Nobody likes losing, especially me. Unfortunately that happened to me last night, losing at the casino, specifically blackjack. However even as I write this, feeling saddened and distraught, this is a positive. Everything in life is about learning, growing and advancing, we all know that though it all comes down to perception and the willing to advance and move forward.

I’m not sure if there is a thing called luck due to everything being a variable and variables constantly change (even though I define myself as unlucky) however, both of those things are my perception and in order to grow from negatives, I need to acknowledge what has happened, why its happened and how I can prevent or improve next time.

I walked into the Treasury Casino in Brisbane at 6:30PM with $70 and left an hour later minus that. At one particular point, I was winning in blackjack, up $20, however I played on with the belief I was there to spend that either way. This is quite interesting due to the fact on how your has this perception of you “may” win and that the exciting part, though your mind also thinks on the side, call it your “sensible” side – “If I lose, how will it affect me?” These I believe are vital points in winning and losing.

We should always celebrate winning (especially winning in blackjack!) and losing, rather than degrading ourselves. The more we understand why we lost, the better we can remedy it.

As a nation we’ve lost so much and much of it we are still yet to learn from, including soldiers fighting in wars which should have never occurred to rainforests being teared down to nothing but dirt. Have we gone too far? Should we turn back? Questions are simply just not the answer, they will however help us improve and better ourselves for the future to come, for us and for our children and their children. Many will say history simply repeats itself and in most cases this can probably be applied to most things, however, as we continue to move, so does our knowledge and our world therefore new ideas and new innovations need to be created, and not from the past, from the future. Sounds a bit far fetched eh? Well let me put it in perspective.

The more we learn from the past, the more we will create from the past which in turn will make us live in the past. If we progressed our minds into the future, somehow allowing ourselves to be immersed into a new dimension, new possibilities, could we create new ideas and methodologies based on nothing ever before? Of course we can. We are the lucky race, the race who have minds which can turn a planet into a habitat to provide for millions of people, create machines to move things and build giant towers but it all comes down to a methodology and if we continue with the same old ways, we will keep going in the same old direction — now that’s in our history!

We need to stop imagining all the time and create new revolutionary solutions that will help us become better and more productive human beings. If we continue to be creative all the time, I doubt we would actually move in any direction.

Now taking into consideration of the above, at the end of the day, it’s only my opinion, whether you choose to take it on board and further yourself in a better way is your choice, your decision…because we are all human beings and we are all opinionated and ultimately, we will do what we want…won’t we?

People who define themselves as “morning people” may not actually be performing better than to those who defined as “nightowls”, according to a new study. The Scientists of Canada’s University of Alberta have revealed these “morning people” may not actually be able to reach their full physical potential because their bodies grow more tired, as the day progresses. This was done by Dave Collins and his team, measuring the difference in muscle force between morning people and nightowls over the course of 23 hours. While nightowls became more alert and stronger as the day passed, morning people experienced no change in strength levels.

“We are suggesting that morning people may never reach their true maximum performance because their brain activity is going one way, and their spinal cord activity is going the other” David Collins said. “In evening people, both brain and spinal cord are at maximum in the evening and they get maximum performance at night”.

The study continued to reveal morning people’s brains were most active and excited during the early morning, ’9am’ while nightowls weren’t actually fully awake until the late night, 9pm onwards.

One of the researchers, Olle Lagerquist commented on the finding would spur on further research into whether morning people could potentially swap with nightowls and vice-versa. (Sounds very far fetched to me, especially me being a nightowl and all, however I never doubt the minds capability, just the person’s motivation)

“No one has done that and then tested pathways through the brain and spinal cord the way we have, but it would be a very long, time consuming process.” Lagerquist said.

He commented further, saying it would most likely have implications for shift workers, including how difficult it was for nightowls to do early shifts.

What’s your thoughts on the matter? Do you find yourself stuck in the mind of a early riser but truly perform well at night? I know I do, and it happens generally between 9pm and 12am, they are my most productive hours. Even now I’m writing this it’s 9:45pm and I need to get up early tomorrow — ha!

We can’t of course apply this small amount of research across every human being on the planet, however we can apply the understanding that our world is divided between both day and night and it could be a solid base to work up from in understanding the brain even more.

Search engine optimisation or SEO for short, has been an extensive learning curve for me, but a very interesting one also. If you’re a webmaster or an advanced internet user, you’re most likely aware of SEO, whether it be basic or advanced however, to those who scratch their head at the name, it’s basically a process which involves various techniques to increase volume to one or more websites. To be more specific, these SEO techniques are used to provoke search engines like Google and Yahoo! into believing your website is more relative for a  particular term or a handful of terms or keywords.

SEO Techniques

As mentioned, search engine optimisation is based on various techniques, however many assumed these techniques take extensive knowledge over many years and that only experts can practice them, but this is just not the case, quite the opposite in fact.

SEO in it’s core level is that simple, you can begin optimising a website after a few hours of learning SEO. It’s all dependent on your learning style and how motivated you are. There is however a big difference between the general search engine optimiser and the advanced search engine optimiser. The general SEOs can only reach x amount of traffic via the  techniques they have learnt from others, which makes them only understand x amount of a particular search engine and their patterns which enables them to only reach x amount of traffic to their website(s). Advanced SEOs on the other hand are learning their own techniques, building on basic ones, analysing search engine algorithms daily, crunching through other advanced SEOs, filtering through only the needed information and practising SEO every day.

Advanced search engine optimisation requires a broad range of knowledge, being able to follow process when needed and to have an understanding in marketing. To put it simple – creativity, logic and marketing all combined into one. The reason I put marketing separate is I believe marketing is something that stands on its own, there is no right, no wrong – just what works. You either have it, you don’t have it or you learn it – it’s that simple.

If you’re interested in learning SEO, take a few searches on Google with a few different phrases, i.e. “Learning SEO” or “SEO Basics”, there is plenty of information out there. However, if you prefer to start off on top and with good knowledge, I would highly recommend Aaron Wall and his SEO Book. Aaron Wall is a well-known Search Engine Optimiser, building his knowledge over many years and producing great websites and an excellent book, SEO Book. Aaron Wall’s SEO Book comes with his subscription to his website, which of course includes lots and lots of goodies to help you learn and practice SEO.

There is no right way or wrong to practice SEO. Find ways that work for you and build from there. Try and not be restricted, it doesn’t matter if you fail, just keep learning and moving forward and you will find that you’ll come out on top.

You can find Aaron Wall’s website and SEO Book by entering the phrase “Aaron Wall” or “SEO Book” into Google.com or Google.com.au (Web search).

If you have any questions on SEO, please send them my way and I’ll be happy to help you where I can.

As you may be aware reading my previous posts, I have a credit card and I’ve always tried to be safe and secure with it. Recently I have been making a few extra purchases on it and don’t have the funds available to repay it before my end statement date. Currently it sits just under a negative balance of $500(AU). It’s a Westpac Credit Card with a interest rate of just over 18.9%, and yes, unfortunately that’s a little bit hefty however I can’t alter that now.

I’m wanting to do a Credit Card Interest Calculation, to see how much interest I will pay on just under $500. Yes, we can do the math now though I’m very intrigued to see what Westpac works it out to be. I probably should’ve gone with the Westpac Ignite Credit Card, it has a lower interest rate and have 55 days interest free — too bad I’m not a Virgin customer!

Hopefully I can visualise my pain and never fall into this trap again and remember, always do your own Credit Card Interest Calculation and match it with the banks, because they can be wrong too, they just won’t tell you.

At times I feel my life is written out for me, one event happening after another, one more mistake to learn from and one more birthday to celebrate. Other times I feel myself sitting on the bus listening softly to everything, watching the clouds pass by and feeling the world simply move past me. Am I living two worlds or have I not yet chosen my place? It’s the main question in my current state of mind.

Friends are being made, lovers falling apart, houses developing and the stock market crashing. But really, no matter what’s happening, you are still you — nothing has actually changed. Every day I get up knowing I will work towards finding out who I am, getting closer to my true destiny and to find the right path, nothing can stop me, not even me…

Photo by Jude Griebel