By Talbot Boggs, The Canadian Press

(Special) - Confidence is a key ingredient to success in many areas of life, including finances.

Canadian women are achieving more and more financial and business success today, but many still do not have the same level of confidence as men in their knowledge and ability to make important saving and investing decisions.

More than one quarter of working women in Canada now are the sole or primary income earners in their households, says a poll by Investors Group. Forty-three per cent of working women believe they are more knowledgeable than their partner about personal finance and investing topics, yet men are more likely to take the primary responsibility for personal finance and investing matters (46 per cent compared to 38 per cent of women).

Confidence may be a contributing factor - fewer than half (48 per cent) of women feel confident in their knowledge and ability to make saving and investing decisions compared to 58 per cent of men.

Part of the explanation for that lack of confidence may lie in the fact that many women around the world acquire financial knowledge through informal instruction and from other people.

This was one of the main findings of a study into how women are educated about finances by Barbara Stewart, a Chartered Financial Analyst specializing in counselling and portfolio management.

"Over half of women said that their most valuable financial knowledge was principally acquired through informal instruction and real stories from other people and not from text books, newspapers or financial institutions," says Stewart. "Taking the time to give someone a focused message about money may be enough to change a life for the better. These messages can directly build confidence, which is the fundamental element that will drive a lifetime of rich accomplishments."

Stewart has come up with list of some money-related lessons and practices that are common to successful women around the world.

The first is to determine the lifestyle that you want - where do you want to live, in what kind of house and how much money do you need to live there, and what kind of people do you want to work with? "Figure out what you really want out of life because you become what you think about," Stewart says.

Continued here:
Confidence key to women's financial success

Copyright 2010. The Associated Press. Produced by NewsOK.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Oklahoma City Public Schools will open the doors to a new school this fall, and as many as 700 students could enroll.

But the doors are digital. The classrooms aren't in a building.

The district is opening a virtual school, a project that has been in the works for more than a year. The new school will be called Innovations K-12 Virtual Institute.

This is something that can really help a lot of students, said Verna Martin, associate director of secondary schools for the Oklahoma City district.

Starting this fall, state law requires all school districts to provide online courses when it's educationally appropriate.

Growing popularity

In Oklahoma, online learning is growing in popularity.

About 4,500 Oklahoma students took online courses in the 2010-11 school year, according to Evergreen Education Group, a national education consulting firm.

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Oklahoma City district to open online school

We've seen it many times before: A yoga teacher, after six months or six years, decides to give the gift of yoga to an unserved or underserved community. She or he sets up a non-profit organization to use yoga and mindfulness to help one or more of these groups become a healthy and resilient community. That is how the Give Back Yoga Foundation (www.givebackyoga.org) got started, with a phone call in 2007 among Beryl Bender Birch, her administrative assistant Lori Klein, and me, her student.

Beryl has had much experience giving back: Her teacher training program at The Hard and The Soft Yoga Institute she founded and directs includes a requirement to initiate a give back project. At the time I was a manager at the World Bank looking for a way to combine my experience in two decades of international development work with my desire to show appreciation for my yoga teachers who had given me so many gifts as I struggled with the stress of my work. The phone call led to the creation of a new non-profit organization to address the institute's service project requirement.

There are now more than 125 community-based organizations in this country dedicated to outreach through yoga and mindfulness to communities of abused women, prisoners, at-risk children and teens, veterans, cancer patients, and the homeless. At present, indications are that all these organizations combined serve 150,000 to 200,000 people. This is reason for celebration, as well as motivation to ask the following questions, which provided much of the motivation for the first annual Yoga Service Conference held at the Omega Institute campus in Rhinebeck, N.Y.:

How can we support and expand the work and good will of these worthy organizations? Can we find a way for some or all of them to work more closely together to enhance the reach and work of all? Can we find a way to train more yoga teachers so that they can serve their own communities with cultural competence and linguistic sensitivity? In other words, can we extend our reach by working together to serve more people every week in cost-effective programs?

While the numbers served now are impressive, given the talent and energy of the teachers working in these organizations, this number could be increased many-fold if more yoga teachers and yoga therapists came out of their studios and offices and made the practices of yoga and mindfulness accessible to vulnerable populations. I am keenly aware of the service commitments of these organizations and teachers and have enormous respect for them. They bring new perspectives in working with social service organizations, and they serve endlessly, often with ample room for fun. Some organizations, like Yoga Activist, believe yoga is an urban survival skill and work hard to keep it accessible to everyone. These organizations and faculty represent yoga's next self-transformation, away from the sleek and sexy (and privileged!) to the dogged pursuit of introducing yoga to unserved places and communities.

Excerpt from:
Rob Schware: Making Yoga Accessible to Vulnerable Populations

For years, yoga instructor Alice Van Ness has started her classes with a simple request - that students turn their cell phones off.

She brought that policy with her to Facebook, where she began teaching a weekly class at the company's Menlo Park campus in March. But it proved to be a hard policy to follow for at least one employee, who began tapping away on her phone in the middle of class. And after Van Ness shot her a disapproving look, the instructor found herself out of a job.

The 35-year-old San Carlos resident was fired last month after managers at the fitness contractor she worked for explained that saying "no" to Facebook employees is a no-no.

"We are in the business of providing great customer service," said her termination notice from Plus One Health Management. "Unless a client requires us to specifically say no to something, we prefer to say yes whenever possible."

But when it came to the Facebook employee using her cell phone - at the front of the room, in the middle of class - Van Ness refused to bend over backward.

"Hello - this is only Facebook," said Van Ness, whose firing cost her a teaching gig at Cisco too. "We're not talking about the U.S. government here. We're not talking about Russia is about to bomb us. We're talking about Facebook. Something can't wait half an hour?"

Facebook declined to comment. Representatives for Plus One Health Management did not respond to requests for comment. In its termination notice, the company suggested the Facebook incident was part of a pattern of strict behavior on Van Ness' part; she had previously asked a Cisco employee not to take photographs of the class while it was in session.

The incident highlights a growing tension in health studios, where students come to leave the world behind but often find themselves incapable of not checking their text messages, e-mails and - of course - Facebook. As smart-phone usage has grown, many studios have posted prominent notices asking students to leave them outside the studio.

But at a yoga class on a corporate campus, setting aside job responsibilities entirely, even for a few minutes during the work day, can be a stretch.

"Sometimes if you're in the tech industry, or have a serious attachment to your phone, you can't let Facebook go for an hour," said Michelle Michael, who owns Balance Yoga Studio in Woodinville, Wash., near Microsoft and other tech companies.

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Phone ban costs Facebook yoga instructor her job

For years, yoga instructor Alice Van Ness has started her classes with a simple request - that students turn their cell phones off.

She brought that policy with her to Facebook, where she began teaching a weekly class at the company's Menlo Park campus in March. But it proved to be a hard policy to follow for at least one employee, who began tapping away on her phone in the middle of class. And after Van Ness shot her a disapproving look, the instructor found herself out of a job.

The 35-year-old San Carlos resident was fired last month after managers at the fitness contractor she worked for explained that saying "no" to Facebook employees is a no-no.

"We are in the business of providing great customer service," said her termination notice from Plus One Health Management. "Unless a client requires us to specifically say no to something, we prefer to say yes whenever possible."

But when it came to the Facebook employee using her cell phone - at the front of the room, in the middle of class - Van Ness refused to bend over backward.

"Hello - this is only Facebook," said Van Ness, whose firing cost her a teaching gig at Cisco too. "We're not talking about the U.S. government here. We're not talking about Russia is about to bomb us. We're talking about Facebook. Something can't wait half an hour?"

Facebook declined to comment. Representatives for Plus One Health Management did not respond to requests for comment. In its termination notice, the company suggested the Facebook incident was part of a pattern of strict behavior on Van Ness' part; she had previously asked a Cisco employee not to take photographs of the class while it was in session.

The incident highlights a growing tension in health studios, where students come to leave the world behind but often find themselves incapable of not checking their text messages, e-mails and - of course - Facebook. As smart-phone usage has grown, many studios have posted prominent notices asking students to leave them outside the studio.

But at a yoga class on a corporate campus, setting aside job responsibilities entirely, even for a few minutes during the work day, can be a stretch.

"Sometimes if you're in the tech industry, or have a serious attachment to your phone, you can't let Facebook go for an hour," said Michelle Michael, who owns Balance Yoga Studio in Woodinville, Wash., near Microsoft and other tech companies.

Read more here:
Yoga teacher fired over cell phone ban at Facebook

NEW YORK - Can't touch your toes? Laugh it off.

Laughter yoga, unlike Pilates yoga, water yoga, aerial yoga and other offshoots of the ancient eastern practice of uniting body and breath, doesn't aspire to sculpted arms and bendy backs.

People take part in the 'Pinoy Laughter Yoga' event outside the Manila City Hall recently. Reuters/Romeo Ranoco

"You may not lose fat, but you will lose the idea that you're fat," said Sebastien Gendry, founder and executive director of the American School of Laughter Yoga.

"People come because it's the exercise they can do and it makes them feel good," said Gendry, who founded the school in 2004. "It's the easiest form of yoga. They can't twist, they can't bend, but they can do this."

A blend of yogic deep breathing, stretching, and laughter exercises that cultivate child-like playfulness, Laughter Yoga was developed 17 years ago in Mumbai, India by Dr. Madan Kataria. Laughter Yoga International now claims 600 clubs in 60 countries.

More here:
Laughter yoga cultivates merry mindfulness

Instructor Victoria Wells, foreground, led the yoga class at the Lexington Senior Citizens Center. The six-week yoga class began at the request of some members of the senior center.

Herald-Leader

For the mind, yoga instructor Victoria Wells turns on a soothing play list from her iPod. For the spirit, she reminds everyone to get rid of negative thoughts. And for the body, she rolls out a rubber mat, and announces, "Now let's get those lungs going."

And in step, her class at the Lexington Senior Citizens Center begins the exercise that Wells calls "the perfect blend of everything physical and mental."

Just like its participants' hamstrings, yoga's age limit is becoming increasingly flexible, and members are posing to the beat by taking the senior center's new yoga class.

The multi-purpose community center offers activities including a book club, aerobics and tai chi for Fayette County residents ages 60 and older, but several members recently requested that yoga be added to the mix, manager Sean Wright said.

"People were looking for smaller groups, more of a personal connection with the instructor and more of a broad wellness experience," Wright said. Class attendance grows each time but averages about 20 people.

Wells, who is certified in yoga and senior group fitness, said she was thrilled to start the class after hearing the feedback.

"I'm so happy that everything fell into place," she said, adding that yoga is one of the best ways for seniors to stay active.

"People need to realize they have to take personal responsibility for their health," she said. "And this is an awesome way to do that."

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Yoga is a hit at Lexington senior center

Put me in, coach! Meagan ONan is ready to help others develop a gameplan to reach their dreams from her new office in downtown Columbus. Photo by: Luisa Porter/Dispatch Staff

At the age of 30, Meagan O'Nan is living her dream. And, in a quiet office built on serenity, she's working to help others live theirs.

Having grown up in Starkville, she traveled around the world and lived in Colorado and Florida for three years each, before returning to Mississippi.

She moved to Columbus three months ago and now is offering life coaching, through North Mississippi Acupuncture, located at 413 4th Ave. S., No. 17.

"In my opinion, life coaching is threefold," she explained. "Through life coaching, I give people easy-to-use tools that empower them to acknowledge and create what it is they truly want, practical ways to help them become a confident decision-maker and let go of past setbacks and disappointments (and) a clear plan of action to achieve their wants and desires."

Excerpt from:
Monday profile: O'Nan thrives in role as life coach

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhNjUhc2XW8

09-07-2012 08:05 Your family fitness is our goal. Total Health and wellness is what we stand for. For more health and wellness related articles, videos and resources visit our blog.

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Total Health And Fitness - Video

International Competition Searching for World's Best Personal Trainer Closes July 31

SCHILLER PARK, IL--(Marketwire - Jul 9, 2012) - Life Fitness, the global leader in commercial fitness equipment manufacturing, and FitPro North America, a premier provider of high-quality educational resources for fitness professionals, today announce the final call for entries in the 2012 global Personal Trainers to Watch competition. Designed to reward personal trainers who demonstrate a passion for helping clients achieve a healthy lifestyle, the Personal Trainers to Watch program has been expanded for the first time to accept entries nominating personal trainers from around the world.

Participants across the globe have until July 31, 2012 to visit http://www.LifeFitness.com/PersonalTrainers and nominate a personal trainer deserving of the top prize: $5,000 toward a personal training business; a select piece of Life Fitness equipment; a one-year membership and continuing education course package from world-renowned educational resource PTontheNet; and international media recognition as the world's 2012 Personal Trainer to Watch.

"Response to this year's Personal Trainers to Watch program has been tremendous, with a high-calliber entry pool representing personal trainers from all over the world -- from Canada to Australia to China," said Chris Clawson, president of Life Fitness. "We encourage people to continue recognizing and supporting the personal trainers they see taking strides toward a healthier world by nominating a trainer today."

A panel of five esteemed industry experts will determine one grand-prize winner and 10 finalists based on pre-determined criteria including trainers' community involvement, client testimonials and industry accolades.

"Seeing the numerous ways this year's nominees are helping their clients succeed in their health and fitness goals is truly inspiring," said Andy Jackson, global commercial director for FitPro. "We are proud to recognize these leaders as part of the Personal Trainers to Watch program, and look forward to further enhancing our winners' knowledge base and training opportunities through the resources we offer."

Last year's winner, Nicole Nichols, was pronounced America's Personal Trainer to Watch for her work as a trainer and expert at SparkPeople.com, an online fitness community. She has since gone on to release a fitness DVD and secure national media coverage for her work. Nichols is part of the 2012 judging panel that will decide this year's top personal trainers.

Join in the conversation on Twitter by following the hashtag #PTtoWatch. For official program rules, please visit http://www.LifeFitness.com/PersonalTrainers. Nominations are limited to one entry per person. Entries must be received by July 31, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. EDT. Winners will be announced globally in November 2012.

About Life Fitness Life Fitness is the global leader in providing commercial fitness equipment. The company manufactures and sells strength and cardiovascular equipment under the brand names Life Fitness and Hammer Strength and distributes its equipment in more than 120 countries. Headquartered outside Chicago, in Schiller Park, Ill., Life Fitness is a division of Brunswick Corporation (NYSE: BC).

About FitPro FitPro North America is the premier provider of high quality educational resources for fitness professionals, including personal trainers, group fitness instructors, coaches, fitness managers and health club owners. Specializing in continuing education and expert resources, FitPro North America was founded on the premise that a well-educated fitness professional will inspire clients and succeed.

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Life Fitness and FitPro North America Announce Last Call for Entries in Global Personal Trainers to Watch Program