Students Of Success

Are you considering adopting an older or rescued dog? Older dogs
are great family members and need homes. Depending on the breed,
senior dogs are often are more subdued than a puppy and
therefore easier on your home. But what about behaviors learned
or tolerated by a previous owner? Senior dogs can be still be
trained using a few tried and true ideas! Just as with puppies
it will take time and patience but the outcome is worth it. A
trained dog will be a happier dog because he will know what is
expected of him.

5 TIPS for Teaching NEW Tricks to Older Dogs

1. Use the proper tone when communicating with your dog:

High/Enthusiastic–Use for Praising (i.e. “Good Dog!”)

Demanding/Authoritative–Use for Commands (i.e. “Sit!”)

Growly/Low–Use for reprimanding (i.e. “Bad Dog!”)

2. Give a command only once. This teaches your dog to listen
the first time.

3. Hands Off when giving a command. Touching or petting
distracts from training.

4. Recall (or “Come”) is the most pleasant of all commands for
your dog. Never reprimand a dog that finally comes to you…even
if you had to chase him through the neighborhood before he
obeyed. He needs to know that you will lavish praise and pet him
when he comes to you!

5. Training not to jump up on people and furniture is best done
with a metal can or box with 10 pennies, stones or marbles taped
inside. For convenience, it is a good idea to have several cans
located in various areas throughout your home. Shake the can up
and down once or twice whenever your dog jumps up. Remember to
reprimand with the low tone at the same time. The noise will
startle the dog and eventually the behavior will stop.

Life is a journey which means there are no straight roads but twists, turns, crossroads, hills and valleys for us all to experience. We have to have the lows in life to appreciate the highs, besides, the lows can teach us invaluable lessons and help us to grow. But what happens when we end up lost in the wilderness with no visible way out? It happens. All of us at one time or another will experience our own ‘walk in the wilderness’ and when it happens we fall and fall fast. We fall fast into chaos, confusion and despair. Everything we have ever thought solid melts, everything we have ever learnt gets forgotten and everything we have ever held onto disappears.

We stand alone as those around us can only sympathize but not help us get out of the darkness, we have to do it by ourselves because we have just encountered our biggest life lesson, our most intense test and yet our most heavenly gift. If life were a straight forward journey, what would we actually learn? As emotional and highly-intelligent creatures would we be bored, stifled or just dull?

When you are in the wilderness the one thing you crave is normality and a desire to go back to how things were, even if it wasn’t right just so you can feel ok again. It’s a very scary place to be. How many of us try to go back to how things were and how many stick it out to learn and move on? What would you do? What have you done in the past?

The truth is we only find ourselves in the wilderness because we were on the wrong path in the first place. Understanding that is the first stage to finding your way out. The next stage is to be ok with where you are. Sit it out, accept your feelings, and know that you are on a roller-coaster ride of emotions which can be uncomfortable and sometimes very painful. Go with it but never ever believe that all hope is gone.

Hope springs eternal is a true old saying. You can find it if you look for it. And of course there is always old father time which heals everything. So look for hope because the worst thing you can do in any emergency (like being in the wilderness) is panic. Panic makes us act like headless fools and we become blind and separated from our common sense, our intuition and self-love.

Talking of which, let’s revisit the reason why we have found ourselves in the wilderness. I said it is because we were on the wrong path to begin with which can only mean one thing - a lack of self-love. That’s right. The whole purpose of life is to learn to love yourself so you can love others and make the world a better place. If we our missing the point of life, then we will go off the rails as it were. No matter what got you in the wilderness, behind it will be self-neglect.

Commonly, this causes us to stay in unhealthy relationship with a person, a company or whatever because we fear the alternative. This lack of self-love is what makes us feel so bad.

If you put your faith into the fact you are deserving and that your life can and will be great, no matter what, then you will be out of the woods in no time at all. In the meantime, be courageous, love yourself and look forward to the future because no matter how grim it may seem right now, it will get better. I promise!

Alexandra Watson has helped countless women create happy and fulfilling lives through her happiness system. She has developed a fool-proof, easy-to-follow seven step system to happiness that any woman can use and see results fast. John Gray, author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus calls Alexandra’s book The Happiness System for Women ‘a vibrant and exciting journey to the centre of your soul’. Alexandra has featured internationally on TV, radio and in many publications. She can be contacted by email on: HappinessAuthor@aol.com or visit her website at http://www.AlexandraWatson.com

No sales force can truly be considered a “best practice” unless it meets the test of measurement. If the ‘practice’ works, you should be able to visualize, define, and measure the results. There is no easier way to prove the ‘measurement’ theory than with sales.

In the past 15 years, strategic management has focused more and more on measurement. Strategic management was revolutionized in the early 1990’s by Drs. Robert Kaplan (Harvard Business School) and David Norton when they created their measurement system, the ‘balanced scorecard’. Other approaches adhere to the same rule of accountability by recognizing some of the weaknesses and vagueness of earlier management approaches.

Measurement provides a clear prescription as to what companies in all areas, from sales to marketing should measure in order to reach their financial goal. You often hear the expression in sales, ‘what gets measured gets done’, but in recent years I have expanded this statement to, ‘what gets measured by the individual, creates accountability and therefore gets done’.

For instance, as a sales manager you may give your sales force a specific sales target, a measurement if you will. At the end of the month or quarter if the sales person did not reach that target, you may question them on it. Chances are you have heard every variable and excuse in the book; ‘Our product or service has no name brand recognition’, ‘Our product was too expensive’, ‘I cannot get anyone to meet with me’. Giving the sales force a ‘target’ or a measurement, still leaves a window of accountability. In fact, what gets measured still may not get done.

Measurement alone is not enough to create accountability. You also need a commitment or buy in from the sales person. Commitment is internally motivated while compliance is external. Compliance is following a rule, commitment is something you believe in. If you empower your sales force to create their own set of measurements, they are going to be more motivated to meet them. Often when measurements or targets are instituted and monitored by someone else, the responsibility can easily be diffused to other external forces.

There are various ways to create accountability and commitment in a sales force. For example, in the weekly sales meeting, you can ask your sales person to quantify each and every prospect and opportunity in his or her sales cycle. If they are given a target of X amount, ask them to determine the number of appointments they will need to reach that goal, take it a step further by asking them to determine the amount of calls needed each day and week to make the specified number of appointments. Once they have created their own set of measurements, ask them to rate each prospect. Which ones have a greater chance of closing? Why?

Accountability and ownership is the first step in establishing legitimate return measures. With systematic assessment and ongoing evaluation, an individual can become more and more committed to reaching his or her own personal goals.

Copyright 2005 Thomas Baskind

April 7, 2004

Rapid Satellite provides the best selection of Sirius Radio satellite equipment

RapidSatellite.com was one of the first web sites I found offering satellite radio satellite equipment. They only carry Sirius satellite radio products, but they have a good selection.

Right now RapidSatellite.com is having a great special programming offer. For $129 you can get a Sirius satellite radio system for both the home and car. Pay $179 now and get a $50 rebate from Sirius Radio. I bet they won’t be continuing that offer for long as they’ll get sold out overnight! That is one heck of a deal. I was pricing XM Radio for car and home and the prices were significantly higher on other websites. But for $129 getting satellite radio for car and home? That’s what I call a no brainer. Click the link here to see for yourself. What a deal. I still can’t believe it.

Almost forgot to mention that if you pay for a year’s service of Sirius satellite radio they’ll throw in three months free. That’s not a bad deal folks.

Ok now on to review what satellite equipment RapidSatellite.com has to offer for Sirius Radio buffs.
Audiovox Sirius Satellite Radio Receiver (requires Plug-n-Play Module)
Audiovox Sirius Satellite Radio Shuttle Portable Tuner. This package includes just the Sirius tuner & remote. Requires a Home Adapter Kit and/or Vehicle Adapter Kit. $99.99

Kenwood Sirius Satellite Radio Tuner (Requires Home or Car Module)
Kenwood Sirius Satellite Radio Here2Anywhere tuner. This package includes the Sirius Tuner and Remote. Requires a Vehicle Adapter Kit and/or Home Adapter Kit. $99.99

Kenwood Sirius Satellite Radio System w/ Plug & Play Home Use Kit
Kenwood Sirius Satellite Radio Here2Anywhere tuner. This package includes the Sirius tuner, remote and home adapter kit. $149.99

Audiovox Sirius Satellite Radio System w/ Vehicle Plug & Play Kit
Audiovox Sirius Satellite Radio Shuttle Portable Tuner. This package includes the Sirius tuner, remote and Vehicle Adapter Kit. $149.99

Audiovox Sirius Satellite Radio System w/ Home Plug & Play Kit
Audiovox Sirius Satellite Radio Shuttle Portable Tuner. This package includes the Sirius tuner, remote and Home Adapter Kit. $149.99

Kenwood Sirius Satellite Radio System w/ FM Wireless Vehicle Plug & Play Kit
Kenwood Sirius Satellite Radio Here2Anywhere tuner. This package includes the Sirius tuner, remote and FM Wireless Vehicle Adapter Kit. $149.99

Audiovox Sirius Satellite Radio System w/ Both Home & Vehicle Plug & Play Kit ($129.99 after $50 Sirius Rebate)
Audiovox Sirius Satellite Radio Shuttle Portable Tuner. This package includes the Sirius tuner, remote, Home Adapter Kit and Vehicle Adapter Kit. ($50 Sirius Rebate) $179.99

Kenwood Sirius Satellite Radio System w/ Both Home & FM Wireless Vehicle Plug & Play Kits (149.99 After $50 Sirius Rebate)
Kenwood Sirius Satellite Radio Here2Anywhere tuner. This package includes the Sirius Tuner, Remote, FM Wireless Vehicle Adapter Kit & Home Adapter Kit. $199.99

As you can see I really like RapidSatellite.com for their package selections at reduced prices. They really know how to entice someone to buy!

RapidSatellite.com is a member of the Better Business Bureau Online and #1 in consumer satisfaction among cable and satellite TV suppliers as rated by J.D. Power and Associates. Basically, you can trust this company that when you order you’ll get what you ordered with no problems.

After you put the item in your shopping cart and decide to checkout you’ll need to create an account. Just the usual of name, address, username, password which speeds up the checkout process later and allows you to not type it all back in the next time you purchase from them. They cannot ship to P.O. boxes, so you’ll have to use a real address. The not shipping to P.O. Boxes is from credit card fraud. People steal credit cards and then get items shipped to P.O. Boxes. Cutting out shipping to P.O. Boxes cuts out that fraud.

After you enter your delivery address they’ll run it past the USPS to make sure there are no problems delivering your item. That’s a really nice feature that they double check your address. Shipping was only $9.99 for a receiver shipped to my zipcode in the middle of nowhere. They accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover.

Their toll free phone number that is staffed 24 hours 7 days a week is always visible at the upper left corner of every page. I don’t know about you but that inspires confidence in them for me.

About the Author

Christine Breen is the successful owner of the website 1Stop-Satellite-Radio.com which educates consumers about satellite radios.