We were all born with natural instinct. We cried when we were hungry - not because we were taught to, but because it was our instinctive response to our physical need. Emotion calls on instinct too. The “flight or fight” response to fear is one most of us have experienced and, with the adrenaline pounding through us, we know the reaction was not the result of a calculated decision-making process.

Our natural instinct is used most in sports, drama, music and other non-academic activities. It tends to be suppressed as we mature. Instinct, or intuition, remains in us as adults, but is usually underdeveloped and under-recognized. You’ve surely had the experience of meeting someone new in both personal and professional situations - and having a “gut feeling” about them. Or of walking into a room and sensing the “vibes” - good or bad. This is your instinct piping up, giving you a chance to “trust your gut” and “listen to the vibes.”

Instinct is insight based not on reason, but on awareness. When we allow it back into our consciousness, we can become more effective in many areas of life, including our role as a leader. Allowing it back calls for a heightened sense of openness to our self and others.

Openness to our self

To draw instinct into play is to increase our self-awareness. Suppression of feelings is an impediment in this quest. Your first step must be to abandon any reluctance in recognizing your feelings. Rather, embrace them, learn about them, and experiment at living with and by them.

This first step can be difficult as many people are unfamiliar with this part of themselves. Acknowledging and identifying your feelings is at least half of this ongoing process.

Check yourself throughout the day, in any and all settings, by asking yourself, “What am I feeling now? How am I reacting to this person? To this situation?” Some answers will be positive: you may feel joyful, generous, or creative. These are usually the easiest ones to admit. Others are not - you may feel angry, worried, or depressed. While these are harder to acknowledge, they are equally valuable in your effort to gain access to your instinctive self.

Openness to others

To effectively apply your instinct in your interactions with others, you should be aware of their feelings, motivations, and sensibilities as well as your own. To do this, you need to be a good listener, an invaluable and underemployed skill fundamental to effective leadership.
Being able to listen well means paying close attention not just to words, but to the nonverbal communication that accompanies them - it often speaks more loudly than the words themselves.

Listening well help you to become more aware of others people’s feelings and how they influence their actions. This is called empathy. In his insightful book, “A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age,” Daniel H. Pink writes, “Empathy is the ability to imagine yourself in someone else’s position and to intuit what that person is feeling. . . . It is something we do pretty much spontaneously, an act of instinct rather than the product of deliberation. . . . It is feeling with someone else, sensing what it would be like to be that person.”

This happens when a parent is engaged with his/her child’s development and growth. Watching your 8-year-old perform a play on the ball field is often an empathetic experience. You “know” the feelings that accompany his earnest reach for the ball as you watch the progress of the play.

Instinct in leadership

Using your instinct in your role as leader means developing a keen awareness of your staff, colleagues, and clients as individuals, and recognizing that not only is each person different, but they are different from you. It means understanding what they go through on a day-to-day basis and yields insight into their strengths and weaknesses. Using your instinct, you are able to walk into a meeting and be aware of how others are feeling and reacting around you.

An effective leader blends strong leadership skills with this empathetic awareness, guiding others to meet challenges and opportunities for their own benefit and the benefit of the organization. When such a leader takes the time and effort to know all employees personally on this level, the results in employee morale, empowerment, performance, and retention are excellent.

Gary Klein, well known for research into decision-making, discusses intuition as a learnable skill. In his book, “The Power of Intuition: How to Use Your Gut Feelings to Make Better Decisions at Work,” he states that “90 percent of critical decisions are based on our intuition.”

Your staff and colleagues define you as a leader by what they see you do. Your actions are based on your decisions and your decisions can be influenced favorably by your instinct. As a good leader, you can use instinct in making decisions that align your personal and organizational values and lead to your desired outcomes.

“He who knows others is wise.
He who knows himself is enlightened.”
– Tao Te Ching

Mark A. Paul is a Regional Director for Paradigm Associates, LLC, an executive leadership development firm. Paradigm Associates, LLC helps organizations improve their business results by providing the processes, information and structure necessary to increase their competitiveness. By combining eastern and western philosophies, Paul helps clients exceed in their professional and personal growth. Clients include small groups focused on skills and attitude development issues. A former founder and CEO of his own MRPII consulting company, Paul offers well-developed team building and training skills to help managers, supervisors, and leaders at all levels move into new roles and processes to achieve desired results. Visit http://www.ParadigmAssociates.US or call (845) 268-0357.

This season Anthony Loeff the French mountaineer is reporting the scales for Mount Everest after reaching the top of earlier this year.

Now that Min Bahadur Sherchan has successfully scaled the tallest mountain in the world, he is once again ready to focus on his family. “The Chinese weren’t allowing anybody on Mt Everest. They ended up commandeering it for themselves, even though Chomolungma is shared by two countries. Sherchan just 9 days away from his 77th birthday beat the age record set last year by 71-year-old Japanese teacher Katsusuke Yanagisawa.

The Chinese were flying their airplanes over the Mount Everest and had Chinese officials in Kathmandu. Climber from Nepal, 75, oldest man to scale Everest Hall was frostbitten and severely disoriented due to altitude sickness. Bahadur Sherchan returned a hero to Calgarians. However, he was all too aware of the potential dangers Chomolungma or Mount Everest could bring. Certain parts of the climb are more dangerous than others and it is important for climbers to remain focused They basically coerced the Nepali government to not allow any climbers past camp two on the Nepali side. More than 3229 people have climbed to the summit since it was first conquered in 1953 by New Zealander Edmund Hillary, who died in January, and Nepal’s Tenzing Norgay.

They flexed their muscles this year all the in name of the Olympic spirit, but it was hardly spirited at all.”

“Mount Everest this year became a political pawn,” he said with some frustration.

Andrew Brash returned this week from Nepal after successfully climbing to the summit of the Mount Everest. As he planned for the climb, Sherchan told reporters he wanted to inspire fellow senior citizens. He also said many Nepalese have established records on Chomolungma or Mount Everest, so it was only fitting that the record for the oldest climber to reach the summit should also belong to a Nepali. The 76-year-old man from Nepal is now the oldest person to have reached the top of Chomolungma. Indeed, the decision to actualize a long-time personal goal left Bahadur Sherchan with some internal uncertainties, he cited the political actions of China and Nepal as providing the greatest adversity he faced on his journey. Andrew Brash last attempt resulted in the rescue of Lincoln Hall, an Australian climber who was left by his team in the “death zone.”

His first found him within 166 metres of the peak when his team stopped to help a fellow mountaineer who was left for dead. later, Min Bahadur Sherchan, a University of Calgary alumni, returned to Everest to finish what he had started.

With the Chinese preparing for the impending summer Olympic Games, Bahadur Sherchan noted that the government’s actions hardly reflected the Olympic spirit. Andrew Brash and four climbing guides reached the 29,035-foot (8,850-meters) summit of the world’s highest mountain early Sunday, said Ramesh Chretri, an official with Nepal’s ministry of tourism.

Sometimes skimping on things can save you good money. But skimping is not always the wisest business strategy. For example, I could’ve written this article in the windows program notepad as opposed to Microsoft Word, and saved a good $500 and never had to buy the latest version of Microsoft Office… However, wouldn’t it be worth the $500 if the improved impression of professionalism put forth in all of my writings some how garnered ten times that in profit? Would you have read this far if I had unknowingly published this article with a horribly obvious typo in the title? That’s right - an insignificant error caused by “saving money” can actually COST you money in the long run.

Impression Is Everything!

If you have spent months developing a beautiful ecommerce website to give people the impression that you are the safest choice for whatever product or service you’re trying to sell them, then it’d be pretty stupid to have all of that professionalism dismissed by a simple mistake: assuming you’re going to SAVE money by not getting a toll free number!

The fact is, the sight of a toll free number is something that subconsciously stirs an idea of professionalism - something we’re accustomed to from corporate America. Area codes are for calling your relatives and friends, after all. The phone prefix “800″ or “877″ or “888″ for some reason, as if by magic, stirs in us the image of a phone operator in a tall skyscraper that deals with hundreds of clients a day - someone that doesn’t make their living off of ripping people off. The appearance of professionalism is the embodiment of confidence within the business world.

Okay, so you’re convinced… now what?

Not having a toll free number for your ecommerce business (no matter how small) will cost you more in the long run than the short term savings will save you. The best part is though that toll free numbers are not NEARLY as expensive as one might be inclined to think! In fact, at the moment the prices for toll free numbers are as low as 2.7c/min from places like www.patricklongdistance.com .

What other services can I benefit from?

It just so happens that toll free numbers are not the only affordable telecommunications service that might be useful to the owner of an ecommerce web site. Conference calling (for those teleseminars), low long distance rates, broadband or t1 internet access, and more are all examples of things that can be gotten more cost effectively off the internet via web pages such as the one I provided in the last paragraph.

Jacob Richards hosts a website about building the ecommerce web sites.

I got my eyes set on a iPod mini, as it looked good for quite some reasons: it’s small enough to put inside a pant’s pocket, it has a lot of accessories to choose from and it obviously has enough hype you begin to wonder what all the fuss is about.

But you really have to see the cons of it and cut all the hype. It looked good from the start; it’s small and simple, easy to use and has that nice Apple logo. But quickly the downsides surfaced, and they sure are annoying.

Firstly, the headphones are horrible: they are so uncomfortable they are totally unusable, and also they do not sound good at all. Well, any other $5 headphone will do, so that’s not that bad. (It’s also not advisable to use them, as the white color alerts any potential muggers you have an easy sellable item.)

The interface seems a good idea, with the scroll being able to be controlled with a circular motion. For scrolling fast it’s great, but for selecting carefully one item, it’s difficult. Also, for ‘marking’ a song for how many stars, it sometimes works, sometimes you spend a full minute twiddling it to get it right. Any other player with a sensible scroller works much better.

I was excited to know it had games to play, so when I’m bored waiting in line or on a bus, it could be a great way to pass the time; but even the breakout rip-off is only entertaining for about 5 minutes.

I even thought that maybe I could upload some text files to read some e-book, but the screen is not big enough for that, and reading is so cramped it’s just not worth it.

The biggest gripe is that you cannot change the volume, unless you are on the ‘Now Playing’ menu! Any other player has dedicated buttons for this basic function, but in its decidedly minimalist point of view, it’s a pain to go search for that specific menu just to adjust for a small change in a song. It supposedly was thought out carefully, but I see a lot of problems in the interface.

Also, there seems to be a big problem with the duration of its internal, non-replaceable battery. After 2 months of use, I did notice, it does not hold a charge for long now. After two house of continuous play, it just shuts down. Other reports on the web also say the battery fails, and has to be replaced.

I have also read on the web that the headphone connector is badly soldered and you eventually have to open it up and resolder it again.

I wouldn’t buy it again. The iriver or the Creative seem to be a lot better options.

For more reviews, news and updates on the latest and best mp3 players, go to http://www.mp3playerguide.info

Although the autopsy is inconclusive and tests on the food are not yet complete, a porridge made of EdenSoy Extra soy milk and cornmeal may be responsible for the deaths of two infant brothers living in Brooklyn.

When their mother attempted to wake them, shortly after noon, she found they were unconscious and took them to the hospital. Both were pronounced dead on arrival.

Initial thoughts were that the twins had been overcome by a gas leak, but tests showed no leak.

Because medical examiners also found no evidence of choking as a result of consuming the food, or any signs of foul play, the police instead began focusing on what the infants had eaten. The police cleaned out two nearby supermarkets of EdenSoy milk and cornmeal for testing.

New York Times October 21, 2005 Registration RequiredNYNewsDay.com October 22, 2005

Dr. Mercola’s Comment:If you ever wondered why I’m so concerned about the health dangers tied to the rampant use of soy products — especially in processed foods — this kind of incident is exactly the reason. In my view there just simply isn’t any justification to ever use soy formula or worse, soy milk, in infants.

This isn’t the first time soy milk has been investigated for its toxic side effects. Separate incidents in California and Arkansas prompted the FDA to issue a 1990 warning against using soy milk as a formula substitute. Most brands have followed the tougher FDA labeling guidelines, except EdenSoy, says Dr. Kaayla T. Daniel, author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food.

In fact, the deaths of three infants prompted the Israeli Health Ministry to issue a health advisory earlier this year, recommending babies not be fed soy formula — except as a last resort — and severely limiting a child’s intake of soy products.

Without question the best food you can give your infant is breast milk and this should be your primary choice if at all possible, as it is the healthiest source of milk you can give to your infant. I believe very strongly all soy formula should be avoided andis not fit for human consumption.

If breastfeeding is not an option,the best article I ever read on the topicis one published in a recent edition of the Weston Price ogranization. I am on their board and was able to obtain reprint rightsfor their article onhealthy alternatives to breast milk and commercial formula from Sally Fallon to run it in our newsletter. I would strongly encourage you to review thismulti-part series in this issueif you are unable to breastfeed.

When making the alterntaive to breast milk described in the article, ideally, it would be best to use raw milk as the base (other ingredients to add are described in the article). The best way toget it is tofind a local dairy farmer in your areathrough your local health food store orthe Real Milk Web site. Raw milk is a safer and farhealthier alternative to pasteurized milk.

One of the great things about the web is that things change so quickly - this allows new marketers to take advantage of novel trends and new developments. On the other hand of course, if you don’t respond quickly to new market conditions, your business - and income - can be adversely affected.

That’s why you need to have multiple streams of income - so that if your current top earner disappears off Google’s radar or one of your many competitors introduces a new product that wipes the floor with your best offering, you have other income streams to fall back on.

It’s just like buying stocks and shares - you want to have a diverse portfolio to avoid any sudden spikes and glitches in the market. Or put it another way - don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

That’s all well and good, but just where are you going to find these multiple streams of income? Sometimes it can be difficult to find even one business opportunity that’s worth investing your time, energy and money in. The first logical place to look is the market.

It’s not always easy to get hold of hard facts and figures when it comes to marketing and often, when you do get some, they are well out of date. However, the figures below show the UK market percentages of directly sold goods for 2000, a year when the total spend in this area was $2 billion. These figures are sourced from the UK Direct Selling Association and make interesting reading.

Services 32%

(telecoms, utilities)

Personal 26%

(cosmetics, fragrances, skincare…)

Family 17%

(Books, toys, games, business aids …)

Household 14%

(Security, water treatment, electrical…)

Wellness 7%

(Nutritional, diet plans, supplements)

Food 4%

(Frozen)

Additionally, browsers use cookies to store login information that you may not want to enter repeatedly. If you ever click the “save password” button below a login form, you are installing a cookie on your computer that will automatically insert your password into the fields. For those with multiple logins, this can be convenient and time saving. Reporting and alerts are a must that way you can pinpoint the culprits and then have a talk with Bill about the reason his computer is always so slow - the spyware he keeps downloading.

Since about November 2004 there has been a lot of publications of a scheme which at first was seen as a new kind of phishing. This technique includes contaminating a PC with a Trojan horse program. The problem is that this Trojan contains a keylogger which lurks at the background until the user of the infected PC visits one of the specified websites. Then the keylogger comes to life to do what it was created for — to steal information. Data loggers, key loggers are just a few programs which harvest info from your computer. Winclear is the only program created specially to auto remove such spywares. Even though the most promising spyware removal programs may not assist in cleaning an individual’s computer system. That is why every computer owner needs winclear.

Protect With Winclear :History + Search Resue Dogs
If you really want close monitoring, you need to buy computer spy software that will offer you maximum protection and utmost data gathering capabilities. A computer monitoring program that has been featured and recommended by several news agencies across the country is PC Pandora. This spy software records keystrokes, chats, emails, screen content, programs used, and website revisited. Winclear is the only software which is capable of removing keylogger programs. Many people ask the question of whether cookies are harmful for their computers. Winclear has been the industry leader in fighting keyloggers for the last 8 years.

Winclear:
Low CPU and RAM usage - something you will begin to value once in a lifetime. That is the reason why you need Winclear installed onto your computer. No I got the brunt of the frustration - being his IT guy on the side and now we get to the global definition of spyware. Protect your computer security by using Winclear! More about Winclear here: Computer Security.

Team building is very important when it comes to managing people. People are simply more willing to work together, though, when the atmosphere encourages it. For many organizations this is quite necessary for the business to run well. When everyone gets along, things just go better. They provide better service to the customer. They work together to deliver satisfaction with smiles. They also help to promote employee retention. Customers are happy, employees are happy, and the world is now a better place, right?

Team building is anything but simple. It is not something that can be done overnight. Nor is it something you can force people to do. So, how can you effectively build your team to encourage them to bond and develop working relationships that are positive? There are many things that you can do. Here are some ideas:

• Set the example yourself. As the leader of the team, it is up to you to provide a good relationship with your team players. You want them to feel comfortable with you as well as with others. Don’t favor some and don’t become too friendly either.

• You can encourage relationships to work by fostering a teamwork style. Make sure that the goals are established and that each team player is aware of them. They should know that you want a team work environment that that is what you are looking for in your employees.

• Also, provide them with opportunities to get to know each other. Take the team out to dinner on you. Encourage them to talk about their families and lives so that they can bond.

When team building is successful, there are many things that can happen. Not only will the business run better, but you can foster good qualities in individuals to come out. You can have a bond of trust and reliance with your team. Team building is an exceptional quality that you should encourage in some form or another with your team.

For more information please see http://www.team-building-help.co.uk.

Demand for laptop computers is soaring at the moment. The battery shortage problem is not going to help the circumstances either. Its actually incredible that financial problems and all haven’t hindered this demand for laptop computers either. New devices are sprouting up all the time that litterally create new niches in the laptop computer business.

I’ve witnessed an increasing amount of customers asking for gaming laptops. You can actually get a good spec for your cash these days because even the up market technology is slipping into the mass market area very quickly. With the advancement of dual core cpus, laptop computers are ready for gaming. Even more suprising these days In my opinion is how slim the cases are becoming especially when you think about much performance is in them. Gaming speed between laptop computers and desktop computers should always be in favour of desktops though, simply because desktops are always going to be bigger and more faster. Gaming laptops are the gauge of speed for the laptop computer market and it will be good to see how the approaching technology performs.

Custom built laptops have been around for a great length of time now and despite well known brands peddling pre-built laptops through stores it looks like there will forever be system builders out there ready to assemble something specific to your needs. I think the parts are more established and operate more reliably. By being able to eliminate some additional things from the spec you can truly save cash on parts you will not use. The vast majority the notebooks found in retail shops are aimed to grab the maximum market share and not the smaller niche sectors. You can get a far suitable notebook by getting one custom built. I like that fact that there are plenty of smaller companies offering great service for custom laptops. Yet a further great reason.

It’s intriguing to see more powerful laptop computers coming out every 12 months. Laptops purely for using the www etc are coming to the market one after the other. Vast amounts of equivalent products have already been launched at a fast pace. Buyers require laptops that are light as a feather yet additionally big enough to be workable and user friendly. I’m sure that manufacturers already have their designs made up. Manufacturers are packing greater performance into laptop computers and it looks like gaming laptops will become thinner and lighter. There’s no telling what laptops we’ll see but surely there will be plenty.

The Gaming Laptops at Rizeon are considered to be very good.

Tanzania is a country that is an experience; it is a place of wonder and excitement. I think it is unparalleled in Africa for game; it has the world’s last great migration; over a million animals thundering across the vast plains of the Serengeti.; This amazing spectacle made all the more thrilling with the many predators that follow the wildebeest as they migrate in an never ending cycle. The migrating animals are continually moving following the rains which provide the green grass on which the wildebeest rely for their survival.

The Ngorongoro Crater is unique, many claims are made about destinations being unique when what is meant is unusual - however - Ngorongoro Crater is on its own and is truly unique. This collapsed crater contains many different habitats in a small area; and has year round water. This results in many animals living permanently in the crater.

Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa and almost everyone knows of this majestic mountain. The Selous Game Reserve is one of the last places to see the wild dog. A new species of monkey was recently found in the south west of Tanzania and a previously unknown African violet has been discovered in the Udzungwa Mountains.

Gombe Park over on the western lakes is one of the few refuges remaining in Africa for the chimpanzee. Tanzania also has National Parks that have been created for the protection of mountain rain forest and all the plants that are endemic to these areas. There is a high plateau in the south that has become a National Park to protect orchids. There are also Marine Parks set up to protect the coast line, the corals and marine life.

I feel that just the few facts above are enough to prove that this destination is worth making Tanzania the place to visit. We have only skimmed the surface. In concluding I would like to add one last facet to this precious country; its people are friendly and love visitors. The people of Tanzania love peace and are united like no other people I know. This is a thing that not many African countries can boast!

For more information about vacations in Tanzania see http://www.betheladventure.co.uk and for general information about Tanzania look at http://www.tanzania-info.co.uk using responsible tourism to make a difference.