A POSSIBLE CHANGE HAS COME

Days of glory witnessed by all Nigerians when we best needed it. All join hands in praying for the leaders of our great country (Gen. Buhari and others)

Learning The Art Of Persuasion

 

 

 

Even if your job is not to sell, there will come a time when you will have to persuade someone. Persuasion happens not only between salespeople and their potential customers. As a manager, for instance, you may need to persuade your subordinates to perform at a higher level. And if you think you have a brilliant project in mind, you should learn how to persuade your boss to take on it. Needless to say, the ability to persuade somebody is a desirable one, and something that you can actually learn and develop. What you will learn in this article are the things you should do to become persuasive.

1. Have a purpose

Persuasive people are aware of the power they have, and they use it wisely and sparingly. One thing you have to understand is that many of the conversations you are going to make will not require that you try to convince someone to accept something or do something. Remember also that aggressively pushing people into something will draw them away from you instead. A person who seldom argues and asks is actually more likely to get consideration when he advocates some ideas. In short, if you want to be persuasive, you should know when to and when not to ask and argue.

2. Be a great listener

Always pushing your argument without listening to what others have to say will definitely get you nowhere. Your ability to express your purpose in an articulate and convincing manner is just half of what it takes to be persuasive. More importantly, you need to be an active listener. You have to listen to get a better idea of what your approach should be to convince them. Secondly, listening intently will make you realize which parts of their argument you can attack to be really convincing. It is also through listening that you can see where you both agree so you may capitalize on such points. If you already know what you should say, you will naturally focus more on trying to know what others are saying. There is no point in persuading if you don’t have any idea what argument others are trying to make.

3. Make a connection

Unless you could establish an emotional connection with the person you are trying to persuade, you and your arguments will be easily dismissed. Outstanding salesmen know this, and so they make sure that they are always like able and see to it that they connect emotionally with their potential customers. You can do this by showing empathy for another person’s position and make them feel you are on their side. You must also be patient enough to know when you should advocate your point. It will be much easier to persuade people if you could get them aligned with your objectives.

4. Acknowledge credibility

In order to make other people accept your opinions, it is important that you earn their respect. So how are you going to do this? Well, you can do this by showing them equal respect and acknowledging the credibility of the facts they are raising. This way, they will be more open to your arguments and the merits of your opinion.

5. Know when you should stop talking

Giving people an endless verbal barrage will certainly not help you persuade your listeners. Remember that it is never a good strategy to annoy and wear people down. If you think you have said enough and you have made your point, then it’s time to shut up and step back. It is essential that you give your listeners time to absorb everything you have said and weigh the pros and cons of your argument. By letting them think on their own, you are giving them the chance to see how beneficial your points are.

Having the ability to persuade can be very helpful to you in so many ways. In fact, you may even use this skill of yours as you go on a job-search. You may not have the qualities of an excellent salesperson, but you can definitely learn how to be credible and persuasive enough to your listener or audience

Local organic vegetables

You’ve come to love Saturdays even more! You get up early and dash directly to the farmer’s market for fresh veggies and fragrant bundles of salads. You then happily spend the afternoon chopping and packing them into Tupperware to make the taste last longer.
You always shop seasonal and inspect each item with notorious meticulousness before stacking it into the basket. Some vendors already know you by name and even make small discounts, and there’s a list on your fridge with  all organic shops around your area with notes where you should buy what.

8 Things No One Should Overlook When Becoming Successful

1. Your Health

This cannot be overstated enough. A famous saying goes, “we spend the first half of our lives using our health to acquire wealth and last half using our wealth to maintain health.”
Whether you want to be on the cover of Times magazine or run your own successful business you need to be able to do so. Neglecting your health while in the pursuit of success or the next promotion at work is only detrimental to your own life. Adopting a lifestyle where you work on 2-3 hours of sleep, eat take-away and drink energy drinks is a medium paced path to stroke, heart attacks and future health problems.

Organizing our lives and trying to find better ways to treat our bodies should be a priority for all.

2. Your Origins

Too often people tend to forget where they came from in search of where they are going. No matter how badly you want to forget your childhood or past experiences/failures and mistakes, understanding where you have come from and how that has contributed directly or indirectly to the person that you have become today is crucial.
Past failures, mistakes and bad judgement are not things to be ashamed of nor overly regretted. If you can take the time and understand the lessons that life is teaching you, perception changes and it brings light to events that occur. Not all perceived bad things are actually bad; they may take us out of our comfort zone but they are also a blessing in disguise. Think of where you are today and try to imagine where you’d be if not for the struggles that made you stronger.

3. Your self- worth

They say there has never been a generation more self-absorbed and vain as Gen-Y and words like selfie have become one of the most used in the English language. Maybe we are more self-serving than the people before us, but do we really value who we are?

It’s very common to idolize someone successful and aspire to be like them. The media makes a point to remind us daily who we should aspire to be more like, but the problem with putting someone on a pedestal is that we automatically compromise ourselves. We belittle our abilities and wonder if we can ever be as good as the next person. Maybe it’s the top salesman in your office or Oprah Winfrey, but too often in the midst of the greats we tend to hold back for fear of being laughed at, public failure or due to a lack of trust in our capacity to perform certain tasks.
It’s common to feel inferior among people more qualified, smarter or even better looking. But life requires one thing from you: to always strive for the best with whatever cards you have been dealt. You were not called here on earth to put people on pedestals, any more than you were called to belittle others. Remember what makes you who you are.

4. Your appearance

This is not just physical appearance (but that helps too). It’s more about the type of person you portray yourself to be. What perception do people have of you? I never preach being a people pleaser because we all know you can’t please all of the people all of the time. Now naturally some people will simply just hate. That’s their personal life mission and it’s who they are. The chances of being struck by lighting twice are higher than the chances of them changing, and that’s okay.
We’ve all got jobs to do. The moral isn’t to be liked but to be pleasant. Sometimes, overachievers and intelligent people tend to have the least bit of patience when it comes to other people because they perceive them as slow and lazy.
You may fall into one of two categories. Are you the person no one comes to for help because they’re scared that you will point them as idiots, or are you the type of person no one trusts with tasks because you always under deliver and produce mediocre work?
Sometimes, the perception people have of you is wrong, but where there is smoke there is possibly fire. Try not to be a person of drama and scandals. Be pleasant to people, even those who you do not always agree with. That’s what true class acts are made of. The more pleasant you are, the more pleasant people and situations become.

5. Your self-assurance

Self- assurance, as defined by Merriam Webster: great faith in oneself or one’s abilities. Often confused with this word.

There is this misconception that confident people are people who are miracle workers and possess innate abilities beyond human comprehension. In reality, confidence comes from trust in your abilities no matter who in the room is more qualified. Some of the world’s most memorable leaders were in no way exceptional. They just managed to keep a sense of equanimity in the midst of crisis and bring the people to the promise land, leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, Nehemiah, Joshua and Martin Luther King to name a few.

6. Your values

These are the things you believe in and they have made you who you are. Have you ever wondered about the fact that one man will steal because he lacks and that another will pursue an honest living despite being under similar circumstances? It’s our core values that shape us. Do you think someone who stays up all night for work is being committed or could they use better time management?
Opinions we form of others and decisions we make are due to our values. Don’t compromise yourself or betray your beliefs in order to get ahead. Success isn’t so much about how much wealth you can accumulate, but more to do with becoming a person of character in spite of your achievements and material wealth. Growth and development are an essential part of life, but that process is only as meaningful as the foundations they are built on.

7. Your family

Family is so important. It cannot be overstated. As cliché and overrated as it may sound, they are important.

Think of all the choices you have in life, where to live, where to work, where to study, what food to eat, who to marry, to have kids or not, to apply for that promotion or not, what insurance company to go with. But you did not choose your family. Now you’re stuck with that annoying sibling who grates your cheese every chance they get or maybe your best friend is your brother/sister. Either way, if ever someone tells you they do not believe in fate, tell them family is fate. So do not neglect them in the pursuit of accumulating worldly wealth and status.

8. Don’t be too hard on yourself

Maybe you are not where you planned on being at 25 or 30 or 40 or even 50. So what if you didn’t do everything on your bucket list? There is this amazing God-given gift called life, and it goes on and on; so until you drop dead, you are not finished.
When you embark on a journey to be successful and achieve your wildest dreams, it can be the scariest and sometimes loneliest journey. Learn to drown out all the noise and focus on why you are doing what you are doing. Remember to never doubt yourself and have the utmost faith that Heaven is on your side.

No Time For The Gym? Do These Effective Desk Stretches Instead

Indian Man Claims He’s 179 Years Old

According to indian officials, the man was born at home in the city of Bangalore on January 6th 1835, and is recorded to have lived in Vârânasî since 1903. He worked as a cobbler in the city until 1957, when he retired at the already venerable age of 122.
“I have been alive so long, that my great grand-children have been dead for years” explains Mr Mûrasi. “Somehow death forgot about me… And now there’s hardly any hope left. Look at the statistics, nobody dies past 150, even less at 170. At that point, I guess I’m immortal or something. I might as well enjoy it!”
The man’s birth certificate and identity cards all seem to confirm his version, but unfortunately no medical examination can confirm his saying for now.  The last doctor Mister Mûrasi visited died in 1971, so there is little information available about his previous medical files.
- See more at: http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/indian-man-claims-hes-179-years-old/#sthash.nDJlwoW7.dpuf

A retired cobbler from northern India, Mahashta Mûrasi, claims he was born in January 1835, making him not only the oldest man on earth, but the oldest to have ever lived, according to the Guiness World Records.
According to indian officials, the man was born at home in the city of Bangalore on January 6th 1835, and is recorded to have lived in Vârânasî since 1903. He worked as a cobbler in the city until 1957, when he retired at the already venerable age of 122.

“I have been alive so long, that my great grand-children have been dead for years” explains Mr Mûrasi. “Somehow death forgot about me… And now there’s hardly any hope left. Look at the statistics, nobody dies past 150, even less at 170. At that point, I guess I’m immortal or something. I might as well enjoy it!”

The man’s birth certificate and identity cards all seem to confirm his version, but unfortunately no medical examination can confirm his saying for now. The last doctor Mister Mûrasi visited died in 1971, so there is little information available about his previous medical files.

Vârânasî| A retired cobbler from northern India, Mahashta Mûrasi, claims he was born in January 1835, making him not only the oldest man on earth, but the oldest to have ever lived, according to the Guiness World Records.
According to indian officials, the man was born at home in the city of Bangalore on January 6th 1835, and is recorded to have lived in Vârânasî since 1903. He worked as a cobbler in the city until 1957, when he retired at the already venerable age of 122.
“I have been alive so long, that my great grand-children have been dead for years” explains Mr Mûrasi. “Somehow death forgot about me… And now there’s hardly any hope left. Look at the statistics, nobody dies past 150, even less at 170. At that point, I guess I’m immortal or something. I might as well enjoy it!”
The man’s birth certificate and identity cards all seem to confirm his version, but unfortunately no medical examination can confirm his saying for now.  The last doctor Mister Mûrasi visited died in 1971, so there is little information available about his previous medical files.
- See more at: http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/indian-man-claims-hes-179-years-old/#sthash.nDJlwoW7.dpuf

According to indian officials, the man was born at home in the city of Bangalore on January 6th 1835, and is recorded to have lived in Vârânasî since 1903. He worked as a cobbler in the city until 1957, when he retired at the already venerable age of 122.
“I have been alive so long, that my great grand-children have been dead for years” explains Mr Mûrasi. “Somehow death forgot about me… And now there’s hardly any hope left. Look at the statistics, nobody dies past 150, even less at 170. At that point, I guess I’m immortal or something. I might as well enjoy it!”
The man’s birth certificate and identity cards all seem to confirm his version, but unfortunately no medical examination can confirm his saying for now.  The last doctor Mister Mûrasi visited died in 1971, so there is little information available about his previous medical files.
- See more at: http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/indian-man-claims-hes-179-years-old/#sthash.nDJlwoW7.dpuf

Vârânasî| A retired cobbler from northern India, Mahashta Mûrasi, claims he was born in January 1835, making him not only the oldest man on earth, but the oldest to have ever lived, according to the Guiness World Records.
According to indian officials, the man was born at home in the city of Bangalore on January 6th 1835, and is recorded to have lived in Vârânasî since 1903. He worked as a cobbler in the city until 1957, when he retired at the already venerable age of 122.
“I have been alive so long, that my great grand-children have been dead for years” explains Mr Mûrasi. “Somehow death forgot about me… And now there’s hardly any hope left. Look at the statistics, nobody dies past 150, even less at 170. At that point, I guess I’m immortal or something. I might as well enjoy it!”
The man’s birth certificate and identity cards all seem to confirm his version, but unfortunately no medical examination can confirm his saying for now.  The last doctor Mister Mûrasi visited died in 1971, so there is little information available about his previous medical files.
- See more at: http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/indian-man-claims-hes-179-years-old/#sthash.nDJlwoW7.dpuf

Vârânasî| A retired cobbler from northern India, Mahashta Mûrasi, claims he was born in January 1835, making him not only the oldest man on earth, but the oldest to have ever lived, according to the Guiness World Records.
According to indian officials, the man was born at home in the city of Bangalore on January 6th 1835, and is recorded to have lived in Vârânasî since 1903. He worked as a cobbler in the city until 1957, when he retired at the already venerable age of 122.
“I have been alive so long, that my great grand-children have been dead for years” explains Mr Mûrasi. “Somehow death forgot about me… And now there’s hardly any hope left. Look at the statistics, nobody dies past 150, even less at 170. At that point, I guess I’m immortal or something. I might as well enjoy it!”
The man’s birth certificate and identity cards all seem to confirm his version, but unfortunately no medical examination can confirm his saying for now.  The last doctor Mister Mûrasi visited died in 1971, so there is little information available about his previous medical files.
- See more at: http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/indian-man-claims-hes-179-years-old/#sthash.nDJlwoW7.dpuf

Vârânasî| A retired cobbler from northern India, Mahashta Mûrasi, claims he was born in January 1835, making him not only the oldest man on earth, but the oldest to have ever lived, according to the Guiness World Records.
According to indian officials, the man was born at home in the city of Bangalore on January 6th 1835, and is recorded to have lived in Vârânasî since 1903. He worked as a cobbler in the city until 1957, when he retired at the already venerable age of 122.
“I have been alive so long, that my great grand-children have been dead for years” explains Mr Mûrasi. “Somehow death forgot about me… And now there’s hardly any hope left. Look at the statistics, nobody dies past 150, even less at 170. At that point, I guess I’m immortal or something. I might as well enjoy it!”
The man’s birth certificate and identity cards all seem to confirm his version, but unfortunately no medical examination can confirm his saying for now.  The last doctor Mister Mûrasi visited died in 1971, so there is little information available about his previous medical files.
- See more at: http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/indian-man-claims-hes-179-years-old/#sthash.nDJlwoW7.dpuf

Protect Your Body's Engine - The Heart

"Good" Cholesterol (HDL)
HDL cholesterol is the good cholesterol. It carries away cholesterol from the arteries back to the liver where it is prepared for elimination from the body. The higher your HDL cholesterol level scale, the more cholesterol can be eliminated from your body and the lower your risk of heart attack. While 50 MG/DL is a desirable level, aim for 60, since it will clean more of your bad cholesterol from the arterial walls.

Triglycerides
Triglycerides are, for simplification, what we call "fat". When you grab a handful of tummy, love handles or some other fat storage, you are grabbing triglycerides. However, unlike cholesterol, they are burned for energy or else stored in the body's fat stores to be used later. It is best to have triglycerides levels below 150. That means less fat.

High blood glucose, in someone who has fasted for 12 hours, suggests diabetes. A fasting blood glucose level of 110+ may indicate a glucose tolerance problem increasing your risks for diabetes. A fasting glucose level of 126+ indicates high risk. Your glucose level is

Blood Pressure

High blood pressure directly increases the risk of coronary heart disease (which leads to heart attack) and stroke, especially when it's present with other risk factors. High blood pressure can occur in children or adults, but it's more common among people over age 35. Blood pressure of 140/90 or higher is considered high risk.

Percent Body Fat (%)

Fat Body weight can be considered as two components, lean (muscle, bone, organs) and fat. The proportion of your weight from fat is termed ‘percent body fat.’ For your age and gender, a percent body fat of 9-17% is recommended, less than 5% is considered very lean, and more than 17% is a definite health risk.

Smoking

It's a fact that smoking damages the heart. Smoking decreases HDL levels, increases the likelihood of a blood clot, and damages the artery walls, causing cholesterol to be deposited, clogging the arteries. By not smoking you are practicing preventive medicine. Also try to avoid smoky environments. If you smoke, you should quit smoking immediately!       

Reducing Your Heart Risks              

To lower total or LDL "bad" cholesterol:

1. Limit fat intake, especially animal or saturated fat.
2. Avoid high cholesterol foods, such as eggs or meat.
3. Eat high fiber foods, such as oatmeal, brown rice, fruits, vegetables, and legumes (peas, beans, lentils).
4. Achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

To increase total or HDL "good" cholesterol:

1. Achieve and maintain a healthy weight.
2. Get regular, aerobic exercise (walk, cycle, hike, swim, aerobics, active sports, jog) 10-15+ aerobic miles per week.
3. DO NOT SMOKE

Note: Women usually have higher HDL levels than men. Estrogen replacement therapy raises HDL levels in post-menopausal women.

To lower Triglyceride levels:

1. Achieve and maintain a healthy weight.
2. Get regular, aerobic exercise (walk, cycle, hike, swim, aerobics, active sports, job) 30 min. or more (preferably) daily. Be sure to get your doctor's guidance before starting any exercise program if you have any health problems.
3. Limit intake of sugar and deserts.
4. Avoid or limit alcohol intake.

To lower Glucose levels:

1. Achieve and maintain a healthy weight.
2. Get regular, aerobic exercise (walk, cycle, hike, swim, aerobics, active sports, job) 30 min. or more (preferably) daily. Be sure to get your doctor's guidance before starting any exercise program if you have any health problems.
3. Limit intake of sugar and deserts.
4. Avoid or limit alcohol intake.

How to lower your blood pressure:

1. Achieve / maintain a healthy weight. Even a weight loss of 10 lbs. can do wonders.
2. Get regular, moderate, physical activity such as walking.
3. Eat foods low in fat, high in fiber, and adequate in calcium and potassium.
4. Avoid or limit alcohol intake. Alcohol can increase blood pressure.
5. Limit intake of salt and salty foods.
6. Keep stress moderate, get adequate sleep (7 to 8 hours daily) and take relaxation breaks.

How to exercise for the heart:

1. Exercise 3 to 4 times / week minimum, daily if possible.
2. During your exercise it is recommended that your heart rate reach 94 to 112 beats / minute.
3. Exercise for a minimum of 20 to 30 minutes, 30 to 60 is optimum.
4. Start at an easy level and progress gradually. Remember to get your doctor's guidance before starting any exercise program if you have any health problems or you are over age 40 and not use to vigorous activity.
5. Examples of exercise include (but not limited to) walking, hiking, climbing hills, low impact aerobics, bicycle riding (including stationary), active gardening (mowing, digging, raking leaves,) and active sports.

How to maintain a healthy weight:

1. Dieting doesn't work. Learn to eat healthy low fat meals and avoid late snacks.
2. Be active and try to get 30+ minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity daily.
3. Avoid excessive stress, get adequate rest, and take time for yourself.

How to stop smoking:

1. Forty five (45) million people have stopped smoking, most of them on their own. You can too!
2. For best results, follow a self-help guide to quit or join a support group.
3. Ask your doctor for help and guidance or contact the local lung or heart association