Category: Free Articles

Word Count:
608

Summary:
Recent headline: “Road Rage may be due to medical condition called Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED)”

WHAT IS THE SCIENCE BEHIND THIS?
The study, reported in the June (2006) issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry was based on a national face-to-face survey of 9,282 U.S. adults who answered diagnostic questionnaires in 2001-03. It was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Results? About 5 percent to 7 percent of the nationally representative sample…

Keywords:
anger,anger management,road rage,aggressive driving

Article Body:
Recent headline: “Road Rage may be due to medical condition called Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED)”

WHAT IS THE SCIENCE BEHIND THIS?
The study, reported in the June (2006) issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry was based on a national face-to-face survey of 9,282 U.S. adults who answered diagnostic questionnaires in 2001-03. It was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Results? About 5 percent to 7 percent of the nationally representative sample had had the disorder, which would equal up to 16 million Americans. That is higher than better-known mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

The average number of lifetime attacks per person was 43, resulting in $1,359 in property damage per person. About 4 percent had suffered recent attacks.

IS IT REAL?
This study has created much controversy regarding exactly what is “medical” about road rage and how it differs from plain bad, inconsiderate behavior.

Take the two following headline which were published recently:
News Item #1: “Police search for shooter following road rage incident”

Date: June 10, 2006. City: Indianapolis, Indiana.
The event: At an intersection, two drivers were involved in a confrontation when one of them opened fire on the other at a stoplight.

News Item #2: “Man, 21, charged in road rage shooting.”
Date: May 21, 2006. City: San Antonio, Texas.
The event (according to news reports): “Around 3AM Samuel Hitchcock, 21, Daniel Pena, 17, and another man were driving when a pickup passed them on an inside lane, striking Hitchcock’s side mirror. Hitchcock followed the truck into a residential area to gather information and the truck made a sudden turn, stopping. Hitchcock pulled up next to the truck. Pena, who was in the front passenger seat told police the truck’s driver pulled a gun and started shooting at them, striking him and killing Hitchcock.

Are all cases like this due to Intermittent Explosive Disorder? Very Unlikely! Some are and some are not. This is why it is important to have a professional assessment of each case of “road rage” to determine the underlying cause, such as IED — or some other problem.

Other causes that could come into play would include: alcohol or drug intoxication, stress, depression or bipolar disorder and, of course, bad, selfish or inconsiderate behavior.

ROAD RAGE VS AGGRESSIVE DRIVING
The person who weaves in and out of traffic, tail gates, or cuts in front of you may not be showing “road rage” per se, but inconsiderate aggressive driving. He is not angry at you; he probably doesn’t even know you exist, being preoccupied with his own selfish needs.

IED SEEN IN OTHER LIFE AREAS
It is also important to remember that persons who do indeed suffer from Intermittent Explosive Disorder may explode in many other situations besides road rage. Often they “blow up” at spouses, children, co-workers, or customer service employees.

REMEDIES FOR ROAD RAGE
If road rage is indeed due to IED, there are two treatments that can help both adolescents and adults: (1)medications , and (2) cognitive training

The medications usually involve SSRIs (a type of anti-depressant). In my opinion, most people who show rage on the road do not need medication, but some do and will benefit greatly from them.

Cognitive Training means learning to think differently about driving, aggression on the road, and other drivers. Cognitive training is an important element in many anger management programs, which a few states now require for “road rage” behavior and/or aggressive driving.

In our anger management classes and programs, we teach specific cognitive and behavior skills to control aggressive, inconsiderate, and dangerous driving behaviors. These skill include:
*managing life stress better, including time-management skills
*developing empathy for other drivers
*learning healthy “self-talk” phrases
*adjusting expectations of others on the road.

If you have investment property for sale and are having trouble finding the right investor to sell to, do you know how to fix it? Curb appeal is a big consideration. So, if the landscaping is over grown and unsightly either hire someone to trim it up and make it look nice or do it yourself. Do not go so far as to pull it all out and start over, that will cost way too much money. Keep it simple and just tidy it up.

You need to make your investment property as appealing as it can be so potential investors feel like you are making an offer they can’t refuse. With the hit that the real estate market has taken in recent years, property values have plummeted and will be slow to recover. There is no telling how long it will take because the current market is still very volatile and unless the deal you are offering is top notch, you can probably expect to sit on your investment property for a while.

Just as prospective investors need to make sure they get a good deal, so do prospective sellers. Leaving yourself open to unnecessary risk will leave you stuck with the property and on the hook for the mortgage. Check out any potential investors to make sure they are on the up and up. No sense doing business with shady characters.

Use the market indicators available to you to make your property more appealing to potential investors. Maybe take a little off the purchase price to entice the potential investor to come forward and take a closer look at your investment property for sale. The most appealing property will surely get the first and longest look. The longer they look the more likely they are to buy.

Real estate is the best type of investing opportunity because there is a tangible aspect to it. Tangible is good because something you can feel and see is better than something you can’t see or feel, like the stock market, talk about volatile, holy cow! If money gets tight you can sell off some of the properties that you own and become liquid again in no time.

So, how do you sell your property? Where do you advertise? The obvious answer to that question is, advertise in the paper if you have property to sell. This is a good way to get your property out there and may bring some people around to look at it, but you need someone to buy your property not just look at it.

Online auction is a good way to sell your property rather quickly. There will probably be a payment to make to the auction house that conducts the auction but anything like that is better than having to be responsible for making the mortgage payment one more month.

Having investment property for sale can be a very profitable venture if you know how to make that property the best it can be so it goes to the highest bidder.

Your body is always home to Candida albicans. This bacteria doesn’t cause any problems as long as your body stays in ‘balance’ so that the candida can’t become overgrown. On occasion something happens that throws off your body’s balance which allows the candida to become over grown and that can lead to an infection. An intestinal yeast infection is one type of infection that can be caused by this overgrowth.

There are a few scenarios that will explain how your candida levels will grow unchecked:

1. The beneficial bacteria in your intestinal tract, probiotics, fall below a certain level which allows the growth of the candida. This can be caused by many factors, one of the most common is when your doctor prescribes and antibiotic for another condition. Sometimes the antibiotic will kill off the things that you actually don’t want to kill off. When that happens there is nothing left to hold the Candida growth in check so it grows to the point of causing an infection.

If you are prone to yeast infections make sure you talk to your doctor about it before he prescribes and anti biotic. Ask if there is another option. If not, you might just be stuck with a yeast infection to deal with on top of whatever other condition you are being treated for.

2. A weakened immune system can make you susceptible to many types of illnesses and an intestinal yeast infection is one of them. People who have HIV or who are undergoing chemotherapy are at particular risk of getting an infection since both of these conditions will weaken the immune system dramatically.

Stress and anxiety are also common causes of a weakened immune system. If possible try to stay relaxed and stress free. I know that that can be hard to do, but if you can learn to relax you may be able to lessen the number of infections you get.

3. Another potential cause of a yeast infection are high blood sugar levels. High blood sugar increases the ability of the candida to grow and thrive and often leads to an infection. If you are prone to a lot of outbreaks, you may want to try and cut your sugar intake. Doing so will likely also help out in other ways, such as an unexpected weight loss which will only help keep your whole body healthier.

4. Some birth control pills can increase your risk of an infection. Also, spermicide creams can alter the balance of vaginal fluids which can increase the risk of an infection. When you take birth control pills you have more estrogen and progesterone which can encourage the candida to grow.

There are some things you can do to minimize your risk of getting an intestinal yeast infection. Cut back on sugar intake, try to avoid taking antibiotics and try to remain as stress free as possible. There are also some factors you simply can’t control such as a weakened immune system due to disease. All you can do is to take as many risk factors for an infection away and hope for the best.

International link building differs a great deal from link building in just one region. Some of the obstacles include different languages, cultures, and the difference in search engines around the globe. It’s also important to keep in mind that, while you consider your link building to be international, the market that you are targeting will not see it that way. In their eyes, the links are local. Here are some rudimentary steps to international link building.

First, you need to have a clear strategy for targeting your market. This includes deciding not only which markets you want to reach and which search engine radio selector buttons you wish to come up in. So, for example, if you have an Italian-written website and want to target the Italians in Italy, as well as those who speak Italian in Austria, Switzerland, and France, you can choose to sacrifice showing up in the results from the pages located on servers in Italy, and instead to focusing on showing up in the results of any Italian language pages. In this way, you could concentrate on promoting through the language, rather than through the countries themselves, although this might also not be what gets you the best results.

What you would probably still want to do is target Italy as your country, because you’ll have more potential traffic and you’ll still get visitors from those who speak Italian, and do not live in Italy, but use Google.it anyway to look up information.

You’ll also want to take into consideration your website’s design and structure. There is some controversy about whether local domains or dot coms are better for international web sites, but either one will do well if done correctly. It’s also a good idea to understand your international reputation. If you aren’t known outside of your current geographical web presence, then link building will require more time and effort. It your brand is unrecognized elsewhere, start out with combining directory submissions and online public relations before you move on. And, of course, check out the laws in the region that you plan to market in, as they may, and probably will, differ from what you are used to.

Research
As with local markets, you will need to do sufficient research. It’s important to get a grasp on how competitive the search market is in the area that you are targeting. Do a search of your top keywords within the search engines relative to the particular country, and analyze the websites that come up in those markets. Check out how many links they have, the quality of the links, and where they come from. There are many tools that can help you analyze this information, some of the most popular being those of Yahoo. This analysis will get you as many link prospects as you need to start out. And then you can go from there in your international link building.

Word Count:
649

Summary:
This is a story submitted by Mary Jane Medlock, a gal who went from 11 to 7,029 regular customers in the last 36 months. Of those, she personally sponsored 2,362 as of today, 7.26.06. She’s just now starting recruiting.

You can listen to her (Episodes 1,2 and 18-19) tell how she got her first customers, and how she keeps them all together now that they’ve grown to over 6,000. It’s an aww shucks, story for me…

“In July of 2003, an crossline friend of mine saw that I wa…

Keywords:
Kim Klaver, Klaver, MLM, Marketing

Article Body:
This is a story submitted by Mary Jane Medlock, a gal who went from 11 to 7,029 regular customers in the last 36 months. Of those, she personally sponsored 2,362 as of today, 7.26.06. She’s just now starting recruiting.

You can listen to her (Episodes 1,2 and 18-19) tell how she got her first customers, and how she keeps them all together now that they’ve grown to over 6,000. It’s an aww shucks, story for me…

“In July of 2003, an crossline friend of mine saw that I was struggling to sell a product that I loved and had much success with. She suggested that I take this telephonic course to learn how to use a script… I really didn’t even want to go…I thought, “How can a total stranger help me sell MY OWN products”? I went to this class, but not without huffing, puffing, kicking and screaming!!

As the day was approaching, I continued to think to myself… “I must be crazy to waste my time and energy on this course.” I just didn’t want to go, and to be quite honest, I didn’t know much about this business either… as a matter of fact I didn’t even know what MLM stood for or even what a script was at that time.… this was totally out of my element… I was totally against it… I mean, why would I want to pay money to take a course to sell a product that I love?

I didn’t think that I needed any counseling or coaching or any classes to sell a product.. I thought you either sell it or you don’t. Why would I want to take a class that teaches scripts.. I’ll never use the script.. Well…let me tell you what happened.

I was waiting on the phone for the call to start. A woman started talking and introduced herself as Kim Klaver…. I could tell right off the bat as I was listening to her speak that she was a fun person and I felt as ease right away, however, I was still very skeptical. She asked for volunteers to start the call and no one said anything right away, so I remembered thinking, “what the heck, I will go first… get this over with and then hang up.”

Well Kim started asking me many questions about my business and I would answer her. If she didn’t like my answer she would jump right in my face so to speak and we would end up in a debate, but the end result was an actual creation of my script based on my personality and my characteristics. I was totally blown away how it was all pulling together.. we finished my script within 15 minutes and Kim went on to the next person…

As Kim was teaching the next person, I received an email from a potential customer. I thought to myself, “I think I will give this new script of mine a shot.” I cut and pasted this new script into the email and sent it off exactly the way we wrote it…I did not change a word.

Within five minutes I received an email from this person and she said, “That sounds like me. Not only do I think this program is for me, my husband would like it too… how can I order?”

I sent her the link to my website and she signed up and placed an order… to my surprise not only did she order for herself, but for her husband too.

The order was for $400 and I earned $140. Paid for the class in the first 15 minutes.

WOW!! That was AMAZING!!

I’ve used that script ever since. It has become me. I have become it. Thank you thank you.” – Mary Jane Medlock, 7.25.06

Customer wonder or horror stories welcome. Email me: Kim[at]bananamarketing[dot]com. (Use the usual symbols – this is to fool spammers.)

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that the winning affiliate marketing strategy involves getting as much traffic (and as much targeted traffic) to your affiliate products as possible. And getting enough traffic starts with choosing a product or service that is guaranteed to generate interest and then to convert into sales.

One part of an effective affiliate marketing strategy is making sure that you leverage off of the merchant’s time and effort that have been put into his or her product or service. An experienced and skilled merchant will know that the more his or her affiliates are selling, the more he or she will earn. And therefore, he or she will continue to test and tweak the product’s or service’s sales page to make it into a the most compelling offer possible that makes it hard for people to refuse once they land on the page.

Look for sales pages that are simple and clean, that offer a compelling headline, testimonials and, if possible, even a timer that shows people how long they can claim the product or possibly the bonus that comes with it.

Once you’ve chosen a product with a proven sales page and conversion rate, you need to get as much high-quality traffic to the offer as possible. You can do this directly by advertising your affiliate link with PPC (pay-per-click), classified ads, banner ads, etc. Or you can set up a content blog or website that provides useful information on the niche of the product or service you are selling.

If you are just starting out, a blog might be the easiest way to get started and a WordPress blog is often the most highly recommended because it comes with many free plug-ins that will allow you to be more visible to the search engines.

Keyword research is an important part of any kind of affiliate marketing plan of action. After you’ve chosen the product or service that you want to promote, then choose the keywords that you are going to use to get traffic to your link or to your website or blog. Again, if you are new, you want to choose less competitive keywords.

Go to the Google Adwords Keyword Research Tool (which is free of charge) and type in the general term that describes your product’s niche. This tool will then provide you with all the related search terms that people are actually using when they go to their browser and do a search. The tool also provides you general statistics on how often each term is searched, how competitive each term is, what people are bidding on this term in PPC ads, etc.

Start with lower-searched terms and use these in your blog/website content, or in your direct link advertising methods. As you start to get more visitors, you can start using more competitive terms in your affiliate marketing strategy.

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601

Summary:
Affiliate marketing can be a great way to make some residual income online. If you use your affiliate marketing properly, you can actually make a fair amount of money. But you have to market your affiliate programs and utilize the Internet to its fullest potential, otherwise your affiliate marketing will be a bigger waste of time than raking leaves in the fall. Here are some tips to help you take advantage of the Internet when you’re affiliate marketing.

START AFFILIATE MA…

Keywords:
affiliate,affiliate marketing,marketing,online business,business marketing,work at home

Article Body:
Affiliate marketing can be a great way to make some residual income online. If you use your affiliate marketing properly, you can actually make a fair amount of money. But you have to market your affiliate programs and utilize the Internet to its fullest potential, otherwise your affiliate marketing will be a bigger waste of time than raking leaves in the fall. Here are some tips to help you take advantage of the Internet when you’re affiliate marketing.

START AFFILIATE MARKETING WITH YOUR OWN WEBSITE

The obvious starting place for an affiliate marketing campaign is your own personal website. Whether this is a blog, an online portfolio or an online business, affiliate marketing can make your site a bit more profitable. As long as you have some site traffic, affiliate marketing can work on just about any kind of site that you have. When you’re choosing affiliate programs for your site, do your best to make sure that they correlate to your content, or try to skew the link names so that they do, and make sure that the links that relate most closely to your content appear first. The object is to make sure that people go to the links, so make them as enticing as possible.

FIND MESSAGE BOARDS FOR YOUR AFFILIATE MARKETING

If you can, find message boards to post your affiliate marketing links on that, again, relate in some way to the link. If you can, include links both at the end of message board posts and in the content. Gear your posts to the link, so that they seem like a natural extension of your topic. Before you start posting on all kinds of message boards though, make sure that the board allows affiliate programs in posts. If they don’t, then your post will be deleted, and if you break these rules often enough, you might be blocked from posting again on that or other message boards, especially if you are operating in a specific niche. Not only that, but people are less likely to click on links on a message board that frowns on affiliate marketing.

DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE POWER OF CHAT ROOMS

Chat rooms are a great way to get in touch with a number of people who already spend a lot of time on the Internet. Many chat rooms allow you to create a guest user profile or a one time only user. You can go in and promote your affiliate programs and convince people to visit the links in real time. This gives you the benefit of being able to respond to any questions or hesitations people might have immediately. You can really act as a salesperson, much more so than if you were to simply paste an affiliate program on a website somewhere.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE PYRAMID STRUCTURE OF SOME AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

Many affiliate programs will give you partial profits of people that you sign up to become affiliate marketers. This can often be more profitable than using your own actual links, if you’re good at getting in touch with people. If you dedicate most of your affiliate marketing time to finding other marketers, then you can establish an organization that functions without a lot of input from you, leaving you time to grow your base instead of trying to find places to post your links. Of course, you should not neglect to work on your tier of the organization, both to make sure that you get some income from yourself, and out of respect for the person who brought you into the organization.