Personal empowerment is about looking at who you are and becoming more aware of yourself as a unique individual.

Personal empowerment involves developing the confidence and strength to set realistic goals and fulfil your potential.Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and a range of skills that are used in everyday situations, but all too often people remain unaware of, or undervalue, their true abilities.

A person aiming for empowerment is able to take control of their life by making positive choices and setting goals. Developing self-awareness, an understanding of your strengths and weaknesses - knowing your own limitations is key to personal empowerment.

Taking steps to set and achieve goals - both short and longer-term and developing new skills, acts to increase confidence which, in itself, is essential to self-empowerment.

Personal Empowerment and Personal Development are two areas that overlap and interweave, it is recommended that you read this page in conjunction with our page: Personal Development.

At a basic level, the term 'empowerment' simply means 'becoming powerful'. Building personal empowerment involves reflecting on our personal values, skills and goals and being prepared to adjust our behaviour in order to achieve our goals. Personal empowerment also means being aware that other people have their own set of values and goals which may different to ours.

Many other, more detailed, definitions exist. These usually centre on the idea that personal empowerment gives an individual the ability to:

Developing personal empowerment usually involves making some fundamental changes in life, which is not always an easy process.The degree of change required will differ from person to person, depending on the individual starting point.

The following dimensions of personal empowerment are based on the belief that the greater the range of coping responses an individual develops, the greater their chance of coping effectively with diverse life situations.

These dimensions are:

Self-awareness involves understanding our individual character and how we are likely to respond to situations.

This enables us to build on our positive qualities and be aware of any negative traits which may reduce our effectiveness. Self-aware people make conscious decisions to enhance their lives whenever possible, learning from past experiences.

Values are opinions or beliefs that are important to us but of which we are not always aware.

They can be any kind of belief or perceived obligation, anything we prefer and for any reason.The reasons we may prefer one thing over another, or choose one course of action over another, may not always be obvious or known; there may be no apparent reason for our values.Nevertheless our values are important to us as individuals.In order to be self-aware it is necessary to be aware of our values, to critically examine them and to accept that our values may be different from those of others.

An individual's skills are the main resource which enables them to achieve their desired goals.

Skills can be gained through experience, practice, education and training.It is only by developing such skills that individual values can be translated into action.

Knowledge or information is necessary in the development of self-awareness and skills.

Knowing where to find appropriate information is in itself an essential skill.Without information, the choices open to people are limited, both in their personal and working lives.The internet has provided an easy way for everybody to access huge amounts of information very quickly and easily. The problem is then centred around the quality of the information found, and the skill set is concerned with finding accurate and reliable information.

Setting goals is a means by which an individual can take charge of their life.

The process of setting a goal involves people thinking about their values and the direction that they would like their lives to follow.Choices are made through reflection followed by action.Goals should always be both specific and realistic. Setting personal goals gives us a sense of direction in life, this direction is essential to personal empowerment.

Language is the main medium of human communication whether used in spoken or written form.

The use of language, how individuals express themselves verbally and non-verbally to others, can be empowering to both themselves and the people with whom they are communicating. Looking at how language is used is important in terms of self-empowerment and when attempting to empower other people.

In terms of personal empowerment and communication the following ideas are helpful and their use can be both self-affirming and positive:

Use Positive Language: Research into language suggests that a person's self-image is reflected in the words that they use.For example, people who say they 'should' behave in a certain way implies passivity and can detract from them seeming to be in control and taking responsibility for their actions.Talking about yourself in a positive way, acknowledging strengths and weaknesses, can be empowering.

Use Active Language:Use terms which imply positive action rather than making vague statements, particularly when talking about the future.For example, 'I will...' and 'I can...'.

Use Words to Define Your Own Space and Identity: If you fail to use words to define your own space and identity then others will tend to define you and set standards by which you evaluate yourself.Furthermore, they will try to persuade you to conform to their demands.Be clear about who you are and what your values and goals are do not let others define you.

In order to use language to help empower others:

Do not use jargon or complex terminology The use of jargon and complex terminology can be both alienating and dis-empowering.When working with others the use of jargon can create feelings of intimidation and inferiority.Without shared understanding of the words you use, effective and empowering communication cannot take place. Choose words with care, which give clarity to what you are trying to express.

Focus on the words people use Mirror words people use, see our pages:Reflection and Clarification for more information. Using shared terminology appropriately can enable you appear more in tune with the other person and what they are saying.

Choose positive words Choosing positive or active words such as 'will' or 'can' indicates that you have control in your life and is more likely to induce positive action in others.Compare the use of these words with others such as might' or 'maybe' which suggest hesitancy.Using words and statements which carry responsibility are empowering as they suggest a determined rather than a passive approach.

Avoid criticism and negativity: Criticism should always be given with extreme care and only when absolutely necessary.Once words have been spoken they cannot be easily taken back.If criticism is necessary then it can be given in a constructive way, through the use of positive and supporting words and phrases.Always attempt to cushion criticism with positive observations. Our page, Offering Constructive Crictism has lots more infomation.

Use open questions when appropriate: The use of closed questions will restrict responses to 'yes' and 'no' answers.This type of question can leave people feeling powerless because there is no opportunity to explain their response.On the other hand, open questions give the person being asked the chance to explore the reasons behind their answers.Open questions encourage a person to take responsibility for their thoughts and actions and can therefore aid empowerment.Open questions can also help people to solve problems through their own devices, help them to set their own goals and work out an appropriate plan of action.

See our pages: Questioning and Question Types for more information.

We all have opportunities to explore and develop new skills. In order to become more empowered we can, in our interactions with others, aim to:

Developing trust can be a difficult and lengthy process. In order to develop trust with others you may choose to:

In the workplace, and in any professional working relationship there are three basic components of trust:

Trust can be broken very quickly and may never be restored to its former level. Think about the points above and try to build and maintain trusting relationships in both your personal and professional life.

Avoid the following actions that may destroy trust and have a detrimental effect on personal empowerment:

See our page on Trustworthiness and Conscientiousness for more information.

Becoming empowered includes knowing your own strengths and weaknesses: identifying these will enable you to work on improving your weaknesses and build on your strengths.

It is not uncommon for other people to have misjudged your strengths and weaknesses, or for you to misjudge those of others.This can lead to opportunities being limited due to the misconception of abilities.It is important, therefore, to know your own strengths and weaknesses and to communicate them clearly to others, whilst encouraging others to communicate their strengths and weaknesses to you.

In some circumstances you may feel that you face problems that are truly beyond your capabilities.In such cases you should seek help.Empowered people know their own limits and have no problems with asking for help or guidance.Self-knowledge, often referred to as self-awareness, is a strength which enables you to set personal improvement goals in order to make a more substantial contribution.The more empowered you become, the more you will be able to help others to become empowered.

Confidence acts as one of the greatest motivators or most powerful limitations to anyone trying to change their behaviour and become more empowered.

Most people only undertake tasks that they feel capable of doing and it takes great effort to overcome a lack of confidence in one's capabilities. Self-empowerment involves people constantly challenging their own beliefs and what they are capable of undertaking.

See our pages on Building Confidence and Self Esteem for more information.

Personal empowerment is not a static thing that you can do once in your life.

You should view personal empowerment as ongoing personal development. As circumstances change and develop, and as we ourselves change and develop, so do our needs for development and empowerment.

More:
Personal Empowerment | SkillsYouNeed

The upcoming Kinks, Locks & Twists: Environmental and Reproductive Justice Conference may sound like a natural hair symposium but is actually an annual national womens conference that uses Black hair politics as the entry point for discussion on empowerment and activism.

Co-founded in Pittsburgh by West Philadelphia native LaTasha D. Mayes, the conference is organized annually by New Voices, a human rights organization focused on reproductive justice, LGBTQ rights, health care access, ending gender-based violence, incarceration, environmental justice and integrated voter engagement.

Mayes explained that the goal of the three-day conference is to engage Black women and girls in community organizing for lasting social change while celebrating intersectionality.

That is why intersectionality is so important to our work, said Mayes, the New Voices founder and executive director. You cant look at a Black woman or a Black person and only talk about one thing. No! These things are impacting me as a Black person and a woman and are impacting me at the same time and in different ways and different times. The intersectionality, to me, gets us to greater, more impactful solutions for the long-term. Its not just a change in policy, but about uprooting systematic race and gender oppression. Thats the difference in our work: we are confronting systems of oppression in our work and creating spaces for those who are vulnerable and marginalized.

The Kinks, Locks & Twists Conference is presented by New Voices for Reproductive Justice, a grass-roots human rights organization founded in 2004 by Mayes, Bekezela Mguni, Lois Toni McClendon and Maria Nicole (Smith) Dautruche. Initially produced in 2010 as a HERStory Month signature event, the Conference began with an analysis of the politics of Black hair, and soon broadened its focus to environmental and reproductive justice.

We are a reproductive justice organization, said Mayes. Our definition of reproductive justice is the right to control your body. When we get into it more deeply, it is about the human right to control your body, sexuality, gender, work, reproduction and ability to form a family.

According to a timeline provided by the organization, it grew steadily and now focuses on several priority issues. The Pittsburgh-based organization has also enlarged its geographic footprint to include offices and programming in both Cleveland and Philadelphia.

Throughout the years the conference has covered regional concerns, such as fracking, as well as topics of concern to all women of color like environmental racism and the reproductive cancers that can be caused by toxic hair, makeup and personal products, said Mayes. This year, we have adopted the theme #LoveSowGrow as a call to embrace our roots as women of color, recognize our potential and invest in ourselves as leaders to shape a self-determined future, she continued.

The conference kicks off with the free, full-day Black Hair Institute at the Philadelphia Center for Architecture (1218 Arch St.) on Aug. 17. Conference activities continue on Aug. 18 and 19 with two full days of events at the Friends Center (1501 Cherry St.), including sessions with social justice advocate Dorothy Roberts; spoken word artist Sonya Renee Taylor; and feminist/activist Denise Oliver-Velez.

Registration for the annual Kinks, Locks & Twists: Environmental and Reproductive Justice Conference is available at eventbrite.com. Conference organizers are committed to accessibility for all attendees, with a sliding scale of registration fees is offered this year. Childcare will be available to conference attendees free of charge. For more information, visit kinkslockstwists.org.

More:
National women's conference focuses on empowerment - The Philadelphia Tribune

Its nice to see people learn their history, but a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Case in point: the Honorable Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party.

Responding to a Democratic Party tweet Sunday on the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Woodhouse accused Democrats of being responsible for killing black people in Wilmington in 1898.

Well, technically, thats true. The perpetrators of the 1898 insurrection/coup who burned down a black-owned newspaper, forced the citys legally elected Republican leadership to resign, more or less at gunpoint, and killed an unknown number of black residents were overwhelmingly affiliated with the then-conservative Democratic Party.

But mostly, thats a cutesy debaters trick. A reasonable person realizes that the Democratic Party has changed over the past 120 years.

Following Woodhouses logic, perhaps Democrats should start tweeting about the GOPs role in the Great Depression and the number of Republicans who opposed entry into World War II, giving aid and comfort to the Nazis. Should we blame contemporary Republicans for the burning of Atlanta and Charleston during the Civil War?

In 1898, the North Carolina Democratic Party consisted entirely of white men. The state Democratic Party in 2017 includes a large number of African Americans. In fact, more than 80 percent of black registered voters in North Carolina are Democrats.

In the 1960s, with Democrats like John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Terry Sanford supporting civil rights, and the attraction of Barry Goldwater and the GOPs Southern Strategy, white Southerners began to exit the Democratic Party. Most black voters have long since pledged allegiance to the Democrats.

Wed suggest that if Tar Heel Republicans want to make inroads among black voters, they not only disavow these type of antics, but also stop pursuing voting limitations that disproportionately affect African-Americans, and draw election districts that can at least pass the muster of the courts.

The Republican Party should be able to appeal to black Americans with a positive message, especially on issues like personal empowerment, economic opportunity and school choice.

So will Republicans reach out to black voters on those important issues, or is the state GOP content to let Woodhouse sit back and blast off his usual bromides, hoping to fire up the base and score cheap political points? Is that really the message they have for black voters?

No wonder only 3 percent of the states black registered voters are Republicans. Frankly, were surprised the number is that high.

Continue reading here:
Republican leader's 1898 tweet a pathetic overture - Myrtle Beach Sun News

How do you measure reconciliation? Thats the question Im wrestling with, as I continue working on my investigation about reconciliation in small Canadian towns and it's leftme scratching my head.

Thats why Im canvassing academics for answers, including one whos examined what reconciliation looks like around the world (likeCyprus, for instance). But Ill have my work cut out for me. In its report Reconciliation In Practice, the nonpartisan United States Institute of Peace reported that indicators used to measure reconciliation including self-awareness, personal empowerment and motivation are generally weak, especially at the individual and government levels.

Can you refer me to someone whos done research into measuring reconciliation? Do you have suggestions for how it should be measured? Tell me viaFacebook,Twitteroremail.

I watched the fallout from last weeks decision by Petronas toshelveits Lelu Island LNG project on B.C.s north coast, which my colleagues atDiscourse Mediahavedocumentedextensively. Theonline bullying,intimidationandbickeringbetween Indigenous people otherwise known as lateral violence after the Petronas decision was particularly interesting to me.

Corporate and government officials who promote LNG projects to First Nations dont live in those communities, and dont have to deal with the fallout if a project is cancelled. According toTimes ColonistwriterLes Leyne, the benefits to First Nations were key selling points; they included alleviating poverty, boosting employment and community improvements. First Nations must take a critical look at how the promise of such benefits from these projectsimpactthe socio-cultural fabric of their communities.

Whereas some community members see benefits as practical, others view them as bribery. In a 2016Discourse Mediastoryabout the Lelu Island LNG project, the paving of a road in Lax Kwalaams is referred to in a benefits package circulated to community members as an inducement for good faith negotiations on LNG. Now that the Petronas deal is cancelled, theres no project to fight over but theres still infighting. If First Nations communities dont heal and learn from this, the same problem will play out over and over again.

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What does a reconciled town look like? - Toward Reconciliation

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Claire Saenz is a SMART Recovery Facilitator for SMART Recovery. It is an addiction recovery service without a necessary reference to a higher power or incorporation of a faith, or some faith-based system into it by necessity. Those can be used it, but they are not necessities. The system is about options. In this series, we look at her story, views, and expertise regarding addiction, having been an addict herself. This is session 1.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen:When it comes to the experience of addiction, what were your addiction and particular substance of choice?

Claire Saenz: My substance of choice was alcohol, which was coupled with an eating disorder and an anxiety disorder.

Jacobsen: What were the thoughts that ran through your mind as you were working to combat the addiction, to stop using the substance(s)?

Saenz: I was highly motivated when I decided to stop drinking, so my primary thought, initially, was that I was going to quit or die trying. I felt determined, but also extremely vulnerable because giving up alcohol meant that in many essential ways, I was giving up my sole coping mechanism.

Jacobsen: How did SMART Recovery compare to other services?

Saenz: Other services I used in my recovery were AA, individual therapy, and pharmaceutical treatment of my anxiety. I found SMART similar to AA in that it is also a peer support group. I found the social support aspect of both programs helpful. SMART was drastically different from AA in almost all other respects, however, and much more like the individual therapy I received.

SMARTs philosophy is one of personal empowerment rather than reliance on a higher power. The use of stigmatizing labels such as alcoholic or addict is discouraged. Direct discussion (cross-talk) among group participants is encouraged. Sponsorship is not part of the program. Group facilitators are not professionals, but they are trained in the SMART tools and meeting facilitation skills, and they are expected to adhere to a code of ethics.

Finally, SMART recognizes that recovery, while a process, is not necessarily a permanent one. While participants are encouraged to attend meetings for a significant time period and to become facilitators to pay it forward, we do not view recovery as being a permanent state. Instead, we achieve a new normal.

Jacobsen: What were some of the more drastic stories that you have heard of in your time as an addict, as a recovering addict, and now as a SMART Recovery facilitator?

Saenz: For the reasons mentioned above, I dont refer to myself as an addict or alcoholic, recovering or otherwise. If a label must be applied to my state, call me a person who has recovered from an addiction to alcohol.

As far as drastic stories, they fall into two categories: the carnage of addiction itself, and the carnage of one-size-fits-all addiction treatment where the one size is the twelve- step approach.

The carnage of addiction is simply limitless. I have lost dozens of friends and acquaintances to addiction-related causes, from organ failure to overdose, to suicide.

At one of my first AA meetings, I spent a few minutes talking to a nice young man who went home that night and hung himself. I know multiple people who have lost spouses and children to addiction. It is a dreadful condition that takes the lives of fine people, and the solutions we currently offer, as a society, are breathtakingly inadequate.

In terms of the consequences of one-size-fits-all treatment, it should come as no surprise that in a world of individuals, there will never be an approach to any physical or mental condition that will work the same way, or as well, for everyone. And yet for years, we have prescribed the exact same treatment to everyone with an addictive disorder.

Worse, what passes for treatment is often nothing more than expensive indoctrination into a free support group (12 step programs, themselves, are free)and if the patient fails to improve, the prescription ismore 12 step. Of course, this isnt working. The shocking thing is that we would ever expect it to work.

Jacobsen: How has religion infiltrated the recovery and addiction services world? Is this good or bad? How so?

Saenz: Twelve-step programs, which form the basis of most traditional treatment, are religious in nature. Adherents sometimes claim otherwise, but courts in the U.S. have nearly universally disagreed on that point.

As one jurist put it, The emphasis placed on God, spirituality, and faith in a higher power by twelve-step programs such as A.A. or N.A. clearly supports a determination that the underlying basis of these programs is religious and that participation in such programs constitutes a religious exercise. It is an inescapable conclusion that coerced attendance at such programs, therefore, violates the Establishment Clause.Warburton v. Underwood, 2 F.Supp.2d 306, 318 (W.D.N.Y.1998).

Because they are religious in nature, such programs may not be the best choice for, and certainly should not the only option given to, atheists or individuals with an internal locus of control.

Beyond that, the religious atmosphere of the programs can, and sometimes does breed an environment where seasoned members of the program become almost like gurus, given an almost clergy-like status and an inordinate amount of power over newer and more vulnerable members. Sometimes this power is used to exploit. The classic exploitation is sexual13th stepping is a common euphemism used to describe the practice of veteran members manipulating newcomers into engaging in sexual relationshipsbut emotional and financial exploitation can happen as well.

But the most tragic consequence of the infiltration of religion into addiction treatment is not, in my view, the religious aspect per se but the fact that the focus on that approach excludes all others. The real tragedy is that people are dying because they are never even told of other approaches that might help them.

In my own experience, 19 years ago when I sought treatment for my addiction to alcohol, I was told that the only option for survival was to become an active AA member. Being the rule follower I am, I did exactly that. I spent the next nine years of my life going to AA meetings and attempting to fit my fundamentally humanist worldview within the confines of that program.

I eventually found this impossible and left the program. In the aftermath of that, I had to re-examine every thought and belief I had developed in the time I had been abstinent to determine whether those thoughts and beliefs were my own or had been implanted during my AA years. I found this an extraordinarily painful process, in many ways as painful as quitting in the first place.

When I found SMART Recovery and realized that it had been possible, all along, for me to have received social support in a manner that honored who I was a person, I cried. I thought not only of myself and all the pain Id gone through because I wasnt told of other options besides AA but of all the others who had experienced the same thing.

This would be equally true regardless of the specifics of the treatment being offered because there is no one approach that is right for everyone. The real tragedy is the pain that has been caused, and the lives that have been lost, because one approach has become too dominant.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

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Claire Saenz, Looking in the 'Mirror' and Seeing the Self - The Good Men Project (blog)

Inner beauty and self-esteem can be your award winning virtues if you are five feet two inches tall, have passed Class 12 and belong to one of the three tribes of Lisu, Nah and Puroik.

It is not a beauteous sentence but the only way to sum up the quota system proposed for the three underprivileged tribes by the Miss Arunachal Beauty Pageant. Ahead of auditions for the 10th edition next month, the organisers of the contest have announced a direct entry by reserved quota for contestants from Lisu, Nah and Puroik minority tribes. The ethnic character of these tribes, their migration and roots in places as far as China or their history of political de-recognition followed by a deprived if restored citizenship in India makes them a very curious anthropological case study. But to offer them affirmative action via a beauty contest is a classic case of cross-wired and complicated social activism.

Arunachal Pradesh has been making a virtue out of positive discrimination. Last year, 59-year-old Hage Tado Nanya from Ziro village was crowned Mrs Arunachal. Married at 13, she participated to raise awareness against domestic violence, gender discrimination and polygamy. Many contestants in that pageant were victims of polygamy and violence.

Beauty contests have always had discrimination and commercial gain wired into their plumbing. The Miss Universe contest launched in 1952 a year after Miss World was a marketing stunt by Pacific Knitting Mills, a California clothing company after the winner of another rival pageant Miss America refused to wear one of its swimsuits. The point was to sell a swimsuit, not crown a woman for beings gods blue-eyed kid.

Such contests have long been debated as hotbeds of female objectification and commercial opportunism. They confuse the psychological self esteem of a person with her body attributes. But despite loud protests and sloganeering across the world, they have never really faded away from popular culture.

Even in these last two years when persuasive new arguments of colour, race, plus size and body positivism got added to fundamental feminist concerns, no society or country has weaned away entirely from beauty pageants.

Whats happened instead, including in India, is an improvisation of the beauty contest model. Beauty has not only become accepting of diversity but it is now outraged and activist like. The old contest model of dressing up, lining up, walking out before a jury to be judged for a set of agreed upon virtues, should have been scrapped to wipe out its inherent flaws. Instead it has been made bigger with room for the violated, the ostracised, the downtrodden, the gay, the married (thats a separate category of contests), the physically challenged and now the tribal. There are beauty contests for incarcerated women across the world. Bom Paston Womens Prison in Brazil holds a contest ironically titled Miss Jail whereas Lithuanias Penal Labour Colony calls it Miss Captivity.

In India too what we now have is an alternative culture of contests that still in some form worship the body positivism or whatever. Indias first transgender pageant Indian Super Queen was launched in 2010 by Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, the Mumbai-based transgender activist to reiterate the beauty and esteem of an otherwise ridiculed community. Mr Gay India, Nepals Ms Dalit Queen (launched in 2013) and a contest organised for visually challenged girls by Mumbais National Association for the Blind last year add to the list. What exactly are such contestants contesting for though is hard to define if it is not dressed up beauty?

Back to Miss Arunachal Pradesh.

The three tribes chosen via quota entry to the pageant come with a defensive explanation, which says it is to celebrate inner beauty and raise self confidence and self esteem. Whether self esteem is directly proportional to winning or participating in a beauty pageant has still not been proved by any scientifically designed anthropological study done with beauty queens across the world. But what is worse is creating reservation for an ideological and existential talent as vague as like inner beauty for which there are no barometers of measurement on a scale of 1 to 10.

The question we may need to address as a society is why in the first place do we need beauty contests to address societal issues like LGBT rights, or rehabilitate downtrodden tribes like the Lisu, Nah and Puroik?

Perhaps it is easier to find sponsors for events that glamourise anything victimhood, violence, natural and cosmetic beauty or physical handicaps but hard to raise a hue and cry on personal empowerment programmes that dont parade the dressed up body posturing to seek notice.

Shefalee Vasudev is a fashion journalist and author

The views expressed are personal

Read more:
Quota for three tribes in Arunachal pageant: Case of cross-wired activism - Hindustan Times

"Tiffany and her husband are amazing coaches, and amazing people! Very knowledgeable, supportive, energetic, and passionate about helping others become the best versions of themselves that they can be. Tiffany is also fantastic with both hair and makeup! I would highly recommend them for anyone looking to become healthier and fit, regardless of your level of athleticism!" - Heather Dufresne

"Thank you both for being such a huge part in my second WBFF experience!!! I wouldn't have made it without you guys. Your training plan was wonderful! I appreciate the thoroughness of the meal plan - down to the time and servings of everything. That was such a big help and made it easier with prepping. My first time training, my trainer gave me a basic outline which didn't help as much because it didn't give me a good breakdown of everything. I loved having the detailed workouts with each exercise and how to pair up supersets or monster sets, as well as, being given the number of reps and adjustments for pyramid sets or drop sets. I had to look up a few things o YouTube, as was suggested, but the workouts were great. I'll still be adding them into my routine! Pro-Status hair and make-up was phenomenal! As organized as you guys were prepared to be, you did an excellent job adjusting and fitting people in as needed. The crew was awesome. I loved the outcome of my gait and make-up. I felt like a beautifully fit princess! 😉 A friend said I looked like a Disney princess. I will totally accept that compliment! 🙂 The availability of you both to talk to and ask questions, or for advice or just for a pep, was so helpful and I appreciated all of it!I felt my experience with Personal Performance LLC was wonderful and I would absolutely do it all over. I loved the preparation, the coaches, the girls on my team. It was overall an excellent experience and I couldn't thank you more." - Melissa Sholomicky

"Tiffany and Sean, I can't thank you two enough. My experience with personal performance was life changing. I have no complaints nor would I change anything about this program. You two taught me how to workout and more important how to eat. Since the show I added eggs in, I keep my carbs in my 3 early meals, and veg and protein at night. I feel really good when I eat this way, which is why I'm going to continue! You guys are just perfect together, you make such a power team and I'm grateful to have been apart of it! I can't wait for my next prep with personal performance! Thank you again!" -Nicole Nicolosi

"I don't even know how to describe my experience with Personal Performance besides that it was probably the most amazing/rewarding experience in my life! Although it was quite a battle sometimes it was definitely worth it! The encouragement and support from you guys and the team was WAYY more than what I had expected. The training kicked my ass everyday, there wasn't a day where I didn't feel like I didn't work out, lol. The diet did wonders to my body, and to think that I was scared of eating carbs in the past! Psh, smh.Can't wait to prep with you guys for my next show!! Love you guys!" - Jessica Rivas

"I cannot thank you both enough for helping me become a healthier, happier Nicole! lol. I cannot see my life changing from what it has become. Sometimes I think back about how I used to eat and workout and I am SO grateful you both are so amazing and helpful because it was rather unhealthy. I only want to improve myself and you both have opened my eyes on how to do that! I can't thank you both enough!" - Nicole Patruno

"I've struggled with my weight for over 20 years now and I have finally found a perfect program for me. This is a lifestyle change and I'm finally understanding that." -Raida

"For once in my life I can finally say I can't wait to wear shorts or go bikini shopping, I mean never in a million years would I ever lol, I mean that in the most humble way possible btw!" -Ashley D.

"I just want to thank you and and Sean for all that you have done and how you been there for me! You guys know how incredibly hard this prep was for me mentally with everything going on. I just want you to know how much it means to me how genuinely caring you guys are. You are two of the most amazing people I know! So thank you for all that you do! I love you guys!!" -Megan T.

"I don't even know where to start. I think I'm still in shock from these before and afters. I can't explain how blessed and grateful I am for you guys. I was at a point in my life where I needed to make a good change mentally and physically! And a change for good! I love how real you guys are and how understanding of what truly is an active and healthy lifestyle! It didn't happen over night but dedication and patience was key. This is definitely not over for me.This is just a start and you guys are absolutely the best. Thank you for all your help and guidance. You'll be hearing from me very soon." -Liz C.

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Programs/Services PERSONAL PERFORMANCE Customized Online ...

Curtis Schieber For The Columbus Dispatch

Lucinda Williamss songs are so incisive and well-crafted they nearly sing themselves, reaching emotional undercurrents apart from their delivery. As her set in the Valley Dale Ballroom on Tuesday night illustrated, though, the most moving these days are those with specific personal connections. When she appeared to relish reaching into those memories, she elevated an evening filled with terrific songs to one punctuated by magic moments.

Lake Charles was one of those, a song about a deceased former lover that nonetheless gained weight from a story Williams told about her dad meeting Hank Williams Sr. Apparently, Hank told scholarly poet Miller Williams he had a beer drinking soul.

On her 2014 album, Down Where The Spirit Meets The Bone, Williams turned one of her fathers poems into the song Compassion, using one of its lines for the albums title. Tuesday nights concert opened with Protection, from that collection and killer lines such as, Livin in a world full of endless troubles/Livin in a world where darkness doubles.

When the singer revisited the highway that drew a line through her early years with her newest release, last years The Ghosts Of Highway 20, the results were stark, vivid, and sometimes bluntly honest. Her delivery of the title track last night was not as desolate but at least as personal. Even before she followed it with the story about her dad and Hank Williams, it was clear that it was informed by her family history.

The singers set drew heavily from her 1998 album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, a high-water mark in her songwriting that drew more on her own experiences than her later focus on family.

Though Lake Charles comes from that collection, it was framed differently Tuesday night. Songs such as Right In Time and Drunken Angel were welcome old friends but seemed to ride on their own merits, Williams delivering them with her trademark, deceptive slackness but adding little special emotion.

Williams was backed by Buick 6, a bluesy trio that supported subtly when needed but stepped out enough to make the audience wonder who they were. They are drummer Butch Norton, guitarist Stuart Mathis and bassist David Sutton.

Angela Perley & The Howlin Moons opened with a smoking set of countrified rock.

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Virtualization helped drastically consolidate servers, as organizations spun up VMs rather than purchasing additional...

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hardware. The next wave of consolidation stemmed from strides in storage and server performance. Solid-state drives now match or surpass hard disk drive capacities and are much faster, while CPU core counts are soaring and dynamic RAM capacity is going through the roof.

For virtualized server farms, the prospect of much more horsepower allows the total count of servers needed for a given workload to shrink substantially. Alternatively, very powerful virtual instances can be assembled to either change how workloads are processed, such as totally in-memory platforms, or allow new workloads, such as compute/memory-intensive scientific apps, to be moved into the virtual space.

Not long ago, in order to get adequate performance, a server needed at least six Serial-Attached SCSI drives. Today, a pair of NVM Express drives does the same job, with better data integrity. We see the same reduction in networked storage, with performance met by solid-state drives (SSDs) and cold secondary storage supplied by large Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) hard drives. The writing is on the wall for these SATA hard disk drives (HDDs), with 30 TB 2.5-inch SSDs announced.

SSDs affect more than just capacity, though. SSDs use much less power than HDDs and typically adhere to the 2.5-inch form factor. The M.2 size -- formerly known as the Next Generation Form Factor -- is typically as small as 22 mm x 30 mm, continuing to minimize the space needed for the drive pool. Taken together, the drive space in servers and storage appliances could drop by as much as 70% from the designs common today.

We'll see a reduction in drive count and form factor with consequent overall space saving just from the adoption of SSDs, but other factors are affecting the space needed to store data. Data compression is radically reducing the raw drive capacity needed to store a given amount of data. Space savings vary widely -- some data sets, such as photos, are unreducible -- but other data can be greatly compressed, resulting in five times the usable storage capacity.

Deduplication of files also achieves good savings though, again, it is use case-dependent. Applying dedupe to virtual desktops can achieve common file set reductions of 100 times or more, with user file reductions as much as five times. Applying both deduplication and compression can really reduce the raw capacity needed for storage, leading to yet more shrinkage in data center footprint.

The server side is also evolving rapidly. Thanks to SSDs, CPU improvements are now reflecting a similar -- or better -- rate of server-level performance boosting.

That's not all. Memory expansion has led to feasible in-memory databases, which really boost performance in a virtual server cluster. Oracle reports as much as a 100x increase in performance, which either translates into fewer servers needed or a much faster runtime. Either way, organizations will consolidate servers as a result.

In practical terms, organizations are replacing RAID storage arrays with compact storage appliances. These, in turn, are seeing strong competition from combined server/storage hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) appliances, and it's likely, given the fact that these appliances are close in hardware design to servers, that this is the future of both storage and servers.

HCI aligns well with software-defined infrastructure, which takes advantage of the underlying virtual server structures created by hypervisors to separate control-plane data service software from storage, network and server hardware platforms. With the ability to service many more instances, the next generation of servers will create more room for microservices with all the flexibility that that approach implies.

With a small footprint for these appliances -- think of them as Lego blocks -- and with all of the factors above pressing on the issue, the future server farm will shrink physically by quite an amount. However, another major factor is in play that takes the shrinkage even further.

The cloud is outsourcing whole workloads from the data center. Many IT operations put web serving into the public cloud, and most backup/archiving work has moved there, too. The obsolescence of large tape libraries and the removal of racks of 1U servers will contribute yet another burst of footprint reduction.

Servers are moving toward a model with much lower power in the CPU-memory complex, which should allow for a major motherboard shrink and, consequently, a move to smaller servers.

Another factor in our equations has to be the effect of containers. Though just entering the mainstream, containers will likely supplant hypervisors. From a server perspective, they will increase instance density by around three to five times per server. Even though the demand for containers will grow substantially compared with present VM levels, it will still help to consolidate servers.

To counter all of this reduction, the industry is looking to big data to increase compute demand, but it isn't clear that this will stem the tide. Much big data has huge spikes in creation rates -- just think of retail as an example. These spikes might best be handled using public cloud space rather than in house.

Future products in storage and servers will accelerate the downsizing trend. SSDs above 30 TB in capacity are being announced -- that's a 3x increase over the largest HDD and comes in a 2.5-inch form factor to boot. We can expect 50 TB and 100 TB drives in 2018.

Servers are moving toward a model with much lower power in the CPU-memory complex, which should allow for a major motherboard shrink and, consequently, a move to smaller servers. Flash and Optane -- nonvolatile dual in-line memory module technology -- will boost system performance substantially, while CPU core counts will increase into the 20 core/CPU range. GPUs will, in certain use cases, boost in-memory operation even further, while much faster remote direct memory access will speed up both drives and data sharing between servers in a cluster.

Overall, we are entering a time when servers both increase substantially in performance and shrink in size. All of these system level boosts will consolidate servers for any given workload. It's clear that we have already passed "max data center" in terms of size, suggesting that some footprint planning would be a good idea.

Map server virtualization infrastructure

Improve SSD performance in your data center

Master virtualization performance management

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Consolidate servers with these performance enhancements - TechTarget

4:51 PM ET

Bob PockrassNASCAR

BROOKLYN, Mich. -- Kevin Harvick said it was nothing personal against Dale Earnhardt Jr. when he said on his radio show Tuesday that Earnhardt had stunted the growth of NASCAR because he is the most popular driver but not the most successful.

Earnhardt said Thursday that the comments were "hurtful" and that he disagreed with that theory.

Harvick, speaking as he walked from his hauler to his motorhome after practice Friday at Michigan International Speedway, said he meant nothing personal by the comments. A fan question prompted the discussion on Harvick's weekly SiriusXM NASCAR show, and Harvick encouraged people to find a replay of the show and listen to the entire exchange.

"The whole question started with what do you think about Dale Jr.'s performance," Harvick said. "And we answered them honestly, and we answered the questions that they had, and it expanded into a conversation of the opinions and the things that I talked about. It wasn't anything personal."

Harvick said drivers vary in their opinions, specifically mentioning that Earnhardt said last week that veterans are being replaced by younger drivers because younger drivers are willing to accept less pay.

"He had his opinions the week before on driver salaries and driver ages and those things, and I don't know that anybody in the garage agreed with those, either," Harvick said. "There's definitely opinions on a lot of things, but it's nothing personal. And I didn't take anything that he said the week before personal, either."

Earnhardt said Friday that his comments on driver salaries "definitely probably upset some of the veteran guys" and that he would like to sit down and talk to Harvick.

"It would be great to sit down and just discuss what he said, what he meant, and we can even talk about my conversation from The Glen [on salaries] that he didn't like and just sort of find some common ground," Earnhardt said. "That would be great."

On his show, Harvick said other sports are successful because their most popular athletes are also among the most successful.

"For me, I believe that Dale Jr. has had a big part in kind of stunting the growth of NASCAR because he's got these legions of fans and this huge outreach of being able to reach different places that none of us have the possibility to reach, but he's won nine races in 10 years at Hendrick Motorsports and hasn't been able to reach outside of that," he said.

"I know those aren't the most popular comments, but those are real-life facts that you look up and see on the stat sheet. Imagine how popular he would have been if he won two or three championships?"

Earnhardt has won 26 races, including two Daytona 500s. The 2017 season will be his final one in Cup, and he sits 23rd in the standings, winless this year.

"I have an incredible amount of respect for him," Earnhardt said Thursday about Harvick. "I found some of those comments hurtful. I still respect him as a champion and ambassador for the sport.

"That's just the way it is, I guess. I hate that's how he feels."

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Kevin Harvick says Dale Earnhardt Jr. comments on his radio show Tuesday were not personal - ESPN