Make Yourself

Steve Case and his brother hawked magazine subscriptions and sold lemonade when they were kids.Later on when Steve discovered the computer he became passionate about building a connected society on line where people can buy,sell,communicate or to get news with and from friends,family and colleagues.In those days connecting to the Internet was slow,frustrating and fatiguing.Steve started AOL and though many pundits predicted it'd demise Steve focussed as he says it: 'We stayed focussed on what consumers not technologists want." Here are three small steps out of oblivion:

[1] See a need and fill it

Fauzia moved into a new housing estate. Shockingly none of her neighbours came out to greet them. Where she used to stay in Secunderabad neighbours spoke to each other everyday. Fauzia found this strange. So she decided to visit all 27 households on her street.Using information she had gathered during the visits,she rigged up a local directory listing names,phone numbers,house numbers and emergency contacts and delivered a copy to each home on the street.Following favourable response to the directory,Fauzia arranged a coffee party for women in the neighbourhood.At this get together they discovered that their children were in the same classes and decided to share the responsibility of sending the youngsters to and from school. Others who used to see each other almost daily discovered they lived next door.From then on the women stayed in touch. Next she and her husband organised a party for everybody in the neighbourhood.Thanks to Fauzia's iniative the people in her neighbourhood continue to share ideas to solve common problems and be there for each other in times of distress.

[2] Get Out Of The Box

Take everyday tasks and make them more EXCITING.Perhaps a new route to work?Or a complete change in routine for a day?Tinker with curiousity.Is there a better way to do something?Perhaps sit down with the kids or greet the hubby as he comes home drained by the wringers at work.

[3] Get out To Do Something New

For example browse in an old art shop.Study German architecture.Hang around others who are breathing breaking free from the chains of routine.Join an association of scrapbook keepers. These activities feed you in unexpected ways. Lighting the fires in your energies or spark you on to something new or to go in new directions.Many people come up with their best ideas while driving or cleaning house or shopping:be available to your intuitions!

Time spent in these snatches of minutes or parts of an hour in tinkhamtown is time well spent.If there's genius laid low in the woods within you,it may not surface suddenly or catapult you onto fame's court.But it's life altering,leading you to make changes in work and pursuits.Take a chance on something you've always wanted to do.We shouldn't get burnt by living and dying with that one wish unfulfilled.

So steal away to yourself. Find the person in you.

To your best,

Passion,Freedom,Prosperity

Cally Rao

Ways To Finding Yourself ...

Peggy will never forget the phone call she received one September morning.Her daughter,Diane, a student at a university had been killed in an automobile accident.The weeks and months that followed were a blur of grief for her.Until an old friend from secondary schools and a few bike rides together in the woods did she claw back to her usual gazelle self.

Stress and anxieties through whatever door they come in trigger the now familiar fight-or-flight response in all of us.But unless you tear loose from the gravity of old life, you are going to get boxed in and caged again from time to time.But there's a way to kick your heels up again and live life:Get Lost!

Yes!Lose yourself!Lose yourself on an operatic binge.Hide away in a rustic old hotel on a faraway beach.Sneak away on a moonlit canoe ride.

Why should you bother getting lost?Getting lost unhatches trails out from the prisons of your comfort zones, your locked-up situations, forcing you to adapt,change,challenge and overwhelm a situation.Getting lost forces you to abandon schedule,routine and rigidity.You should let your instincts lead you instead of you leading your instincts.

Every new day is a new leaf to the chapters of our life.Will today be as tomorrow was or the day before had been?We have a past but we are not our past.If we don't like what we are doing now, we have the choice to change.

Go get lost! Take a leap from well grazed turf and the couches to open vistas. But if work has you bottled in here's a trail to get lost on.

Finding Yourself..

Cally Rao

From "Do-It-For-Me" To "Do-It-Yourself"

Do You Know Something About Anything?
A Hobby? A Passion?
Any Interests? Experience?
Turn Your Knowledge Into Revenue!Life doesn't happen.
It comes from a willingness to get your feet wet..

Passion!

Cally Rao

Beating The Blues

Nobody knew Louise's secret.A bubbly journalist,she often had panic attacks,dry spells at work and was afraid of getting out of bed in the morning. She stopped eating well and slowly lost interest in assignments on the job.She began to spend more of her time lying in bed,smoking and drinking and getting overwhelmed by feelings of dying.Studies show several risk factors that can parachute us into depressiveness: poverty, numerous children, a sick baby, lack of a support system, low education, unemployment, marital problems and an unplanned pregnancy.In the Arab world, postpartum depression affects 18 percent to 21 percent of new mothers. In the Western world the figure is 10 percent to 15 percent.

Depression is bad for the heart.New studies bear out that patients with major depression were three times more likely to be struck down by heart disease.Even mild depressions can take the fatality rate 50% higher than normal.Depression causes stress and stress triggers an outpouring of hormones ( cortisol ) which can cause heart rate and blood pressure to surf.Depressed people are also less likely to exercise or eat right than those who don't suffer the malady.Depression is a huge cardiac risk factor, so it's really crucial to take care of your emotions.

If you are overwhelmed by feelings of isolation,hopelessness,inadequacy and failure it's time to be careful, to do a reality check.Too often someone feeling down over protracted periods of time doesn't feel anything abnormal with this but neither do they confide to friends or relatives.They march off into silence. Take it out of the closet or you could end up suffering in silence for life!Stigma,fear or just outright obliviousness can make sufferers lead a double life. Victims will tell their doctors about physical problems but reluctant to discuss their emotional problems.Cultural factors lead to misdiagnosis or no diagnosis at all in nearly half of all sufferers in Asia. Left to itself it becomes a self harming tool.Self harmers struggling with all their emotional problems may get to feel that they have no one to turn to or cry out to could end up harming themselves as a coping mechanism.Sufferers are in huge emotional pain and the only way they know how to release all that built up tension is through self harm.Some go into drinking binges or drug themselves while others flee into harmful eating disorders.It is a tragic reminder of how life can go terribly cruel.

But depression also has economic consequences.Workers suffering from depression take more sick time,use health services more and are less productive.But a job can be the road to recovery.Being on the job gets you away from drowning in yourself and keep the mind busy.Confidence and a sense of purpose follow in.Being on a job, doing things, TRYING out new ways add a pattern of purpose to your life and transform your days into time worth living.

Beating The Blues

Cally Rao

Here's how a 14-year old girl started her own business as a part-time hobby..

The biggest mistake people make in life is not making a living at doing what they most enjoy , said Malcolm S. Forbes (1919-1990).
Dreams do come true, if you dare them to be. And if you work to turn that dream into reality.
Choosing the future home of your business is not an easy decision.

And read how this deserving family runs their business from poolside, looking out over the Tuscan hillside.

Dreams Can Come True

Cally Rao

Do You Really Want To Quit ?

What if you come to realise you may have studied the 'wrong' thing in university? That you have zero affinity for numbers despite that accountancy degree? In my old peoples' time they'd just bite the bullet , endure and stay in the job.But times have and are a'changing.With globalisation opportunities for job and career hopping have come flung open.Careers unheard of fifteen years ago are now the norm.Hate being a lawyer? Become a chef!Don't like finance? Go into retail.Hate where you are? Go to Korea!

But before you hop, a thing or two to consider :

a]When going into a switch do you have enough transferrable skills to tide you over
in the short run on the new job?
b]Are you willing to slash your paycheck because you are starting at near bottom
with a steep learning curve ahead?
c]Are you really interested in your new found career or have been swept off your
feet by some image of it ?
d]Take small first steps.Instead of plunging and ploughing rightaway into your new
career try working weekends on it.When your gumption or instincts tell you that
you have both talent,resources and seed money,do you quit.

Though there is nothing wrong chasing your dreams or striking out to be numero uno just be sure your decidion is based on clear , practical thinking and not a sudden squall of emotions.The best thing you can do is PLAN your change.

Here however is a 'change' that won't sink your boat.Check it out and weigh.

Stop Being Someone Else's Guinea Pig

Be A Netpreneur

Cally Rao