It surprises me how many people neglect signing up for cheap term life insurance or mortgage protection insurance. Some people don’t even know it exists. In life there are always good times and bad times. Often we don’t plan for those “bad” times and they end up devastating those closes to us when they come up.

While the subject of death is depressing, it is a part of life. Often the main bread winner for a family passes away and the family loses their home because they can’t pay their mortgage. A great mortgage life insurance company that I came across recently is NAA Life mortgage insurance . They basically pay off your mortgage in the event of your death so that your family isn’t stranded or homeless. As the main bread winner for your family it’s critical that you make sure they’ll be fine in the event that something happens to you and you pass away.

Lets face it you never know when your life will end. I know it’s a depressing thought but let’s be honest. Death is a part of life, no one live forever. Wouldn’t you feel a little better if you knew that your family would still have a home in the event you passed away? Getting mortgage insurance is almost like getting life insurance and shouldn’t be neglected.

Here is part 1 of my story if you missed it. When the valentine’s day incident happened (discussed in part 1 of my story) I was 13 years old. A typical day for me was waking up, walking/riding my bike to school (there was no school bus but it was a really tiny town in Pennsylvania so everything was close), and sitting in classes where I didn’t get most of what the teacher was talking about. School itself wasn’t hard but I was still learning English so I had difficulty understanding in general. Often my mind would drift and I discovered a new hobby at that time, guess what it was? Checking out hot girls.

In Egypt (my country of birth) most girls looked the same black hair, black or brown eyes, naturally tan/oily skin color etc. But in America I noticed blonds, brunettes and dark-haired girls, I was in heaven well at least that’s what I thought until a couple of years later when I actually had the balls to approach a cute girl and realized it wasn’t as easy as it looked But I’ll discuss that in a future post.

Anyway I only lived in Pennsylvania for a little over a year, and then we moved to the suburbs of Chicago. By we I mean my immediate family (parents and younger brother). It was good and bad. It was good because my new school was pretty diverse, in fact white were only 40% of the school, Hispanics were 30% and the rest was mixed. My school back in Pennsylvania was 99% white mostly because it was in a really small town.

However moving to new school was challenging and to make it worse it was my freshman year of high school you know when all the upperclassmen make fun of you because you’re lost and can’t find you classes? I mean I moved from a school with 400 students to one with 2500, I looked dumb founded half the time walking around. The language barrier didn’t help either.

I still remember my first day at lunch. I go to the cafeteria to get food, I grab a slice of really greasy pizza, pay and then I pause and realize I gotta pick a table to sit at. Now most of the tables resembled different groups, there were the jocks, the skaters, the Mexicans, the band, etc. Of course I didn’t know a single person so I found a table with a couple students at one end and I just sat at the other far end away from them.

Of course this is social suicide in many ways. Now I know this but back then I didn’t. It’s amazing to see how far my social skills developed however this is another story for another time, and yes I did pay a very high price for improving my social skills: lots and lots of rejection.

Anyway the cool thing about my new school is that it had a coed gym class, yep that means guys and girls were in the same gym class together. I didn’t think much of this until it was time for us to do swimming. That’s when I got to see many of my cute females classmates in bathing suits, no big deal to you but a huge one for me. Up until this point I only saw girls in bathing suits on TV. And then I noticed her in all her beauty, it was this girl in my gym class, when we did swimming she wore this hot blue bathing suit, her name was Valery…

Will I talk to her? or Will I chicken out? What happens next? My eyes are burning, and I’m tired so I’ll continue my story in a future post. I’m still experimenting with more personal posts like these, so if you enjoy them please leave a comment and let me know, if you hate them then also let me know in the comments, thanks.

Who am i? Well you might already know my name is Andrew.  I currently live in Chicago, IL.  I’m 24 and I would like to tell you my story…

I was born in Egypt and I moved to America when I was 12.  Move here was probably the toughest thing I’ve ever done, it left me depressed for a year or two.  I didn’t know the language well, I didn’t have friends, and worst of all there were no ESL (English as a Second Language) classes in my small high school.  As a matter of fact I would have the teacher write down the homework assignments for me, and have my cousins translate it for me and help me do it.

I still remember my first year in an American school.  It was so eventful, almost like a drama.  I got picked on daily by a couple of kids.  They made fun of my clothing, you see I wore the same outfit twice in a shirt two days in a row this was fine in my country back home but I quickly learned it was a big NO NO here in America

One day this kid was picking on me and I finally had it, I was fed up.  So I grabbed him from his t-shirt, pulled him toward me, his t-shirt ripped, he got embaressed b/c everyone was watching at this point and he ran off.  After that no one ever missed with me again, and a crazier thing even happened…

It was a week or so before valentine’s day at the time.  When valentine’s day came up I got roses from three different girls (2 of which were pretty hot, yeh I still don’t get it, I think it’s because I was the new kid and it was a small town without any diversity).

Of course I didn’t even know what valentine’s day was at the time.  A couple of the girls even asked me to some dance our school were having.  Due to the language barrier and everything else that was going on nothing really happened…

to be continued?

If you’ve enjoyed reading this, please let me know in a comment and I will write some more about my story.

Update: I wrote Part 2 of my Story, you can find it here.

Maybe you have a business of your own and have recently noticed that sales are down.  Many small businesses have died due to today’s bad economy leaving their owners devastated.  The economy simply keeps getting worse each day and it still hasn’t hit rock bottom.  Maybe you even have all kinds of ideas to grow your business yet you’re short on cash.  Well I recently came across a Credit Card Factoring company which basically turns your future credit card sales into cash by giving you a business cash advance. This is a great opportunity especially if you’re considering accepting credit cards in your business since more and more people today use them.

OnlineCheck.com (the same credit card factoring company) also offers fast business loans with more leanient requirements for approaval (unlike the stringet requirement of traditional banks), and no fees or closing cost.  This can be a great source of funding for your current business in today’s bad economy.

Even if you don’t have a business and were considering starting one this can really help you out.  Starting a business can be costly, and getting a fast business loan can really help you get started.  Just think of how nice it would be to be your own boss for once and let your creativity flow.

Today blogging has become so simple that even an internet newbie can do it. It’s not just fun that attracts people to blog, it’s also the money that attracts many towards blogging. There are numerous methods to earn from your blog. An important thing that might me helpful is the affiliation of the blog. If you are having blogging in mind, then don’t forget to affiliate your blog else it’s a waste.

Now, you might ask me what affiliation means? Affiliation is part your plan. Affiliation could be done easily through one of the many sites which are available these days. It’s just like a sale. When you affiliate your blog with any of the websites, their visitors count increases drastically because of you. You will be paid accordingly

But, affiliation is just the second part. The most crucial thing is your interest in improving your blog with new contents and fresh ideas. The contents should be regularly updated else there will be a sure decrease in your visitors count. To avoid this you should start blogging on things that you like. This will make you more enthusiastic in your work and you will never get bored.

The first thing in affiliation of your blog would be signing up. Most of the websites have free signup options and you will be provided with an ID which would acknowledge you as a referrer of their customer. If any of your visitors buy their products or just visit their site because of you, then you would receive payment from them which would depend on that product purchased. You might earn a few cents or even a few dollars.

After setting an account with the affiliate program you should start working right away. Paste their sites code in your blog. Try helping their product sales by adopting various methods. You can do reviews about the products that the affiliate is selling. Another method is to add a recommendation listing of the users who have got a real good experience with those products.

Don’t be always selling through your site. As said before concentrate on your content so that you get some regular visitors. You may write movie reviews, current affairs, jokes, health tips and so on. Side by side keep an eye on the affiliate program. Your visitor should be satisfied with your contents as well as your affiliate.

It’s not necessary that you should be an expert in writing. You are just writing for fun and to make some money. Find the affiliates who are more related to your blog. You are thus helping them increase their site traffic. It all happens on commission basis. You can even become an affiliate to others. Thus you might also experience an increase in your sites traffic. You can have blogging as your time pass. Now, what’s preventing you? Just go blog yourself.

Gratitude or appreciation of what we already have is very important in the manifestation process. If we want to attract things we desire we must have feelings of gratitude, so every day when you wake up try to be thankful and think about the good things in your live you should be thankful for.

To begin using the Law of Gratitude and the Law of Attraction to work for us in positive ways, we must take control of our lives and understand how to best use this power we all have within us.

We cannot express true gratitude without feeling emotionally grateful. Being thankful for everything that comes to us is to accept our lives as they are, realizing that everything that has come to us is because we created it. It could be hard to accept our responsibility, but without accepting it we can’t start positively changing our lives. Although it may not have been our conscious intent, but we created our lives. It is much easier to understand for people who also know the law of karma or the law of action and reaction.

We must appreciate what we have, so let’s appreciate our jobs (even if we don’t like them). We should feel gratitude for a place to live (there are many people who don’t have a place to live). We should be grateful for some food, some friends or anything else that we possess. A lot of people don’t have enough even basic things like food, water and their own place to live.

It’s natural that you want more, that you want to improve your standard of life, but first you need to feel gratitude for what you already have.

Sometimes gratitude comes in steps. Making a list of things you are thankful for being in your life helps you to create a more positive energy within you. It also helps to begin surrounding yourself with people that are upbeat and positive.

Apart of expressing gratitude, making positive affirmation statements can speed up manifestation process.

When you begin making affirmation statements to yourself, you will begin to manifest a life of happiness and abundance by being grateful. Begin telling yourself that you are grateful for having money in your life. This will affirm things that are already present in your life and create more of it. Even if you only have a dollar to your name, expressing gratitude for this money will begin to bring more of the same.

By reflecting positive affirmations of gratitude, you begin to change your inner world to one of lighter, higher vibration energy. Then the Law of Attraction will answer this by changing your outer world to reflect your inner, positive state of mind.

The Mind works in two ways, on conscious and subconscious level. When we think about something it is impressed on the subconscious mind which acts on the thought. If the thought is not concentrated it simply dissipates into energy. Thoughts like everything are energy.

However, when the thought is concentrated, which means that we focus on something for a longer period of time or often with emotions and imagination, things can really start to manifest.
This may sound corny, or too simple of an idea, but this is the way the universe works. Old thought patterns that we have established over time can be easy to slip back into again. When changing our life in positive ways, staying on course with an attitude of gratitude can seem difficult. In time, this new pattern establishes itself and becomes you.

This is a list of some of the best personal development, productivity and lifehack blogs I’ve came across.  If you have a personal development, productivity or lifehack type of blog and would like it to be considered for addition to this list, leave a comment with your blogs url.  I will review every submission and add the blogs I like

1. Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog.  This blog is simply the best personal development, self improvement blog I ever came across on the internet.  Here are a few of my favorite posts that you should check out: 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job – Self-Discipline – How to Get From a 7 to a 10.
2. Tim Ferris – The 4 Hour Work Week Blog. A great productivity blog.  Here are some of my favorite posts: How to Lose 20 lbs. of Fat in 30 Days… Without Doing Any Exercise – From Geek to Freak: How I Gained 34 lbs. of Muscle in 4 Weeks
3. Lifehack. Full of lifehacks, tips and tricks.  Here is one of my favorite posts: 50 Tricks to Get Things Done Faster, Better, and More Easily
4. Life Hacker – Tech, Tips, Tricks Blog. This is great productivity blog full of many tips and tricks.  Here is one my favorite posts: Twenty Healthy Foods that Cost $1 or Less.
5. 43Folders.  Simple ways to make your life a little better. One popular post is Getting Started with GTD.
6. Cultivate Greatness. One of my favorite posts is The 75 Skills Every Man Should Master.
7. Personal Development.ie – One of the best Personal development blogs.  Here is a guest post I wrote for that blog: Break Free From the Mainstream
8. The Positivity Blog. One of my favorite posts is 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People.
9. Scott H Young’s Personal Development Blog. Focused on achievement and goals. Some of my favorite posts are Habitual Mastery and Double Your Reading Rate
10. Zen Habits.  A great blog filled with lots of simple yet effective tips.  Check out The Cheapskate Guide: 50 Tips for Frugal Living.
11. Dumb Little Man. Great tips for everything you can think of.
12. Web Worker Daily. Great How to articles like this one: Simplify Your Work.

These are new recommended Personal Development articles and posts from all over the web…

Goals

Richard Ingersoll presents Using Vibration to Manifest Your Ideal Life posted at Applying the Law of Attraction, saying, “The entire physical world is nothing but a sea of vibrating particles. We talk about “good vibes” and “bad vibes”, but what does that really mean? How can we use the knowledge of vibration to create the reality we desire?”

Inspiration

Cathy presents The Cosmic Wheel of Kindness…Pass It On! posted at Joy Thru Generosity, saying, “This idea to pass on a “token of kindness” began as a unique way for people to reach out and connect with others. In recognition of random acts of kindness, a “token” is passed on to someone as they perform a kind act. This sets the “cosmic wheel of kindness” into motion, as tokens are passed on endlessly! Whenever someone performs an act of kindness hand them a token.”

Carole Fogarty presents The one and only zen gift to give your children. posted at THE HEALTHY LIVING LOUNGE, saying, “What is the one observation in life that you know for sure will offer a helpful guiding path through any confusing, unsure or turbulent times to your children and carry them through to adulthood?”

Anna Farmery presents Recipe for Business Success posted at The Engaging Brand.

Moneywalks presents Homeless Guy on Roller Skates Inspires a New Name Brand posted at moneywalks.

Money

Dan Johnson presents The Pitfalls of Credit Cards for People with Bad Credit posted at Credit Cards That Pay.

Personal Development

Pat Ruppel presents Trust – Cutting the Rope and Taking the Leap posted at Plain Talk and Ordinary Wisdom.

Productivity

KCLau presents Top 21 List of Financial Sotfware and Application for Efficient Money Management posted at KCLau’s Money Tips, saying, “Managing money is a lot of work. But with the help of technology, it is just a matter of inputing data. Here is a list of all the softwares and online applications that can assist you to keep track of your finance more efficiently.”

Sagar presents Stretch Your Goals: 10 Yoga Moves for Productivity posted at Bootstrapper.

Yazan Manasrah presents Uncluttering your mind posted at The Blasted Crossing, saying, “Want to find out how to gain the focus and mental energy to accomplish the daily tasks you must do?”

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Funny how two people can look at a problem, an issue or a struggle, and one will feel helpless, while the other will see an opportunity for greatness. Think about it, we all live in the same world, and are born with mostly similar circumstances, yet a few become great, while the majority remain average. How come? Well a lot of it as to do with perspective, it’s as if everyone is looking at the same world through a different lens. Some see a corrupted, unfair, biased, dark, gloomy world without much hope so their basic instinct is just to survive, do the least they have to do to get by. A few others see a colorful, bright, glamorous, and enticing world full of bounties and treasure for the taking.

It’s easy to have a very pessemestic dark view of the world, it’s easy to feel helpless and weak because then you can just be lazy and do enough to get by. I remember when I was younger, I liked playing sports, yet I never tried out once for my high school’s sport teams. I was overweight, and thought that no matter how hard I tried, a coach would never take me on to the team since there is a bias or discrimination against my body shape. This was the easy way out, as a result, I never had to feel guilty or lazy for not going to sport team tryouts. Instead I got to sit home, watch tv and play video games, a very safe lifestyle. I was basically blind to the fact that maybe my weight was starting to be a problem and that I need to implement a healthier more active lifestyle.

As I grew older and started getting into personal development and self help I started seeing a new world, one full of opportunities for the taking. We are living in really exciting times, here are just a few of the luxuries that we take for granted in today’s world. Affordable world travel, how awesome is it that you can travel to any country in the world, try out their food, hang out with its people, and visit its best landmarks. Technology boom – how great is it that you can just google any topic, issue, or even health problem, and learn everything about it without having to leave your home or see a professional. Information age – this is a result of the technology boom, the availability of information, resources, and expert advice for free or very little money. Anyone can learn any topic their heart desires. The world is yours for the taking.

A world full of opportunity requires a lot of courage. Courage simply is doing the right thing. Courage is when you are feeling really lazy and tired and still decide to get your work done. Courage is when you haven’t slept good the night before, and it’s cold outside, and you really just feel like staying in, yet you still go to the gym and workout because you made a fitness commitment. Courage is when you have tried several business ideas and ventures without any success yet instead of giving up you hang in there knowing that you are getting closer and closer to success. Courage is when you get out of your comfort zone maybe to learn a new skill or try a new fun activity without worrying too much about looking like a fool.

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Remember the world is yours for the taking, so what’s stopping you? For most of us we might experience many roadblocks to success and self defeating tendencies. Whether it’s fear or insecurities or caring what others think, we end up becoming our own worst enemies. This is where desire without attachment to outcome sets you free. Sometime we become so attached to our future goals and desires, that we forget to enjoy and accept the present for what it is. It is possible to build an empire while still enjoying your present life to the fullest. Do you accept your current condition for what it is or are you always whining and complaining? What lens are you looking at the world from? Are you seeing a world full of unfairness, corruption and destruction or one full of opportunities, treasures, and gifts for the taking? Do you chose laziness, an easy lifestyle and a comfortable average living? Or are you willing to step up, live courageously and take whats yours? Remember the world is yours for the taking.

source: jalex

I’m building my empire. No I’m not talking about a business empire like the Fords, Hiltons or the Trumps. No disrespect, one can learn all sorts of things from them. I’m talking about a new kind of empire. One built on freedom, responsibility, craziness, randomness, and hard work. My empire will look like no other. My empire isn’t about the money or the wealth, those come and go. My empire is about what I truly love in life. My empire will consist of living in some of the world best cities including Vegas, LA, NYC and Cancun. My empire will shatter through the social bounds, it will consist of awesome friendships, connections, and lovers. My empire will shatter through limiting beliefs, who says you can’t be a computer geek, a club head, a dancer, a romantic, a player, a good guy, a bad guy, a stage performer, a skydiver, a writer, and a world traveler? Those are just a few of my passions/hobbies or whatever you want to call them, they are all different identities mixed together and poof you have me.

My empire isn’t based on perfection, or always being right. I’m just another average Joe, while I have many dreams and ambitions, I also have bad habits, self defeating tendencies that I gotta work on like everyone else. Rather, my empire is based on persistence, perseverance, pushing through failure and setbacks. The defining moments of my empire aren’t so much the successes or the wins. I’m grateful for those. However what really defines my empire are those really tough times, when everything is going south, lots of failure, disappoint, pain, hurt, even light depression. What my empire thrives on is pushing through those tough defining moments.

My empire isn’t based on ego or self glorification. Like why am I writing this? It’s for my own encouragement and motivation, do I really care if anyone reads it or judges it? It would be nice if others read it and get something out of it, but overall I don’t really care much. Not to say that I don’t appreciate feedback, I really do, I love getting comments on my posts, however this post is a little different. These words I’m using are so real to me. I’m not just day dreaming, this vision of an empire is already part of my reality. I’m sharing this in hopes that it will inspire you to build your own empire. Whether you think this is the coolest thing ever since the rainbow colored skittles came out or simply retarded, that’s up to you, it’s none of my business.

My empire isn’t a totally futuristic one. My empire is also in the present. It’s is here and now. While I might not move to Vegas tomorrow, I did visit it last month, and it was a great time. I’m planning on doing a lot of traveling in the next couple of years. While I’m not the hottest home skillet to hit the social scene I still go out and get to meet lots of new cool people, have made many awesome friends, and will continue growing my social skills. A big part of my empire is being happy in the present moment and accepting everything the way it is. Desire without attachment to outcome. Lets face it, there are no guarantees, this moment, day, week, month or year could be my last. Some use this line of thinking to justify living a very careless, destructive, dangerous lifestyle. While that can be fun, it’s not what I’m going after. See I’ve tried that lifestyle, while it was fun at first, it was almost like getting a high off drugs, feels great, but always ends in a crash, a bad hang over. I’ve realized one of my biggest personal values is working hard, and therefore I wouldn’t have any regrets if I was to die working 10, 12, 14, or 16 hour days. Believe me, I still cherish and make the best of my free time.

For me a person’s life is this random shaped rock they are born with that they get to shape and sculpt however they please. Many times it will feel very tough, imagine trying to sculpt and shape a rock with your bare fingers, using only your fingernails. Other times it will be like a piece of cake, like when all of the right circumstances line up, and you got all the right tools to sculpt and shape that rock. Regardless of the circumstances, what matters is your perseverance and persistence. It’s funny how overrated talent is in our culture. When people see a person who’s considered a genius at what they do, they are amazed and might even feel a little jealous. Fortunately I’ve had the chance to interact with such talented people in the past, and get to know the real them. I found out that while their talent is nice, like everyone else they have to work hard with a lot of determination to achieve any kind of success. Additionally I found out that most of the time people wrongly label success as natural talent so that they don’t feel bad about being lazy or mindlessly cruising through life. I’m not trying to judge, I’m guilty of this myself.

Do you dare to build an empire? Maybe try closing your eyes, take a few moments, and picture your empire. It’s good to have futuristic goals and be ambitions however it’s also important to live in the present. Think of small actions steps you can take today or even now to start making your empire a reality. Dream big, be overly ambitious, it’s your reality, you are the pilot, and everyone else is a passenger.