Whenever you set an ambitious goal, its virtually guaranteed youll encounter some roadblocks.

Theres no reason to let that stop you though. A roadblock isnt much of an obstacle for a human being. You can climb over it, walk around it, blow it up, get someone else to move it, or otherwise bypass it.

Roadblocks do an outstanding job of frightening away the timid. But to those with a modicum of courage, roadblocks have very little power. When a committed person tackles a roadblock, the roadblock stands very little chance. After a little time spent hacking away at the roadblock, the universe will tend to do the equivalent of saying, Well, alright then I was just checking to see if you were serious. I wont stand in your way anymore. Youre free to proceed.

Perhaps its a universal safety mechanism, something along the lines of survival of the fittest. Maybe the universe wont allow weak-minded people to go too far down the path of goal achievement, since if they were to succeed in a big way, theyd just make a real mess of things. Strong-willed people are free to pass, while weak-minded ones get knocked back and have to train up a bit more.

Time for a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

So the question is are you a timid adventurer? Has the world been scaring you away from setting and achieving some really big and meaningful goals?

Is a scarecrow enough to derail you from getting what you really want? Have you been derailed so many times that youve stopped pursuing what you want and settled for what you think you can get?

Have you defined as impossible or highly improbable a whole host of possibilities that other human beings have already proven achievable?

Sure there are some goals that would be really tough for you to accomplish. Maybe youre right about certain things being impossible for you. So lets see your battle scars then. Show me the wounds youve endured as a result of pursuing goals you couldnt achieve. Lets see that bankruptcy, that broken heart, the rejection letter, the lawsuit, the divorce, the public humiliation. Show me the total failures, the brutal disappointments, the smack-downs.

Lets see them battle scars.

Whats that? Do my ears deceive me, or are those crickets Im hearing?

No scars, eh.

Alrighty, how about some cuts and bruises? A skinned knee? A boo boo? Heck, Ill settle for a henna tattoo at this point.

If you have no scars, then youre a super-duper mega-achiever, right? You must either be a complete genius or incredibly lucky. Nothing but a huge string of successes one after the other.

Thats not it either?

But if youre not experiencing unfathomable successes and youre not taking heavy damage either, then what the heck have you been doing with yourself?

Playing it safe, eh? Playing Pretending

Did you really come here to live a pretend life? Perhaps you should stop doing that.

Think about living a real life for a change the kind of life people write poetry about.

If this world were a role-playing game (RPG), would you be classified as an Avatar or an NPC (non-player character)? NPCs sit around and repeat the same actions day after day. Avatars go on quests, where every day is different.

Do you have a quest? Or just a queue? Those last couple letters make a big difference.

Is your life safe? The word safe is both an adjective and a noun. As an adjective it means being free from danger. As a noun its an enclosed storage container with a lock on it. If youre living the adjective, youre living the noun too.

The word brave is also an adjective and a noun, meaning possessing courage (adj) and a warrior (n). Same rules apply.

Put an ending to pretending. Design your character, train him up, buy him some cool weapons, and send him into battle. Leave the safe behind it will only slow you down.

In other words, decide what you want, develop the required skills, acquire the necessary resources, and go after your goal with courage. Dont let anyone or anything stand in your way. Be that resolute young fellow (regardless of your age) as opposed to the timid adventurer.

It really is true that you have nothing to fear but fear itself. If you get hurt along the way, then suck it up and keep going. Battle scars are a part of life. To deny yourself disppointment is to deny yourself victory. If you want to go on a meaningful quest, youre going to have to risk losing some hit points now and then. Imagine playing an RPG without losing any hit points. Youd be playing scared, and it would be mind-numbingly dull and plodding. Is that how youre playing the game of life right now?

Is your life full of ghastly defeats and glorious triumphs? Or has getting the mail become the highlight of your day?

Do something today that causes you to risk outright failure. Polish that old armor, and clean up those rusty weapons. Put some of those hit points to good use for a change.

If you fail, then nurse your wounds and celebrate that youre finally living as human beings were meant to live impassioned, emboldened, and completely unafraid.

But if you succeed, go find yourself a damn good poet.

Copyright Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina
Personal Development for Smart People
http://www.stevepavlina.com
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog (blog)
http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles (articles)

Steve is intensely growth-oriented. He trained in martial arts, ran the L.A. Marathon, and graduated from college in three semesters with two degrees. He can juggle, count cards at blackjack, and make damn good guacamole. Steve is also a polyphasic sleeper, sleeping just 2-3 hours per day and only 20 minutes at a time. So chances are good that he's awake right now.

Reuters - Two weeks before an election that could install the first black U.S. president, scattered ugly incidents have reflected a deep residue of racism among some segments of white America.

Windows is an excellent environment for gaming. The flexibility of a PC offers so many ways to play games that consoles just cannot match. The only problem with a PC is with regular use your system will overtime become sluggish making the games you play run not as well as they first did. Here are some tips to get your Windows PC running up to speed.

Choose the Right Driver

Too many people make sure they have the latest driver from their hardware vendor. When doing so you risk using software that may conflict with your favorite game. It is best to go to the vendor's site and see what they recommend for that particular game. Also do a Google search and find out what other people are suggesting. Why do the work when someone else has done it for you.

Remove Start up Items

The more programs you have running in the background the less resources your game has to use to run as smooth as possible. Go to the start menu then select run. In the run dialog box type "msconfig". Select the Startup tab. In this tab uncheck the items that you know you don't need to startup every time you boot your computer. Once done click on OK and restart your computer. If you have an undesired result just go back to run command in the start menu and type "msconfig". In the startup tab put a check mark back on the program that is having problems.

Clean up the Junk

Make sure that you only have the programs that you will use installed on your computer. Remove the unwanted programs through Add/Remove programs.

Defragment

Sounds pretty basic huh? Well the faster your game can access the data it needs the better the game will perform.

Check the Network

If you are playing a network based game like World of Warcraft. Make sure you are using the fastest connection possible. If you are on a wireless network, consider a wired network. Also make sure that other computers in the home are not running network intensive applications as you are all sharing the same connection.

All of this is really simple and there is a whole lot more you can do. These are a few simple ways to make your gaming that much better.

JuicyTek.com is your source to get every last drop out of your tech. Everything from computer hardware/software. Ipods and cell phones. Visit us at http://www.juicytek.com

AP - House Republican leader John Boehner on Wednesday urged President Bush to block all federal funds to a grass-roots community group that has been accused of voter registration fraud.

Let's not get confused here.

Databases and technology are tools that we can use in our businesses. There has been a lot of emphasis on Customer Relationship Management recently which is very much about using this technology. But what has this got to do with customer service? Absolutely nothing. Not unless the people running that business are motivated and passionate enough to use that information in the right way.

I see fabulous examples of customer service from all over the world. And the amazing thing is that, in most cases, it comes from businesses that have no technology. Little shops and restaurants, taxi drivers, libraries, one person businesses. They have found a way to dazzle and delight their customers that has nothing whatsoever to do with technology.
And yet the larger businesses put so much emphasis on technology. "Let's profile our customers. Let's monitor their spending patterns. Let's change the layout of our shop so that they spend more. Let's give them reward points."

This is not customer service. This is a misguided attempt to increase sales without understanding that customer service is about dealing with people. We buy from people we like. We want to fall in love with the businesses that we buy from. And love doesn't come from databases.

My research into literally hundreds of businesses has identified a number of key elements that I believe combine to create a great service experience. They are like pieces of a jigsaw; the more that you can assemble the clearer the picture becomes. But let me tell you about just three of them. The three that I think are the most important.

The first is communication. How do we communicate with our customers? And I don't mean email or letter or telephone. What I mean is, do we really make an effort to get on side with our customer? Do we look at things from our customers point of view? Do we understand all the things that our customer is feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting and smelling? Do we communicate in ways that our customer understands? And do we listen? Really listen?

The second is systems. I don't mean computer or technology systems. Just simple systems. How do we do things? How we treat our customers? Think about all the businesses that you have ever worked in. Did any one of them ever say to you on your very first day, "This is how we treat our customers here"? More likely they probably said, "This is how you take the money. This is how you chase up payments. This is how you operate the computer". Most employees do what they think is expected of them.

The third element is leadership. There is a direct correlation between strength of leadership and the amount of extra effort that people put into serving customers. Great leaders understand their internal customers - their employees. They understand what motivates them, what inspires them, what pleasure they can get from giving great service.
Great leaders also understand what huge benefits customer loyalty brings. The very best customer service businesses don't need to advertise. They don't lose customers and they get huge numbers of referrals.

Business leaders in the UK need to wake up to the fact that the best technology will not replace simple human understanding. The greatest database will not replace some basic customer service training. I worry that UK leaders are simply too reserved and too conservative to ever fully grasp this issue. We dismiss as "too American" anything that appears to break the rules. "Have a nice day" might not be for us. But understanding how to make our customers smile would be a huge step forward.

Derek Williams is creator of The WOW! Awards an International Professional Speaker and Chief Executive for the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in Europe.

For more information about Derek Williams visit http://www.MrWow.co.uk For The WOW! Awards (including access to a FREE customer service newsletter) visit http://www.TheWowAwards.com

Politico - The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

Over the next 18 months the 3 giants of the Games Console world will be battling it out in stores and homes across Europe, America and Asia for the title of the world greatest Games Console. The stakes are high in this multi billion dollar business, not just for the console sales but for the games sales that go along side it. Since the launch announcements of all 3 consoles in May at the E3 conference in LA. The 3 combatants have been vying for the millions of column inches that have been written about the Next Generation Consoles. Each Press release has been hotly followed by another press release from a rival company so much so that extracting the facts from all the hype has been nearly impossible. At the launch press conferences Microsoft boasted that the Xbox 360 could do 9-billion-dot-product-operations per second. Sony then came out and said that the PS3 could do 51-billion-dot-product-operations per second however Sony had combined the CPU and GPU performance numbers whilst Microsoft only reported its CPU performance number. When the consumer is up against this sort of publicity blizzard it is best not to believe a thing until you can check the facts for yourself.

So what do we know?

Well for the Xbox 360 and the Sony Playstation 3 we have lots of lists of hardware and specifications which actually dont mean very much in isolation. The main thing that need concern us are the processor speeds and they are both stated as being 3.2 GHz The only time that the hardware will mean anything is when we get to run them side by side and then if experience is anything to go by the difference in real life performance wont be noticeable and will just be used by the press departments to battle it out.

Despite all the press releases and information that has been spewing out of the headquarters of Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo we actually know very few facts.
We know that in all likelihood the Xbox 360 will be on the shelves in time for Christmas, Amazon are currently taking pre-delivery orders and are quoting a release date of November 28th. The prices have been set at $299 for the Core System and $399 for the Xbox 360, the difference being that the Core system doesnt have the external hard drive required to save games and download new content or the headset required to play online on Xbox Live! Why 2 prices? and why a version that hasnt got everything included? This looks very much like a product of the marketing department trying to get a product at the historically important sub $300 level more than anything and this may backfire on them in the long run.

Next to hit the Shelves will be Sonys Playstation 3 supposedly in spring next year once again we have very few facts to go on, Sony are continually releasing press releases and mentioning in public that the price will be high and the figure of $500 has been mentioned but many industry experts suspect that this is a ploy so that when they release it at $300 or $350 it will look like a bargain. The final console to hit the shelves will be the Nintendo Revolution some time late in 2006 and 2007. Since the launch at E3 this year very little has been said about it by Nintendo. It seems at this time the Launch was just a way to deflect some of the publicity away from Microsoft and Sony.
One fact is certain, If Microsoft do get the Xbox 360 onto the shelves before Christmas it will be this years biggest selling Christmas gift. So until you get your hands on one of the consoles.Question everything!

Mark Thompson ran an IT consultancy in London for many years. He now live in Spain and runs an number of websites including NextGen Consoles and World of the Weird

AP - A U.S.-led coalition airstrike mistakenly hit an Afghan army checkpoint Wednesday, killing nine soldiers and wounding three, Afghan officials said.