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Super Bowl and Spiritual Advertising
We all see a lot of ads each day, and the Super Bowl which we just experienced is the great event of the advertising year. Generally ads are all the same, with some new dazzle or joke or sales pitch. As an audience we might feel bored, deceived, or at best, amused. But one in…
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Take Your Eyes Off Yourself
If you’ve ever gotten up to make a speech, you likely know the nervousness and anxiety that comes in the moments before you actually start talking. In a speech I heard last week, Doreen pointed out the real problem of these nerves: when you’re nervous, you’re only focused on yourself. When all you’re thinking of…
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The Introvert Advantage
I recently heard an interview with Susan Cain, author of the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. As an introvert, it was really affirming to hear someone else who thinks sitting down with a good book is a party, and helpful to look at some of my personality…
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Just Say Yes
At the Canadian Blood Services luncheon yesterday I found out that only 5% of eligible Canadians give blood. Only 5%! Though we all know this is important, and everyone knows someone who has needed blood at some point in their life, very few of us give. I’ve noticed that whenever given the opportunity to help…
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Slides Are Harmony
Funny thing about this thing we call a “presentation”. Usually our first thought when we’re getting ready to give one, besides the possible dread or stress, is the visuals, the slides that will be on the screen. The PowerPoint guys have convinced us that visuals are what makes the presentation, that no presentation is complete…
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Free eBook: 10 Tips For Your Next Presentation
Presentations are a powerful way to spread your ideas and make them stick. Any time you give a talk, you have the opportunity to draw your audience into a compelling story, to persuade them, change their minds and help them grow. Unfortunately, we’ve all sat through a lot of really bad and ineffective presentations, where…
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Loans That Change the World
If you’ve ever gone on a missions trip, or even gone on vacation to a poorer country, there’s no doubt you’ve encountered situations that made you ask uncomfortable questions about wealth, poverty, and how you can help. Poverty is not an easy thing to come face-to-face with, and it’s also difficult to understand the best…
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Reinventing Yourself
In November, Anna and I did a month-long cleanse program, which basically consisted of taking some pills twice each day which were supposed to clean out all the nasty toxins and heavy metals in our bodies. Though the program didn’t really require it, we also tried to adjust our diet to make more health-conscious eating…
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I Make Stuff That ___
Over the past year I’ve aspired to be a person who “makes things”. I look up to people who have a large physical or digital footprint of stuff they’d produced. The above pin was a kind of challenge to me for the last 12 months: be a person who doesn’t just talk about making things…
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Stories from the Christmas Tree
The Christmas season is filled with symbolism and memories. It’s always interesting to learn about the various Christmas traditions that families have. Now that we have a family of our own, Anna and I have been discussing what kinds of traditions we want to incorporate into our own family’s tradition as well. Growing up, one…
