Saturday, May 16, 2009

Oprah’s Wealth Still Growing


Oprah remains the richest Black woman alive with well over $ 3.4 billion. She left many wondering how she is doing what she is doing to get ahead. Like Bill Gates she has held this position for about 8years now and unlike Bill Gates she is still on the lead. I was with a group of women who believe they can pick up the pieces and take the unstable economy of Nigeria to the next level when we received the Forbes’ report of the richest in the world. I wasn’t surprise that Oprah was still leading but the women with me were. They asked me a question many people have not really considered about Oprah and her yet growing wealth.
Is Oprah not just a talk show host? How come she is this rich; what else is she doing that others are not doing. These questions made me take a close look at the life of Oprah Winfrey. I used to think she was just a talk show, until I realise what came after her name in all her quotes “U.S. talk show host, actor, and businesswoman.” Oprah beside talk show did a few other things to arrive at where she is now. I counted about five major things that she did to achieve financial turn over. They were;
1. Talk Show (A.M. Chicago, renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show)
2. Oprah's Book Club
3. Actor (appeared in several motion pictures)
4. Oprah Magazine
5. Oprah Winfrey Foundation
6. Oprah's Angel Network (Charity for women & Children)
Oprah didn’t just want to get along as a woman; she wanted more than just get along; she wanted to make a change, not for herself but for the oppressed. A change for a generation, a change that will benefit women and children; the course she believe will change the fate of Black women forever. She went after change and found wealth, the wealth that is still changing the world it today. Will I be right to say therefore that outstanding wealth is found in service to humanity?
Before you start rejoicing that a Black woman like Oprah is very rich, I want all Black women to ask themselves how come Oprah is $3.4 billion rich and the richest Woman (White) is $22.9 billion rich. This is a challenge to all Black women all over the world. It is time to adopt culture of thrift and service to others in steady fashion and individuality.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

20 Things You Didn't Know About Fat

1 They’re doing something right out West. Sixty-six percent of Americans are overweight or obese, with the national obesity rate doubling between 1976 and 1999. But as of 2007, California was the only state not getting any fatter.

2 The root of the problem? Depending on gender and how active they are, adults should eat 2,000 to 3,000 calories per day. U.S. agriculture now produces 3,900 calories of food per inhabitant per day.3 People who regularly eat dinner or breakfast in restaurants double their risk of becoming obese.

4 Being overweight reduces a woman’s chances of getting pregnant.

5 The National Institutes of Health believes obesity is one of the reasons why the fastest-growing group of women experiencing infertility are those under 25.

6 We’re trying. Each year nearly $50 billion is spent on diet programs.

7 People who lose just 10 percent of their weight report significant improvement in their sex lives.

8 Biology is trying to help too. Leptin is a hunger-slaking hormone pumped into the bloodstream by fat cells. The more fat you have, the more leptin you make and the less hungry you feel.

9 Want to get your hands on some leptin? The hormone never panned out as a diet aid because most overweight people have become insensitive to it.

10 Over the course of a year, about 10 percent of an adult’s fat cells die. Alas, the body promptly replaces them.

11 The total number of fat cells in your body remains constant once you reach adulthood. Even after radical weight-loss procedures such as stomach stapling, fat cells return to their presurgery numbers within two years.

12 Try the vacuum instead. Liposuction is the only way to actually reduce the number of fat cells in your spare tire. Diet and exercise just shrink them.

13 New Zealander Pete Bethune gave a whole new meaning to biofuel when he used his liposuctioned fat to power the world’s fastest eco-boat. A way to solve the obesity epidemic and the fuel crisis?

14 It may make you prettier, but not healthier. Liposuction doesn’t remove fat from around the internal organs, so your fat-related health risks are unchanged.

15 Blame Mom and Dad. Obesity is more heritable than schizophrenia, high blood pressure, and alcoholism.

16 Cutting saturated fat intake to the recommended 10 percent of your calories will prolong your life, but only by a few months at most, researchers found.

17 The brain is about 70 percent fat.

18 Bottlenose dolphins use fatty tissue in the head, concentrated in an organ called the melon, to focus sound waves, giving them their sonar ability.

19 Think you have a spare tire? Whales are wrapped in fat—a thick layer of blubber—as vital insulation against the cold. Some whales have a blubber layer up to 20 inches thick.

20 Camels have the opposite problem: Living in hot climates, they want as little heat-trapping insulation as possible, so they concentrate their fat in their humps.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

The 5 Sides of Intimacy

There's something about our psychological, spiritual, and physical makeup that cries out for intimacy with another. That's because God designed marriage to be the most intimate of all human relationships, in which we share life intellectually, socially, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
Are you and your spouse intimate in these ways?
Intellectual intimacy. This isn't about discussing highly intellectual ideas. The important thing is discussing your thoughts. They may be thoughts about food, finances, health, crime, work, politics. They reveal something of what's gone on in your mind throughout the day.
Social intimacy. This has to do with spending time around the events of life. Some of these events we experience together; others happen while we're apart and are shared through open communication. Much of life involves doing. When we do things together, we not only develop a sense of teamwork, we also enhance our sense of intimacy.
Emotional intimacy. Feelings are our spontaneous, emotional responses to what we encounter through the five senses. I see the fire truck racing down the road and I feel troubled. You touch my hand and I feel loved. When we share emotions, we build emotional intimacy.
Spiritual intimacy. Often the least excavated of all the foundations of marital intimacy, yet this has a significant impact on the others. It doesn't require agreement of belief on every detail. Instead, we seek to tell each other what's going on in our inner self. It's discussing our thoughts about spiritual realities. The purpose isn't agreement, but understanding.
Physical intimacy. Because men and women are different (long live their differences!), we often come at sexual intimacy in different ways. The husband's emphasis is often on the physical aspects—the seeing, touching, and climax are the focus of his attention. The wife, though, comes to sexual intimacy with more interest in the relationship. To feel loved, appreciated, and treated tenderly brings her great joy. Sexual intimacy requires understanding and responding to these differences.
Practicing intimacyAn essential ingredient of intimacy is allowing your spouse to be himself without striving to conform him to your ideals.
In intimacy, we try to grow closer together, not to eliminate the "otherness," but to enjoy it. Men and women are different and we must not, even with good intentions, seek to destroy those differences.
What keeps us from experiencing intimacy? All of us are egocentric; the world revolves around us. Yet, when we focus on self, we lose intimacy.
The opposite of self-centeredness, then, is love. Love concentrates on the well-being of the spouse. We take time to listen to the thoughts, feelings, and desires of our spouse. We seek to understand and to respond with empathy. We choose to do things with each other, even things that may not be our favorite activities, simply because we want to be with each other.
In the context of such intimacy we become supportive and caring of each other, which builds a stronger, more contented marriage.

Gary D. Chapman material

Monday, January 12, 2009

Deal with it

C. E. Montague sound like a comment on the difficulty of overcoming addiction, when he said, ‘To possess your soul in patience, with all the skin and some of the flesh burnt off your face and hands, is a job for a boy compared with the pains of a man who has lived pretty long in the exhilarating world that drugs or strong waters seem to create and is trying to live now in the first bald desolation created by knocking them off.’

First, we must realise what we are dealing with. It is the mind that has been condition for a long period of time. We should also realised that it is not going to go away in one day since it wasn’t cultivated in one day. We need, understanding of the mind, patience, diligence, discipline and persistence.

Tools to deal with addiction
Understand the human mind: the human mind is a collection of the human experiences. Like a computer, it has strong receptors, which are able to function on their updating data in the storage device during booting section. Your brain can store and recall. Just before sleep concept.
Get enough Patience: To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled— because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance. The words of Friedrich Nietzsche
Diligence is required: you need the commitment of a soldier. I say no and I mean NO! I will consistently say no with everything I have until my change come. (Job 14:14-15)
Discipline is non-negotiable: what put you in this condition in the first place is lack of discipline, if you want to get out you must learn it. You must learn to do what you need not what you want. 50% of what our body wants, we don’t need because they are harmful.
Persistence will assist you there: nobody said it would not be painful. There will be days when you will feel like quitting. However, you must realise it is just a passage. A moment in time. It is a weaning process.
You need a life-coach: you need a guide and a guard. Someone you can conferred in and report to. Because of the nature of the human mind, if you were truly addicted, it is almost impossible to pull out of it alone. Talking to your coach is like vomiting the nausea of some cancerous nicotine (your past). When all the vomits are out, your mind will now be normal enough to receive new information.
You need a gym and a field: this indicates both where you can exercise what you will learn and friends or family who are normal and will understand you and encourage you. It also means change of environment, friends and several other habits connected to your addiction.