Hotels and Travel

Facebook has literally outgrown its initial status as one of the most popular social media sites. It is now one of the major business advertising platforms. This is so because of it’s over a billion registered users and the millions of users who visit the site everyday. The fact that it has such features as Like, Comment and Share makes it possible for word about your business to reach out to a significant number of users in a very short time. Like with any other type of advertising campaign, successful advertising on Facebook requires that you amass a significant number of potential customers.

The first step to advertising on Facebook requires that you create a Facebook page from where you will be able to advertise. However, you need to realize that your potential customers will not simply find you on Facebook. You need to embark on announcing your presence on Facebook in any way possible. In case you have a traditional website, ensure that you have a “Find Us on Facebook” button that visitors to your website can use to follow you on Facebook. You need to go further by printing the button on all your marketing materials including brochures. You also need to make it easy for your potential customers to find you on Facebook. This you can once again do by having your Facebook page’s URL on all your brochures and marketing materials.

The secret to advertising successfully on Facebook lies in having as many friends or followers as you can. The benefit of doing so lies in the fact that as your followers comment, like or share your Ad with their friends or followers, word about your Ad reaches out to many, increasing the possibility of some of them buying into your Ad. Depending on the way you craft your Ad and what your Ad is all about, you may be surprised how viral your Ad becomes, which is good for your business.

Apart from creating Ads, you can effectively advertise on Facebook by engaging your followers and creating engaging content-rich posts is a sure way of engaging with your followers. The fact that they are in a position to comment, like and share your posts with their followers further increases your Ad or business visibility, in effect increasing the possibility of making sales. Closely related to this is making use of Facebook Offers. This is a feature that allows you to offer attractive discounts to your existing and potential customers. You can effortlessly create an offer from the Ads creation tool.

Effective use of Facebook Ads is another wonderful way of advertising on Facebook. Using Facebook Ads gives you the opportunity to target a specific market you intend your Ad to reach. You have the options of specifying age, location, gender and interest of Facebook users you prefer your Ad reaches. Compared to other advertising channels, advertising on Facebook is not only effective but cost effective as well. It is indeed one of the most effective ways of building a loyal customer base.

If you are an internet marketer then you must know that sometimes it is hard to figure out how to keep fresh content on your website and eyes looking at your Facebook page, blog, or videos. Did you know that if you have audio or videos that this media can be converted into different forms to be used on behalf of your business? This article will be focusing on how to use transcripts to help you work smarter and not harder. Use this transcribed work to convert into several different kinds of media that you can use over and over in different forms to provide your customers with fresh content that is relevant and niche specific. Transcripts can be converted into ebooks/PDFs, email sequences, WSOs, and Power Point slides. Ebooks and PDFs can be created from transcripts that are dictated into a software like Audacity. Using a headset with microphone dictate your researched data in chapter form into Audacity and submit to us for typing. Ebooks or PDFs can also be created from dictation of interviews. Have you ever wanted to interview your favorite marketer? This is your opportunity to get nuggets of internet marketing facts and create a report or Ebook that you can use for sale or as a free gift in exchange for an email address using your autoresponder.

Email sequences can be created from transcripts as well. Let’s use the old dog training niche. Let’s say you are doing a website on dog training. You call your local dog trainer or your friend who is a dog training assistant to get some facts about how to train your dog to listen to commands and how to get along with other dogs. Do an interview of about 30 to 40 minutes and have that material transcribed. You can now use this material as an email sequence for a newsletter or for an email sequence to promote dog related products. No one wants to be blatantly sold to. These emails will be sent so your email list can get to know you, like you and trust you. After those emails go out then you can hit them up with an offer for purchase.

WSOs are Warrior Special Offers. Warrior Special offers can be found on a site called the Warrior Forum. This is a place where internet marketers and individuals who wish to make money online congregate. This is the place where they share information on how to do business, offer their services for hire, as well as sell products related to internet marketing and making money online. You can create a special offer like a business in a box offer which is basically a ready-made content which you can use to populate a website without having to do the work yourself. Internet marketers love these business in a box offers because it cuts down on the actual time it takes to get their websites online and making income. Go to Warrior Forum to the Warrior Special Offer Section and see what people are offering in their business in a box offers and duplicate that. Like they said if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Power point slides can be created from transcripts. All you need to do is go into your Power Point program and transfer the text from your transcripts to the slides. Choose your Power Point template that you want to use and then create your slides. It’s just as easy as that. These slides can be part of a business in a box package or can be used to create videos. If you have the Camtasia video software you can use these slides to create videos without you actually being in them. All you need to do is record your screen and record yourself reading the slides and you have created video that you can now use to create your own YouTube Channel or more content for your website or blog. Transcripts can be vital to your business if you are about creating niche specific content for your site that your customers are hungry for. Using transcripts to create PowerPoint slides, WSOs, email sequences, and ebooks or PDFs will help you become an authority online. Use your audio content and videos to work smarter and not harder.

Building top membership sites can be an exciting, entertaining and profitable adventure, you just need to creatively shift your local community online. A process that can help revive your community.

It’s time that we actually take a few steps back and absorb what’s going on in the world around us. Surveys are telling us that over 84% of adults connect to the Internet for at least 4 hours every day. Showing that Internet usage is on a steady increase. It takes an even larger jump when looking at younger generations.

We’ve reorganized our lives around the conveniences of the Internet. Shopping, information, networking are all at our finger tips. But have we done a good job bridging the Internet with our local communities?

In my own local community, the businesses and residents have definitely seen better times. Many businesses are hanging on for dear life as potential customers rush to spend their money on the Internet. These businesses, who used to have just one or two local competitors, now have to compete against thousands of online businesses who can provide similar services / products for less.

Are we sacrificing a unique community connection for discount prices? Do we no longer care about the “personalized service” that small local businesses can provide? Doesn’t that count for something?

People are also spending less time actively engaging with their community. Video games, movies, television and the Internet are consuming more and more of people’s time. The conveniences have made parents numb to the fact that their kids hardly go outside and play. Better yet, that they don’t go outside and play with their kids. Is this how we want to use technology, to suffocate our core relationships with people we love?

So what’s the solution? We need to take our local community online, which will create top membership sites that will be great for our local community.

What if you could build a membership site that would promote the talents of residents within your local community. They could actively participate by adding their own unique entertaining content. In addition you allow residents to use your membership site to produce new events, promotions & campaigns. Businesses could partner with the residents and even employ their talents to help promote its services and products. Just by doing that, businesses will be able to connect on a deeper level with the network of those partner residents. Think about it, most people have at least 400 fans and followers that they would share a “Local commercial” with if they were in or helped created.

Having a local community membership website would benefit everyone; residents could showcase talents & skills, businesses could incorporate locals into their promotional efforts giving further reach and you would be the owner of one of the best top membership sites possible.

ULiveWV.org, a local community website for the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, is testing this concept right now. With an official launch planned in 2015, ULiveWV.org aims to build an online community using the talents of its local residents. The goal is to create unique events, entertainment and productions that the whole community can participate in.

If you’d like to support ULiveWV’s journey, you can join as a visitor and get an insider’s view of the whole process to see if they can make it one of the top membership sites online. Visit [http://www.ulivewv.org/] to learn more.

For online PR services, SEO blogs and articles are immensely important. Besides SEO blogs and articles are vital for social media management services. An important part of off-page SEO is link-building. By regularly posting fresh content on a topic along with links to corporate websites helps a business to attract more and more clients to the brand. When talking about posting fresh contents it means that the skilled writer has to write the blogs or articles. It is advised, that for writing tasks, a business must seek the expertise of a skilled SEO content writer. This blog is an attempt to comprehend the skills that a professional SEO blog writer must use to write stuffs for a business or brand.

Qualities of a Professional SEO Content Writer

Following are a few things about SEO blog writing that a professional SEO article writer must use while writing contents:-

Do Adequate Research on Keywords

SEO contents are very much dependent on the use of keywords. Therefore, while writing blogs or articles you must do extensive keyword research. You need to use the main keyword once in the title, once in the introduction, once in a subheading, once in the main body of a 500 worded content. While using keywords make sure that you avoid keyword stuffing.

Use Keywords Appropriately

Try to use the main keyword in the content in a manner so that the keyword density is less than 3%. Apart from using the main keyword try using associative keywords in the write-up. Avoid keyword stuffing. Use long-tail keywords if required. Use latent semantic indexing keywords if needed.

Write Contents About Stuffs That People Care For

If you are writing an article or blog on a topic then understand that the selection of the topic needs to be such that it attracts the readers. The contents should be written on topics that people care for. Understand that if more and more readers read your write-up then it can help your business to expand.

Understand The Fundamentals of Technical SEO

While writing SEO stuffs it is important to understand how Google crawls web pages. Keeping these things into consideration you should write content. There are other important basics of technical SEO that you can get to know if you browse relevant online topics.

Make the Content Long and Attractive

It is discouraged to keep your blog or article short. If you are writing a blog or an article then try to limit the content within 700 words. Use keywords in the content appropriately and make it attractive to the readers.

Watch Out The Analytics

Mere content writing may not help you in getting the desired target audience. You need to do the SEO part well with the content. More importantly, you need to watch out for the analytics as well to become successful with SEO blog writing.

Edit Work On Requirements

One of the most important parts of SEO content writing is to edit work now and then. The work, needs to be edited keeping because of the content requirements for business purposes.

Share the Content Once it is Posted Online

After having written SEO content you must post and share the content online.

Understand That Practice Makes One Perfect

There is no shortcut to becoming a skilled SEO content writer. You need to practice to become skilled in SEO content writing.

The above-mentioned skills if incorporated by an SEO article writer then it is good for a business which seeks professional services from the writer. If you cherish to become an SEO content writer then adhere to basic SEO rules while writing content and practice hard.

This will help you understand how to rank a website quickly for most relevant keywords and gain faster, natural search engine traffic from the result.

The first thing you should do is to find the best SEO tools available. These are usually web counters that tell you which keywords your competitor is targeting. You can also use the pro feature of Ahrefs to locate and target specific keywords. The pro feature of Ahrefs allows you to identify exact keywords that your competitor is ranking for, narrowing down your own list of keywords to better focus on.

Another important SEO tool is to use keyword research software. The advantage of doing so is that you can identify and analyze popular keywords that your competitors are ranking for and incorporate these into your own keywords. Keyword research software can also show you how to rank website by incorporating major search terms which are used by customers searching online. One very good example of this is the Google AdWords.

Ranking your website effectively will require that you spend time studying how the search engines work. You will need to learn about the various algorithms that search engines follow to rank websites. This will help you determine the factors which affect the rankings of websites. It will also show you how to manipulate the elements of your site in order to rank high. For example, if you want to rank website for “motor vehicles” you will need to make sure that you have lots of fresh and well-written content on your website.

Keywords and key phrases which have been optimized are also very important SEO tools. An example is the area’s platform which allows you to see how a keyword or phrase is being used by your competitors. The Google competitor analysis tool also shows you how to rank a website using keywords and key phrases. These are many blog post available at EzineArticles that can help you understand how the search engines work.

Your own set of keywords can be found online at various places. A simple Google search will reveal a list of some of the most popular keywords, which can be used in your own campaigns. These keywords should be competitive but also useful to your customers. For example, if you are selling clothes online and one of your keywords is “Cheap t-shirt”, you may want to consider changing this to “Unique Men’s t-shirt”. Changing your keywords to something more specific and targeted will be less obvious to your competitors and can result in more traffic to your web pages.

Backlinks can be built from other websites but a link must be constructed using relevant keywords. You need to think like a customer and build backlinks in a way that is natural and has a high chance of being clickable. You can achieve this by joining social media networking sites and submitting any new products, articles or videos to popular directories, signing up with article directories and bookmarking the URL of your site on all your social networking profiles.

Our businesses also differ in terms of interface with clients. If you do “business to business” transactions, the number of people you interact with on a daily basis may differ from someone whose business relies on interacting with consumers. Appointments may be more practical in some instances than others. You have to tailor-make how you manage access to your particular situation if you are to eliminate distractions. Having said that it is important to note that some people do not mind spending the whole day at the office entertaining friends, visitors, and casual acquaintances dropping into the office whenever they feel like it. Do not be that kind of person. It sets the wrong kind of example to junior staff and can harm one’s productivity because these people take up time that you do not have and besides you want to cultivate a professional environment.

The demands of the day are enough to fill the eight working hours available unless if you tend to stay back and play catch up. How do you stay competitive in the market if there is no separation between work and play? Anybody serious about success and achieving effective results will put boundaries that are clear so that there is no confusion. Entrepreneurs are more susceptible to this especially when the workplace is easily accessible. The fact that you are your own boss even puts more responsibility on you to maintain self-discipline and self – management. I have written a whole book called, “Achieve More through Self – Leadership. In it I walk you through the practicalities of how you can get better results through managing self.

Appointments are an important way of not only managing time but managing life. They help you become more structured and productive. Some people seem not to be able to honour their appointments. I once attended a job interview that was supposed to start at 10:30am. By 11:30am there had been no communication about what was happening or when the supposed job interview was going to take place. I decided at the point that this company was probably not good enough for me to join because if you don’t respect people’s time you probably do not respect them.

You may be saying appointments are just not for me yet you never rock up at the doctor, dentist, lawyer or hairstylist without an appointment. Why is that the case? Because you simply won’t see the dentist without an appointment. They have given you conditions acceptable to them. We tell the world around us how to treat us by what we allow.

Some people are always available when you want to see them. If you are always free to see people at short notice, you are probably not that organized. The one who owns a diary will manage the one who doesn’t own one. Why? Because the one without the diary is always available, even though he is very likely to forget important meetings, dates and engagements because of a lack of organization. I used to have a boss who kept a diary and whatever you promised to do in the line of work, he would write down, including the day and time you said he would have it by. You would of-course forget because you didn’t record it like he did and when the time to deliver comes, guess who would be found wanting. It was then that I decided that I do not commit to an action that I am not willing to write down because, what’s written gets done!

You may be saying, “what if my business feeds off the “walk-ins? The fact that your business relies on walk – in customers should not be an excuse for disorder. Sometimes those who drop in unannounced may indeed be potential customers, suppliers, cold-calling salespeople, and even worthwhile business contacts. There is nothing wrong if the call is beneficial to you and your business but I believe there must be a structure and way of doing things that follows certain pre-set principles. I remember seeing a poster in an office that said “if you don’t have anything to do please don’t do it here”. It’s humorous yes, but true. Appointments help to structure your day and helps you allocate time to what’s important. This means you can focus on your most important asset: the paying customer. There is nothing as bad as walking into a place wanting to do business and staff are inattentive because there is just a demand on their time. I am more understanding if the personnel are not busy entertaining social visits at work.

In conclusion, you know your business situation better than any of us. All we can do is make recommendations that will enable efficiency that leads to growth. Some of you may actually need a personal assistant who will put order in your office and focus on the things you are not willing to do that will enable to focus on the highly value things you ought to do such as running a business.

Do you think successful people are just plain lucky?

Successful people did not become successful because they were lucky.

They did not achieve success by accident. Being at the right place at the right time, meeting relevant people, reading the appropriate book, did not come about accidentally or by luck.

Luck is brought about by Labour Under Correct Knowledge.

Successful people prepared themselves. Instead of giving up on anything they started and wanted to achieve they got stronger by learning more.

Success is a methodical, orderly and deliberate process of deciding what you want to do with your life, what are the steps that you need to undertake to get you there, and lastly what you will do once you get there.

One of the most important aspects, if not the most important aspect to success, is the ability to visualise your successful outcome and stay focused on it until you achieve it.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited.” – Albert Einstein

Successful people understood the potential power behind knowledge, yet they also understood that, for them to close the gap between where they are and where they wanted to be, they would have to piece together the enigma that is most often referred to as “life”.

They had to build a picture, a vision, of success in their mind, and then go about taking action on creating that envisioned life.

In much the same way, you have to be serious about your present and future, you need to have the knowledge that is required so you, too, may close the gap: you need to be and remain determined to devote yourself to taking massive action to build your business of succeeding in life.

You, too, will need to see the end, your dream and destiny that you desire in your mind’s eye. It is up to you to take the necessary and relevant action to make it all happen. It’s just like going to the doctor with a particular health problem.

The doctor may prescribe a medication for you to take four times a day, yet he cannot be there with you to ensure that you are taking the medication.

It comes back to deciding to be responsible for your life.

Have you noticed how it all stems from that one attitude? Being responsible for your own life.

Your success, your being responsible 100% for you to live your dream life starts here.

When you accept 100% responsibility for yourself and your current life situation, you will have the power to move towards those things you truly desire in life: which is success in all areas of your life.

This life-changing article is about possibilities and opportunities, knowledge and tools. It will help expose your unique course in life.

It will inspire, support and motivate you to excel, to do what successful people do, to have all that successful people have, and to become a shining example of a successful person.

Here, you’re not being told what you couldn’t do, instead you are being told to shoot for the stars. And above all, you are being shown how to shoot for those stars.

“A person is what he thinks about all day long.” – Emerson

Interesting thought, wouldn’t you think? So much so, it’s worth repeating: “A person is what he thinks about all day long.”

Success and happiness cannot happen if you possess the same old thoughts and beliefs.

If you do not change your mind, if you do not get rid of the unsupportive thoughts and beliefs, you will inevitably remain stuck in your old ways. Not much, if anything, will change.

Let’s give you a quick overview on how change comes about:

Your BEHAVIOUR, how you act (or perhaps do not act), controls your success or failure. Your ability to attain high levels of success is dependent upon your actions and behaviours. Your results are the outcome of your behaviour. Now let’s consider where your behaviours come from and what controls them?

Your FEELINGS command your behaviour. Every action that you take is first filtered through your feelings that reside in your subconscious mind. How you feel about something determines what you do and how well you do it. So where do your feelings come from?

Your ATTITUDES create and influence your feelings. Your attitude is your perspective from which you view life. Whatever attitude you have about anything will affect how you feel, which, in turn, affects how you act. Where do your attitudes come from?

Your BELIEFS create, control and influence your attitudes. What you believe about anything will determine your attitude about it, which will create your feelings, and then which will direct your behaviour and action. Belief patterns are so powerful that two people who are in the same situation could perceive things completely differently. It only requires us to believe what we see and how we see it. We all have thousands of beliefs – big and small. And where do your beliefs come from?

Your THOUGHTS create, control and influence your beliefs. Your thoughts are real and are immensely powerful. Everything you accept from the outside world and everything you feed yourself from within is a product of your thoughts. Everything starts as a thought.

So, it goes without saying you need to learn to control your thoughts. And when you do, you will automatically control your beliefs, your attitudes, your feelings and, consequently, your behaviour and actions.

The big secret to success:

Learn to control your thoughts and you will influence your behaviours and actions. It’s all a mind-set. That’s what we’ve been saying all along.

Success is predictable and is not achieved by accident.

Have the mind-set of the successful people and you will achieve success. Believe and it is yours!

“There is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.” – Joel Osteen

Science of success experts have concluded that the brain is a goal-setting organism.

That is fantastic news for us: for whatever goal we give to our subconscious mind, it will work for us day and night, 24/7, to achieve it for us; to make it a reality.

The principal breakthrough that scientists made was that we do not need to waste our precious time and effort trying to change old thoughts and behaviours: we just simply create new ones.

And the other discovery they made was that we can continue to create new thoughts, new memories, new behaviours, new skills, and learn new things for as long as we are alive on this earth.

Now, with the new discoveries in recent years, it has been scientifically proven that our capacity to achieve and succeed literally has no limits.

Our brain has the capacity to continually learn during our entire lifetime.

Our brain can form new thoughts, can have new memories, and can learn new things by the millions, no matter what your age is. By the millions.

That’s how many new things we can learn, that’s how many new skills we can learn, that’s how many new thoughts we can have, that’s how many new behaviours we can adopt.

This is encouraging because there is no limit on your capacity to achieve new things.

No limits whatsoever for the human brain to learn, memorise, develop, achieve and perform at higher levels than ever imagined. It makes no difference what your age is: you are capable of learning anything new that you want to learn.

That adds to what we spoke of earlier: no more excuses.

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X

Your brain has the capacity to achieve way beyond what was ever thought possible. So now is the time to break out of your limited thinking and start dreaming big and imagining unlimited possibilities.

Becoming successful is not impossible.

It is a choice you make through a decision. Every day, step-by-step, you may climb the mountain of success if you’ve decided to do so, if you’re committed to accomplish what the others think impossible.

Design your future now.

Prepare to receive what you desire.

Thanks to the phenomenal advances made in cognitive science and the development of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), personal change, personal transformation, has come a very long way.

In fact, personal growth is no longer a mystery.

NLP has brought to light that change, transformation and growth can be fast, reliable, and even fun. It has shown us that we do not need to spend thousands of hours slaving away to increase our creative-thinking abilities.

By practicing a few simple exercises and applications, you can start your creative juices flowing, and you may even amaze yourself at the quality and quantity of good ideas that you can come up with to expedite your success.

It can allow you to achieve something you seek within days and months as opposed to years and decades. That’s the power of the progress science has made on how the brain works, and also how you can have your mind to be your best ally in achieving anything you want.

Learn to live as you like by no longer living as you dislike.

Are you ready to get on the road to success and fulfilment?

Bear in mind, much like everything else in life, success requires practice and massive, consistent action.

“Success doesn’t mean the absence of failures; it means the attainment of ultimate objectives. It means winning the war, not every battle.” – Edwin C Bliss

Do you feel as if you’ve outgrown your circle of friends? Perhaps you do not feel safe or understood any longer. There may be fewer and fewer things you can share with people in your habitual circle, and it leaves you feeling lonely or isolated. If so, you are not alone. Welcome to one of the core dynamics of continuous growth!

As we continue to evolve, many of us struggle with a sense of not quite fitting in with our traditional community or tribe: we may have expanded or changed beyond the borders of tribal norms, and no longer find the same sense of belonging there. Other members may have tightened the tribal rules to foster a sense of security. As a result, we may feel a sense of disconnection or alienation.

In truth, each one of us belongs to many tribes simultaneously: there is your original tribe – the family you were born into – and then there are all the communities of choice you have joined: your work tribe, your social circles, your faith-based community, your neighborhood, and more. These communities are not static; they are in continuous flux because they consist of individuals who are in continuous states of change. When there is a lot of change happening in either the individual or the community, a sense of dissonance results.

How are we to deal with this? First, it is important to recognize that tribal allegiances were historically forged for survival. They were adapted over the course of centuries to ensure the safety and survival of the group. Survival required that individuation be sacrificed for the trade-off of security.

In modern society, the tables are flipped. Whether we enjoy it or not, change is essential for survival at every level of being. The pace of change is driven by technological advances and happens with increasing rapidity: sociologists estimate that more change has taken place in society over the course of the past 100 years, than in the totality of the previous 6,000 years. Individual adaptation now is a requirement for survival, and the pace of individual change does not always match the pace at which our various tribal communities evolve. The resulting dissonance can cause intense friction and pain.

Dissonance also results from confusion between the concepts of ‘connection’ and ‘community.’ We tend to equate one with the other, when they really relate to different qualities. Connection relates to connectivity: the objective physical technology or media that enables us to build community, but which does not represent the quality of that community. Connectivity simply offers the opportunity to connect with others through internet, texting, phone calls, or any other social networking options.

Community is the result of building relationship through meaningful interaction over time. There is no shortcut; it is a process that develops when bonds of trust and intimacy are nurtured and honored.

And here lies a caveat: When we confuse connectivity with community, we depersonalize the sacred nature of true community and start relating to people as objects. Instead of developing intimacy over time, we collect friends on social network sites or try to buy people’s allegiance. Yet friending is simply an act of connecting; it does not create intimacy.

In fact, social experiments indicate that technologically dominated connectivity results in alienation and social collapse over time. In a groundbreaking social experiment conducted by Josh Harris, one of the founders of social networking on the internet, he found that the more people’s private lives were exposed by 24/7 technology, the more their sense of intimacy and relationship deteriorated until the community collapsed in violence and self-destructive behavior.

It is time to revisit our concepts of community so we can create tribes that offer a true sense of intimacy and belonging.

In his 1987 book, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, psychologist M. Scott Peck described several core characteristics of true community. Beyond the obvious components of inclusivity, commitment and participatory consensus, Peck pointed out the quality of embracing diversity through realism. When each member contributes their unique viewpoint from a place of humility and goodwill, the community benefits from a broader perspective in which to better grasp the full context of a situation. In other words, mutual tolerance helps members to embrace one another’s different viewpoints as an integral part of the whole, instead of imposing a forced compliance to groupthink or cohesion.

In an environment like this, members experience and express compassion and respect for one another. They allow others to share their vulnerability, to learn and grow, and to express who they truly are. When conflict arises, they learn to resolve it with wisdom and grace. Members listen to and respect each others’ gifts, accept each others’ limitations, celebrate their differences, and commit to find solutions together rather than to fight against each other. Indeed, the true spirit of community is the spirit of peace, love, wisdom and power. The source of this spirit may be seen as an outgrowth of the collective self or as the manifestation of a Higher Will.

Does this description of community sound spiritual to you? It is indeed, because Spirit is the common denominator among all of us, regardless of how separate we feel from others.

As human beings, we often experience a socio-economic sense of separation from others because of different opinions, beliefs, expectations, language, culture, or interests, since each one of us expresses these in a way uniquely different from anyone else. And still, we continue to differentiate! In this ongoing process, we continue to evolve or devolve in response to life. A community that felt like a good fit last year may no longer work today; the places where we felt embraced, now may suffocate us. Over the course of a lifetime, we can expect to outgrow and change allegiances to many of the tribal communities we once belonged to.

And yet, when we transcend the layers of physical appearance, mental beliefs and socio-economic conditioning, we find in the presence of Spirit a common denominator in everyone around us. Perhaps it is time to expand our tribal definitions to embrace a spiritual community that includes all of mankind as children of God.

Mother Teresa admonished her nuns to see Jesus in every leper they encountered, to find His presence as they looked into the eyes of the homeless. When we can look past the issues that divide us to find omnipresent Divinity in each other, we will uncover the foundations of true community.

Spiritual community transcends all socio-economic borders, beliefs and backgrounds. It is inclusive because it operates on voluntary self-responsibility and mutual compassion, and its doors are open to everyone.

Building this type of community takes time: time to listen, to hear, to respond and to participate. Take a few moments to read the description of spiritual community again. Then, make time in your life to foster that type of connection with people who matter to you. You are one of the architects of community in your life, and you can participate in building a tribe where you belong.

What would happen to you if your home life was more organized than it is right now? Can work-life balance be achieved? What are the tools at our disposal? Could scheduling appointments and keeping them at home help us save time and prioritize?

What is the challenge we face? I sometimes find that time spent at home can be the busiest time, especially in the times we live in. Imagine someone working from home, home-schooling children, and sometimes even doing a side hustle. Imagine also the full-time home-based entrepreneur. How do they manage to do all they need to do in a day?. We are living in a time when many entrepreneurs and even company employees have adopted work- at – home culture. This comes with its challenges as the lines become blurred between home and work. These blurred lines and constraints on the limited resource called time result in over-worked, under-rested, burnt-out individuals. Whilst good time management has been encouraged and indeed, embraced in the workplace, I believe more needs to be done in changing the mindset for the elusive work-life balance to be achieved.

What are the tools at our disposal? To manage time effectively at home, there are many interventions one can employ including setting goals for the day, prioritizing wisely, setting a time limit for every task, organizing oneself, and instituting the discipline of appointments. Yes, an appointment at home! We can spend time pontificating on the pros and cons of each intervention, however, I believe we need to focus on appointments and see how this can powerfully change the course of one’s day regardless of whether it’s a workday or weekend. Life is busy as it is without any intrusions. The question is how do you handle the one who announces that they are at the gate. These can be friends, neighbors, a salesman of some product you do not even need. I am not promoting regimentation here but rather a culture of filling your day with what’s important. Everything that we succeed at is because we carefully plan and execute it. I am a firm believer that you cannot manage time if you do not manage yourself thus I implore you to incorporate planning and appointments into your repertoire. I am not talking about something I do not do. I have to achieve many things in a day therefore I set appointments with my work, others, and myself.

Could scheduling appointments and keeping them on the home front help us save time and prioritize? Whereas we have established that it is a normal business practice to set appointments and keep them, we need to abandon the liberal open-door policy of allowing all and sundry to have access to us as and when they please on the home front. Please understand where I am coming from. We each have greatness within us but for us to achieve it we need to culture great habits. Employing the use of appointments at home and seeing only those people you had agreed to see removes non-essential encounters especially during the most productive hours. I know this will vary with culture, geographical region, or even level of affluence, whether you live in a low density or high-density residential area, but doesn’t negate the need to be organized and effective. Controlling access determines how organized you are and how well you will work and rest when the time for scheduled rest comes.

What do we need to do differently? We need to be disciplined and diligent, learn to say no, now is not a good time, let’s make an appointment for next week. What are the benefits of this approach? You are not always fire-fighting to meet deadlines, You are not always tired because you have not taken time out to rest. You have set aside enough time to spend with your loved ones or a loved one. If you are a busy person, I am sure you appreciate what I am saying. Whether it’s time to work uninterrupted, family time, or “me-time”, it takes some kind of order to enjoy it.

I am not saying that those that come unannounced are bad people. No, not at all, they probably are people you enjoy spending time with. Nevertheless, there must be prior communication so that you can attend to your visitor(s) when it is convenient for both you and them. It can be quite disrupting and a whole day can just pass by without achieving anything that you had planned to do.

As we grow older we begin to appreciate that rest and recovery need to be scheduled. The fact that I am relaxing doesn’t mean that I don’t have anything to do. One therefore cannot assume that just because you are at home you are available. Maybe you have scheduled that time to rest. That is important. You need to make an appointment with yourself, spouses need to also set aside time for each other. Parents need to schedule a time to spend with their children. When you have some sort of order in your life you determine who sees you and who you see. It also means that your relationships will be healthy and that makes you a happier person.

In conclusion, I believe that the work-life balance can be achieved. There are many tools at our disposal just like it is in the workplace.I believe we could do more and be happier if we are disciplined enough to make only the commitments we can keep.I am certain that setting appointments and keeping them at home help us save time and prioritize.