Students Of Success

Now is the time for renewal which means clearing away the clutter. Take a look around. Where did all of this stuff come from? It’s time to clear the clutter from your mental and physical world and have the freedom to turn your someday into now.

What is clutter anyway?

Clutter is stuff in your home or life which no longer brings you joy or practical benefit.

Clutter is whatever requires more of your time and attention than it is worth.

Clutter is that which you don’t need or use or want.

Clutter is anything you keep out of a sense of obligation rather than because you love it.

Clutter is anything you own that does not enhance your life on a regular basis.

Clutter is unfinished business.

Clutter is stuck energy that has physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual results.

What feelings do these ideas of clutter bring up in you? Does your home/office environment bring you feelings of peace and calm or are there areas that feel chaotic?
What causes clutter to appear? All of a sudden there it is. So much to do. So much stuff to look through. How do I wade through all this and get back on track toward what I really want?
One word describes how the clutter was created in your life and that word is “indecision.”

Mark, a coaching client of ours, was feeling overwhelmed. He had wonderful goals that he had committed to in January but he was confronted with so much clutter that he was unable to keep on track. He simply had too many things to think about. Should he
invest in a new home? Should he join a health club in order to lose those 10 pounds? Should he keep the new TV that was really too expensive or should he return it? Papers began to pile up on his desk. What to do? Mark became immobilized, unable to make a decision.

We suggested to Mark that he stop all activity and reconnect with his goals. We asked him to begin eliminating everything that did not move him closer to his goals, one item at a time. He discarded hundreds of papers and old files. He returned the expensive TV. He joined the health club. He began to relax with new enthusiasm. He was back on track.

Clearing clutter can transform your life by releasing negative emotions and generating energy. This will allow you to create space in your life for the things you really want to achieve.

In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do. The worst thing you can do is nothing.—Theodore Roosevelt

Allan and Barbara Kenyon are Personal and Business Coaches who help their clients live their dream life. Allan was a certified instructor for eighteen years with the Carnegie organization and he received coach training with Coach Training Institute. Barbara holds a Masters Degree in Counseling and is a Graduate of Coach U. The Kenyons work with success-minded men and women who want to achieve their personal or professional goals faster than if they were to go it alone. Their clientele include professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, business owners, sales people, and people in transition. Their coaching focuses on goals in the areas of career, money, retirement, health, relationships, getting organized, and life balance.

The Kenyons offer a 30 minute complimentary telephone coaching session so potential clients can decide if their coaching is for them. They can be reached at 402-423-6777 or by E-mail at KenyonCoaching@aol.com. Their website is http://www.kenyoncoaching.com.

I like Oprah with the best of them but I’m sorely disappointed in her interpretation of Zora Neale Hurston’s classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. I’m not sure if it was in interest of time, universal appeal or just a desire to focus on the love story of Tea Cake and Janie, but taking all of the racial elements out of the movie destroyed what is a beautiful love story and also made the movie’s narrative disjointed and rushed.

Hurston’s story, outside of being a coming of age story about a young black woman in the deep-south, is very much a story about the intra-racial issues that plague the black community at that time and while it is a shame to say, today. Many of the characters in the novel are only a generation or two removed from slavery and with that the color hierarchy that was created doing slave times was very much still in play for Janie and the other characters in the novel.

In the novel Tea Cake is a dark skinned man, something you wouldn’t know by choosing the very fair, blue eyed Michael Ealy to play this character. It is important that Tea Cake is dark because that was as much of a scandal for her community as was Tea Cake’s age. Tea Cake was the wrong kind of Negro for many reasons: he was poor, he was young and he was dark. The fair skinned, rich Ms. Janie shouldn’t be seen with such a man. Also his skin color comes into play when they make their way to the Everglades and Janie befriends a woman who has a deep hatred for dark skinned Negroes and goes out of her way to set Janie up with her fair skinned, more socially acceptable brother.

Some of the best moments in the book stem from the tension between the different hues of black people and when you take that out you’re left with a sweet but unoriginal love story, something Hurston’s groundbreaking work is not.

I must say that I expect more from Ms. Winfrey. This is the same woman who bought us Beloved, a very had tale about the horrors of slavery and how it affects the psyche of those who were enslaved. Instead of bringing to screen the richness and diverseness of Their Eyes Were Watching God, we get a watered down, socially acceptable version. I wanted more and I expected more and I’m very disappointed that I didn’t get it.

© 2005 Tamika Johnson

About the Author

Tamika Johnson

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When promoting any affiliate program one thing that you, as an affiliate, has to watch out for is what is called traffic leaks. What is a traffic leak? A traffic leak is something on the merchants site that will cause the visitor, that you referred to their site, to get distracted and leave the merchant site, leaving you with no possibility of receiving any kind of commission.

Having traffic leaks does not mean the affiliate program is a scam or trying to cheat you. It is most likely that the merchant just doesn’t realize what they are doing. If you are promoting an affiliate program that is not getting any sales for you, you may want to check for traffic leaks. If you find some then contact the merchant (in a professional manner) and ask if they would consider removing the traffic leaks from their site to increase conversion.

Here are a few examples of a traffic leak:

Advertisement Banners & Links
This is usually the most common traffic link. The merchant will put up a banner ad or two and some text links to “offset” their expenses. You do not want to promote an affiliate program that has this on their site. When you send a visitor to the site and they click the banner or text ad and go to the other site the merchant gets paid while you get zippo. Not to fair is it?

Order Phone Number

Another traffic leak is the toll free (or regular) phone number they put on their site to let customers call in their orders. But when customers do call in their orders you get stiffed on the commission. It is very easy to set up phone commission tracking. You should ask the merchant if they have any plans on setting up phone sale tracking. If they don’t know how you can send them to me to show them how to do it.

Basically, you do not want anything on the merchants site that will drive your referred customer away to another site that you will not get a commission from.

Chet Brzezinski has been in the affiliate marketing and affiliate management industry since 1997. He owns two affiliate marketing related sites. One that offers affiliate program management & consulting services and the other affiliate program reviews, tips and resources.