Friday, September 25, 2009

Good Christians Really Do Inspire Me

One of the best Christians who I ever met, truly inspired me and everyone around him to become a better person. His son is now working at a church and his daughter is a teacher and they're not the only people who he inspired.

He inspired me to write this article, good Christians really do inspire me and others and he definitely was living his life, like Jesus did. He's the only person that I ever met, who didn't have anything bad to say about anyone, with the exception of one time. I actually heard him say that he hates that person, the person probably deserved it, but I still couldn't believe that the word came out of his mouth.

We all make mistakes, even he did, every once in a while. Whenever someone asked him about Christianity, he would try to avoid sharing his beliefs with them, unless they were persistent and then he would share all that he knew.

He never tried to convert anyone and never forced his opinions on anyone else. I asked him once," Did he actually read all of those books that he had in his library." He said that he actually did and I was shocked. He had three large library shelves that were each 4 foot wide and went almost all the way up to the ceiling, filled with books on Christianity and some on other religions.

He's the only man I ever met, that I would actually consider to be a good Christian. I don't know what it was about him, his honesty, compassion or simple kindness, but I valued his friendships and kept my ears open and my mouth shut... most of the time.

If you know someone like this in your life, I would advise you to take full advantage of their wisdom and let them inspire you to become a better Christian and if you don't believe in Christianity, these people can inspire you to become better person. A great life can be acquired, learning the wisdom from people who lead great lives.

Unbelievable Christian Bible Study Book

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Do you really know why you're a Christian, click on this way to get more information about Becoming Really Good Christians

Greg Vanden Berge is a published author and a inspiration to millions of people. He has been involved in religious research for almost 30 years, and his influence in the Christian community is growing. The Holy Bible, is the core to Christian beliefs and most Christians don't even question it. Was the Bible actually written by men?

His newest book," Did God Actually Say That?" Was written specifically for Christians who are interested in gaining additional knowledge about the Bible. This book provides Christians with advanced biblical knowledge, answer some tough questions and should be read by every faithful follower of Christ.

Thanks for reading my articles

Could Christian Pride Get You in Trouble?

There's a good chance that most of us know at least one person who seems to be very prideful. These people are often hard to deal with and can easily get their feelings hurt. When someone who has a lot of pride, gets trapped in a corner, they often come out swinging in full attack mode.

When a Christian has a lot of pride, and is faced with a problem about their religion, the opposition had better be prepared, especially if this person is large and intimidating. I'm not referring to every Christian here, I'm not even referring to every Christian with a lot of pride either, I'm referring to Christians who mix their prideful beliefs with factual evidence.

These people can often become stubborn and the more that you push or pull, the deeper they dig their heels in, until they can't even be moved in either direction. It's almost like they're feet are buried in a large concrete slab of cement.

Yes pride can get you into trouble, they key is, knowing how to get yourself out of trouble. When someone approaches you with a question about your beliefs that you don't have the answer to, simply respond with," I will have to do some research and get back with you."

Don't let your pride get in the way and create an enemy out of someone that could provide you with some useful information about other beliefs or even your own religion. Think about it, your pride can often dig holes that you might not be able to get out of.

Eliminate Bible Propaganda

You are free to copy this article to your site as long as you include the following resource information with an active link to my site:

Greg Vanden Berge is a published author and a inspiration to millions of people. He has been involved in religious research for almost 30 years, and his influence in the Christian community is growing. The Holy Bible, is the core to Christian beliefs and most Christians don't even question it. Was the Bible actually written by men?

His newest book," Did God Actually Say That?" Was written specifically for Christians who are interested in gaining additional knowledge about the Bible. This book provides Christians with advanced biblical knowledge, answer some tough questions and should be read by every faithful follower of Christ.

Click here if you're Interested in Christianity.

Jesus' Missing Years in the Bible

It looks like there is a big problem in the Gospels. There are more years in Jesus' life that are missing than years of his life that were ever recorded. Why weren't these years listed in the Bible?

All the Gospels talked about the death of Jesus, the birth of Jesus and a few years in between, but all of the Gospels are missing some very important years from his life. When raising a child, some of the most important years of their lives, will be those when they were teenagers and often those of their young adulthood.

The Gospels talk about Jesus at the temple at around the age of 12 or 13. After that, there is very little known until he reaches the final years of his life. Was there someone or a group of people or even a community who influenced his life? Could Jesus have learned something from a spiritual master Guru that changed the world forever?

There is more speculation on Jesus' missing years than you could ever imagine. Some say that Jesus went to Egypt to study with their masters or priests. Egypt obviously wasn't that far from where Jesus was raised, but like most of the stuff in the Bible, there is very little evidence to support any of these speculative stories.

Could Jesus have went to India and studied with the Buddhist masters or even a Hindu scholars? Did Jesus study with advanced Jewish scholars? This is only a little bit of the historical speculation, but if the truth was ever to be known, it could help Christianity solve a lot of problems.

Most Christians rarely even question these missing years. There are quite a few Christians that don't even know that there are any missing years in Jesus' life. I wrote this article to get people thinking and hopefully to start educating themselves about early Christianity. Good luck and God bless.

Great Christian Books And Articles

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Religious Education And Fear

Greg Vanden Berge is a published author and a inspiration to millions of people. He has been involved in religious research for almost 30 years, and his influence in the Christian community is growing. The Holy Bible, is the core to Christian beliefs and most Christians don't even question it. Was the Bible actually written by men?

His newest book," Did God Actually Say That?" Was written specifically for Christians who are interested in gaining additional knowledge about the Bible. This book provides Christians with advanced biblical knowledge, answer some tough questions and should be read by every faithful follower of Christ.

Living the Ultimate Lie - Religious Fundamentalism

I've been doing research on Christianity and other religions throughout the world for quite some time and find it hard to believe that most of these religious followers, won't even listen to facts that I and others have found regarding their religion.

I find most of these people to be living the ultimate lie and when it comes to Christian fundamentalism or someone who I would consider to be a super Christian, these people adamantly hold both hands over their ears, while stomping their feet, trying to scare me into submission.

No matter how you slice it, no matter how you want it delivered to you, the truth is always going to be the truth. If you won't listen to the truth, you will live trapped living in a world of lies. It doesn't matter whether you're a Christian who believes in Jesus or an Islamic follower of believes in Allah, the truth, for most people, can only be found outside of your religion.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. How many religions talk about how the world was created, most of their followers, choose to believe their religious leaders and their religious text, without ever questioning, but often doubting what they were taught.

Science teaches us one way, religion teaches us another, however, neither one of them have any scientific evidence to back up their theories.

The minute that you state either one of these beliefs as a truth, you're living in a world of lies. If a scientist or religious leader, can convince you that their way is right, they have simply took a belief, without any evidence and made it into a fact. This illusion, is simply a belief that you have personally made into a truth and as long as you continue to believe this, without doing any of your own research, you will continue to spread lies and rumors throughout the world.

Problems With Noah's Ark Story

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Greg Vanden Berge is a published author, internet marketing expert, motivational inspiration to millions of people all over the world and is sharing some of his wisdom with experts in the fields of writing,marketing, and personal development.

Greg is currently working on a religous article library filled with great subjects on a wide array of topics, like religion, self help and spiritual changes in the world. His views on religious freedom are slowly changing the way people think about institutional religion.

Thanks

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Sports Psychology - How to Build Self-Confidence - 4 Things Parents, Coaches and Athletes Must Know

There are many text books, self-help books, journal articles and magazine articles on building self-concept, self confidence and self-esteem. Because I coach many athletes, I tend to spend a lot of time helping these clients to strengthen their self-confidence.

However, believing in one self is useful and important for just about everyone. It is important for Barack Obama. It is important for kids. And it is probably important for you.

Over the years, I have studied and developed many strategies and techniques for helping people to believe in themselves. When people feel positively about themselves, they tend to grow and they are better able to have rich and fulfilling lives.

Dr. Albert Bandura, of Stanford University, identified four components or life experiences which contribute to building one's self-confidence.

Mastery Experiences-Having a history of doing well at some event, some skill or some task can help to grow your confidence in yourself. So, it is useful to remind yourself of times when you felt you mastered some task or some skill.

Vicarious Learning-Seeing someone else who you can relate to do well at something or succeed at something can help you to believe that you, too, can succeed. A child seeing his friend hit a baseball can start to believe that he can put his bat on the ball with some power too.

Modeling Someone Who Inspires You-When you see someone who you admire do something well, you can imitate his or her actions. Watching a singer perform a song brilliantly can inspire a young artist to do the same thing. This "modeling" can help to grow your self-confidence.

Social Persuasion-Receiving encouraging words from a parent, a coach or someone you trust can help you to feel like you can do something successfully. This, too, can strengthen your self-confidence.

People who do not get any of these kinds of experiences are likely to have little or no self-confidence.

So, if you want to build self-confidence in yourself, in someone you care about or your child, consider facilitating one or all of these kinds experiences. If you do, confidence can build in a short period of time.

Jay P. Granat, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist and the founder of http://www.stayinthezone.com He has written several books and developed several programs to help people perform to their fullest potential at sports, at work and at school. Dr. Granat, a former university professor, has appeared in The New York Times, Good Morning America, AP, ESPN, Golf Digest, The BBC and The CBC. He can be reached at info@stayinthezone.com. His books include Zone Tennis and Get Into The Zone In Just One Minute. He is also the author of How To Get Into The Zone With Sport Psychology And Self-Hypnosis, How To Lower Your Golf Score With Sport Psychology And Self-Hypnosis, 101 Ways To Break Out Of A Hitting Slump and Bed Time Stories For Young Athletes. Golf Digest named Dr. Granat one of America's Top Ten Mental Gurus. He was recently featured in a documentary film on long distance running. Dr. Granat writes a weekly column for three newspapers. He just released a new program for bowlers.

Motivation or Inspiration

In a recent conversation a colleague discussed doing motivational speaking. Then she said, "or maybe it's inspirational." That got me thinking about a common dilemma that managers and leaders face, "is it my role to motivate or to inspire?" To me, the two terms are very related but have a definite distinction.

Motivation is something that comes from within. As a manager or leader, I dont believe I can motivate you to do something, especially something that you aren't interested in doing. Motivation is completely personal.

What I CAN do is to create an environment that fosters self-motivation, based on precisely what motivates you whether that's money, responsibility, trust, empowerment, social meaning or something else.

And that's where inspiration comes into the picture, in creating that environment. Inspiration is an external factor. It's the spark that lights up an individual's motivators and sets them into action.

One of the most inspirational leaders of our time was Martin Luther King. His words and actions connected with people's internal motivators, specifically ethnic pride and social justice. He connected with people and inspired them with a vision of the future, and then showed them how they could be a part of making it a reality. Did he inspire everyone? No. There were many whose internal motivators didnt connect or align with his vision. There was probably nothing he could do to have them take action.

Think of some of the great energizing speakers or leaders that you've encountered. Did they inspire or motivate you?

One of our jobs as a leader is to create an environment that inspires individuals to connect their own inner motivators to a collective vision. Here's an example. A few years ago, I was coaching a banking executive, a regional sales leader. The collective vision of her group was to provide exceptional customer service while selling bank products and services to customers.

One of the financial specialists in her group was not meeting his goals. To motivate him, the executive kept explaining to the specialist that he was leaving money on the table, incentive money, when he failed to sell these services.

I asked the executive to tell me about the individual, and I quickly understood why this method wasn't working. She told me that the individual spent a lot time volunteering in the community and enjoyed spending time with family and friends; he had been with the bank a long time and really loved to socialize with the individuals he worked with. I explained to the executive that it didn't sound like money was a major incentive for this person and that it might be time to stop trying to motivate and start trying to inspire.

To inspire him, she needed to tap into this man's unique motivators, so I asked her to experiment by talking to the specialist about the future he was helping his customers create - the secure retirements, the college funds for their children and the first homes they were helping young couples purchase.

In a month, the specialist was meeting and in some cases exceeding goals. When the executive stopped trying to motivate with what SHE thought would work and what motivated her, and began trying to inspire the specialist and tap into their own motivators, they found a common ground. She created a vision and environment where the specialist could be self-motivated and thrive.

What motivates the people that you lead? How can you inspire them by sparking those motivators and linking them to the companys or your vision? Find these answers and you'll all succeed together.

Bill Burtch, SPHR, ACC is the President of Harmony Coaching & Consulting a management consultancy focusing on Executive/Corporate Coaching, Human Resource Management, and Training Design & Delivery. For more information on this topic or for information on Bills services you can contact him at 901-272-7390, bburtch@harmonycc.net or visit him on the web at http://www.harmonycc.net

The Times They Are Changing

We live in a very interesting time in world history. The evolution of getting to this point has never been so dynamic. Even though all the events that have taken place prior to this point in time have great significance, and the fact that it is what brought us here, our current world environment has been propelled into the 21st century with lightening speed. The advancement of technology in communications, information, and the internet has created the instant information age. And with that our conscious minds have become more inter connected with the world than ever before.

What is interesting is that this phenomenon is the staging ground for all of us to become more enlightened. We are, and always have been connected to the entire universe. We all have roots in the universe because consciousness affects our physical world, which includes all living things right down to the individual cells. Our minds have a great influence on our health and well being and on how we view the world. Our existence in the universe is born of a sense of participation and kinship with all others and all matter. The basic oneness of the universe is the central characteristic of the mystical experience, but is also one of the most important revelations of modern physics, (i.e. quantum physics). But I don't want to talk about quantum theory; I want to talk about the human connectedness, and what I detect as a shift in the thinking of more and more people.

Because of the information age, a fast paced lifestyle, what's in it for me attitude, and a win at all cost mentality, too many people began losing sight of the connection we all have with each other and the universe. The ideal of we are all in this together was fading, and taking responsibility for the common good of all, had begun to disappear. Over the last decade, an exponential amount of negative actions and the pursuits of an ideology of egotism have brought us to this juncture. But there is hope because I see the beginning of a change in the minds of many people.

Now, more than ever people are placing an increased importance on relationships. Taking stock of what really matters, like family, friends, and community. There is a new awareness that we are all connected to the universe, and that human consciousness and the physical world are intertwined. The realization is that there is a profound interaction that exists between conscious mental activity and the physical world itself.

We cannot separate our own existence from that of the outside world. We are not only associated with the earth that we inhabit, but with the furthest reaches of the cosmos. We affect all of those about us, so events such as caring, loving, and confiding exert profound consequences on the universe.

Following the Laws of Attraction, the universe gives us what we want if follow our dreams and our passions, but it also takes away if we lose sight of that connection that exists between us all. I believe that there is a change in the winds of time because there is the beginning of an understanding of this relationship. Maybe, just maybe it could be the start of the new Age of Enlightenment.

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Owner : EnerChi Living Spaces & Gallery. We are a unique Home & Garden decor store. Specializing in Feng Shui design and consultation. We offer one-of-a-kind gifts and personalized ideas for decorating your home, garden and office. We offer workshops in Feng Shui decorating, meditation, journal writing, and manifesting your dreams. We support our local artists and musicians with shows and vignettes. Our merchandise is selected from all over the world with an emphasis on Asian Western design. The store exhibits a unique blend of products in a tranquil peaceful setting. We have just launched a home staging service for our local market. We have just completed an expansion to over 2,000 square ft. and our new website has launched. http://www.enerchilivingspaces.com