullness of life, you begin to see that you have no limitations. Although I’m not a medical doctor, I do hold a doctorate in neuropsychology and one of my passions and gifts is in the area of health and wellness. I juice, eat specific foods, and for decades generally have studied physiology and how the body works. People often tell me I look several years younger than my real age. I wrote a book called Change Your Breakfast, Change Your Life, and it’s successful because I delivered material I was passionate about and gifted to share. Read the rest of this entry

By: Jim Rohn

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be motivated to achievement by such a lofty goal as benevolence? I must confess, however, that in the early years of my struggle to succeed, my motivation was a lot more down to earth. My reason for succeeding was more basic. In fact, it fell into the category of what I like to call “nitty-gritty reasons.” A nitty-gritty reason is the kind that any one of us can have—at any time, on any day—and it can cause our lives to change. Let me tell you what happened to me. Read the rest of this entry

By: Jim Rohn

What is the origin of true ambition? There exists really only one place to find true ambition and that is within you—in every thought, in every movement, in every motivation. Your ambition is an expression of who you truly are, your own self-expression.

Self-expression. Isn’t self-expression really self-direction? How you think, how you move, how you motivate yourself. Ambition is a result of self-direction and self-direction is one of the six key principles necessary for building ambition. Positive self-direction says, “I know who I am and I know where I want to go. I’m accumulating knowledge and experiences and feelings and philosophies that will help prepare me for opportunities that I know will show up without notice or any help on my part.” Because you know where you want to go, you have already been working on the parts of your personality that will make you better. Working on your attitude, working on your health, working on your time-management skills. Putting it all down on paper. And you constantly see yourself in the place you want to be, going in the direction you want to go.

Direction determines destination. So here is a question you must ask yourself, “Are all the disciplines that I’m currently engaged in taking me where I want to go?” What an important question to ask yourself at the beginning of the month, the beginning of the week, the beginning of the day. Because here is what you don’t ever want to do—kid yourself. Kid your neighbor, kid me and kid the marketplace, but don’t kid yourself—fingers crossed—hoping you will arrive at a good destination when you’re not even headed that way. You have to ask yourself often, AM I? Am I doing the disciplines that are taking me in the direction I want to go? Don’t neglect to ask these important questions, questions that help determine your direction, the set of your sail, your destination.

Is this the direction I want for my life? 
Is this someone else’s direction? 
Is this a goal I have been ingrained with since my childhood? 
Is this goal my parents’, my spouse’s, my boss’s, my children’s or is it MINE?

Ask yourself these questions and then debate them. After you have answered these questions within yourself, then take it one step further and ask, “What am I doing that is working or not working?” Debate it all. Work with your mind to figure out the best possible direction for you—your self-direction. And then ambitiously pursue your own self-direction. Let the power of your own ambition take you where you want to go, to do what you want to do, to create the life you want to live!

By Brian Tracy

The worst beliefs you can have are “self-limiting beliefs.” These exist whenever you believe yourself to be limited in some way. For example, you may think yourself to be less talented or capable than others. You may think that others are superior to you in some way. You may have fallen into the common trap of selling yourself short and settling for far less than you are truly capable of.

These self-limiting beliefs act like brakes on your potential. They hold you back. They generate the two greatest enemies of personal success—doubt and fear. They paralyze you and cause you to hesitate to take the intelligent risks that are necessary for you to fulfill your true potential. Read the rest of this entry

In the process of living, the winds of circumstances blow on us all in an unending flow that touches each of our lives.

We have all experienced the blowing winds of disappointment, despair and heartbreak. Why, then, would each of us, in our own individual ship of life, all beginning at the same point, with the same intended destination in mind, arrive at such different places at the end of the journey? Have we not all been blown by the winds of circumstances and buffeted by the turbulent storms of discontent? Read the rest of this entry

Courtesy of Napoleon Hill

We still live in the greatest country in the world. The United States is the great experiment in positive thinking; our entire system of government is based upon faith in the inherent goodness of the individual. It was a revolutionary idea more than 200 years ago when the Declaration of Independence was first signed. Borrowing from the greatest thinkers in history, our founding fathers established a form of government of the people that is today the model most imitated around the world. Economic and political conditions ebb and flow, but as long as we have a democratic society that celebrates the individual, we can achieve anything in life we desire. All you require to be successful in the United States is the desire to achieve success and the determination to stick with it until you reach your goals.