Over the past couple of years I have been doing all of the things that everyone says you should when it comes to building a life coaching business. “Social Media is the way to go to get the word out” everyone tells me. I was excited when I hit the 1000th post several months back. But then something happened that made me stop and rethink what I was doing.

This past Friday I posted a quick update about upcoming events that I have coming and included the opportunity for people to sign up for my newsletter. To sweeten that deal I offered the first chapter of my upcoming book for free. I was clear that unlike other things you sign up for I would only send things out once or twice a month. Over 700 people saw or read that article and the total number of people who signed up was…ZERO. Disappointing. The response may be as simple as people not being interested or that they get too much information already. I will be spending some time thinking about how to better communicate with everyone who is following me in one form or another. I truly appreciate you reading my stuff and your kind comments.

This past week was important because it made me stop and think about the idea that maybe social media is no longer the way to get the word out about what I do. Several friends offered helpful insight into this but today I want to ask you to take a moment to answer the 5 questions below. It will take you less than a minute. Tell me your feelings about social media, how much you get and how it applies to businesses. If you have anything else you want to share please to that in the comments area or send me an email.

I appreciate your time. Next week I will be doing a 5 day series of posts entitled “How to Beat the Holiday Blues” I hope you will find it helpful. Have a great day, please take the survey and don’t forget: Life is a journey, not a destination!…

In nowadays pretty much all computers, even laptops, come by default with multiple network adapters. In this tutorial I will explain and guide you how to manage the order of which the applications installed on your, Windows XP powered, computer to use these network adapters. For the purposes of this tutorial we have used Windows XP computer sith Service Pack 3. These instructions however are valid for Windows2003 Server, WindowsVista and Windows7 also. The main difference is just the approach to get to the fist step. Besides that the options are present in all operating systems offered by Microsoft Corporation.

So the first step as we have mentioned is to get to the Network Connection screen. In Windows XP the quickest way to get there is by right clicking on the desktop icon which says My Network Places and the go to Properties menu option. Another way is from Start -> Settings -> Network Connections.

Once you open the network connections you will see the list of connections configured in your Windows XP. From the top navigation menus you should go to Advanced -> Advanced Settings. You have probably never seen this option there even that it is available from quite some time. Do not worry it was a nice surprise to me too when I have discovered it at first place

Once the Advanced Settings dialog window opens in the first section in the Adapters and Bindings tab you will see the list of the network connection available in Windows. In our example I wish that all applications on my computer try to use my LAN connection if it is present. This way I will guarantee a better security and higher speed that with the Wireless. To setup my Local Area Connection to be the fist in the list I had to click on the connection and than use the arrows at the right side of this panel to push it to the top.

Once the connection you prefer is at the top of the list you can organize the way the other connections are. Once you are ready with organizing the priority of network connections you need to confirm the changes with the OK button. The settings immediately take place so no restarts are needed.

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Personal Development

As a student of the Bujinkan for the last 8 years or so, I’ve benefited much from the training. The word Bujinkan means the Training Hall of the Warrior Spirit, and is a Japanese martial arts organization composed of 9 schools of traditional Japanese martial arts, 3 of which were ninjutsu schools.

A powerful lesson that’s stuck in my head through the years was something I first read from The Grandmaster’s Book of Ninja Training by our grandmaster, sōke Masaaki Hatsumi:

People create all their barriers for themselves. It’s really such a foolish thing to do. We create our own obstacles and lose our own way in the search for truth. So it represents no barrier for me now. All that it’s necessary to do when one faces a barrier is just keep walking, paying it no attention. Just keep going, keep walking, and the obstacles disappear! In my case, when I appear to be in trouble and I think I won’t make it, I just keep walking. And so it continues, even today.

The character for the word nin in ninja means ‘to endure’ or ‘to persevere’. It combines the character for knife on top of the character for heart, it means to go on despite having your heart under the knife!

Thus, a ninja is somebody who perseveres with his heart’s intentions even under threat or pressure.

This ninja philosophy is really simple to remember, and is summed up in 2 words: keep going.

Which sounds surprisingly like what another master martial artist, Bruce Lee, said (from the book The Warrior Within: The Philosophies of Bruce Lee):

It’s just a case of learning to look at hardship as if today the rain is coming on strong, but tomorrow, baby, the sun is going to come out again.

And in a letter Bruce sent to one of his closest friends while the latter was going through a profound hardship:

Life is an ever-flowing process and somewhere on the path some unpleasant things will pop up – it might leave a scar – but then life is flowing on, and like running water, when it stops, it grows stale. Go bravely on, my friend, because each experience teaches us a lesson.…