How to Kill your Blog, and Bring it Back to Life!

Oh man, the past 2 months or so have been an interesting ride for Cultivate Greatness. Someone with ill intentions had exploited a hole in Wordpress and attached some porn to my RSS feed, which thankfully, was incorrect code, so my RSS feeders didn’t see it, but Google did. They in turn stopped sending ads to the site, and they took me out of all of the Google Search Engine Results Pages.

Now, this is a very tough thing to have occur. The Adsense coin can come in quite handy, and mine dried up mid-November. At first, I had NO idea why. Then someone told me that my feed wasn’t showing up in their feed reader and that I needed to look into it. Well, come to find out, there was pretty nasty text links to some sites showing up when I went to do a feed validation on feedburner.com.

This was very tricky to pinpoint where the information was. What the hacker did was go into wp-blog-header.php file and attach another file via php. It listed something to the effect of eval(base64_decode(”CiBwcmludCAiPHUgc3…”) at the bottom of the wp-blog-header file. This linked to the file that had the porn links. This file would precede my rss feed. It was a file named text.php and it had all the porn links that linked back to an education site, called Newman.edu/moodledata. There were no pictures on each page that links went to, only vulgar text.
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If Nobody Loves You, Create the Demand - Podcast CG018 with Dr. Joel Freeman

According to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (an organization that promotes entrepreneurship & education) there are approximately 10 million Americans involved in starting a new business at any given time. With that reality in mind, millions of people will take their first courageous steps on the road to self-employment—only to lose their footing when they encounter unexpected obstacles in the path.

  Leadership Podcast 018 : Joel Freeman, Author of If Nobody Loves you, Create the Demand.

The statistics don’t lie: an estimated 75 percent of new businesses will fail. The overwhelming majority of those will close up shop within the first six months. Clearly, the mere possession of a great idea, product or service does not ensure a successful outcome. In his new book, If Nobody Loves You, Create the Demand, author, international conference speaker and business coach Dr. Joel Freeman provides the skills and tools necessary for individuals aspiring to create a new business on a limited budget.

In this podcast, Joel talks about how to effectively get publicity for your business. He also talks about Trips With Dad, which is his philosophy of keeping family close. Go anywhere in the world that your child chooses at age 15. This will increase closeness and bonding in the family, giving more of a peer feeling to the relationship.

Find out more from Joel at www.WorkHardWorkSmart.com

Joel Freeman is a truly gifted communicator with a knack for finding the memorable stories or quotes to illustrate his points. His humorous and conversational style makes this book a quick, enjoyable read. If Nobody Loves You, Create the Demand is the essential resource for people who truly desire to see their entrepreneurial dreams take flight.

Why do Some People Consistently Inspire Others to Follow Their Lead?

John C. Maxwell is world renowned for his knowledge of leadership, and his book, The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader (published by Thomas Nelson, 1999), is clearly the place to get started. But first, let’s start with a simple question: Why do some people consistently inspire others to follow their lead? According to John C. Maxwell, it is the “character qualities” they possess. In The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, he identifies these top traits and then defines them in ways that readers can absorb and utilize. View PDF excerpt

Each character trait is covered in a separate chapter and contains relevant quotes and anecdotes, details on its meaning, suggestions for further reflection, and exercises for improvement. In essence, John provides a mini-course in each quality. So what are the 21 indispensable qualities? They are listed below:

1. CHARACTER: Be a Piece of the Rock
2. CHARISMA: The First Impression Can Seal the Deal.
3. COMMITMENT: It Separates Doers from Dreamers.
4. COMMUNICATION: Without It You Travel Alone.
5. COMPETENCE: If You Build It, They Will Come.
6. COURAGE: One Person with Courage Is a Majority.
7. DISCERNMENT: Put an End to Unsolved Mysteries.
8. FOCUS: The Sharper It Is, the Sharper You Are.
9. GENEROSITY: Your Candle Loses Nothing When It Lights Another.
10. INITIATIVE: You Won’t Leave Home Without It.
11. LISTENING: To Connect with Their Hearts, Use Your Ears.
12. PASSION: Take This Life and Love It.
13. POSITIVE ATTITUDE: If You Believe You Can, You Can.
14. PROBLEM SOLVING: You Can’t Let Your Problems Be a Problem.
15. RELATIONSHIPS: If You Get Along, They’ll Go Along.
16. RESPONSIBILITY: If You Won’t Carry the Ball, You Can’t Lead the Team.
17. SECURITY: Competence Never Compensates for Insecurity.
18. SELF-DISCIPLINE: The First Person You Lead Is You.
19. SERVANTHOOD: To Get Ahead, Put Others First.
20. TEACHABILITY: To Keep Leading, Keep Learning.
21. VISION: You Can Seize Only What You Can.

Printed with permission of Dr. John C Maxwell

The Seven Demands of Leadership - What Separates Great Leaders from all the Rest?

by Barry Conchie

Who wants to follow someone who’s going nowhere? Or someone who’s unreliable or untrustworthy? Organizations wrestle with these questions and many others as they confront the elusive challenge of defining effective leadership.

The Seven Demands

Most people are certain that leadership is about direction, about giving people a sense of purpose that inspires and motivates them to commit and achieve. Leadership is also about a relationship between people — leaders and followers — that is built on firm ground; enduring values build trust. Few would disagree with these views.

Not everyone, however, offers the same answer to this question: What’s the best way to develop talented leaders to achieve sustained high performance? Indeed, Gallup Organization researchers have long been intrigued with this question. Having studied leadership talent for more than 40 years, Gallup set out to discover the demands that leaders must meet to be successful. We also wanted to uncover the developmental framework that would enhance leadership performance.

Our research confirmed the importance of two rather obvious demands — visioning and maximizing values. What was surprising was the presence of five other important demands that are essential to the development of all great leaders.

The research
First, a few words about how we arrived at these demands. Our study drew from a wide cross section of leaders who had a proven track record of success; we had evidence that they all delivered the goods. They were measurably the best when compared to others in similar roles. Their performance could be tracked to significant improvements to the bottom line. They enjoyed the endorsement of their bosses, peers, and direct reports. And they sustained high performance, often through adverse times.

For our initial leadership-development research, we identified and studied 100 leaders. They were drawn from general management, human resources, marketing, sales, manufacturing, research and development, and finance. They represented distinct levels of hierarchy, from managers to directors to vice presidents and senior executives. They had all faced significant demands that built and developed their leadership talent. Indeed, it was in researching this group that we uncovered the seven key demands that every leader must meet to achieve high performance.

We then expanded our study to include Read more

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