Learn about going to small claims court, using instructions and guides to help you with your case. Also learn about trying toresolve your dispute out of court, and get answers to frequently asked questions.

BasicsReview general information about small claims court and cases.And figure out if small claims is right for your situation using helpful resources. Click for an online program that willprovideinformation aboutsmall claimscases.This informationcan help you decide if small claims is right for you, show you how to resolve your case without going to court, and more.

Small Claims Cases

Research Your CaseResearch the type of case you have so you can be better prepared when you go to court.

Collect Your JudgmentLearn how to collect the judgment if you win, using tools and instructions on how to work with the other side to get paid.

Pay the JudgmentFind ways to pay your judgment if you lost your small claims case including working out payment arrangements and payment plans.

Appeal the Small Claims JudgmentThis section gives you information on if and how to appeal the small claims judgment.

Continue reading here:
Small Claims Court - California Courts - Home

Personal Development Plan - What you must know to start working on your own personal development.

The Ultimate Life Purpose Course - Create Your Dream Career:http://www.actualized.org/life-purpos...

Leo's Top 140 Self Help Bookshttp://www.actualized.org/books

Full Video Transcript Here:http://www.actualized.org/articles/pe...

Video Summary:Anyone committed to building an amazing life will benefit from a personal development plan. Creating one, however, needs to be a customized design, based on your own personal needs and goals. It's not something you can copy from your friend or colleague. If you do, it won't meet your specific needs. Spend time figuring out what your needs are, and what you hope to accomplish. That information will pay off handsomely so you don't chase down blind alleys that get you nowhere productive.

Once you know what you're looking for, with a stunning array of material and programs available, use every resource at you disposal to narrow the search to what's best for you. Tap into free resources first, until you identify the experts to best direct your path. Gather the lay of the land, and where you hope to arrive.

Minimize time and energy zappers and addictions. Replace destructive habits with constructive ones.

Identify a life purpose, if you don't already have one, that speaks to the center of your being. Only then will you have the commitment to pursue your self-improvement plan.

Keep track of your progress, so you can review and realize the journey you've made.

Link:
Personal Development Plan - The Essentials Of Getting ...

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc.2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.

2018 Cable News Network. A WarnerMedia Company. All Rights Reserved.Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy.

View post:
Retirement Planning and Savings Plans - Retirement Calculator ...

There are no facts, only interpretations.

from Nietzsche's Nachlass, A. Dantotranslation.

Enemies of truth.-- Convictions are moredangerous enemies of truth than lies.

from Nietzsche's Human, all too Human, s.483,R.J. Hollingdale transl.

Linguistic danger to spiritual freedom.--Every word is a prejudice.

from Nietzsche's The Wanderer and hisShadow,s. 55, R.J. Hollingdale transl.

Man and things.-- Why does man not see things?He is himself standing in the way: he conceals things.

from Nietzsche's Daybreak, s. 483, R.J.Hollingdale transl

Mystical explanations.--Mystical explanations are considered deep. Thetruth is that they are not even superficial.

from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, s.126,Walter Kaufmann transl.

Metaphysical world.-- It is true, there couldbe a metaphysical world; the absolute possibility of it is hardlyto be disputed. We behold all things through the human head andcannot cut off this head; while the question nonetheless remainswhat of the world would still be there if one had cut it off.

from Nietzsche's Human, All Too Human, s.9,R.J. Hollingdale transl.

Just beyond experience!-- Even great spiritshave only their five fingers breadth of experience - justbeyond it their thinking ceases and their endless empty space andstupidity begins.

from Nietzsche's Daybreak, s. 564, R.J.Hollingdale transl

What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors,metonyms, and anthropomorphisms -- in short, a sum of humanrelations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellishedpoetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm,canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions aboutwhich one has forgotten that is what they are; metaphors which areworn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost theirpictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.We still do not know where the urge for truth comes from; for asyet we have heard only of the obligation imposed by society that itshould exist: to be truthful means using the customary metaphors -in moral terms, the obligation to lie according to fixedconvention, to lie herd-like in a style obligatory for all...

'On truth and lie in an extra-moral sense,' TheViking Portable Nietzsche, p.46-7, Walter Kaufmann transl.

Truth.-- No one now dies of fatal truths:there are too many antidotes to them.

from Nietzsche's Human, all too Human, s.516,R.J. Hollingdale transl.

What are man's truths ultimately? Merely hisirrefutable errors.

from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, s.265,Walter Kaufmann transl.

Because we have for millenia made moral, aesthetic,religious demands on the world, looked upon it with blind desire,passion or fear, and abandoned ourselves to the bad habits ofillogical thinking, this world has gradually become somarvelously variegated, frightful, meaningful, soulful, it hasacquired color - but we have been the colorists: it is the humanintellect that has made appearances appear and transported itserroneous basic conceptions into things.

from Nietzsche's Human, all too Human, s.16,R.J. Hollingdale transl.

The reasons for which 'this' world has beencharacterized as 'apparent' are the very reasons which indicate itsreality; any other kind of reality is absolutelyindemonstrable.

from Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols, ch.3,s.6, Walter Kaufmann transl.

The total character of the world, however, is in alleternity chaos--in the sense not of a lack of necessity but a lackof order, arrangement, form, beauty, wisdom, and whatever namesthere are for our aesthetic anthropomorphisms...Let us beware ofattributing to it heartlessness and unreason or their opposites: itis neither perfect nor beautiful, nor noble, nor does it wish tobecome any of these things; it does not by any means strive toimitate man... Let us beware of saying that there are laws innature. There are only necessities: there is nobody who commands,nobody who obeys, nobody who trespasses... But when will we ever bedone with our caution and care? When will all these shadows of Godcease to darken our minds? When will we complete our de-deificationof nature? When may we begin to "naturalize" humanity interms of a pure, newly discovered, newly redeemed nature?

from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, s.109,Walter Kaufmann transl..

We have arranged for ourselves a world in which wecan live - by positing bodies, lines, planes, causes and effects,motion and rest, form and content; without these articles of faithnobody could now endure life. But that does not prove them. Life isno argument. The conditions of life might include error.

from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, s.121,Walter Kaufmann transl..

Over immense periods of time the intellect producednothing but errors. A few of these proved to be useful and helpedto preserve the species: those who hit upon or inherited these hadbetter luck in their struggle for themselves and their progeny.Such erroneous articles of faith... include the following: thatthere are things, substances, bodies; that a thing is what itappears to be; that our will is free; that what is good for me isalso good in itself.

from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, s.110,Walter Kaufmann transl..

Origin of the logical.-- How did logic comeinto existence in man's head? Certainly out of illogic, whose realmoriginally must have been immense. Innumerable beings who madeinferences in a way different from ours perished; for all that,their ways might have been truer. Those, for example, who did notknow how to find often enough what is "equal" as regards bothnourishment and hostile animals--those, in other words, whosubsumed things too slowly and cautiously--were favored with alesser probability of survival than those who guessed immediatelyupon encountering similar instances that they must be equal. Thedominant tendency, however, to treat as equal what is merelysimilar--an illogical tendency, for nothing is really equal--iswhat first created any basis for logic.

In order that the concept of substance couldoriginate--which is indispensible for logic although in thestrictest sense nothing real corresponds to it--it was likewisenecessary that for a long time one did not see or perceive thechanges in things. The beings that did not see so precisely had anadvantage over those who saw everything "in flux." At bottom, everyhigh degree of caution in making inferences and every skepticaltendency constitute a great danger for life. No living beings wouldhave survived if the opposite tendency--to affirm rather thansuspend judgement, to err and make up things rather thanwait, to assent rather than negate, to pass judgement rather thanbe just-- had not been bred to the point where it becameextraordinarily strong.

from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, s.111,Walter Kaufmann transl..

Cause and effect: such a duality probably neverexists; in truth we are confronted by a continuum out of which weisolate a couple of pieces, just as we perceive motion only asisolated points and then infer it without ever actually seeing it.The suddenness with which many effects stand out misleads us;actually, it is sudden only for us. In this moment of suddennessthere are an infinite number of processes which elude us. Anintellect that could see cause and effect as a continuum and a fluxand not, as we do, in terms of an arbitrary division anddismemberment, would repudiate the concept of cause and effect anddeny all conditionality.

from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, s.112,Walter Kaufmann transl..

To renounce belief in one's ego, to deny one's own"reality" -- what a triumph! not merely over the senses, overappearance, but a much higher kind of triumph, a violation andcruelty against reason -- a voluptuous pleasure that reachesits height when the ascetic self-contempt and self-mockery ofreason declares: "there is a realm of truth and being, butreason is excluded from it!"But precisely because we seek knowledge, let us not be ungratefulto such resolute reversals of accustomed perspectives andvaluations with which the spirit has, with apparent mischievousnessand futility, raged against itself for so long: to see differentlyin this way for once, to want to see differently, is nosmall discipline and preparation for its future "objectivity" --the latter understood not as "contemplation without interest"(which is a nonsensical absurdity), but as the ability tocontrol one's Pro and Con and to dispose of them, so that oneknows how to employ a variety of perspectives and affectiveinterpretations in the service of knowledge.Henceforth, my dear philosophers, let us be on guard against thedangerous old conceptual fiction that posited a "pure, will-less,painless, timeless knowing subject"; let us guard against thesnares of such contradictory concepts as "pure reason," absolutespirituality," "knowledge in itself": these always demand that weshould think of an eye that is completely unthinkable, an eyeturned in no particular direction, in which the active andinterpreting forces, through which alone seeing becomes seeingsomething, are supposed to be lacking; these always demandof the eye an absurdity and a nonsense. There is only aperspective seeing, only a perspective "knowing"; and themore affects we allow to speak about one thing, themore eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing,the more complete will our "concept" of this thing, our"objectivity," be. But to eliminate the will altogether, to suspendeach and every affect, supposing we were capable of this -- whatwould that mean but to castrate the intellect?

from Nietzsche's The Genealogy of Morals, sIII.12, Walter Kaufmann transl.

Continue reading here:
Nietzsche Quotes: Truth and Knowledge

I say all of the time that if you arent focusing on self development, you are just sitting on the sidelines of life.

So the question becomes, are you happy with your life? Regardless of how you answered, you have the power to make your life better than it is today.

The power to do so lies within each of us. All you need is a little nudge to get started. Because of this, I have compiled a list of 20 self improvement tips for you to start making a part of your everyday life.

Why 20 self improvement tips and not 3 or 5? The reason is because everyone will start with what they feel most comfortable with first. If I were to only list 3 tips, some people might not be interested in trying any of them.

But with 20 self growth tips, chances are you will find something to start with to improve your life. From there you can move on to another tip and another, and so on.

The great thing about this list is that all of the tips I list to better your life are easy to start doing. It wont take you weeks or months to begin applying them into your daily routines.

So what are you waiting for? The first step to your best life begins now!

The first self improvement tip is learning to love yourself. Unfortunately for many, this is easier said than done. You have to learn to accept who you are and that you are beautiful just the way you are. Youre not supposed to look like Brad Pitt or sing like Adele. You are supposed to simply be you.

All throughout our daily lives we have others put us down for who we are, what we wear, or what we believe in. They are against you. You need to be for you. If you are against you, there is no hope of living an amazing life. Learn to become your own ally and not your worst enemy.

Tell yourself how special you are every day. It may be hard at first, but as time goes on, it will become easier. Learn to recognize what talents and qualities you have that are special and believe me, we are all special in our own way.

For me, this tip was tough. I started out looking in the mirror and telling myself how great I was. It felt weird. I didnt believe it. But a funny thing happened. After doing this day after day, I did begin to believe it. It felt good to say and soon I was excited to do this step.

It has had a major impact on how I see myself and carry myself. I encourage you to follow through on this tip and experience the power of it.

I make it a point to exercise a few times a week. When I do, I feel great. Working up a sweat and lifting weights makes me feel good about myself and improves my mood. Not surprisingly, when I am busy and cant make it to the gym, I find I am less motivated in general and my mood sours.

If you go to the gym and dont feel anything, I encourage you to lift heavier weights, to put yourself beyond your comfort zone. Many people go light either because they dont think they can lift as much as they really can or because they fear they will get big and bulky.

I am here to tell you that you can lift more than you think and you wont get big and bulky, unless it is in your genes or you are taking some artificial supplement. Ive been lifting heavy weights for 15 years. I am nowhere near big and bulky.

When you lift heavy weights, your body exerts more effort and you release more endorphins into your system. This is what makes you feel better and improves your mood. When you just go through the motions, you body doesnt respond because it isnt being worked.

With this said, if you are brand new to lifting weights, definitely go light to start so that you dont injure yourself.

If you are going to work out, you might as well eat well too, right? I find when I am working out, I eat better. When I stop working out, I eat poorly. Its a simple cycle really. I lift weights, I feel good about myself, I eat well and the cycle repeats.

Most times you are feeling like crap because you are eating highly processed, sugary foods. Try to eat healthy just for a week. Limit your sugar intake and eat more natural foods like fruits and vegetables.

The first day or so might be hard, but give your body time to adjust and you will be amazed how much better your life will be. That drop off of energy in the afternoon you always experience will no longer happen. You wont wake up tired any longer. You just have to give yourself a few days to adjust.

For me, I started out with a goal of just eating more fruits and vegetables. I didnt have a set goal, other than to figure out how to increase my consumption of these foods.

I added a banana to my breakfast and I put some shredded spinach into my eggs. I was scared at first, but you really cant taste the spinach.

For snacks, I would eat an apple. At lunch and dinner, I would add in more vegetables. I dont think I am anywhere need what the food pyramid calls for with these food groups, but this strategy works for me.

Just play around with it and figure out what routine works best for you. Even if you just make it a point to drink water instead of soda and skip out on a doughnut for an apple you will be doing yourself a world of good.

We are all creatures of habit. We follow the same routines, day in, day out. This makes life easier for us, but also makes us lazy. To spice things up, you need to change your habits. Im not talking about refraining from brushing your teeth, but maybe brush with the opposite hand.

Instead of taking the same way to work every day, try a new way. Make Tuesday nights family night. Find simple ways to change things up in life.

The more you can do this, the more you keep your mind and body on its toes and it has to keep learning. Going back to the exercise point above, its the same idea. If you never increase the weight you lift, your body adapts to the exercise and is no longer being challenged and not growing.

Another great way to change your habits is to start your days off right. Learn how to master your mornings and you will see a positive impact on the rest of your day.

Little daily self improvement goes a long way towards achieving success in life. It doesnt seem like it at the time, but these small changes compound and add up over time.

While you change your habits, you should also focus on setting goals for yourself. Where do you want to be in one year, or three or five years? Dont just write them down, but visualize these goals. Make the goals a part of you.

I have some long term goals for myself. Ive gotten so good at visualizing them that I can see specific details. For example, when I was visualizing my dream house, I could see blades of grass when I closed my eyes and thought of the house and yard I wanted to own.

Dont get upset if you cant do this right away. Start small and just begin to visualize.

The key to setting goals is making them manageable. I used to set annual goals and would fail miserably. I started to break them down into smaller, monthly goals instead.

For example, if my goal was to save 25% of my income this year, I would divide this amount by 12 and my monthly goal would be to save this amount.

If I were trying to pay off my debt, then I would have an amount I would want to pay off each month to hit my annual goal.

By focusing on the shorter time frame, my goal never got lost in the day to day of life.

Newsflash you are going to fail. You are going to fail many times in life. Failing is OK. In fact, you should embrace failure. When you stretch beyond your comfort zone, you are growing as a person. It is only natural that you will fail. Dont fall for the lie that failing is bad.

Think about failing when you were little. As a toddler, we have to learn to walk. If you ever watch a toddler learning to walk, she falls down many, many times. In other words, she fails countless times. Why is a child failing to learn to walk OK but you failing to learn a new skill as an adult a bad thing? At the end of the day it is still failure.

Dont believe the lie that failure is a bad thing. It is only a bad thing if you never learn from it.

Be willing to try new things, give it your best shot and if you fail, take the time to step back. Reflect on the reasons that led you to fail and try again. As you progress, you are growing as a person.

This is my favorite of the tips to improve yourself. You need to know who you are and what you stand for. In other words, you need to create a personal mission statement. Dont mull over creating the perfect mission statement here. Just come up with something that identifies who you are and what you are about. As time goes on, you can modify it.

My mission statement talks about being a healthy person that always looking for the positive in life. Again, nothing complicated and there is room for improvement, just like with life.

If you need help with creating your personal mission statement, click here.

The next of the self improvement tips is that you need to be thankful for all that you have. Why are so many people living in debt? Because they are chasing happiness. They think that happiness comes from things. They dont realize that happiness comes from within.

Its the same with the quote success leads to happiness. It doesnt. Happiness leads to success. Be happy with all that you have. Odds are you have it better than the majority of people.

Try to take a few minutes at the end of each day and think back on what happened and acknowledge the positive things in your life and be thankful for them.

They dont need to be important events either like scoring a raise at work. They could be as simple as getting to run around outside with your kids. Whatever it is, large or small, important or seemingly unimportant, be thankful for it all.

The more you do this, the easier they will be to identify.

Learning a new skill breeds confidence in ourselves. When we learn something new, we get excited and are eager to learn more. This increases our self confidence and we grow and want to learn more. Its a cycle that fuels itself.

So what is it that you have always wanted to learn but always put off? Write a short list of things and then start working on learning those new skills.

Dont be fearful of how difficult it may be. You can easily learn new skills on the internet watching videos, taking free courses or workshops at community colleges and stores, or by reading some books.

If you are an introverted person, challenge yourself to be more social. Im not suggesting you try to change yourself from being an introvert, but having social confidence is a great skill to have.

Challenging yourself is a great tool when it comes to self development. By learning new things, you grow as a person.

How will you find time to learn those news skills you wrote about above? Easy, stop wasting time. I bet you could easily carve out a few hours in your day to learn a new skill. Its all about shifting things around. Most notably, stop watching so much TV! Studies show that too much TV watching is harmful to our health.

How do you stop watching so much TV? For some, you will have to take drastic measures, like canceling your cable. For others, delaying the show works. Delaying is what works for me.

My wife and I have a DVR. We set up the DVR to record all of the shows we want to watch. Surprisingly, we never watch half of the shows on the DVR. Not because we watch other shows, but because we really arent that interested in watching them.

Take some time to understand how you waste time and become more productive with your time. Read more. Learn about something new. Spend more time with loved ones. These are self growth activities that will lead to happiness and success.

Reading stimulates the mind. Do you know how many books I read two years ago? Zero. That falls in line with the numbers from 2015 that show 27% of Americans didnt read a single book.

This year so far, Ive read 5. How do I find the time to read? Simple. I turn off the TV 30 minutes before bed and read. I dont miss anything important on TV and it helps me to prepare for a good nights sleep.

To get started reading and to stick with it pick out some books in niches that interest you. If you like mystery novels, then search out some short books in that niche. You can also check out my resources section for a list of my personal favorites.

The goal isnt to read as many books as you can, but rather to get into the habit of reading. If it takes you two months to read a book, then so be it. The goal is more about reading than the number of books you can complete.

Along with learning new skills and reading, you should fill up your new found free time by meditating for 10 minutes per day. Some may think that meditating is a waste of time, but I find that clearing my head of all of my thoughts and just being present has a huge effect on my mood and happiness.

There are various forms of mediation, so you are sure to find one that is right for you. As you start out with meditation, take things slow. For some people (myself included) it took some time before I was able to clear my mind and really get good at meditating.

What ended up sticking for me was starting off very slowly with a short amount of mediation time and making my sessions longer as I improved.

For more tips for beginning meditation, check out this post.

Once you get the basics down regarding meditation, you will be amazed at the positive impact it has to improve your life. It quickly resets your mind and emotions and you come out of a mediation session feeling fresh and revived.

I mentioned in a previous tip about learning to love yourself. You will always have critics, including yourself. You need to learn to deal with any negative thoughts and emotions you have.

At first, you may find this difficult to do. But over time, controlling your thoughts will become easier.

Understand that negative thoughts will always be with us. They create a problem when we allow them to fester inside and ruin our day. So there was bad traffic this morning. Instead of letting it fester inside and taking that anger out on others, learn to brush it off. Dont allow it to ruin your entire day. Its a day you will never get back.

The same idea applies when others are rude or short to you. You dont know what is happening in their life. Maybe they got into a car accident. Maybe they are getting divorced.

Most times that arent angry at you, they just take it out on you because they havent dealt with the issue effectively enough. Dont let their actions ruin your day.

You will fail. You will struggle. Life will be hard sometimes. But you have to keep pushing through. This builds character. When you push through a hard time, the next hard time you encounter will be easier to get through. Why? Because you proved to yourself that you can get through anything.

That belief is a huge part of daily self improvement.

Another tip to help push through tough times is to take it one day at a time. Too many times we go through a rough patch and think this is what our life will be from now on. This isnt the case.

Take things one day at a time, and try to focus on the positive things from that day. In time, the tough times will pass.

As mentioned above, part of pushing through tough times is all about accepting change. Nothing in life is forever. Things are constantly changing. We age every day, the seasons change every 3 months. Its part of life. The sooner you can accept that change happens, the sooner you can begin to be the best you possible.

While it isnt always easy to accept change, the sooner you do, the happier you will be.

Along the same lines of accepting change is also learning to accept the past. What is done is done. Nothing you can do now will ever change the past. Its part of history. The only thing you can do is learn from the experience and move on, push forward. Forgive and move forward.

If you cant learn to do that, you will never become the best person you can be. You will be focusing on the wrong things, the things you cant change instead of the things you can change.

Let go of the past and focus on the good things you have now and the great things in store for your future. Your past made you who you are today, but it doesnt have to define who you will be in the future.

Part of self improvement is giving without obligation. When you give, be it food, time, your money, you show that the world is a decent place. You also increase your self-esteem and feel good about yourself and the world in general. Learn to pay it forward.

Note that I mentioned giving your time in addition to money. Volunteers are always needed to help out. Dont think for a second that you cant afford to give. You have the most valuable asset of all to give, your time.

We all have those we look up to. Find a mentor who is successful at what you want to do and learn from them. Many successful people are more than willing to help out those who ask for help and are happy to take you under their wing.

By doing this, you will get great insight into what traits and habits make a person successful and what things you might be doing now that are holding you back.

Just be certain you work hard. While many people are willing to mentor, they dont want to feel like you arent trying. So be sure to give all you can so you can learn everything you can.

Of all the tips to improve yourself I list, this is the one that is the toughest to begin using.

The old saying, you are the company that you keep, is true. If you are always hanging around with unmotivated people, you too will be unmotivated to succeed in life. On the other hand, if you hang around with successful people, you too will find success.

I have personal experience with this. I knew of a person in college. When I visited them over the summer, they were lifeless and uninterested in doing anything. It turns out all of her close friends at home were just skating by in life. Many of them dropped out of high school.

But when she was in college, with people that were motivated to become something in life, she was inspired, successful, and the life of the party. After college, she moved back home, isnt using her degree and is just skating by.

The theme was her friends. The company she kept dictated how she was as a person. She finally got the courage to move away from home and her life changed. She got a great job in her field, met a great man, and now is Vice President of the company and has an amazing family.

Are there people in your life you would be better off no longer spending time with? I understand that pushing people out of your life is hard, but it is your life and you need to do what it best for you, regardless of how difficult it may be.

At the end of the day, reflect on what happened. Was it a good day? Even if bad things happened, find ways to spin them into something positive. In other words, dont let the negative thoughts take root in your mind. Be thankful for all that happened to you today and vow to be an even better person tomorrow.

Start out noticing big things that happened since they will be the things in the front of your mind. But dont overlook the little things like the amazing weather, the person that let you go ahead of them in line, etc. All of these things are things to be thankful for.

When you do this, you remember things that happened, that in the moment seemed insignificant. But these events had an impact on your overall day. By reflecting on them, you keep them in the front of your mind and can use them to improve yourself.

If you can follow these 20 self improvement tips, I am confident that you will become a better, more confident person in life. What have you got to lose other than how your life is now? Isnt a better life worth the risk?

As I mentioned at the start of this post, take your time with these tips and cherry pick a few here and there to start with. Dont overwhelm yourself by trying to tackle every tip at once. That is a recipe for failure.

Start small and slow and build other tips into your daily life as the weeks progress. Before you know it, you will start to see a change for the better. This will motivate you to keep pushing forward, improving yourself and improving your life each and every day.

Youll come to find you have more energy, are happier and are more successful, all thanks to a few self improvement tips.

Read this article:
20 Self Improvement Tips That Will Change Your Life ...

Rainer Binder/ullstein bild via Getty ImagesA Rajneeshee meditation service.

If you build it, they will come. And come they did.

In 1981, a hoard of outsiders descended upon a sleepy Oregon town, all dressed in red and preaching free love. From nothing, they built everything, creating their own sustainable town in a desert plain. A town that would find itself at the center of mayhem, when the devoted followers of Indian mystic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh would carry out the largest bioterror attack that the United States had ever seen.

Several years before the mass influx of cult members, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was the target of an assassination attempt. After a knife was thrown at him, as he was preaching to his followers, he realized it was time to leave India. The ashram at which he had cultivated his spiritual movement, run with his particular brand of capitalism, meditation, ethnic and dirty jokes, and open sexuality, was no longer safe for the over 30,000 Rajneeshees who visited it every year.

So, he turned to his most trusted advisor, the young and devoted Sheela Birnstiel, known as Ma Anand Sheela. Find him a place, he asked her, where he could lead his movement free from judgment, where his followers could live in peace, and where he could build his utopia.

With her husband Marc Silverman, Sheela began searching for a place and before long she had found it. A 64,000-acre plot of land, a patch of desert in the northwest area of the United States. Together, the Rajneeshee pooled their finances, uprooted their lives, and moved halfway around the world to their ranch, which they named Rajneeshpuram, in the heart of Antelope, Ore.

Matthew NAYTHONS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty ImagesBhagwan Shree Rajneesh arriving in Oregon.

For most of the followers, it was their first time in the states. Half of them didnt even know where Oregon was, let alone where the tiny town of Antelope fell within it. But Sheela knew, as soon as she saw the plain, that isolated or not, this was the utopia Rajneesh had dreamed of.

It was so clear we had reached the promised land, she said in an interview for the the Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country. It was the Shangri-la that everyone dreamt of.

When they arrived, the land was effectively a desert, a flat wasteland of brown dirt. Sheela rallied the Rajneeshee, urging them to band together and create the utopia that Rajneesh expected. When he arrived in several weeks, she wanted everything to be perfect.

Wikimedia CommonsAn aerial view of Rajneeshpuram commune, in Antelope.

And so, the Rajneeshee built it. They built it from the ground up power, plumbing, roads. Then a shopping mall, an airport, a pizza parlor and a 10,000 person meditation building. They even had their own zip code. An environmentally sustainable farm followed, complete with solar power, irrigation, and check dams. They turned the desert green, bringing wildlife back to the plains, and created a lush oasis.

From the wasteland that was the Oregon desert, the followers of Bhagwan Rajneesh built their own Shangri-la.

They should have offered us a Nobel prize, Sheela said.

NetflixRajneeshs right hand woman, Ma Anand Sheela.

In interviews conducted years after the cult had faded from the spotlight, it is abundantly clear that while the Rajneeshee followed Bhagwan Rajneesh, the true mastermind behind the group was Sheela. Reports indicate that Rajneesh was obsessed with the finer things in life, becoming the owner of the worlds largest collection of Rolls Royces, and indulging in multi-million dollar jewels. He would take money from his followers, donations to his cause, and use them on himself.

Sheela, on the other hand, was power hungry. Not concerning herself with material things, Sheela threw herself into building her utopia, her Shangri-la, her town in the desert, touting a belief in Rajneesh, but embodying the spirit of a leader herself.

While the Rajneeshee were preparing for their mystical leaders arrival, and Sheela was driving them into excess, the native residents of Antelope were becoming restless.

Theyre invading, said one local. Maybe not with bullets, but with money and, um, immoral sex.

Antelope was a small community, of about 40 people. Most were hunters and ranchers, who had lived in the town their entire lives. They were, for the most part, conservatives. Given its secluded location, the people of Antelope werent used to outsiders.

They especially werent used to 7,000 of them, all dressed in red, playing music and preaching free love and open sexual relationships. Before long, their welcoming, albeit hesitant, attitude had turned completely volatile.

Francois LE DIASCORN/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images Rajneeshees doing morning exercises in Antelope.

A hunting magazine declared open season on the Rajneeshee, and locals began referring to them as Red Vermin, or Red Rats. Not helping the situation was the fact that the Rajneeshee had taken to patrolling the perimeter of their commune with machine guns and armored cars.

As the locals hatred toward the Rajneeshee built, so did the Rajneeshees hatred of the locals. Eventually, the Rajneeshee overpowered the residents of Antelope, and several other towns, promptly renaming it Rajneesh.

When Sheela announced that the Rajneeshee had plans to build a city on a mountain, in 1984 the state intervened, denying the permits. In retaliation, Sheela announced plans to place Rajneeshee in the state legislature, bussing in several thousand homeless people from nearby areas to vote for her appointee.

Her plan failed, as the state wouldnt let the homeless people vote, but Sheela was undeterred. If her people couldnt vote, she would make sure no one could.

As the election loomed closer, Sheela drew a small group of people into her inner circle and turned one of the buildings on the compound into a bio-lab. There, she and her team created a deadly toxin, which they called salsa a liquidy brown sludge contaminated with toxic levels of salmonella. Over several weeks, the cult contaminated 10 local restaurants with their salmonella salsa, spraying it on salad bars, the salsa bars of taco restaurants, fruits, vegetables, and even dumping it in water.

Matthew NAYTHONS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty ImagesMembers of the Oregon commune, welcoming new members into their community.

The result was a state-wide epidemic, the largest bioterror attack that the United States had ever seen. Over 700 people fell ill, 45 were hospitalized, and though no one died, it could have been much worse. When investigators later raided the compound, they found the makings of Salmonella typhi, typhoid fever. Had their plans escalated, it would have been disastrous.

The outbreak of salmonella was originally attributed to workers mishandling the food. However, several legislators became suspicious of Sheela and her relentless patriotism for her commune. Though they had no evidence, they believed she could have been involved in what they were now calling an act of bioterrorism.

In response to the allegations, thousands of people turned out to vote against Rajneesh and his followers, determined to push them back to the limits of their commune, and possibly farther away than that. To everyones surprise, within a year, Rajneesh himself was ridding himself of the commune, and fleeing the U.S. altogether.

One of the restaurants that Ma Anand Sheela and the Rajneeshee contaminated with their salsa.

In 1895, after pleading guilty to entering the country without a visa, Bhagwan Rajneesh fled the commune. He called his followers a gang of fascists, openly blaming Sheela for the bioterrorism attack. It wasnt until then that the government conducted a full investigation and realized the extent of the crimes that Sheela was planning.

Within the compound, there was evidence of several more biological weapons, and a detailed plan to assassinate Charles Turner, a U.S. attorney in Oregon. As hundreds of the Rajneeshee fled, others simply wondered how the peaceful, loving, expressive group they had joined had gone so wrong.

Armed with the evidence from the compound, Ma Anand Sheela was arrested and brought to trial. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her crimes but released after 39 months.

Ma Anand Sheela claims, to this day, from her home in Switzerland, that she acted at the behest of Rajneesh, that she was in love Rajneesh, and that everything she did was in the interest of Rajneesh. Interviews show a woman desperate to be understood, unrepentant for her crimes, and steadfast in her belief that in the end, everything she did was done with the best of intentions.

This whole thing is a big living opera, she said. Sheela a soprano, Bhagwan, a tenor. Operas are, in the end, always tragic, but there are so many facets, so many dimensions. People of Oregon, think yourselves lucky that this opera came your way.

Next, check out these five insane cults from around the world that are still active today. Then read about the Chldren of God, a cult that encouraged sexual abuse of children.

The rest is here:
The Cult Of Rajneesh And The Largest Act Of Bioterrorism In U ...

Photo Zig Ziglar, who wrote more than two dozen books with total sales well into the millions. Credit Ziglar, Inc., via Associated Press

If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time. Attitude, not aptitude, determines altitude. Among the things you can give and still keep are your word, a smile and a grateful heart. There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.

Be grateful. Believe. Try.

Zig Ziglar said so, over and over and over, and he made a fine living doing it. For more than 40 years he traveled the nation and the world as a motivational speaker, stirring corporate groups with his distinctive blend of sound-bite optimism, country wit, Christian faith and good-natured nudging for people to see the bright side of life. The Ziglar Way, he called it.

When I leave, Mr. Ziglar said in an interview late in his life, we want to be sure to leave all of the messages that we can.

Mr. Ziglar, who died on Wednesday in Plano, Tex., at 86, left many, many messages. He reached people through more than two dozen books with total sales well into the millions; through his children, who have helped run his company; through cassette tapes and later podcasts; and of course through his personal presentations. At his busiest, he said, he spoke 150 times a year, and well into his 70s he was speaking 60 times a year. His fee was $50,000 a speech, plus expenses.

He had a formula: Prepare extensively every time, be funny (Every seven to nine minutes Ill have them laughing), and frequently reinforce the broader message (I make certain that every five minutes Im giving them a concept, an idea, a process, a hope builder).

He told a story about a woman in Alabama who he said was bitter about her job and angry with her co-workers. He advised her to write down whatever positives she could thing of the solid paycheck, the benefits, the vacation time and then stare into the mirror and say how much she loved her job. Six weeks later, he ran into her again.

Read more here:
Zig Ziglar, 86, Motivational Speaker and Author - The New ...

Welcome to Lotus Yoga, a community-based yoga studio located in the heart of Riverside. Yoga is an ancient path to radiant health, spiritual growth and well being. Its origin has been traced back over 5,000 years to ancient India, and the practice of yoga combines a series of energizing postures with deep concentration, focused breathing, mindful living and meditation. Yoga reduces the blood pressure, lowers the heart rate, calms and soothes the mind, counters depression, improves balance and sleep, and decreases joint and muscle pain. The benefits are proven, limitless and life-changing. Our mission is to promote health, wellness and community in a warm, inviting and stress-free environment. We offer yoga classes suitable for all ages, sizes, shapes and fitness levels with a focus on mindful breathing, quiet reflection, deep relaxation, increasing flexibility and building strength. We also offer private classes, workshops and classes in mindfulness. If you have any additional questions, please send us a message on ourContact Us page or reach out to us directly at:bethany@lotusyogajax.com/904.704.3298bonnie@lotusyogajax.com/904.891.6537

We are located at 869 Stockton Street, Suite 7, Jacksonville, FL 32204

Originally posted here:
Lotus Yoga

Water exercise is a great work out for all ages with the water environment providing support and resistance an excellent way to achieve injury free, effective exercise results.

A program full of variety which, depending on the class, achieves a cardiovascular workout, resistance training or muscular conditioning or a combination of these !

Classes conducted using aquatic exercise and and therapy equipment.

Active Aqua Energetic aerobic exercise that gets your heart pumping

Fit n Tone Combination class of aerobic exercise, plus core strength & toning

Aqua Energy A full-on, flat-out workout to start the day on the right foot

Mature Movers Youre not oldyoure fit ! Aerobic exercise with all over toning

Hydrotherapy The union of aquatic exercises and physiotherapy to aid pain management, fall prevention and enhance rehabilitation and recovery; run by qualified physiotherapist

Mums & Bumps A great workout for those with a precious bundle on board

Aqua Play n Learn ** NEW & FREE ** A gentle introduction to aquatic education to enjoy with your baby (3-18m); run by qualified instructor

Broga Yoga for brothersmen only, so man up, turn up, stretch, fart and go for it. Bring your old sports injuries and physical tightness and see how you can live easier. Never done yoga before ? Neither has the bloke next to you, so bring him along too.

FREE Child Supervision Provided on site at Mansfield Aquatics for selected classes !

No booking required just turn up ! Please arrive 5 minutes before class to ensure classes start on time. Change rooms and showers provided.

Enquiries and to buy a pass:pool@mansfieldaquatics.com.au or 03 5779 1857.

See more here:

Aqua Aerobics - Mansfield Aquatics

Vegan Recipes

Heres a taste of the irresistible vegan dishes youll find in our recipe library. Be sure to check out The Full Helpings vegan cooking hacks to make the most of your time in the kitchen.

In addition to not eating meat, poultry or fish like vegetarians, vegans also avoid other animal products and by-products like eggs, dairy products and honey and foods that contain these products.

Whats the benefit? A plant-based diet is so good for you. Vegans typically consume less saturated fat and cholesterol and more fiber and phytochemicals than standard diet followers. Add positive links between veg-based diets and lower levels of diabetes, obesity and more, and youve got a way of eating worth cheering for.

The key to a nutritionally sound vegan diet is variety. A healthy and balanced vegan diet includes fruits, veggies, whole grains, nuts, seeds and legumes. Below are some tips to help you navigate shopping and meal planning.

Reputable sources for detailed information on a complete vegan diet include The Vegetarian Resource Group, Mayo Clinic and Oldways Vegetarian and Vegan Food Pyramid. Be sure to check in with your health-care provider before starting any new diet.

Sure you know to avoid animal products, but sometimes, foods you wouldnt normally associate with animals contain their by-products. Watch for:

In addition to food products, cosmetics and soaps can also be derived from animal products. Check labels carefully.

Animal-derived ingredients are commonly found in supplements, so look for capsule and softgel products that say vegi-caps or highlight plant-derived sources on the label. Or ask a Whole Body team member for help. Here are some things to watch for:

In addition to the foods listed above, these products can make vegan cooking and eating easier:

Continue reading here:

Vegan | Whole Foods Market