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Why it is Necessary to Teach Children About God

Children are considered the light of every community but no light shines brighter within us than having the knowledge of God. Without this knowledge we are bound to put out the light and innocence of our children. There are several reasons why children should know about God from the time they are born. Below are some of the most pertinent ones.
Wisdom
The bible teaches us that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. In today’s society with the vast advances in technology there is no doubt that children are more exposed than ever before to adult content. Even with parental guidance it is impossible to monitor the activities of children for twenty four hours. We need to have a means of knowing that there is a greater power keeping them in line when we are not there. Telling a child about God is opening its eyes to fear something and someone of an immense statue that gives them boundaries. The basic knowledge of obey your mother and father, love your neighbors as yourself are sufficient to get a child to be submissive and humble before adults. These boundaries enable the child to have fear for the unknown and keep them within the confines of adult instruction. It also prevents bullying, name calling, abuse and all the other negative facets that are a part of us. Only by a child knowing where they have gone wrong can they take responsibility for their actions.
Life and Death
Most children are stunned when they first hear about death because they have no understanding of what it is. When they hear of death in the family, to a friend, a pet or of even their favorite stars, they have little or no means of understanding why this happened. Teaching them from an early age about God, places them in good stead to be able to cope with the stresses of life. There are other aspects such as illness, poverty, disasters and war that make no sense to children. All of these are dealt with at great length in God’s word. They can easily learn about love, hate, jealousy, anger and many other aspects of life which take a life time to understand. This knowledge when taught to them through the word of God will be delivered with spiritual intent and develop their minds without affecting their youth. It would give the child direction and answers especially in times of need. The good thing about God’s word is that there is no age limit. We are all welcome to read and interpret his word according to our existence.
Duty
It is the duty of every parent to pass on the knowledge of God to their children. At the same token by which we happened to receive this knowledge we are expected to pass this on to our children. By doing this we would also learn how, we, as adults are chastised by God. By doing this we would fully comprehend how we can also be considered children of God. Teaching our children wrong from right with God’s guidance increases our own understanding of scripture and places more responsibilities on our shoulders to act appropriately in society.
These three aspects cover the main reasons why we must let our children know about God. God is a spirit and his word is eternal so we have no knowledge of what work he does within the child. However if we can recognize what he does for us then we should know that the same works of miracles apply to our children.

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How to Create New Information Products

Have you ever wondered how to quickly create an information product that yields a massive return on investment?
Information products are knowledge-based products that include books, reports, articles, etc. In the Internet context, this can be e-books and some audio or video formats. They are often referred to as ‘digital goods’ of ‘knowledge-based goods’.
It can be a very profitable pursuit. If you have a very compelling or in-demand topic for an information product, it is a start of a possible money-making machine. However, finding time and motivation to create such product may prove to be difficult.
The worst mistake is making products that people will never want. You just wasted your time and effort. It is very important to carefully plan and by carefully examining the market. Market research is the first thing you should do. Understanding the trends and desires of the public will help you decide which direction to go in.
Sometimes however, trial and error is the better approach in this endeavor. Experience is still the best teacher. It can give you a better understanding of the buying public. Some products may bomb and others may surprise you. But the most important is to stay keen and observant. The more you get a feel for the inclinations of the market; the more you can create effective information products.
Considering all of these, it is essential to have a specific target of buyers in mind. Ask yourself if these people are willing to spend money for your prospective product. Then inquire into how much are they willing to spend. Can they afford high-end products? Or will low-end mass-distributed products do the trick?
Focus on your niche. It is the most critical part of the process. It will help you concentrate and focus if you have a goal in mind.
The next thing to do is to make the product. You can employ professional help with the technical stuff. If you want to produce e-books you can hire a proofreader or get help from a capable family member or a friend. You can even use ghost writers if you want to.
Upon completion of your prototype information products, you should test it before investing large amounts of money into the project. Give it to family and friends for feedback or you can provide samples for individuals that are pre-selected to test your products in a particular demographic. The feedback and reactions you get help to give you an indication to the probable success or failure of your product.
Fine tune your information product if you deem it to be necessary. Now, if you are happy with the feedback and satisfied with the product, prepare a platform in which you can sell or provide the product to the public. The trend nowadays, is through the Internet Online selling or distributing is the way to go right now.
Most likely, you already have a website with a relevant content to your product. If you don’t have one, create a site for your product. Let the site become a marketing vehicle for your information product. Technical stuff like SEO and link building for web traffic must be implemented. More visitors equates to better chances of selling the product you have created.
Creating and selling information products is a continuous process. Be vigilant about the market’s drifts and desires.

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Who Needs a Certified Financial Planner!

With all the information one can get about insurance and investments on the internet, who needs a Certified Financial Planner!After all if you just want term life insurance, there are plenty of sites that can give you quotes from a number of leading life insurance companies. If you just simply want to find comparative performance information on mutual funds, you can get it from Kiplinger, Forbes, Money Magazine or Morningstar. Finally, if your employer offers a matching 401k program, you can pick a fund that is geared to coincide with your anticipated year of retirement.
Besides some Certified Financial Planners charge fees for their time, others make commissions on what they sell and the balance charge both fees and collect commissions.
Are Certified Financial Planners really worth what they cost?
Well first, it really depends on what you want to accomplish and what you can and you are willing to do for yourself? Have you tried designing a comprehensive plan that addresses all your concerns? If not, why not? Is it because you don’t know where to begin?
If your answer to the last question is yes, then you should consider hiring a Certified Financial Planner.
Certified Financial Planners earn their designations by passing a comprehensive two day 10 hour exam. that tests their ability to apply financial planning knowledge in an integrated format. The exam covers the financial planning process, tax planning, employee benefits and retirement planning, estate planning, investment management and insurance.
CFPA� professionals must also be able to demonstrate that they have at least three years of experience in the area of financial planning before they can use the CFPA� certification marks. They must also be able to show that they possess financial counseling skills in addition to financial planning knowledge.
Once certified, CFPA� practitioners are required to maintain technical competence and fulfill ethical obligations. Every two years, they must complete a minimum 30 hours of continuing education to stay current with developments in the financial planning profession and better serve clients.
Given what your concerns are and what you want to accomplish, a Certified Financial Planner should be able to help you determine what your priorities should be and help you define goals that are SMART – specific, measureable, attainable, realistic and time driven?
Then, he can show you how you can get from where you are now to where you would like to be in a year, five years from now or by the time you retire. By reviewing your tax returns, employee benefit programs, personal insurance plans bank statements and investment programs, he or she can help you design a plan that can help you meet your most fundamental goals.
A good comprehensive plan should also take into account how comfortable you feel about investing in the stock market, how much you can afford to lose, and what you will most likely do if your portfolio loses 20% or more of its value anytime during the course of your life. After all, the last thing in the world you would want to do is buy high and sell low. That is why you need someone who can help you invest in a diversified portfolio made up of a variety of tax deferred, taxable and tax free plans that will offer maximum returns for limited volatility. This program should give you the access you need for cash if an emergency arises, guaranteed and fixed income you will need after you retire and growth that can serve as a hedge against inflation during the course of your life.
It should also take into account what you want to leave for your spouse, your children or anyone else you love and cherish after your death.
Finally, it should provide you the income you will need in the event of your disability as well as provide you protection against asset depletion if you or your spouse needs long-term care.
As you can imagine designing a plan like this can take many hours of thought, planning, and research. It also takes a certain degree of wisdom that you can only develop with experience. Finally, it requires a certain degree of detached objectivity that most people seem incapable of demonstrating when they are left to make decisions that are going to impact not just their financial future but those of the ones they love.
The bottom line is do you have the time, the patience, the knowledge, objectivity, wisdom and skills to design an ideal plan for you and your family? Are your ready to admit that you don’t know everything you need to know and that you need direction? Is it possible that a professional can help you do a better job than you could do as a layman? If your answer to the last question is yes, then I think you owe to yourself and to your family to find a Certified Financial Planner that can help you determine and define your goals and help you get from where you are now to where you would like to be.
After all, as Confucius once said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

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Are You Ready to Quit Trying to Work Your Life Out? – Insights From The Little Prince

Daily Spiritual Insight from the Story of The Little Prince
So many of are working on ourselves and working at improving our life. We want things to work out a particular way.
But if things aren’t really working for you, are you ready to quit trying to work your life out and instead simply become present in your day?
There are two fundamentally opposite ways to approach everything in life. One is a struggle, the other a flow of fulfillment.
One yields limited success intermingled with a lot of disappointment, the other more satisfaction than we could have hoped for.
When the Little Prince asked the crashed pilot for a drawing of a sheep, the pilot worked hard to get it right. After several failures, he simply dashed off a sheep spontaneously, crated and ready to go-and hit the bull’s-eye.
These two different approaches to life are symbolized by two trees in the mythic Garden of Eden in the second Genesis creation story. One is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the other the tree of life.
We can approach life by trying to figure out the best way to do things-the right way versus the wrong way. Or we can approach life in a state of flow, in which everything unfolds naturally and spontaneously.
The route of thinking our way through issues, weighing pros against cons, is how most of the world operates. Do you see why our world is such a mess?
If on the other hand we come from the flow of consciousness, each moment informs us of what we need to do next. It’s a vitally alive way of experiencing life instead of conceptual.
When the airman draws a crate with the sheep in it-something he does without thinking and without trying-the Little Prince realizes that the box in which the sheep is asleep can double as a house for the sheep at night. (See chapter 3 of The Little Prince.)
People tell me all the time that they want to approach their life in a conscious manner, so that they are truly present in whatever they are experiencing, yet they find it difficult. That’s because they are thinking about consciousness and presence, instead of just being.
Everywhere I turn, spiritual teachers and coaches talk about the power of thought to change a person’s life. Really?
With all the new thought going on, if that were true we’d be living in a very different world. Just look at how many people have read The Secret for example-and how undifferent most of their lives seem to be even after years of “working” this kind of approach.
That’s because this stuff doesn’t work. It can only ever deliver limited success because it’s based on the approach represented by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. True, you achieve some good with this tree, but a whole heap of failure too!
Presence is nothing to do with thought.
The more present we become-the more consciously we go about our day-the less and less do we find ourselves thinking, until essentially only awareness thrives, absent all thought.
Awareness is fundamentally different from thought. Thought is like clouds that obstruct the light of the Sun. Consciousness is blocked by thought.
As the Little Prince surveys the pilot’s crashed plane, he comments that the pilot can’t have come very far on such a contraption. How in contrast this is to the Little Prince, who has descended from the heavens.
Our own efforts and the things we devise to advance us spiritually can never carry us very far. They are all part of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, the right way versus the wrong way, thought versus being.
Stop tinkering with life and just allow it to be-and you’ll be surprised how many things get taken care of as you flow with presence, things you didn’t even consider.

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Top Six Scrapbook Tools and Supplies You Should Always Have At Home

When a person desires to improve and be at their best, it is only fitting that they try to equip themselves with everything necessary and ideal for the sake of improvement. Just like in any other activity or craft, you need to be aware of the basic and advanced tools used in scrapbooking. This list may include only the essentials, but as you eventually increase your scrapbooking knowledge, this list can also comprise of secondary tools and items.
Below is a rundown of the basic and advanced scrapbook tools and supplies:
Multi-colored PensThe ideal pens would be waterproof, fade-resistant pens. These items usually come in various points, colors and tips. Color, for the most part, adds character to your scrapbooking page. Color can also influence your preference for various shades that complement the paper backgrounds and borders. There are also varied types of pens that are specifically made to suit your scrapbooking needs. These types of pens are acid-free and won’t smudge up your layout page.
Photo-labeling PencilsPencil types such as these, are helpful when categorizing photos to be used in scrapbooking. For one, it may be difficult at times to remember dates, events or places. Names of people may also hard to recall, especially if you are using a picture from a huge event like a family reunion or wedding. Photo-labeling pencils are not only present to help you in labeling. It also serves as your aid in sorting out old photos from recently taken pictures and souvenirs.
Acid-free PapersScrapbooks are meant to preserve memories, not to dismantle them. Photos are also primary elements that you have to be wary when it comes to adhesives or papers used in scrapbooking. As an important reminder, it is always best to choose paper types that are free of acid and lignin. Aside from patterned, textured or colored papers, it also pays to have your borders and die cuts acid-free. Using acid-free materials will ensure that your photos will be preserved.
Scrapbook AlbumThe album itself is definitely part of the basics list. Besides, this is where you are going to put your pictures and keepsakes. Since the scrapbooking album is considered essential and basic, the manner of choosing one is as crucial and important as well. Be reminded that old photos and pictures are susceptible to normal wear and tear. It can easily acquire moisture, thus causing pictures to fade. To avoid this, it is always advisable to choose adhesives, papers and borders that are acid and lignin-free. And the same thinking is very much applicable to choosing your albums for scrapbooking.
Page ProtectorsThese protective sheets are used in line with your scrapbooking album pages. They are normally used to protect pages from possible elements like stain or dirt. Scrapbooking albums usually include photos that are definitely valuable to the person who creates them, and as your way of acknowledging their value and heritage, it is only proper to prevent these scenarios (spillage and dirt) from ruining these personally-made items.
Photo Cropping Tools and TrimmersThis scrapbooking tool is made specifically to answer your photo cropping needs. Surely, there will be times when your pictures may be too big for a particular page layout. The only way to make these photos fit would be to cut or trim them. Some photo cropping tools and trimmers also have corresponding self-healing mats as surfaces, which is another likely incentive.

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Business Architecture – The Power of Knowledge Standardisation and Re-Use

One thing everyone on our team has noticed is that whilst the concept of business architecture is not new, it is not exactly in common use either.

We have also noticed that where it is practiced, to a demonstrably good effect, tends to be in the larger national or international organisations, who are often the leaders in their frequently means that, as they have deep pockets and ‘special’ needs, that they typically build their business architectures completely from scratch and to employ expensive consultants to help them do it.

There is nothing what-so-ever wrong with this, but not that many organisations in the grand scheme of things can afford the luxury of doing this work from scratch such that it is tailored 100% to their exact needs. This is a shame as we believe most organisations would benefit from the coordination and common understanding that building and having a business architecture makes possible.

Too many organisations feel that this sort of up-front outlay on ‘thinking things through’ is something they cannot all too often the truth of the matter is just the can’t afford not to do it!

The situation as we see it is simple. The largest, best and most profitable organisations can afford to build business architectures and they benefit accordingly. Smaller or less profitable organisations who could arguably benefit even more from the discipline and structure a business architecture can bring cannot or don’t feel that they can afford it and suffer accordingly.

So the problem from our perspective seems to be how to bridge this affordability gap.

We feel the answer, as has been the case in many other business contexts related to timescale and affordability issues, is to pre-package and re-use the knowledge through standardisation.

There are many examples through history of the winning ways of standardisation, including:

Language, spelling and punctuation so we can communicate more readily;

Mechanical fasteners (e.g. nuts & bolts) to be interchangeable across uses;

Railway lines to enable trains to run on one another’s networks;

Controls of automobiles so we can safely drive different models of car;

Electronic chip modules so that they can be easily used in many different designs.

We could list many more examples, but the above are probably sufficient to make the point about the benefits of pre-packaging and re-use through standardisation!

Yes, standardisation and re-use does mean accepting an approach that is not 100% tailored to you from the outset……although you can still work in this direction if you really feel the and more importantly can cost-justify it.

However, it also means you can get off to a running start, can take only what you need, can modify / extend only what you need and then get on with the business of the knowledge that you are starting work within an integrated structure in which all the key actors fit together and know their respective roles.

Also, for the benefit of our more skeptical , in our experience, depending on personal initiative and serendipity for this degree of coordination and control is not an equally good alternative!

Therefore we strongly support the use of a generic, cross-industry ‘starter’ business architecture. An architecture that to be sure all or most users will find a need to modify to their needs – i.e. delete parts, add parts, extend parts, modify parts, ignore parts, etc – until it is what you need it to be.

But the difference with this approach is that you now will have to hand a solid foundation on which to construct your own business architecture and not just some blank sheets of paper (or screen) with some modeling rules.

The latter being infinitely where to start, where to stop and how do you know if you are doing it right?

Further, we contend, as we do in most things, that the 80/20 Rule (i.e. Pareto Principle) strongly applies to business transformation initiatives.

When you really think about it why should most organisations, other than out of a form of conceit that they are so ‘special’, need or even want to re-invent the wheel of widely accepted business good practice?

We would argue that roughly 80% (give or take) of what most organisations do can be adequately accomplished in fairly standardised ways……think running a payroll system for instance. So re-creating those things falls into the camp of adding only 20% (or less) of the potential business typically just makes it harder to do things like outsource non-core activities or buy standard software!

Then there is the 20% (again, give or take) of what organisations do that are, and should be, unique to them……think ways particular to you through which you achieve high customer satisfaction rates. You DO NOT want to standardise is what sets you apart and differentiates you from your competition. This is where the 80% (or more) of the potential business value lives.

To us, common sense dictates (or, more accurately, shouts) that you should spend as little time, money or effort on bedding in the standard 80% of things you do every day as you reasonably can. This is so that you can spend as much time, money and effort as possible on the really important 20% that makes your organisation unique and special to your customers and other key stakeholders!

This is, by the way, quite a powerful argument for NOT undertaking to do 100% tailored business architectures as brought to you by very expensive consultants. It does in fact (surprise, surprise) support our view that starting from something that is already pretty in some cases good enough, and modifying it as your situation and opportunities dictate is a very pragmatic, cost-effective and attractive way to proceed.

We truly and sincerely believe that the only thing most organisations really need to give up to benefit from our approach is any conceit they may have that everything they do is ‘special’ and cannot be standardised or based on the re-use of knowledge to any significant extent.

We have news for those who think this by the way.

In our extensive experience of advising on business transformations and business architectures to organisations around the just ain’t so. Not even in the largest and most specialised of global players!