Many people feel bewildered when it comes to the etiquette of bereavement. Death is an issue many of us would prefer to avoid, people don’t know what to say or do, they don’t do anything. But even discomfort and ignorance are not good reasons for ignoring friends or acquaintances at this difficult time.

Flowers and notes cannot be sent too soon, and commercial sympathy cards are fine if you add a personal note. If you are puzzled about what to say, look through the cards and find two with messages you like. Buy one card, and write the message from the other inside. Better yet, just look into your heart and write the words and feelings you find there.

At the funeral or memorial service, take your behavior cues from the family. Refrain from suggesting that the deceased is better off, and refrain from imposing your religious beliefs on the mourners. Remember, grieving is a process that takes time, and bereaved parents or spouses may not be able to respond to your sympathy at first.

Follow up on your card or note with a phone call, another note, or social invitation in a few weeks or months. And no matter how awkward you may feel, how distant the relative or casual friend, death should never be ignored.

Paul Palmer

If you are running your own business the way you feel will affect today’s outcome, ask yourself, "Do you feel good today?" If the answer is yes then all well and good, but if its no then you will probably struggle to achieve your objectives for the day.

In Japan they work hard at social influences on their business, not just on the task in hand. The exercise routines practised at the start of the day are a means to an end, to make their employees feel good today and every day. Try a little stretching at the start of your day and you will soon see the results.

People are affected by many things, their performance can be enhanced by feelings, emotions, pain, anxiety and stress. If you find you are feeling down the liklihood is that your results will be down. If you feel good today then you are likely to find you achieve much more, so what do you have to do to achieve top results every day.

Initially it is important to recognise how import to check if you feel good today, make a concious effort to check your mood and to understand what is influencing it. If you are running your own home based business then the results of your days endeavours will reflect the outcome, if your performance is limited then you need to deal with it at the time.

There are of course many ways to turn your feelings around to make sure you feel good today, but unfortunately we are all different so we need our own approach to performance enhancement. Personally I find music makes me feel good, but not always the same music every day, sometimes rock and other days a smooth melody. I’m glad to say it doesn’t take me long to recognise one which is not having the desired effect, but it sometimes takes a bit of flicking to find the right track.

You will of course need to find your own method to feel good today and every day throughout your life, it might be music which turns you round, exercise or social interaction. Whatever method works for you take time out to make sure you feel good and superior performance will follow you, whichever path you choose.

Paul Palmer

I feel good today do you?

Kiss and Make up?

others the message you convey is directly affected by your attitude to the circumstances you are in and the way you perceive the person you are communicating with.

I always focus on the postive aspects of the location I am in and the people I am interacting with, my positive mental attitude to others has often helped my defuse an emotive situation. If you find yourself in a position in life where you can see conflict is about to occur think about the issue in hand from both sides and put forward the positive aspects of both parties views.

Often when you display a positive mental attitude towards the way they are behaving the conflict will gradually subside as each individual starts to see the other persons point of view. There is a lot of truth in the saying try standing in the other persons shoes, it really does help to diffuse conflict.

It makes no difference where you are a positive mental attitude can and will help you get through it even in hospital. It is a well documented fact that people who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and treated as though they were about to die have deteriorated over time and died. Not just on one occassion there are many instances, sometimes when the post mortem is carried out the diagnosis was wrong, there was nothing wrong with the patient except that had a negative mental attitude and believed they would die;

I am king

Take note as this is the power of the mind, a negative attitude can and does have the opposite effect of a positive mental attitude.

Paul Palmer

Live life the way you believe it should be and it will happen just for you; if you have a positive mental attitude, anything is possible

Power of The Mind

Unfortunately the primary test utilised is the IQ test which is more a test of knowledge rather than intelligence.

Many people rely on the tests and I believe the intention of intelligence testing is to show how likely a person is to be able to succeed in either their learning ability or a particular job role. There is however an issue with most IQ tests since they test a persons knowledge often in an area which is not ubiquitously taught throughout the community.

This means that when you think of intelligence testing you must also think about the individual who is taking the test, bearing this in mind how can human resource departments have a bank of tests which they use to test potential employees when they don’t know the employee. Similarly when a teacher has a new class and uses an intelligence test to define what stream or category a pupil fits into.

IQ Testing a Science?

The resultant effect makes the usefulness of intelligence testing questionable since pupils fail to reach their full potential because they are told they are not good enough and potential employees, who don’t know about the subject matter of the test are told they are of a lower and sometimes higher intelligence than required . It is very dangerous to use this information isolation since it can result in the wrong decision being made.

Paul Palmer

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Paul Palmer

Will you be the next Swine Flu Death Statistic?

has however been expected for some time now so everyone should have been ready.

Why hasn’t action been taken to prevent swine flu deaths in the UK for example. Surely the health protection agency had a plan in place to ensure the spread of the virus would be minimised.

If there is a plan to eliminate swine flu deaths it isn’t working, we can see each day the number of people diagnosed is increasing and correspondingly more people are dying.

We can clearly see from the graph from the Health Protection agency that there has been a significant rise in the incidence of flu like illness. When I walk around listening to people coughing and spluttering it makes me wonder how many swine flu deaths we will see in my local area before this pandemic is contained.

Earlier this week a resistant strain of the virus was found in the Netherlands, this could further increase the liklihood of swine flu deaths if it means the planned treatment is ineffective in protecting public health.

The primary indicator appears to be a temperature of over 38 degrees so if you are feeling hot go and see your doctor before you are a statistic in the swine flu deaths saga. Then again the advice we, the public, are recieving is for everyone with the relevant symptoms to stay away from surgeries at the moment so maybe we should all just curl up in bed and hide until the problem goes away.

I would not advise anyone to go to the swine flu parties being held in the midlands unless you want to die from swine flu yourself.

Are you at risk, watch the BBC FAQ’s and take note of the conclusion that there will inevitably be some more swine flu deaths.

Paul Palmer

Nintendo wii fit with balance board

 You can use the wii fit when other exercise just won’t fit in to your daily regime.

I tried signing up for the gym but what do I do with the kids when I have to go, its not like there is a creche suitable for a 7 year old now is it. I decided to buy the wii fit when I couldn’t work out how I could fit any other sort of regular exercise in without having to make child care arrangements every time.

I did try the gym over the summer holidays but the trial my son had won for me was limited and I could only go because my mum was visiting for the summer. Okay it costs a bit to buy the wii fit when you could go running for free but that just isn’t the point.

My experience with the wii fit when I had already tried other options has been excellent. For example I have a running machine, an exercise cycle and weights at home, but I never use them now I have seen how good the programs are on the wii fit when I want to keep things balanced.

Initially the exercises are quite basic and straight forward but as you progress the wii fit suggests when you should be increasing what you are doing and restricts which exercises are available until your performance reaches set standards. The system itself actually measures how well you are doing and encourages you to work harder as well.

Wii fit deluxe bundle from Amazon click here

I do find using the wii fit when I’ve had a hard day is difficult to motivate myself to get moving and do it but when I do I fell much better and raring to go, happier in myself too. I recommend the wii fit when you find the gym or running boring, its more than just a fitness machine, it’s fun too.

Paul Palmer

Don’t just sit there thinking about what might have been do it today and tomorrow you will be ready for more and much happier with what you achieved yesterday.

Why do you help others? Think for a while do you have your own reason to help someone or do you just do it because you can. It can be really difficult to get truly independent help that is not going to want something back in return.

I have a full time job myself, but unfortunately recently my wife and I decided it was time for us to go our separate ways. She moved out and I needed help, independent help that would not place additional demands on me as its hard enough anyway coping with 3 sons. I joined plenty of fish a free dating site on the recommendation of a woman who was working for me and had a little fun.

It took me some time to come to terms with the change when everything was thrown up in the air again I found out I was going to be made redundant, now I really needed that independent help but how? What would be the best way to move forward and cope with the changes in our lives

It’s not easy to decide when you are in this situation, so many people want something in return. I did get some independent help from parents of my youngest son’s friends, ideas about where I could go who I could get money from and suggestions for child care assistance. These people were a god send, I didn’t know where to run and their advice helped me look into the options available. Without them I probably would be very unhappy now struggling to cope and probably in the dole queue claiming on the mortgage insurance sinking into a deep depression.

Instead with the independent help I received I am living life to the full enjoying every day for what it holds and doing a job which allows me to spend more time with my three children than ever before.

Many people out there despise change they fear it, my experience has shown me I must embrace change as you never know what is round the next corner. I hope this inspires you in some way to do the same. I’m getting twitterpated at the moment, sign up on the right you’ll find it’s an excellent way to change your life.

Please leave a comment I’d love to hear about how you too have embraced change and benefitted from it, with or without independent help.

Paul Palmer

Never procrastinate, get on and do it, “You only live twice Mr Bond”

Take a look at the glastonbury youtube video of The Verve and excellent performance, no wonder so many happy people are there.

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The glastonbury festival is always oversubscribed the tickets are sold out weeks before the date it is to be held, 28th June in 2009.

On the glastonbury youtube posts its not just the bands who are featured although they do appear to be the most popular the attendees do feature as well such as this drunk guy entertaining the crowd until he fell into the mud.

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This brings us to an important point, so many happy people enjoying the festival and posting the glastonbury youtube links and yet the conditions are diabolocal. Every year it seems the glastonbury festival of contempory performing arts entertains so many people why is it with such terrible conditions this is the case?

Tradition, camaraderie, friendship, music, or just the ambiance, whatever the reason the glastonbury youtube videos clearly show the happiness the festival brings to all who attend, long may it continue.

Now I'll leave you with a little classic glastonbury

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Paul Palmer

Anyone got a spare ticket to the glastonbury festival? No, shame guess I'll have to go to my glastonbury youtube selection again

The east vs west coast comparison should be quite easy when compared with the same activities carried out in the states. However the people in the USA tend to be more vocal on thier achievements. In the UK if you are interested in the differences you need to go and look for yourself.

When I compare the east vs west coast I think of the north east and north west rather than the full coastline. Partially because I grew up in the North East myself and enjoyed visting the north west on a regular basis for annual holidays.

The comparison of east vs west coast  is not as interesting to me unless you include some of the features further inland as well. For example in the west you have the Lake district, a fantastic area to visit and even live. This is of course resrticted by your work, if you don’t need to be close to a specific work location its good but the transport system limits accessibility.

In the east you have the Yorkshire Wolds, pleasant to walk through but nowhere near as intesting as the Lake District, not to me anyway.

The differences east vs west coast in my opinion are influenced not only by the coastline and differences in the seas that border them but also the prevailing weather. This is distinction is maintained by the pennines which separate the east and west of the country.

Primarily the rain falls in the west to a much greater extent than in the east. This means that the rainfall on the east vs west coasts is much higher in the west. This additional precipitation results in more erosion and intersting features on the west side of the the pennines. This is I believe why the Lake District is much more dramatic in appearance than the smooth undulating hills of the Yorkshire Wolds.

Paul Palmer

I enjoy visiting both the east and west coast but if I have to compare the east vs west coast to choose one or the other I find it difficult. Both east and west have their own special points which make me happy when I visit.

I’d love to hear other peoples perspective so please leave a comment so I can learn more about your thoughts on the east vs west coast of England