Golfing Success

My Name is Khan - Golfing success is a life learning experience. You can learn a lot about life when you play golf. In particular, you can learn a lot about yourself from golf. If you cheat or blow up when things are not going your way, such as getting a bad break, you will most likely demonstrate similar behaviors in life. Therefore, golfing success reflects your life learning experience.

Film My Name is Khan - Life is a game, and so is golf. In life, you have twists and turns, and you just have to meander your way through; likewise, in golf, you also get good breaks as well as bad ones, and you just have to learn to deal with them. Golfing success mirrors your life learning experience.

Remember, you are very lucky indeed, if you can begin another day - not to mention that you can play on the green. So, accept the fact that during the day, you may have joys, disappointments, and surprises. Learn to accept what is being offered to you, and embrace the good as well as the bad. This is the way of Zen, and this is how you should play Zen golf, which brings about golfing success.

If you regard playing golf as a life learning experience, then you will learn and improve your sport. Golfing success is within your reach.

In golf as in life, to achieve anything, you need to set goals. For golfing success, set some smart learning goals. In golf, there is the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of your improvement comes from only 20 percent of what you have learned or improved. In other words, you don't need to know everything to attain golfing success. It is like driving a car - you meed to know the basics of driving, but you need not know how a car engine operates.

So, to improve your game for golfing success, focus on only a few major areas. Like living, if you worry about everything or worry too much, you will end up not enjoying your life at all. Living becomes stressful. Similarly, in golf, if you strive to analyze every situation, or worry too much about how to execute a stroke, analysis will become paralysis.

Get yourself a good address position. That is, you grip your club correctly. You maintain a good stance and proper posture. Then you turn away from the ball on your backswing that stores up energy. Finally, you release your stored-up energy with a good forward swing that propels the ball to the target. As Peter Thomson, a well-known golfer, said: "To play good golf all you have to do is grip it, turn it, and release it." Maybe Thomson made it too simple to be true. But maybe simplicity is the name of the game in golfing success.

But you become your own coach. As you continue to play, if you are mindful of your need to know and to learn the basics, you will improve your game. You will ultimately attain your golfing success.

Even a good instructor can do only so much: you have to learn on your own, especially how to master golfing techniques for golfing success. Naturally, a good instructor should tell you what to do and why you should do it in that particular manner. Then the instructor should be able to demonstrate to you how to do it properly. Finally, your instructor should allow you to "experience" the feel of that newly acquired technique.

Therefore, playing golf is always a life learning experience if you are made aware of what you need to do. After all, golf is a 80/20 game for golfing success.

You May Not Be Getting Big Results From Taking Guitar Lessons

Have you ever tried taking guitar lessons and ended up quitting in frustration, because you felt you weren’t making enough progress? Or perhaps you have considered taking guitar lessons but because someone you know had a disappointing experience with a guitar teacher, you began to doubt if lessons are worth investing your time and money. This perception prevents you from getting all that you want from your guitar lessons.

There can be many reasons why people quit guitar lessons. Sometimes it is because the teacher failed to inspire you, or because the lessons weren’t focused enough on your specific musical goals, or because the teacher was only mediocre and didn’t know how to help you achieve a specific result. (To avoid this problem download this free guide about how to choose a guitar teacher: http://www.tomhess.net/HowToChooseAGuitarTeacher.aspx) However, another (often misunderstood) reason might be that your own approach to guitar lessons wasn’t as effective as it needed to be in order for you to make real progress.

After teaching tens of thousands of music lessons to all types of guitarists and also mentoring guitar teachers around the world on how to teach more effectively, I began to notice similar and consistent patterns used by most students for learning to play guitar.

I also noticed that the specific approach the students applied to studying with a teacher had a direct influence on their progress. Very often 2 different people can get very different results by studying with the same guitar teacher, because the ways in which the students approached the learning process in general are very different. For example, one student believed that he knew better than the teacher did about how to reach his musical goals and resisted some of the instruction his teacher was giving him. It later became very clear to him that he did not know better. Click on the link to hear his story about how he failed to improve his guitar skills: http://tomhess.net/GetGuitarLessonsMistake.aspx. The other student soaked up everything his teacher was instructing him to do and quickly became a world class guitar virtuoso.

I have found there are 3 types of students who become easily frustrated with their guitar lessons. As you read the rest of this article, be honest and ask yourself if any of these 3 descriptions sound like you. I’ll be the first to admit that at one point I had the characteristics of each of the “ineffective student behaviors” presented below. Looking back many years later, I now understand that one of the reasons why it took me as long as it did to master the guitar (more than 20 years), was due to my own inefficient approaches to learning when I began the journey.

The “Teach me something new today” student type.

You may think it is common sense that guitar lessons should consist mainly of presenting new content, and expect that the guitar teacher’s primary job is to show you things that are “new” to you. However, if we examine this approach a bit deeper, you will see that focusing “only” on seeking out new information will not bring big results long term.

First of all, too much new content quickly leads to overwhelm and burn out (and does not allow enough time to apply the information you are learning). This feeling of overwhelm is what causes you to become frustrated and quit lessons (or worse yet, quit guitar). Second, simply “learning new things” does not lead to mastery. I have had many students come to me being able to do some cool things on guitar. For example, they may have good technique, or a good understanding of how music works, or have good ears. But more often than not, their ability to APPLY and INTEGRATE what they “know” to playing music was very poor. At this point, “learning more new things” is not going to help these students to significantly advance their guitar playing. Simply being “aware” of a concept is not enough. You don’t truly “know” something until you can apply and integrate it with your other musical skills fluently.

This type of training in applying and integrating what you know is probably the single most valuable thing you get out of music lessons and is one area of musical development that is almost universally lacking in many guitarists. This results in massive frustration and disappointment that many guitar players often experience (but often do not realize WHY they are frustrated).

When you take lessons for the first time, you may think that it is great that your teacher shows you something new in each lesson. But if your teacher does nothing else than “show you things”, then as more lessons go by, you will start to notice that you are not really making any significant progress (because no application and integration is taking place). Most people will quit lessons at this point, and will continue to perpetuate the myth that guitar lessons are ineffective, without really understanding the real reasons for their lack of progress.

The type of student who is only interested in learning new things, typically does not stick with guitar lessons for very long. If a guitar teacher begins to talk about a concept the student may already be familiar with, the lesson is perceived to be a waste of time. Because these students may have heard about this concept from somewhere else, they believe that they “already know it”.

Of course, receiving new information is a part of any comprehensive lesson plan (and certainly you will learn a lot of new things by taking lessons), but it is the order in which this information is presented, and the way you are trained to USE, APPLY and INTEGRATE that information that makes guitar lessons with a good teacher so valuable. If learning “raw data” in a linear fashion (and practicing) was all it took to become a great musician, then anyone could buy some books and after studying them for a few years and practicing on his/her own become a highly advanced guitarist. Of course most of the time, this doesn’t happen.

The moral of the story here is to remember that you came to your teacher to learn and grow as a guitar player. In order for this to actually happen you will need to have some patience through the process and realize that sometimes when you ‘think you know something’, you in fact may not really know it yet to the point that you can apply it and integrate it with your other musical skills.

“The Perfectionist”

The next type of student wants to master every little thing their teacher presents in a lesson (or that they discover on their own) before working on anything else. While on the surface this seems like a good idea, it is far from the most efficient approach to becoming a great musician. Learning music is best done in a non-linear approach, meaning that multiple things should be worked on simultaneously without stressing out about totally mastering everything in a linear order. Discover more about why the typical linear approach guitar players follow often fails in this video about how to master the guitar: http://www.tomhess.net/LinearVsGeometricApproach.aspx.

I like to compare learning music to baking a cake. You don’t make a cake by cooking one ingredient at a time and then finally putting them together when each one is ready. If you baked your cake in this way, it would take you a long time to finish and more importantly the cake would not taste as good as when the ingredients are cooked together!

The same goes for musical skills. If you waited until you became a great virtuoso master of technique before beginning to work on (mastering) music theory, then turning to songwriting, and then switching to improvising, it could take you many decades to finally become really good and your skills would not likely be integrated together. What I recommend to you is to follow a non-linear approach (as described in the video above). When learning a new skill, don’t wait until you completely master it; only make sure that you have the fundamentals down and begin immediately to look for contexts to apply it. Then work on integrating this new skill with everything else that you know how to do/play. Application and integration are unique skills that must be practiced separately. This key link will enable you to go from being “the student” who is able to “do lots of things” on the guitar, to becoming a great player who can use all of his musical skills to achieve complete musical expression.

This (non-linear) approach will also prevent you from getting out of balance with your skills and at any level of your musical development, you will be able to apply and integrate everything you know. It is important to note that a ‘non-linear approach’ is not an ‘illogical’ approach. So if you are looking for a systematic and logical approach to learning guitar, you should understand that this systematic, geometric (non-linear) strategy IS in fact the most effective, most efficient and most logical path possible.

The challenger

This personality type often comes out in a player who has been playing for a while and has studied with other guitar teachers in the past. This student may come into their first lesson full of preconceived ideas about what lessons should be like, and dictating to the teacher what and how to teach. I should clarify here that I am not talking about asking questions when you don’t understand something or telling your teacher about your goals. There is a big difference between doing that, and trying to dictate to the teacher what and how to teach. If the student knew that much more about teaching than the teacher, then the student would BE the teacher, right? If you know how to successfully learn guitar on your own and you are TRULY happy with your progress without a teacher, then maybe you don’t need guitar lessons. But if you seek help from a qualified guitar teacher, this means you realized that whatever you were doing on your own wasn’t working as well as you wanted it to. Therefore, you should accept the fact (or at least the high probability) that your guitar teacher knows many times more about guitar playing and teaching guitar than you do and can successfully teach you to play well. (Otherwise, why would you give the teacher your money?) Of course not all guitar teachers are the same, and some are much more qualified to teach than others. If you follow the advice I give in the guide for choosing a guitar teacher, you will be sure to find the best teacher for you.

I always tell my students that in order for them to receive the most benefit from working with me, it is their job to articulate to me their specific musical goals and list their musical challenges. Then it is MY job to come up with the most effective strategy possible to solve their problems and get them to their stated goals as quickly as possible. But in order for that to happen, they need to have faith in me as a teacher, and commit themselves to moving forward together through the learning and training process. My most satisfied and advanced students all followed this advice.

If your guitar teacher has already created many great musicians, chances are, he knows what he is doing and will be able to help you as well. But his ability to help you will be limited (and the process will take much longer), if you constantly challenge everything he tells you to do. Again, asking questions about something you don’t understand is normal, and is part of the learning process. But creating the overall lesson plan is your teacher’s primary responsibility, not yours.

If you recognize yourself as one of the student types described above, think about your current approach to learning guitar and change your mindset. On the surface it may seem like a small action to take, but the difference this can make to your guitar playing may be greater than you have ever even imagined before!

Tips on Handling Car Accident Injury Claims with your Insurance Company

Car accidents are the leading cause of personal injuries in the United States.

In 2005 alone, there are about 2.9 million people injured as a result of car accidents.

Car accident injuries are also the leading cause of death in road accidents and in the same study, have resulted in about forty-three thousand deaths.

Some of the common car accident injuries are:

• Knee injuries

• TBI and head injuries

• Paralysis (Paraplegia, quadriplegia, etc.)

• Burn injuries

• Amputations

• Fractured bones

• Skin lacerations

Car accident injuries usually cause large medical expenses and you would need to make a claim with your insurance company.

The problem is most insurance companies look for ways to pay the claimant as little as possible.

Insurance adjusters will be reviewing all your records and will find ways on reducing the payment as much as they can.

To avoid those problems, here are some tips that can be followed to ensure that you are getting a fair amount from your insurance company:

• Your personal injury claim starts when you go to a doctor – It is very important that you seek medical attention for your injuries after a car accident. If your car accident insurance policy carries personal injury protection coverage, the medical expenses should be covered by your car accident insurance company first. Going in the emergency room as soon as possible will show that the car accident injuries needed immediate medical treatment.

• Disclose all symptoms with the emergency room doctor – The doctor will take note of all the symptoms you are feeling, including all aches and pains in any part of your body. If you forget to mention any symptoms, it will not be placed on your medical record. Insurance adjusters will be reviewing your medical records very intently and they can then use these “forgotten symptoms” to decrease the value of your injury by telling you that you did not report the said injury the day you went in the emergency room.

• Be careful with what you say, even with the doctors – The doctor will be taking note of everything you say and in turn will be reviewed by the medical adjusters.

If the doctor asks you what you were doing and answer that you were “playing golf or basketball, was jogging, etc. after the car accident.” The insurance adjuster can use that against your claim by saying that your injuries were not very serious if you were able to engage in such strenuous activities.

• Ask the emergency doctor for a work release – Even if you believe you do not need one, ask for one. Some injuries do not appear until after a few days. This also help in showing that your injuries was serious enough to warrant time off from work.

• Ask for a referral – Emergency doctors would only see you because of emergencies like car accidents. They will not continue your treatment. Ask them for a doctor that they can refer so that you can continue your treatment.

• Stick to your treatment schedule – Insurance adjusters will reduce the payment you will get if they find out that you are skipping some of your treatment. Skipping treatment will show that your injuries are not as serious as you claim.

Designer Should Know About Managing Clients

Alexander McQueen - So you’re an art director at a big name creative agency, but you’ve grown tired of climbing the corporate ladder and decided to explore opportunities as a freelance designer. The idea sounds sweet as your mind runs through a check list of self-employment benefits:

1. Freedom to express your own unique style and aesthetic

2. Choose your own clients in industries that you like

3. Work to your own schedule

4. No longer need to deal with technically inept creative directors

5. And yes, you finally won’t need to argue with the account team aka “suits” anymore…

But, are you really ready to take on the role of a suit and manage clients, negotiate costs, sell your work convincingly, and take criticism without going on a tirade about how the logo is already frickin’ big enough? Well, if you’re not then here’s a list to get you started of the 5 things every freelance designers should know about managing clients.

1) Never provide a price list

I always advocate not providing standardized price lists to any potential clients. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a price list, though. It’s fine to have set hourly rates for retouching and it’s great as a benchmark for your fees, but they should never be applied to full projects. Couple of the reasons being:

* Your goal should always be to secure a face-to-face meeting with the potential client. Sending them a price list is very hit-or-miss simply because the client is basing their decision on numbers/facts alone. The slight advantage you gain by building rapport is well-worth the time. A face-to-face meeting is where you can really demonstrate your capabilities, personality, and learn more about the client and project.

* Our economy is in a constant state of flux so pricing has to change with the times, but if you present your client with a price list they’ll throw all those variables out the window. If you don’t want to be married to a set price list, don’t supply one cause clients can and will hold you to it!

* Your competition can attain your price list and low-ball you. It’s very easy for a competing studio or other freelance designers to inquire as a potential client and get all your pricing information for comparison and market research. Bad business ethics, but happens all the time.

* You want each project to seem individualized. Stating that your fees are based on a custom project scope gives the impression that each project is unique and special. Price lists are fine for standard production jobs, but by quoting for each unique project you give the client the sense that you are building custom designs and tools based on their specific requirements. Show them some love and they’ll return the favor.

2) Always challenge the client

Being nice to clients surely helps to build rapport, but you don’t want to be a sycophant. Simply saying yes to all of your client’s requests/demands won’t earn you the trust and reputation you’re looking for. This is because the client is hiring you for your expertise and ideas as a freelance designer, not to simple do what they ask. Being the devil’s advocate may seem counter-productive, but in the long-run the client will respect you more because you’re not simply designing for them, but also looking out for their best business interests.

Clients also don’t always know what they want so it’s your responsibility to take initiative, be convincing, and lead them down the path you feel is most appropriate. Most of the time you’ll be working with someone who needs your advice so don’t be afraid to give it. Your honesty, when expressed tactfully, will lead to trust which means more return customers for future projects.

3) Plan, plan, plan

Ample planning allows you to research more about current affairs and trends in your client’s industry. It’s always a good sign when you can display knowledge about their industry and provide references and other relevant fun fact that clients can understand and relate to.

A lot of people think too much planning is a waste of time and taking action is more important. I disagree because a lack of planning could have great detrimental effects down the road if problems and disagreements arise over the project scope. Planning and agreeing on a project brief with the client before commencing design work reduces the amount of miscommunication during the project and limits other surprises along the way. If the client decides to add elements later, you can legitimately charge them more because the well-thought out, well-planned project brief was approved at the very beginning of the project. The potential trouble you save yourself from is worth the extra time spent on planning.

4) Presentation and personality do matter

It’s important to demonstrate that you have good written and spoken interpersonal communication skills. If you can’t have a productive brainstorming/problem solving session with the client, how do you expect them to have confidence in your ideas and creativity? This is especially important for freelance designers since you’re a one-man band and won’t have help managing your clients.

Also, hate to state the obvious but appearances do matter! Creatives/designers have a reputation for having an eclectic fashion sense but that doesn’t mean you can show up to a client meeting wearing a colorful tank top, skinny tie, 80s short-shorts, flip-flops, and a fedora. Working relationships are built on trust and the more you look the part, the more clients will believe you will play the part. Don’t get my wrong - showing your personality is great, but don’t do it at the expense of losing clients. It’s a cruel world, but the Halo Effect does come into play when trying to attract new business.

5) The bottom line

When all is said and done, the only thing that really matters to clients is that quality work is delivered on budget and on time. Your clients will forgive you for almost everything as long as you meet or exceed the expectations on these three crucial factors. Good luck to all you freelance designers out there!

Say "I Love You" For Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day - With Valentine's Day just around the corner, it's time to start thinking about the perfect gift for the one you love. Whether you are looking for something special on a tight budget or would simply like to add something special to another gift, there's no better way to express your love than by saying it in a variety of languages.

Romantic Valentine's Day Nights - Find a nice jar and cut different colored paper into heart-shaped pieces. Write "I Love You" in a different language on each heart and place it in the jar. Continue doing this until the jar is full. Add a nice ribbon around the jar and you have a wonderful jar of "Love" to give.

If you want Valentine's Day to last longer, write each "I Love You" in a different language on a colored, heart-shaped piece of paper. Then place each heart into a separate envelope. For the next two months, each day you can place a new envelope somewhere where your partner will find it making your love - and Valentine's Day - last a couple of months rather that a single day.

If you are in a more playful mood, cut out the heart-shaped pieces of paper and write "I Love You" in a different language along with a hint where your partner can find the next envelope. Have your partner do a scavenger hunt to find each envelope until they come to the final piece where "I Love You" is written in English with whatever Valentine gift you have decided to give.

No matter how you ultimately decide to give the gift of "I Love You," it'll be a gift long remembered and cherished by the person who receives it.

***** Different Ways To Say "I Love You" *****

1. a) Arabic -- Ana behibak (to male)

2. b) Arabic -- Ana behibek (to female)

3. Bavarian -- I mog di narrisch gern

4. Bengali -- Ami tomake bhalobashi

5. Brazilian (Portuguese) -- Eu te amo

6. Bulgarian -- Obicham te

7. Burmese -- Chit pa de

8. Cambodian -- Bon sro lanh oon

9. Chinese (Cantonese) -- Ngo oi ney

10. Chinese (Mandarin) -- Wo ie ni

11. Croatian -- Ljubim te

12. Czech -- Miluji te

13. Danish -- Jeg elsker dig

14. Dutch -- Ik hou van jou

15. Esperanto -- Mi amas vin

16. Estonian -- Mina armastan sind

17. Filipino -- Mahal ka ta

18. Finnish -- Mina rakastan sinua

19. Flemish -- Ik zie oe geerne

20. French -- Je t'aime

21. Gaelic -- Ta gra agam ort

22. German -- Ich liebe dich

23. Greek -- S' agapo

24. a) Hebrew -- Ani ohev otach (to female)

25. b) Hebrew -- Ani ohev otcha (to male)

26. Hindi -- Mai tumse pyar karta hoo

27. Hopi -- Nu' umi unangwa'ta

28. Hungarian -- Szeretlek

29. Icelandic -- Eg elska thig

30. Indonesian -- Saja kasih saudari

31. Irish -- Taim i' ngra leat

32. Italian -- Ti amo

33. Japanese -- Kimi o ai shiteru

34. Javanese -- Kulo tresno

35. Korean -- Tangsinul sarang ha yo

36. Lao -- Koi muk jao

37. Latin -- Te amo

38. Latvian -- Es milu tevi

39. Macedonian -- Sakam te

40. Malay -- Saya cintamu

41. Mohawk -- Konoronhkwa

42. Navaho -- Ayor anosh'ni

43. Norwegian -- Eg elskar deg

44. Persian -- Tora dost daram

45. Polish -- Kocham cie

46. Portuguese -- Amo-te

47. Romanian -- Te iu besc

48. Russian -- Ya vas liubliu

49. Serbian -- Lubim te

50. Shona -- Ndinokuda

51. Sioux -- Techihhila

52. Slovak -- Lubim ta

53. Spanish -- Te quiero

54. Swahili -- Naku penda

55. Swedish -- Jag a'lskar dig

56. Tagalog -- Mahal kita

57. Thai -- Ch'an rak khun

58. Tunisian -- Ha eh bak

59. Turkish -- Seni seviyo rum

60. Ukrainian -- Ja tebe kokhaju

61. Vietnamese -- Toi yeu em

62. Welsh -- 'Rwy'n dy garu di

63. Yiddish -- Ich libe dich

64. Yugoslavian -- Ya te volim

65. Zulu -- Ngiyakuthanda

Publishing Guidelines: This article may be freely distributed so long as the copyright, author's information and an active link (where possible) are included. A complimentary copy of any newsletter or a link to the site where the article is posted would be greatly appreciated.

About The Author

Copyright (c) Jeffrey Strain - http://www.inexpensivedating.com is a website dedicated to sharing fun and inexpensive dating ideas.