Monthly Archives: November 2009

Happiness, Inspiration

14 Keys to Happiness for the Holidays & Beyond

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(Photo Copyright Terrah Lozano ‘Gathering’ Bloomington, IN USA)

Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the holiday season here in the states. This time of year brings about many of the essences of the human spirit that are repressed throughout the year.

We seem to forget about all these when the holidays are over. However, the keys to a happy life in general are provided in expressing them on a daily basis in all that you do; making them a part of your being.

In the past here at InspirationTheRide.com, we have discussed the importance of practicing random acts of kindness.

We discussed how these random acts of kindness not only help change the world but also how they make everyone involved HAPPIER in the process.

The person receiving the kindness, the person giving the kindness, and the person observing the kindness feel happier because of naturally raised serotonin levels from the experience.

In the same way that you would apply kindness, let us apply these essences on a daily basis as keys to achieving happiness.

We believe each of these words speak for themselves. Please take the essence of each and apply it in your daily life. Let us all really feel them in our lives and share them with others through our presence and application.

14 Keys to Happiness for the Holidays & Beyond:

  1. Gratitude,
  2. Kindness,
  3. Family,
  4. Friends,
  5. Love,
  6. Time,
  7. Fulfillment,
  8. Good Food,
  9. Good Times,
  10. Good Memories,
  11. Giving,
  12. Receiving,
  13. Abundance,
  14. And Emotions such as Joy, Tears, & Laughter

If you think we missed one or would like to expand on one yourself, please feel free to make a comment below and engage in your favorite social media.

Change, Happiness, Inspiration, Quotes

Sharing a Piece of Inspiration… Ben Harper’s Better Way Song

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“What good is a man that won’t take a stand? What good is a cynic with no better plans? I believe in a better way.” – Ben Harper ‘Better Way’

We stumble across many inspirational artifacts from all areas of our life on a regular basis. Artifacts ranging from personal experience, travel, arts, music, movies, and the list goes on.

We wanted to share some of these pieces of inspiration more frequently at InspirationTheRide.com in addition to the longer articles and ideas we write about.

Ben Harper’s Better Way song is such a piece.

We were listening to random music from our music library the other day and Ben Harper’s Better Way song played randomly.

This time we heard it, we really heard the words.

You know how you can have an experience, read a book or watch a movie and learn something different each time? Well, that’s what happened to us with Ben Harper’s song and we wanted to share.

For us, this piece says to always seek a better way and never settle for what doesn’t make us happy. Let us all seek fulfillment in our lives and a better way for humanity.

So, without further ado, please listen to Ben Harper’s Better Way and be inspired and moved to believe (and act) in a better way…

gratitude, Success

Gratitude for InspirationTheRide.com’s Healthy Start (with Data)

Expressing gratitude is very important to us here at InspirationTheRide.com, so much so that we have a dedicated Gratitude Page.

We wanted to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to all our existing (and future) fans and readers. Thank you for making the launch of InspirationTheRide.com a success!

We launched InspirationTheRide.com on August 21, 2009. We poured our hearts and souls into this project and we didn’t know what to expect once we launched.

We exposed ourselves on the world stage and the world stage reception has been phenomenal.

We have had visitors from 36 countries and territories from around the world!

We’ve had people tell us the website has literally changed their lives and has come to them at the perfect time. This seemed too good to be true at first to us but after hearing it a few more times it sunk in.

We are grateful that we’ve been received with such open arms to the worldwide community.

The Google Analytics Data:

Being about two and a half months young and new to the scene we wanted to share some comparison data up to this point on how InspirationTheRide.com has been received around the world. We wanted to provide the Google Analytics data to show the numbers in a measurable way.

For an analogy to best explain the Google data, we compare it to that of a standardized test taken in many countries through their education systems. In this standardized test you are typically compared to others against an average percentile or benchmark.

Google Analytics provides similar benchmarking data. In this data, InspirationTheRide.com is categorized under ‘Lifestyles’ in the sub-group ‘Self-Help & Motivational’ sites, which is an extremely competitive category.

These ‘Self-Help & Motivational’ sites we are compared to are of similar size and similar age based on visits. (For more information and to clarify, please visit the Google Analytics information pages – What does sites of similar size mean? & How many sites are in each category?

In essence, Google’s data is a good benchmark for comparison because they have data from a minimum of “100 sites to hundreds of thousands of websites per category“. The more data you can compare yourself against the better.

Based on the benchmarking data of similar sites, InspirationTheRide.com should have a very low visitor count up to this point because we are still so new.

However, when compared to sites of similar size and age, we are blowing the benchmark out of the water!

Here is a quick rundown of some key data and what it means. This data is from the time frame August 21, 2009 up to November 9, 2009: Continue reading Gratitude for InspirationTheRide.com’s Healthy Start (with Data) →

Articles, Happiness, Inspiration, Philanthropy

Change the World & Make Yourself Naturally Happier with 1 Little Book

Instead of waiting until you ‘have more time’ or ‘have more money’ you can do simple daily actions that help you change the world while also benefiting yourself with feeling happier every day.

How?

Shortly after writing my kindness article, Elliot and I stumbled upon a book to help each of us change the world called Change the World for Ten Bucks, which we purchased.

In my kindness article, I discussed the importance of practicing random acts of kindness to make a difference in the world. I also discussed how it benefits both the giver and recipient of kindness with raised serotonin levels, which naturally leads to feeling more happy.

So, let’s combine the two thoughts – By practicing random acts of kindness and the other simple actions discussed in the Change the World book, you can help change the world while also naturally feeling happier each day. (great concept, right?)

About the Book: Change the World for Ten Bucks

It was written by We Are What We Do, a nonprofit organization aiming to inspire every day people to change the world through simple actions. The book has 50 actions that are easy to do during a regular day.

I implement this book by doing one action item each day. The types of action items range from: Continue reading Change the World & Make Yourself Naturally Happier with 1 Little Book →

Education, Purpose, Reviews

Make Money Doing What You Love: Recommendation of Yaro Starak’s & Gideon Shalwick’s Products

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Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/denharsh/ / CC BY 2.0

Background Story:

Have you ever wondered how you can strike a balance between making a living and doing what you love using your passions and talents to serve others? (To symbolize this balance, we chose the photograph of money with Gandhi above.)

This was a question that we pondered prior to stumbling upon blogging and launching this site, InspirationTheRide.com. 

Briefly, after a series of events (which Elliot mentioned in his article Expressing Gratitude, Embracing Uncertainty & Seizing the Day: Reflections on My Birthday), we accidentally stumbled upon the idea of blogging. During this period, we researched much information on the internet and in print. We searched Amazon.com for the best books and read reviews to see which ones would suit our purposes.

After much research, we purchased the items we actually recommend on our Blogging Resources page.

We read The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging which gives you a sense of purpose with blogging. We also read Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income for the making money aspect, which was a fine book in and of itself.

Finally, after reading these two books and actually seeing Yaro Starak’s products being advertised on Darren Rowse’s Problogger website, we decided to give it a go. We signed up for Yaro’s email newsletter as well as received copies of all of the free reports (Roadmap to Become a Blogger, Blog Profits Blueprint, and Membership Site Masterplan).

The free reports and the videos provided lots of quality information for free. And, the funny thing was that we had just happened to sign up for his email newsletter just as Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick were re-opening their Become-A-Blogger program.

We lucked out and got in.

The information they provided was great. Gideon’s videos walk you step-by-step through the process of learning how to use the WordPress blogging platform and adding all the extras to make your blog look professional to be able to make money.

Now, we’re not going to write an in-depth review of these products because that’s not what this site is about; however, what we will mention is the aspect of using these products to make money doing what you love. Before moving on, however, we did want to say that we like and recommend Yaro’s and Gideon’s products. (NOTE: this is not about a get-rich-quick scheme; anything worth doing takes lots of effort and hard work.)

So, how do you go about making money doing what you love?

Well, first you have to ask yourself (and answer) – what are your passions and talents? As the saying goes, if you love what you’re doing you never work a day in your life.

Have you always wanted to make a living by expressing your passions and talents? And if you don’t know what your passions and talents are, the easiest way to figure them out is to make a list of all the things you enjoy doing.

Can any of these interests translate into a product or service which you can make a living by teaching or helping others?

  • Do you like to write?
  • Do you have a great eye for photographs?
  • Do you love dogs?
  • Are you the best Italian cook you know?

The list can go on and on. Things that may seem to be a hobby for you could turn into a livelihood.

And, this is where Yaro Starak’s and Gideon Shalwick’s products come into play. They all help you take your passions and talents to create a product or service so that you can get paid to do what you love. Their free reports are all worth reading and reviewing. These reports go much more in depth on considering your passions and talents for using blogging and/or membership sites to make a living online.

The 3 products from Yaro Starak featuring 1 partnered with Gideon Shalwick…

Continue reading Make Money Doing What You Love: Recommendation of Yaro Starak’s & Gideon Shalwick’s Products →