THE NETWORK OF SECOND CHANCES

THE NETWORK OF SECOND CHANCES.

Dear Friends:

The explosion in the popularity and use of social media has given us a great deal of irritation, but has also provided us with an incredible opportunity. Somewhere, sandwiched in between serious business networking and non-stop social gossiping is the world of reunions -- a world of second chances. A place in cyberspace where we get the amazing opportunity to find someone we've missed, and to say what we wish we could have said, had we then the gift of hindsight...and had we not then been consumed by the emotions of the moment, or by foolish pride or pettiness. It is a chance to set things right, to start anew, or to simply close out old, unsolved mysteries.

Re-connecting with these people from the past is amazingly therapeutic -- they will give you a firmer sense of your own identity, of your place in the lives of others, and in the Universe of the Human Experience. I posted the following on Facebook:

douglascastle http://twitlik.com/CousinStu. I reconnected with a long-lost cousin. You should, too. Life is short. http://twitlik.com/OK #TNNW. (amended url)

The NATIONAL NETWORKER and SrMeetUp! are both interested in your stories about reunions with family, friends, schoolmates, business associates...old loves. If you have a story to share about networking your way back to your childhood, or to your own true identity through the internet, please (please!) write to us. Simply write your story in the "Comments" Section under this article -- just click on the word "Comments." I will forward your stories to the appropriate individuals.

It is supremely ironic that a technological advance has been able to transport me back to a simpler time in my youth, and to get answers to so many questions. Given the chance, I hope that it may do the same for you. Networking can not only help you to connect with new people -- it can help you get reconnected with your inner self.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle

http://aboutDouglasCastle.blogspot.com

A NOTE ABOUT HYPERLINKS:
In some of the short newsfeed postings (in particular, those from http://htxt.it/), the hyperlinks are not live. They are not dead -- no, they are merely sleeping. To awaken them, just copy them (Ctrl+C) and paste them (Ctrl+V) into your browser and press the "go" button...the sleeping link will immediately come to life and you'll be directed to the proper page so that you can read the referenced article or posting.

SIMPLY BEING FRANK - Getting The Most Out of Your Time and Your Life

SIMPLY BEING FRANK -
Getting The Most Out Of Your Time and Your Life

A BEDTIME STORY

There are several anecdotes, i.e., Early to Bed Early to Rise Makes a Man Healthy, Wealthy, And Wise. Not sure about the wealthy, but the healthy & wise part I can attest to.. You would be pleasantly surprised by how the situations & issues currently confronting you can be seen more clearly in the AM, by yourself, with a cup of coffee. Now, when I say early, for me it means before sunrise. I thought I was truly a genius to finally discover what works, so you can imagine my surprise when my formula was met with snide comments and eye rolls (how does one do that anyhow?) Please note that I thoroughly understand the counter part of an early riser -- an early go to bedder. (is that a word?. . is now!) Which leads me to my next anecdote: The Early Bird Catches the Worm . . . (bet you understand now).The amount of business contacts you can make in the early AM will astound you. Seems that some extremely successful business people are also early risers!

HOW TO BE SEMI-RETIRED AND STILL RUN A BUSINESS

Now that you understand your “office hours” it is easier than you think to continue being productive while still having plenty of time to fit in 18 holes on the golf course. You simply have to take your business experiences and put them to work for you. If you were in sales; find a product you can sell from home. If you were in management; do consulting. etc. etc.

It really is as simple as it sounds. No need to stop and think about it – no hidden message to be found.

However there may be a lifestyle change involved – You Need To Become A Techy Nerd. Computers, Internet, Fax Machines, Scanners, Printers, iPhones, Blackberry's, Face Book, Twitter, Etc. Etc. You could be on a mountain in Utah and still run a business (which is where I am off to – closing a big deal on top of a big mountain).

Couple the BEDTIME STORY with HOW TO BE SEMI-RETIRED AND STILL RUN A BUSINESS and you will be amazed at what you can accomplish and still have the time to do whatever, whenever you want to do it.

By the way, my wife tells me there is a down side to going to bed early… but that’s a whole other story...

--Frank

Editor's Note: Time is so precious. The more of it we spend, the less of it we have left... and to further complicate the issue, every Boomer has witnessed enough of the tenuous nature of life (with friends in life transitions, or becoming ill, or dying too damned young) to know that precisely how much time we have left is uncertain, and unknowable. Every second of time spent is either an investment or an irretrievable waste.

Each of us is an adult, responsible for his or her own time. This is a great responsibility. What we accumulate through our investment of time is our portfolio -- a portfolio comprised of friends, lovers*, business associates and unforgettable experiences. Each of us, as Human Beings first, and as Boomers second, has a sacred duty to to himself or herself to get the most out of time and the most out of life.

SrMeetUp! was designed to be a vehicle for getting the most out of your time and the most out of your life. Life has so much to offer! Waiting for life to come visit you is not an option -- we must run after life (often like that school bus that you just missed while you were having that second glass of Carnation Instant Breakfast or waiting for your Sugar-Cinnamon PopUp to cool off after its fragrant emergence from the toaster), embrace it, and squeeze it for all it's worth. Turn it upside-down, shake it, and see what falls out of its deep pockets.

If you are a Boomer, we offer you a whole bunch of great things under one roof. Join us, and enrich your life's experience. As they say on television, "You got people!"

--Elaine Ingis and Douglas Castle

*By the way, Frank..."Early to bed" is NOT always wise. Your wife has a valid point. Every so often, there's something (or someone) worth staying up for.

Labels and key terms: differentiating yourself, Elaine Ingis, Getting The Most Out of Your Day, your life is an investment, SIMPLY BEING FRANK, SrMeetUp! Featured Columnists, Time is an investment, Time is Money, Douglas Castle, Finding Love, experience, retirement, opportunities, making each moment count, finding happiness, business and pleasure, Boomers, recreation, lifestyles...

Q1: If everyone is a

Q1: If everyone is a "coach", who is going to be left to train? Q2: Shouldn't every coach lead by personal example? "Those who can, do...

TNNW - more than a 4

TNNW - more than a 4-letter word (Ahem). Join us http://htxt.it/2kn4 Also searching for gifted writers. #douglascastle

LYNN PATNER'S COLUMN: To Grumble or Not To Grumble, That is the Question...

To Grumble or Not To Grumble , That is the Question…
By SrMeetUp! Featured Columnist Lynn Patner

All around me I am hearing grumbling. I hear grumbles from my students, from my clients, while I am standing in a grocery store and at dinners with friends. There are the economic grumbles, the physical grumbles and of course the relationship grumbles. I cannot go anywhere anymore without hearing someone grumble. All this grumbling is affecting me, and even at the dog park, the dogs are getting into the grumbling mood. Fights are breaking out right and left.

Now granted, the world situation is less than perfect. The collapse of the economy, the housing debacle and the loss of jobs, et cetera, only brings around more grumbling, nothing else. It goes like this: one starts to grumble, then another adds their grumbles and soon there are many grumbles. Now grumbling would be fine if it solved something or was of good use, but grumbling does nothing. It’s like sitting in a rocking chair and expecting to go somewhere. It doesn’t even make one feel better.

Do you remember the cartoon character in the Charlie Brown series, Pigpen? Wherever he walked little clouds of dust followed. That is exactly what happens with grumbles; they are like little clouds of dust that follow behind you collecting more grumbles as they go forward. The problem is they keep attracting only negativity.

In 1994 I stepped onto a path and began an amazing journey. I learned that our thoughts, either verbalized or not, create our experiences. That new information took a very long time to penetrate my mind. But then I saw what thoughts and beliefs produced, and it opened an entirely different world of reality. The reality is, I am the producer, the director and the star of my own life. This revelation did not make me happy because I could no longer be the victim in my own life drama. I couldn’t blame my parents, nor the environment and worse yet I couldn’t grumble about any of it anymore. If I was not a victim, then I must be the creator. Creator is definitely a better option.

What I have learned about my thoughts and the power of them, my emotions, and my beliefs is they literally create my reality. And it is now being proven by scientific methods no less. Wow! All you doubting Thomas out there read on.

In 2005 Bruce Lipton Ph.D., a cellular biologist, published “The Biology of Belief.” This book was awarded 2006’s Best Science Book of the Year. In the book he presents scientific evidence showing that genes and DNA do not control our biology. Instead, our genes are turned on and off by signals from outside the cells in our bodies, including the energetic messages emanating from our positive and negative thoughts. The significance of this shift in belief is vast, in that the original view held for a long time was that we were victims of our own biology. The ‘new’ sciences show that we are actually masters of our biology.

An earlier book, “Timeless Healing: The Power and Biology of Beliefs,” published in 1997 by Dr. Herbert Benson, M.D. tells about a study conducted in 1957 at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. This study found, according to Dr. Benson, that 30 percent of the patients with rheumatoid arthritis benefited from placebos. Their placebo relief lasted at least three months. In 1995 more research was conducted confirming this study. The results were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, where 40 percent of individuals suffering with rheumatoid arthritis had a 50 percent reduction in both swelling and tenderness in their joints by simply taking a placebo. These effects lasted for six months or more.

There continues to be scientific evidence that states that we are powerful creators in our lives and the world in which we live. So, less grumbling is important as our beliefs about ourselves and the world, regardless if they are true or false, positive or negative affect us on a multitude of levels. So, I say, " just say no to grumbling."

A few tools to assist you any time you are in a grumbling space…

• Listen to uplifting music
• Think positive thoughts
• Walk in nature
• Relax in water
• Read an inspirational book
• Play with a child
• Laugh often
• Go shopping

What is important to remember is that our thoughts are creating our reality all the time. Most of the time we are creating these thoughts with our unconscious mind. As a matter of fact, I just recently heard that we are creating our lives around 95 percent from the unconscious mind. That is important information to notice. So you ask, what is the answer. The answer is: become aware of your thoughts and redirect them when you start to grumble.

Do anything that opens your heart and fills you with joy and you are on the path to bring about a life transformation.

-- Lynn

BRIEF COMMENTARY By ELAINE INGIS:

It is amazing how much we accomplish out of sheer vision and the will to make things happen. Lynn Patner offers both a tremendous opportunity and a challenge to every Boomer -- since we have the ability to transform our state of physiological health by out thoughts about life, why do we waste time dwelling on negative possibilities? There may be more to the Law of Attraction (the force behind those "self-fulfilling prophesies" many of us learned about in Psychology 101) than many of us have ever realized. We are blessed and burdened by the obligation to create our own reality by our thinking processes.

Being aware of this, we owe it to ourselves, each of us, to surround ourselves with positive influences and to avoid energy vampires who seem to thrive on complaining, suffering and misery. Carrying this one step further, we can enrich and improve our lives by becoming vitally involved in a social group or community that has a courageous, problem-solving orientation, instead of by sitting alone and talking to some well-intentioned friend on the telephone who reaffirms and prolongs our misery by fueling our outrage or by encouraging us to retreat from what life has brought us. We each have great personal power; this power is multiplied when we combine forces with other positive people.

At the risk of sounding like a shameless self-promoter, SrMeetUp! was created to bring about a positive, supportive and strengthening community environment for our Members. Positive thoughts are contagious -- why not share them? - E.I.

[Douglas Castle, a Director of SrMeetUp! and the Developer of both the Braintenance and Links 4 Life Blogs contributed to this Commentary]

PLS --> --> Dear Fri

PLS --> --> Dear Friends: If you do not already have a free Twitter account, you can get one at http://twitter.com. Twitter affords you a unique opportunity to refine your brevity skills -- you have exactly 140 characters within which to express your thoughts. Every character counts! To follow us on INTERNAL ENERGY PLUS, log into your Twitter account and head for http://htxt.it/MIy9 To follow us on THE NATIONAL NETWORKER, log into your Twitter account (what's that? you're already logged in? Great!) and head for http://htxt.it/5vac I'll look forward to our Tweeting each other (with wespect). See you there. Faithfully, Douglas Castle (http://htxt.it/6dHO THE NATIONAL NETWORKER- We Are Networking BRAINTENANCE - Stay Razor Sharp INTERNAL ENERGY PLUS - Human Potential THE INTERNATIONALIST PAGE THE GLOBAL FUTURIST

Going Inside

Just as I was getting ready to head west to teach a journal writing workshop, Elaine invited me to write a little blog entry for SrMeetUp! That started my brain going on the difference between journal writing and blogging—two things that many people think are the same thing. In fact, some of my students at the university equate putting their thoughts out there in cyberspace with journal writing. But I am certain that these are two very different endeavors—not mutually exclusive and not necessarily contradictory—but still very different.

If blogging is putting one’s thoughts and ideas “out there” to be visited and read by others, it doesn’t necessarily mean a blogger censors or even edits, but there always exists the idea that you are presenting yourself, in whatever fashion you choose, to the world. Now journal writing is a very different act and it’s not about “out there” but about “in here.” It might indeed be the very first step to a blog post, but journal writing is about self-reflection and not about self-presentation, about getting inside rather than going outside.

The more I think about this, the more important I believe journal writing is for those of us who spend a lot of time “out there.” In order to present ourselves to the world, especially at this point in our lives where we can take pleasure in knowing ourselves, we need to spend more time noticing ourselves . I just learned that scientists speculate that molecules in cells are in constant flux which makes me feel much better about my own mercurial thoughts and ideas. Of course some things stay constant, some values and evaluations, but if we are truly alive to the world, things change within us daily and we need to take the time to be introspective before we go blurting to the world.

So the idea which I offer to all of you “out there” is that we could all benefit from using the old notion of “tithing,” in this case giving 10 percent of our time to ourselves--to notice, to write it down, to go below the surface. Some years ago, I asked participants in a journal writing workshop to make a list of 100 desires. Seems like a lot, doesn’t it? But the trick is to write as fast as you can, and you’re allowed to repeat. Even with this instruction that was guaranteed, I thought, to get below the conscious mind, two of the “senior” women in the group never got around to listing anything for themselves. Their lists were all about their children, grandchildren, church and community. They needed more practice in noticing themselves.

So take a stab at that list of 100 desires—

1. Label the top of the page "I want," or "I desire";

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2. Write as quickly as you can and just let it all hang out. Write whatever comes into your head without censoring and without worrying about grammar or complete sentences;

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3. No need to feel foolish because no one's going to read it since it's in your journal and not out there in a blog post;

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4. Do it for yourself and then review the list and see if you find any patterns.

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Maybe when I get back from my workshop, I'll be ready to put more ideas out there, for example, what to do with that list!

-- Rita Jacobs

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Author Rita D. Jacobs teaches journal writing workshops around the world. Her most recent book is titled, “The Way In: Journal Writing for Self-Discovery”. She is a Professor of English at Montclair State University in NJ.

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