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.

High definition DVD players are available throughout Greece. One can find the leading brands being sold in Greece. Samsung, Philips, Sony, Aiwa, you name it and you can find the brand having a significant presence in the Greek market. The Greeks have been traditionally known to love entertainment, from time immemorial. If it were not for the ancient Greeks, we would not have known things like the Olympics. The ancient Greek passion for works of art and entertainment has carried on to the present generation and the Greek continue to love their movies and art. The Greek movie industry is decades old with movies being a popular form of entertainment in Greece since the early 1900s.

With an embedded movie culture, it is not surprising that the Greece love to watch movies on DVDs. Most of the latest DVD releases are available in Greece. There is also a large collection of Greek DVDs available.

As in the case with other European markets, the Greek market is flooded with Chinese high definition DVD players. These players have caught the imagination of people, who are looking for relatively cheap options, when it comes to home theater systems. The important thing to be mentioned is that the quality of the high definition DVD players is pretty good.

Leading retailers in Greek stock up latest models of high definition DVD players from leading brands like Philips, Sony, Samsung, Thompson, Aiwa, to mention only a few. As statistics show, these major brands sell most of the high definition DVD players. The reasons are easy to understand, for cheaper brands do not offer the kind of guarantee or after sales service support, which these bigger brands offer. It is to be noted that even the smaller players, the ones which are popularly termed ‘no-name’ DVD players, also perform well and are considered value for money proposition in Greece. With the increasing penetration of the Internet, many Greeks prefer to purchase their high definition DVD players from leading online merchants also. This also allows them to find out the latest from other parts of the world too, apart from exposing them to increased choice.

The standard electrical standard is 230 volts. Clearly, most of the high definition DVD players available in the Greek market follow this specification. It is always better that you check your DVD players specification, if you want to play it in Greece, after having bought it from somewhere else.

A walk down the streets of Athens would reveal that there are several stores which stack up the latest high definition DVD players in Greece. There are supermarkets, hypermarkets, and departmental stores which deal with DVD players. The variety available is huge. One can get a DVD player in a wide price range. You can for instance get a standard high definition DVD player for around 100 Euros or look out for the really higher end models which would cost you upwards of 300 Euros. DVDs that record are increasingly the popular option of consumers in Greece.

There are virtually hundreds of shops selling Greek DVDs in Athens. From old classics to the latest flicks, one can find them all over the city. You can even get the latest Hollywood flicks in Greece quite easily. The release date is usually along with the rest of Europe or sometimes simultaneous with the worldwide release of the DVD titles. Greece follows the PAL format, just like most other European countries. One can also find NTSC standard discs being sold widely in Greece. One can also come across DVD audios carrying traditional Greek music. Tourists to Greece almost always purchase some DVD or the other related to the history of this ancient country. If you are one, check out for the format. Though with region free DVD players in vogue, you need not worry about the aspect of video signal formats, for they can play any DVD.

Although the high definition DVD market is on the rise in Greece, on the flip side is the rampant video piracy in the country. Figures show that around 50% of discs are pirated. The time period during the 2004 Athens Olympics saw the police adopt tough measures to end the menace. The problem is attributed to the lax laws of the Greek government regarding copyright offences. Around 90% of music discs are burned using CD-Rs. The piracy rate is well above that of the average rate prevailing in Europe. Pirated games which could be played on high definition DVD players have flooded the market. Most of them are imported from Asia. CD-R burning is also on the rise. This is also one of the main problems confronting the Motion Picture Association of Greece. Illegal duplication of DVDs in large numbers has affected the industry as a whole.

The Greeks are usually passionate about their movies and this explains the increase in the home theater systems sales. Home theater systems made their debut in Greece, along with other European countries. Since then, they are perhaps the most popular source of entertainment. People love to watch the latest flicks on their slick high definition DVD players. Gaming consoles and play stations are also very popular, especially among the younger lot in Greece.

The Greek tradition in Cinema dates back a long time. Greeks started making movies almost simultaneously along with Hollywood. The First World War saw a lull in filmmaking in Greece, which gradually picked up, later on. The onslaught of Hollywood blockbusters and ironically the introduction of high definition DVD players and the easy availability of latest DVD titles, have now contributed to the declining rate of film production in Greece. Greek production houses like Finos Films, in fact no longer exist.

Where to get REGION FREE DVD players/recorders and High Definition, HD DVD players, Blu-ray,Advanced Optical players/recorders in Blu-Ray DVD players/recorders. A multi region (aka codefree) DVD player or recorders is capable of playing DVD discs from anywhere in the world, that is all 8 regions and both PAL and NTSC standards. That’s every DVD movie on earth! Many can not only play them but convert from one standard to the other for showing movies on any TV on earth. There are also PAL-NTSC 110-220 volts DVD/VCR Combos for use worldwide. CODEFREE DVD / PAL-NTSC VCR combos and MULTISTANDARD VCRs will play 100% all known DVD discs including FRENCH DVDs. You can buy region free and region free converting DVD players and region free DVD recorders from http://www.mindlogic.com in California. They give you a LIFETIME Warranty and ship worldwide. They also carry PAL-SECAM-NTSC TVs, PAL plasma, PAL LCD and PAL DLP multisystem TVs and multisystem converting and non-converting VCRs, voltage transformers, video standards converters and more than 140,000 products. Tel.800-514-2984 or tel. 925-686-9945

There is a plethora of fine, solid quality compact digital cameras on the market today. And there are lots of camera models to choose from. So much so that it can be confusing for all but the most dedicated hobbyist. So which camera models are the cream of the crop? That depends a lot on what you intend to use the camera for, but we have listed a few models here that we think would make a fine purchase in most cases.

First of all, here are the features that we like to see in compact digital cameras. They are features that are most often appreciated by consumers in real world situations. Here is our list of required features:

* At least 3 megapixels
* Costs under $300
* Has at least a 3X optical zoom
* Can run on AA batteries
* Produces high quality, sharp photos

So with that criteria in mind, when you look over the compact digital camera field there are three models that meet or exceed these requirements and are often found on the top of most compact digital camera reviews by both consumer websites and consumers themselves. And here they are:

1. The Canon Powershot A510 is an incredible camera for the money. It comes in at the least expensive price point in our little group at $170. It’s a 3.2 megapixel camera which will do just fine for anything but the largest enlargements, and produces incredibly sharp and vivid photos. It sports a 4X optical zoom which provides a zoom range that is roughly equivalent to 35-140mm in 35mm. It also runs on AA batteries and can be expected to provide around 300 shots per set of batteries. And it has a movie mode w/sound which is a nice extra.

2. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W5 is a 5 megapixel camera that features an extra large LCD screen at 2.4 in. which can be very nice for those that can use a little more screen size. It’s optical zoom is adequate providing a 35mm focal length equivalent of 38-114mm. It also allows manual control of the exposure settings for those that like to go their own way. Another noteworthy mention is that this Sony manages power very efficiently and you can expect to get almost 400 shots before replacing the batteries in this unit. It costs $275.

3. The Kodak EasyShare Z700 is another fine compact digital camera with 4 megapixels that boasts an optical zoom of 5X which translates to an effective 35mm lens length of about 35-175mm. It also uses AA batteries and comes with it’s own charger, although it uses more power than the other two cameras listed here and can be expected to go through a set of batteries in around 200 shots. This Kodak model comes in around $240.

Any serious listing of compact digital camera reviews should include all three of these models and rate them highly overall. You choice should be based on what your individual needs and uses will be however, but all of them should provide years of solid, quality service.

Thad Pickering writes on many consumer related topics including audio and video. You can find out more about digital camera best buys and cannon digital cameras by visiting our Home Theater website.

Whenever someone mentions about satellite TV in United States, Dish Network and DirecTV will be the first two names people mention. Yup, Dish Network and DirecTV are currently the two biggest (or the ONLY two shall i say?) company in the satellite TV world.

The company of dish network tv and directv have been competing for the top spot for many years. As long as most can remember, it has always been dish network vs directv in the world of satellite television.When someone is looking for a satellite TV deal, comparing offers from Dish Network and DirecTV is almost a must-do proceduer.

Here are some common comparisons that potential satellite TV consumers interested:

1. General comparisons between Dish Network and DirecTV

Dish Network offers the most competative satellite TV price. They beat DIRECTV a little in pricing and beat cable TV a lot. Quite a number of the online Dish Network dealers are offering free DVD and DVR that records up to 100 hours of programming now in the promotion period. while DirecTV, although with a higher price, they offer some attractive premium packages like NFL Sunday Ticket that Dish Network doesn’t have. With Sports season pass feature on TiVo, DirecTV lets users record an entire season without re-runs.

2. Programming comparisons between Dish Network and DirecTV

Over 256 channels are available for Dish Network programming. Dish Network broadcasts as many as 231 NFL pre-season, regular season and post-season playoff games without having to purchase a costly season package subscription! (Game access subject to channel availability and programmer restrictions.) It has more comprehensive international programming with additional foreign language programming packages.

DirecTV supports up to 225 channels in their broadcast. DirecTV has exclusive rights to some sports channels, but you need to pay an extra fee to get these channels. Some of the sports packages include NHL Center Ice, MLB Extra Innings, NY Yankee Games, NBA League Pass and NFL Sunday Ticket which gives you access to almost every NFL game.

3. Customer services comparisons between Dish Network and DirecTV

Both Dish Network and DirecTV has a 24 hour customer service line. As Dish Network concerns a lot about their customer relationships and they monitor their dealers pretty well in term of customer satisfactions. VMCSatellite, one of the online Dish Network dealers, once won JD Power top customer satisfactions within two continuos year.

4. Satellite systems warranty comparisons between Dish Network and DirecTV

Most Dish Network dealers offers life time warranty for their basic satellite equipments. DirecTV dealers normally provide a 2 year extended warranty from the day of activation of their satellite systems.

5. Monthly cost comparisons between Dish Network and DirecTV

Dish Network base package starts from $19.99/mo. and DirecTV base package starts from $29.99/mo.

No matter which one you decide to go with, you’re sure to get a great deal with some really good service. Even though they are both good, the continuing war of Dish Network vs Directv will probably go on for many more years to come.

If you need some serious recommendation on which deals (DirecTV or Dish Network) to go for, i would suggest a quick 5 minutes browse on this website: http://www.satellitetvissue.com as they provide info and good recommendation on which broadcast service and dealers to go for.

Teddy L.Cc., an experienced freelance internet webmaster/writer, frequent writter on issue regarding Dish Network and DirecTV satellite deals, electronics goods as well as web hosting. More reference of his writings regarding satellite TV offers can be found at here.

As one who has been directly involved in selling DirecWay satellite internet products, sold competitive Enterprise Satellite internet products, has a background in financial analysis and business information reporting…. and studied HNS for over 4 years, I’ve come to the conclusion that the end might be near for DirecWay satellite internet in the U.S. Bear with me now……this ownership stuff gets a bit convoluted….keep in mind, this in no way affects DirecTV customers.

Last December DirecTV Group (Part of News Corporation - a Rupert Murdock company) which is the parent of HNS (Hughes Network Systems)-which, in turn owns DirecWay, decided to sell 50% of the operation to Sky Terra, which is owned by Apollo Management Group, a New York based private investment company with holdings in chemical, furniture and real estate companies in addition to it’s Satellite holdings. DirectTV Group cited the main reason for the sale of HNS/DirecWay was to focus on the core satellite TV business, DirecTV. DirecTV Group will treat the 50% they retain as an investment on their books and hand over the day to day management of the operations of HNS/DirecWay to Sky Terra-a VERY important revelation.

My bet is that Sky Terra will utilize the HNS/DirecWay assets in Europe to further Cable TV and internet operations they control there and systematically dismantle the U.S. operations ….ie DirecWay U.S. But who will buy a company losing 10’s of millions a year and sells a product that doesn’t work very well all too often? Nobody….but they will buy the leasees on transponders DirecWay has control of. And that is part of how they will make this highly leveraged transaction work.
I believe Sky Terra is laying the groundwork for dismantling DirecWay in this report filed with the SEC on April 5th: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/756502/000119312505069877/dex991.htm

In the report they speak of one potential event after another that could easily undermine the inferred plans to continue to operate HNS…as if to tell the investing world, new plans are on the horizon.
The point of this opinion piece is to put DirecWay consumer and even commercial internet customers on notice…….seriously consider a change while the “gettin’s good”. As soon as they contractually can, I believe Sky Terra will put the assets of HNS to work in profitable niches like vsat commercial applications, sell Ku bandwidth to the highest bidder and try to get in on the balance of Homeland Security business still out there. Up to the present time DirecWay has been poorly directed and a complete financial disaster – just ask Rupert Murdock!
If you work for HNS and don’t have your resume’ on the street…….you might want to start typing!

If WildBlue and the others in the Ka Band internet business are remotely successful it will bring this to fruition even faster. Why? Sky Terra has control of a Ka band satellite under construction for launch in 2007(SpaceWay 3) - too far out for DirecWay/Sky Terra to have any impact on the market. They have the rights to another DirecWay Ka band satellite which is still on the drawing boards and I believe they are betting they can sell both of them for a handsome profit to one of the four active major Ka players: Telesat, WildBlue, SES Americom or EchoStar. This could be a very interesting year for the satellite internet business.

About the Author:

Randy Scott has been involved in the bi-directional satellite internet industry from it’s beginning as a Sr. Sales Engineer, consultant and business owner. Randy is the founder of VSAT U.S., a consulting and sales organization, representing the most prestigious satellite internet providers in the America’s. For more information about current VSAT satellite internet offerings including Ka band, visit http://www.vsatus.com or email randy@vsatus.com .

Many books on time management recommend the practice of thinking of each hour of your time as being worth a specific quantity of money. It’s an extension of the “time is money” concept. First you figure out what your hourly rate is, and then you use that as a guide to determine where you should spend your time. If you want to earn more money, then you must first mentally raise your hourly rate, so you can start doing activities that are worth more. For example, if you currently earn $50/hour and want to earn $75/hour, then you have to do less and less $50/hour work as you shift to doing $75/hour work. Brian Tracy advocates this type of thinking in his time management programs, as do many other time management experts. I’ve used this model myself in the past.

I’ve spent a lot of time considering this paradigm, and at present I have only one problem with it.

It’s stupid!

It’s possibly the stupidest paradigm you can use for income generation.

While it seems enticing on the surface, in the long run it will hurt you more than help you. Let’s take a look under the hood…

The Good

On the positive side, if you tell yourself that your time is worth $50/hour, then that can help you focus. It can make you aware of those activities that clearly aren’t worth $50/hour that you might still be doing, especially if you track your time usage with a time log. Once you become aware that you’re wasting time on low payoff activities, then you can begin reducing, eliminating, or outsourcing those low payoff tasks. For example, you could recruit a part-time personal assistant to offload much of the $10/hour and $20/hour work. My wife runs an online vegetarian magazine, and she has a staff of people working for her including an assistant, editors, and writers to offload much of the work that can be done at a lower hourly rate than her own. It works great.

This seems like good common sense if you want to improve your productivity. If you can earn $50/hour, then you should spend as much as your work time as possible doing $50+/hour work, shouldn’t you? Recruit others to do any work that pays less. The benefits of this particular optimization may be hidden in a large corporate environment where personal productivity isn’t strongly linked to pay, but it’s very noticeable if you’re self-employed.

The Bad

The big problem is that when you tell yourself your time is worth $50/hour, you’re simultaneously telling yourself that it isn’t worth $75/hour or $200/hour or $10,000/hour. You’re programming your subconscious mind to limit the range of opportunities you will notice. Because you won’t be on the lookout for $10,000/hour ideas, you’ll overlook them completely. If you tell yourself you earn $50/hour, you’ll think in terms of $50/hour opportunities.

Thinking in terms of an hourly rate may help limit your downside, but it also severely limits your upside. And that’s a really bad trade-off, bad enough that it requires me to dismiss this whole paradigm as utterly stupid. There’s no way the upside of turning some $20 hours into $50 hours can compensate for missing those $10,000 hours. That’s penny-wise, pound-foolish.

One $10,000 hour is worth 200 $50 hours. That’s more than a month of full-time work! You don’t need too many of those huge payoff hours to pick up the slack of some of those less productive $0-20 hours, but if you miss out on even one of those $10,000 hours, it’s a crippling blow that overwhelms all other thoughts about financial productivity.

In the long run, your greatest financial risk isn’t whether you made the mistake of succumbing to doing $20/hour work when you could have done $50/hour work. Your greatest risk is missing those $10,000 hours. And most people miss out on them completely. It’s ironic that people think of being a salaried employee as being low-risk and being an entrepreneur as high-risk. The reality is just the opposite. One of the reasons I chose the entrepreneurial path is that it’s just way too damn risky to be an employee. I’m not kidding. It’s easy to hit a good number of those $10,000 hours as an entrepreneur, but it’s a lot harder to do so as an employee.

How many $10,000 hours did you enjoy this year?

How rare is it for a $50/hour salaried employee to experience even one of those $10,000 hours in the entire course of their career? Pretty rare I would say. Certainly not a normal, expected occurrance. But this isn’t because such opportunities don’t exist — it’s because your limiting beliefs about how much your time is worth prevent you from noticing them. Simply choosing to believe that it is possible will open the door to allowing it to manifest. You don’t need anyone’s permission to believe you can come up with an idea that you can implement in less than an hour that will earn you an extra $10,000. Such ideas are naturally plentiful, but you won’t notice them until you adopt the right mindset. Right now as you’re reading this, such an opportunity is practically staring you in the face, and you’re completely oblivious to it. It’s just like how my colorblindness prevents me from ever seeing the color red as other people can; it’s beyond my ability to perceive.

Once you release the brakes and embrace the idea that a single hour of your time could be worth $10,000 or more, you’ll almost immediately begin to notice such opportunities. I suspect you’ll uncover the first one in less than 48 hours.

The Ugly

What the heck is $50/hour work anyway? Who determines what an hour of your time is worth?

If you’re self-employed, then you set your own hourly rate. And that’s fine if your work requires hourly billing. But don’t fall into the trap of thinking that all of your working time is worth that same hourly rate. If you do that, you’ll begin to tune out much more lucrative opportunities.

If you’re an employee in a corporate environment, then your salary sets your hourly rate, depending on how many hours you typically work each week. And in this high-risk situation you have a double problem. First, you have the previously mentioned challenge of getting yourself to think outside the hourly rate box. But secondly, in corporate environments it’s rare to find fair incentives for employees to have such breakthroughs. If you have one of those $10,000 hours on the job, you probably won’t share in the rewards. You’ll just enjoy your usual $50 pay for that hour, while the company keeps the other $9950 you’ve created. At least entrepreneurs and self-employed people get to keep the whole $10,000.

Whom does the hourly rate mindset benefit? It benefits those who get to keep the extra value above and beyond that rate. But because this paradigm suffers an imbalance between value creation and reward, I think it also cripples the will to generate those $10,000 ideas. If you aren’t going to benefit from the extra value you create, then why bother to create it?

The solution is to think like an entrepreneur, even if you’re an employee. If you can devise and implement an idea in one hour that ends up saving your company $25,000 a year, I’d say you damn well deserve to be paid $10,000 for that hour of your time.

But too often employees don’t bother to negotiate such terms with their employers. They willingly submit themselves to the tyranny of the hourly rate. Having been an employer myself though, I’ll tell you that if an employee came to me and said she had a low-risk idea that would put $25,000 in my pocket and which could be implemented independently by her in an hour, and she asked to be paid $10,000 only if and when the idea proved itself, I’d be pulling out my checkbook. In fact, I’d ask her if she had a twin I could hire too. But if you don’t negotiate such deals in advance, then by default the employer receives all the value above and beyond your normal hourly rate.

If I ever found myself an employee (which I can’t imagine happening), I’d be on the constant lookout for those $10,000 ideas. I’d befriend someone who had the authority to pay bonuses in the manner described above, even if I had to work my way up the chain of command a bit. Then I’d look for simple ways to increase the company’s revenue or cut its costs that would produce tangible, measurable results. And I’d negotiate the ability to either be paid a fixed sum if the value can be determined in advance or to share in a certain percentage of whatever value was created.

If I found that my boss didn’t have the necessary authority or the will to authorize this sort of thing, then I’d keep going up the chain of command until I found someone who did. It’s simply a matter of finding someone who will directly benefit from my extra value creation. It could be a stock-owning VP, the CEO, or even an investor. People who have a direct financial stake in the enterprise will not want to see profit-creating or cost-cutting ideas being squashed unreasonably, but beneath this level, you might run into a lot more closed-mindedness. But fortunately those who share in the profits of your ideas will normally have the authority to overrule those who don’t. So don’t let your boss get in your way. If you develop the habit of implementing $10,000 ideas, you’ll soon be the boss anyway.

If I found myself working for a company or organization where this level of flexibility was impossible, I’d quit and go work in a less draconian environment. There are enough progressive companies around now that it isn’t necessary to work for one of the unenlightened ones.

All Hours Are Not Created Equal

My income isn’t based on how much time I spend working. It’s a function of the value I create. I can work a whole month and produce less monetary value than I do in one breakthrough hour. Every hour is unique.

I stopped thinking in terms of a fixed hourly rate many years ago. In practical terms an hour of my time could be worth $0, or it could be worth $10,000 or more, depending on what I do with that particular hour. Much of the time I pursue activities that don’t generate any income at all, even though I still consider it to be productive work. Answering email doesn’t seem to pay too well, and I don’t get paid an hourly rate for writing blog entries and articles. But sometimes I’ll get an idea which I can implement in just 30-60 minutes that will earn me an extra $10,000 over the course of a year, often continuing for many years thereafter. So the concept of an hourly rate, even an average hourly rate, is meaningless to me.

A recent specific example was adding those Chitika eMiniMalls ads to this site. As I previously reported, this took very little time to implement (less than an hour), but it should ultimately generate thousands of dollars a year in extra revenue. And it takes me virtually no work at all to maintain this income aside from depositing checks.

In the normal course of my work, those $10,000 hours are becoming more common. I normally have several a year, along with some $1000 hours, $5000 hours, and so on. Usually the money doesn’t come right away, but it still blows away the concept of an hourly rate. It wouldn’t even be accurate to say that it’s those other hours that make the $10,000 hour possible. Sometimes the $10,000 is just a random idea from out of the blue, or maybe it’s something that comes to me from a book or another person.

Almost always the $10,000 hour is the result of a great idea. And great ideas can strike at any time. When I get one of those $10,000 candidate ideas, I’ll normally drop everything and implement it right away. If it flops (and usually it does), I’ve lost an hour, but I still learned something. Most of the time it isn’t a total loss. I end up with a lot of $10, $50, and $250 ideas too. But I can afford to endure dozens of those relative flops for the chance to hit just one more $10,000 idea. And when it works, I must say it’s pretty darn nice.

It’s not that $10,000 is a lot of money per se. The idea isn’t to make just $10,000 here and there. It’s to make $10,000 for only one hour’s worth of work. That’s what makes the entrepreneurial game so much fun. You never know when one of those $10,000 ideas will strike. Imagine working each day with the very real possibility that you could earn an extra $10,000 that day, completely out of the blue. If your normal hourly rate for a full-time job was $10,000, you’d be earning $20 million per year, and in that case $10,000/hour would be no big deal. But if you earn something closer to $50/hour, then one of those $10,000 hours is a major breakthrough. And the truth is that those $10,000 hours are a lot more accessible than you might think.

Regardless of whether you’re an employee, self-employed, or otherwise entrepreneurial, don’t cap your income by thinking in terms of an hourly rate. Once you free yourself from this punishing paradigm, you’ll invite the opportunity to enjoy some of those $10,000 hours. It’s really just a matter of giving yourself permission to experience them.

Copyright © Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina
Personal Development for Smart People
http://www.stevepavlina.com
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog (blog)
http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles (articles)

Steve is intensely growth-oriented. He trained in martial arts, ran the L.A. Marathon, and graduated from college in three semesters with two degrees. He can juggle, count cards at blackjack, and make damn good guacamole. Steve is also a polyphasic sleeper, sleeping just 2-3 hours per day and only 20 minutes at a time. So chances are good that he’s awake right now.

Home entertainment systems have come a long way since you ooh’ ed and ahh’ed because your neighbor had a few pairs of speakers that actually fit flush into his walls. That’s old news now. Even homes in comparatively modest new developments are being outfitted with a full complement of audio, network, TV and telephone wiring. In many developments the builder offers a standard wiring package and various upgrades for additional wiring, speakers, wiring enclosures and even full control systems.

Systems have evolved to include sleek, wall-mounted touch screens that allow simple access to your music and other house functions such as security, lighting, HVAC, and motorized window treatments. A talented programmer can make these systems function with true “one touch” simplicity. It’s almost as if they’re reading your mind.

The touch screen’s advantage is that it can change the control interface to only show what you need at any one time. This affords tremendous flexibility while retaining the simplicity people desire. The touch screen interface is extremely powerful when combined with another technology that has come into prominence recently; the hard disc based media server.
Your CDs are downloaded, or ripped, onto a hard drive. This combination allows your entire music catalog to be displayed on the touch screen for easy searching. You can typically search by artist, song title, genre, or album. Once the desired selection is located, you just touch it on the screen and it begins to play.

These hard drive servers use computer hard drives and modern compression techniques to store phenomenal amounts of music in a simple audio component less than half the size of a 200 disc CD changer. They function just like a typical CD player, not your computer, so they are reliable and easy to use.

Media servers have exploded in popularity recently because of the enormous popularity of compressed music formats such as MP3 and the fantastic array of functionality a disc based system allows.
For those who have, or do, own CD mega changers, a hard drive music server will be like a breath of fresh air.

Access to any song is typically less than a second away. Contrast that to selecting disc 94 in your 300-disc CD changer when you are playing disc 201. With a multi-room audio system, you may be on the other side of your house trying to do this with a keypad or remote control. The wait for your changer to return the disc it was playing then trundle the carousel around to your desired disc can seem like an eternity.

Another advantage is easy cataloging. Most hard drive systems will recognize any CD you insert for ripping and if they don’t, they are connected to the internet for access to a giant database. This they access automatically to gather artist, album and track information. Gone are the days of using a keyboard or remote to tediously enter the information about your CDs into a CD changer. You can also stop worrying about which slot your discs are in. “Let’s see, was Led Zeppelin IV in slot 90 or 190?”
Using a hard drive server frees up your CDs for use elsewhere such as your car, boat or vacation home.

In addition, since your CDs are not locked up in a changer, your collection is able to be enjoyed by many members of the family at once. With a changer, if someone is listening to it, all of the discs inside it are basically off limits. With a changer, not only are your CDs free for use in other locations but many hard drive servers provide multiple audio outputs.

Multiple outputs enable you to listen to different discs in different areas of the house if your system is so configured. For example, one person could be listening to Korn in the rec room while Bach’s Requiem is being played in the kitchen and Dire Straights in the bedroom. With a conventional CD changer, this is impossible.

You can also buy and store music from many online music services and store those on your hard drive server.
Hard drive servers offer advantages over music files stored on a computer as well. Because they function like a traditional audio component, they are easier to use for many people. It is also easier to integrate them with touch screen based home control systems. This will begin to change as the popularity of multimedia PCs such as those running Microsoft XP Media Center Edition 2005 increases.

These units are many steps closer to delivering the long promised “convergence” between consumer electronics and computers. Multimedia PCs, also known as HTPCs [Home Theater PC] function as DVD players, personal video recorders (similar to a TiVO), and hard drive media storage.

They allow storage of digital photos for easy display on your TV or monitor. HTPCs can, of course, browse the net on your TV via your broadband connection. As hard drive storage becomes more economical and compression techniques become better, the storage of HD movies and HDTV programming will become commonplace.

Soon these types of servers and interfaces will become the norm rather than the exception. You’ll think nothing of the amazing array of features offered and the ability to easily access your media collection throughout your home. Once a rarity, media servers, in one form or another, will be found in almost every home.

Steve Faber has almost 15 years in the custom installation industry. He is a CEDIA certified designer and Installer 2 with certifications from both the ISF and THX. His experience spans many facets of the industry, from the trenches as an installer and control systems programmer, and system designer, to a business unit director for a specialty importer of high end audio video equipment, a sales rep for a large, regional consumer electronics distributor, and principal of a $1.5M+ custom installation firm. Steve is currently is senior sales engineer for Digital Cinema Design, a CEDIA member firm in Redmond, WA. He is on the web at http://www.1touchmovie.com

So perhaps you have herd all the fuss regarding Direct TV and other Satellite TV providers. You know those companies that state that you can get up to 225 channels easily. There has been an ongoing debate whether you should choose cable TV or go satellite. Well, that really depends on what you are looking for. From an entertainment point of view, cable TV unfortunately does not have the wide selection of channels that a satellite TV provider has. Often the cost of dish network systems is less than cable TV.

Today, you see compact satellite dishes on rooftops all over the United States. Drive through rural areas beyond the reach of the cable companies and you’ll find dishes on just about every house. The major satellite television companies are bringing in more customers every day with the lure of movies, sporting events and news from around the world. As a consumer you have many choices. Back in the day of old satellite TV systems all they were was big units. Today with superior sound, quality and high definition television you can definitely appreciate clear and amazing pictures. Your whole family will appreciate the programming options available in the marketplace.

With Satellite TV basics you can take control of the programs and channels that you want to use. Often there will be a vast selection for you family to choose from. For the ultimate performance in home entertainment Dish Network or even Direct TV are exceptional items. With Dolby digital sound you will feel like you are in the movie theatre. Easily record your favorite shows so they’re on when you want them. Having options in home entertainment has never been so much fun.

Alan Zunec is a successful author and publisher of information pertaining to Dish network systems - tips on where to find amazing entertainment options.

Lewis Carroll, in his book, Through the Looking Glass, has Humpty Dumpty smugly intone, ‘Whenever I use a word it means exactly what I choose it to mean, nothing more and nothing less.’ Such seems to be the case whenever the topics of improvement and innovation are discussed.

Improvement means whatever the one who wants it to happen wants it to mean. It could mean doing what’s being done now to a greater degree of efficiency or speed or detail. In other words, ‘do what you’re doing now ‘only better.’ It could also mean that something else altogether needs to be done instead of or in addition to what’s being done now. In any case, improvement is closely associated with measurable outcomes that can be compared with previous outcomes to determine degrees of organizational and/or personal development or deterioration.

The means of accomplishing any outcome is called process. It is commonly thought that organizational outcomes are inextricably interwoven with the processes that produce them. Poor processes cause poor outcomes, powerful processes cause powerful outcomes, and so on. As the process goes, so goes the outcome. With this reasoning, all one would have to do to improve the outcome is to improve the process in some way. Although this approach can work, it often takes a long time and gives up as much as it gains in process efficiencies, workplace morale and worker commitment to fully implementing process changes.

This mechanistic view of improvement has been a long time in development. Culturally accepted notions about human nature and behavior have contributed strongly to the idea that improvement in life’s outcomes is causally effected by process ‘ more particularly, the right process. If an outcome is not what is wanted or expected it means that the right process has yet to be discovered. Through persistent and diligent effort, eventually the correct process will be found and the consequent outcomes achieved.

Many readers will be aware of the ‘hierarchy of needs’ (figure 1) developed by the psychologist, Abraham Maslow. In it, Maslow identified what he saw as the incremental needs-based structure of human existence and fulfillment. It began at the bottom with primal needs such as water, air and other survival requirements and moved up to the top which he called, ’synergy,’ or the need to have things working well in all areas of life. Maslow’s model did not allow for skipping a step in the quest for experiencing deeper levels of humanness. For example, one couldn’t go to the third level without having the first two fulfilled and predictably secured, and so on up the ladder. For Maslow, there was a correct process through which an individual had to go in order to grow and experience greater dimensions of human fulfillment.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs

The upper needs (Esteem, Self-Actualization and Synergy) are more complex, less immediate and therefore ‘weaker’ in their demands on psychic and emotional energy.

The lower needs (Belongingness/Love, Safety and Survival) are less complex, more immediate and therefore ’stronger’ in their demands on psychic and emotional energy.

Synergy: the need to have things working well in all areas of life

Self-Actualization: the need to develop one’s unique capacities

Esteem: the need to be highly regarded by self and others

Belongingness/Love: the need to be accepted, liked and loved

Safety: the need to be secure and protected

Survival: the need for air, food and water

Just as accomplishing desired organizational outcomes is seen as a matter of going through the correct process so, too, personal fulfillment is seen as a matter of following the right process. Personal and organizational improvement becomes associated with planning, strategizing and manipulating the process.

This is a linear view of cause and effect and doesn’t actively take into account the fact that processes don’t happen all by themselves. People perform processes. People possess power beyond any process that animates behavior toward creative and surprising outcomes. People are the wind, the spirit (in Greek, the same word, pneuma, is used for both wind and spirit) that blows invisibly within and among human organizations and cannot be predicted, channeled or contained.

People can bring the inanimate structures of process to life by breathing into them the spirit of their hopes, dreams and aspirations. Process is merely a skeleton that holds an organization together structurally; it is people who choose either to put flesh on the skeleton and imbue it with vitality, meaning and significance or to allow it to remain a lifeless, empty shell.

If people choose to permeate the organization with life, then poor processes would not necessarily be a hindrance to achieving improved outcomes. While it is true that an able and willing person who is trapped working in poor processes will find it difficult to improve her performance, and therefore organizational outcomes, it is not impossible to do so. Willing and able persons will not allow poor processes to become an excuse for not doing any better on the job. They will actively and creatively seek out ways to improve their performance and outcomes by changing, even if only slightly, the way they think about and do their work. In doing so, they move beyond the processes themselves enriching them with innovative (’outside the process box’) approaches and applications.

We are now beginning to develop an understanding of innovation. If a change in the process is the only way people are allowed to change their job activities, the wind of the creative spirit will blow to effect changes beyond the process. While improvement has to do with measurable outcomes of a process, innovation has to do with freedom from the implicit and explicit constraints of a process. Process thinking tends to channel thoughts and action along predetermined psychic and behavioral pathways. Innovation occurs when connections are made between self-evident thoughts, ideas or entities and those that are not part of the mental landscape created by the existing process.

By way of example, Forbes magazine is mailing the September 2000 edition to its more than 800,000 subscribers with bar codes on every page where an advertiser’s web site appears. With the magazine they will be sending, free of charge, a scanning pen and computer software that will enable readers to access the specific web page identified by the bar code by sliding the electronic pen over it. This gives the advertiser the opportunity to provide detailed information about their products and services in a way that they could not in the magazine. This is an innovative way of making a connection between two different forms of media (physical and virtual) and merging them technologically into a complimentary system of information delivery. Up to this point, the two forms of media were thought to be in direct competition, mutually excluding each other from their respective goal of developing market share and consumer loyalty.

Innovation occurs most easily whenever people are engaged unselfconsciously in an experience that consumes their concentration by challenging their skills, knowledge, attitude, beliefs, values and/or self-image. Such an experience is enjoyable and fulfilling precisely because it places unusual demands on the faculties and skills of the individual. During such times, one is unaware of personal needs and whether or not they have been or are being met. There is no distraction; no diversion is possible ‘ the only thing that matters is the experience itself. Afterward, the individual becomes more fulfilled and complete with a sense of well being and wholeness. A common term for this optimal experience of life is flow.

In a New York Times Book Review of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s The Psychology of Optimal Experience, (March, 1990), the unnamed author states:

‘As a theory of optimal experience, flow is a big improvement over Abraham Maslow’s notion of self-actualization. Maslow regarded optimal experiences as frosting on the cake of life, possible only after one had met material needs for safety and security. Maslow’s popular idea that basic needs must be met before people can pursue ‘higher order’ needs for self-fulfillment has never been validated by research. On the contrary, many people who endure poverty, tragedy, and abuse nonetheless manage to find contentment and fulfillment.’

Flow experiences result in innovation because they serve to reframe the ‘world as it is’ and recast the meaning and significance of the ‘way things are.’ Oliver Wendell Holmes’ observation was correct: ‘Once the mind has been stretched by a new idea it can never comfortably return to its original shape.’ Flow extends the range of what one sees as possible ‘ and reasonable ‘ to accomplish. It expands the percipient connections between prevailing reality and those things that at first appear to threaten that reality.

During and after a flow experience, a person will begin to see interrelationships between opposites. As an example, a painful memory that has always produced the emotion of hate can now also be seen as having provided an anchor experience for learning how love can overcome hate. Flow allows a perspective removed from the confines of the experience itself and helps the individual to both see and feel a bigger reality ‘ one in which all things have relationships not normally perceived.

Flow can be experienced by anyone at any time under any circumstances. All that is required is a challenging situation for the individual and a willingness to meet the challenge. Such are the only conditions for fostering an environment in which people can readily experience flow in their lives and thereby most easily be visited by innovative thoughts and ideas. The task is to nurture an environment that provides challenges to individuals at their respective levels of skill and competence without overwhelming or frightening them into inaction.

My cousin welds together the iron and steel skeletons of skyscrapers in Chicago. His work is hazardous, to say the least, as it takes him many hundreds of feet above the ground treading on windswept girders no wider than a sidewalk. Whenever I’m in a high-rise building, such as the Sears Tower observation deck, looking down on the ant-like world below, I get a tickling sensation all through my body even though I know I’m safe behind reinforced walls and windows. Just thinking about being that high without such security surrounding me fills me with fear and trembling.

I asked him one day how he could do such work without fear of falling. He nonchalantly replied, ‘When you walk on a sidewalk you don’t think about falling off, do you’ When I’m high in the air walking on a girder, in my mind I’m walking on a sidewalk on level ground. It never even occurs to me that I might fall off.’ I had never thought about his work in such terms. It caused me to think still further about how any of us manage to do difficult things: we do difficult things by not dwelling on the difficulties we associate with actually doing them!

Challenges in the workplace can be exhilarating or they can be terrifying. What my cousin had done to meet the challenges of his job was to mentally ‘recontextualize’ the process of his job. The normal context of his job was high off the ground walking along slender beams of iron and steel. When he was in the process of doing his job, however, he chose to do it within a different mental context ‘ one that allowed him better control over his job tasks by eliminating his fear of failing (falling) on the job. This enabled him to experience a high degree of freedom from the inherent constraints of the processes of his job. In fact, he was able to devise a welding technique that reduced the amount of time it took to safely secure the steel joints of skyscrapers. Innovative consequences result when, in a challenging situation, there are no distractions and no fear of failing. And this can be achieved by mentally re-framing the context of a work process.

Coincidentally, a friend of mine also worked as an ironmonger in another large city. He told me that he and his friends would ‘dance on the I-beams’ while they were on the ground. Puzzled, I asked why they would do such a thing. He said that if they could dance on the I-beams on the ground without falling off, they would have confidence that they could easily walk on them without falling off when they were forty stories in the air.

This is another essential element in fostering an environment of innovative thinking and acting. It encourages and enables process practice and performance visualization. It empowers people to decide how they will act in certain situations before they actually occur.

The things you do that you don’t have to do will always determine who you are and what you’ll be able to do when it’s too late to do anything about it. My friend and his co-workers didn’t have to dance on the I-beams; they didn’t have to spend time preparing to do their jobs safely. But they did and the results were that there were no injuries and projects were completed on time and within budget for as long as he worked in that job.

Summary

An organization can foster an environment of continuous improvement by focusing on outcomes and the process changes that can best achieve them. But this approach can only go so far in accomplishing improvement in the organization’s ability to respond to the rapid changes in the marketplace and in customer requirements.

To foster quicker and longer lasting improvement through innovation an organization needs to focus on constantly creating individualized challenges for its people and then providing the resources necessary to meet those challenges. By doing this, it encourages an environment in which flow can be more easily experienced, distractions and diversions reduced and fear of failure mitigated. These are the ingredients that make it conducive for people to create mental landscapes that overflow the bounds of existing processes thereby allowing them to creatively respond to ‘the way things are’ with ‘the way things could be.’

This situation can occur best after the process content is thoroughly understood and deployed. Encourage people to practice the content of the process: when you know you know how to do something, your mind and body are freed to devise ways to do it better and/or differently. Encourage people to reframe the context of the process: when you know that what you know is applicable to other areas of life, you can make connections that others haven’t and pursue new approaches to work and life with anticipation of flowing into personal and professional fulfillment.

Ken Wallace, M. Div., CSL has been in the organizational development field since 1973. He is a seasoned consultant, speaker and executive coach with extensive business experience in multiple industries who provides practical organizational direction and support for business leaders. A professional member of the National Speakers Association since 1989, he is also a member of the International Federation for Professional Speaking and holds the Certified Seminar Leader (CSL) professional designation awarded by the American Seminar Leaders Association.

Ken is one of only eight certified Business Systems Coaches worldwide for General Motors.

His topics include ethics, leadership, change, communication & his unique Optimal Process Design® program.

Tel:(800)235-5690 Claim your free eBook, “How to Do Better Than Your Best in Anything You Do” by visiting the Better Than Your Best website.

HDTV is definitely the wave of the future when it comes to television viewing technology. It appears that high definition television broadcasting will start to come into it’s own this year and progressively become dominant in the next couple of years. What that means for you is a much sharper image, better sound, and in turn, an improved television viewing experience.

Ever since the advent of cable and satellite TV services, the march toward entirely digital TV signal broadcasting has been taking place. Because of the limitations of the older analog TV broadcasting methods, digital signals were just not practical, but now that other methods of transmitting the TV signal are in widespread use, the switchover to the digital TV age is in high gear. And that has paved the way for high definition television standards that can make the fuzzy, unclear TV pictures of yesterday a relic of the past.

Along with the march toward better signal broadcasting, TV hardware has been steadily improving as well, and now we actually have three main competing technologies for displaying the screen image, LCD (liquid crystal display), DLP (digital light processing), and plasma TVs. They all are available in much thinner configurations than TVs of yesteryear, because the old bulky CRT monitors that have been used for so many years are on their way out. They also are capable of producing a much sharper and more colorful picture than past televisions too, and that bodes well for HDTV compatibility.

DLP TVs are the most recent technology to become commonplace in the television display field, although the technology has actually been in place for a while now. DLPs can produce an incredibly bright and high contrast screen picture that is absolutely stunning when viewed in tandem with a HDTV signal. They are also available in increasingly larger sizes and the prices are dropping rapidly as this display format becomes more commonplace. In addition, they lend themselves to a wide range of uses and can be connected to almost any digital video source that you wish to use, even your home computer.

So if you haven’t seen the beauty of a HDTV signal being displayed on a DLP monitor yet, do yourself a favor and visit a local electronics retailer to see it for yourself. You will be glad that you did!

Jim Johnson is a successful author and publisher on consumer related matters. You can find out more about the best dlp tv and dlp vs lcd by visiting our HDTV website.