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Skip College For Success? By iKE ALLEN

March 23, 2012 By 1 Comment
ike11

Knowledge is not Power! Applied knowledge is power.
Regardless of where your knowledge comes from, when you apply it wisely, success is probable.

A couple weeks ago, I was talking with Bob Proctor about the fact that neither of us had gone to college and for us, it would have been a waste of time.

Yes, a college degree can help you in certain circumstances, but as I look back in history, many successful people achieved astounding success without “higher education.” Often, colleges teach you to get a job and as many recent college graduates know, there aren’t a lot of those around. Bob and I preferred to skip school to become Entrepreneurs and create our own sense of security.

Life is a game that can be played countless ways, if you’re Inspired to spend a small fortune and years in college, go for it. If you’re going to school out of Obligation or because you think you MUST to be successful, check out this list of people who dropped out or never even began college and still achieved great success.

 

 

People Who Didn’t Complete or Didn’t Even Start College:

Richard Branson, billionaire founder of Virgin Music.
R. Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome.
Bill Gates, billionaire co-founder of Microsoft.
Debbi Fields, founder of Mrs. Fields Cookies.
Peter Jennings, news anchor.
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers and Pixar Animation.
Mary Lyon, founder of Mount Holyoke College (America’s first women’s college).
Karl Rove, presidential advisor.
Walt Disney — you know Disney don’t you?
John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods.
Sergey Brin, billionaire founder of Google.
John Carmack, cofounder of Id Software.
Andrew Carnegie, industrialist and philanthropist.
Scott Carpenter, astronaut.
John Chancellor, TV journalist and anchorman.
Winston Churchill, British prime minister.
Charles Culpeper, multimillionaire owner and CEO of Coca Cola.
Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computers.
George Eastman, multimillionaire inventor and founder of Kodak.
Larry Ellison, billionaire co-founder of Oracle software company.
Carly Fiorina, CEO, Hewlett-Packard.
Bobby Fischer, chess master.
Henry Ford, billionaire founder of Ford Motor Company.
J. Paul Getty, billionaire oilman.
Amadeo Peter Giannini, multimillionaire founder of Bank of America.
Hyman Golden, multimillionaire cofounder of Snapple.
Dean Kamen, multimillionaire inventor of the Segway.
Tommy Lasorda, baseball manager.
Ralph Lauren, billionaire fashion designer, founder of Polo.
Charles Lindbergh, aviator.
Jack London, bestselling novelist.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazilian president.
Steve Madden, shoe designer.
John Major, British prime minister.
Herman Melville, novelist, Moby Dick.
Karl Menninger, psychiatrist.
Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens).
Cornelius Vanderbilt, railroad magnate.
Theodore Waitt, billionaire founder of Gateway Computers.
DeWitt Wallace, founder and publisher of Reader’s Digest.
William Safire, columnist for the New York Times.
Colonel Harlan Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).
Vidal Sassoon, multimillionaire founder of Vidal Sassoon.
Richard Schulze, billionaire founder of Best Buy.
William Shakespeare, playwright, poet.
Barry Goldwater, U.S. senator and presidential candidate.
David Green, billionaire founder of Hobby Lobby.
Joyce C. Hall, founder of Hallmark.
Harold Hamm, billionaire oil wildcatter.
William Randolph Hearst, newspaper publisher.
Isaac Merrit Singer, sewing machine inventor.
Walter L. Smith, president of Florida A&M University.
Will Smith, Grammy-winning rapper, actor.
Alfred Taubman, billionaire chairman of Sotheby.
Jack Crawford Taylor, billionaire founder of Enterprise Rent-a-Car.
Dave Thomas, billionaire founder of Wendy’s.
Ted Turner, billionaire founder of CNN and TBS.
John Simplot, billionaire potato king.
Ty Warner, billionaire developer of Beanie Babies.
Sidney Weinberg, managing partner of Goldman Sachs.
Steve Wozniak, billionaire co-founder of Apple.
Wilbur Wright, inventor of the airplane.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, billionaire.
Claude Monet, painter.
Dustin Moskovitz, multi-millionaire co-founder of Facebook.
Walter Nash, prime minister of New Zealand.
David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue airlines.
David Oreck, founder of The Oreck Corporation.
George Orwell (aka Eric Blair), author of Animal Farm and 1984.
Larry Page, billionaire founder of Google.
James A. Pike, Episcopal bishop.
Ron Popeil, multimillionaire founder of Ronco.
Leandro Rizzuto, billionaire founder of Conair.
John D. Rockefeller Sr., billionaire founder of Standard Oil.

Follow your Inspiration,

-iKE ALLEN is the founder of www.avaiya.com and believes YOU have everything you need to succeed already within you.

Visit me on Facebook to rant: http://www.facebook.com/IamIkeAllen

Filed Under: Community, Lifestyle, Success Tagged With: , ,

Breaking the QR code with iKE ALLEN

October 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment
ike

 

Are you taking advantage of the “new craze” that was created back in 1994 by Toyota subsidiary Denso Wave?

It’s the quickest way to take someone from a business card, book, magazine, ad on your car and more to your actual website.

A QR code is a rectangular barcode you can put on virtually any physical product. You can easily embed information into a QR code to effortlessly transport people to your Facebook, Google+, Twitter page or any other any other site on the web.

 

 

Smart Phone technology allows people with a QR reader application to snap a picture of your QR code and be immediately taken to the site you’ve embedded in the code.

If you’re thinking this may be a fad or a niche market, consider this.
The Pew Internet Project found that one third of American adults – 35% – own smartphones.
Some 87% of smartphone owners access the internet or email on their handheld, including two-thirds (68%) who do so on a typical day. When asked what device they normally use to access the internet, 25% of smartphone owners say that they mostly go online using their phone, rather than with a computer.

I saw a building the other day with a huge QR code painted on the side of it. Open any current magazine and flip through the pages and yuou’ll find QR codes on several pages. As you can see, if you aren’t taking advantage of the amazing QR code technology, you’re missing out!

If you would like to create your own QR code, here is how to do it:
1. Start your QR code by clicking on this link: http://createqrcode.appspot.com/
2. Type in your webpage that you want to send customers and contacts to.
3. Your link will be instantly created as a black and white image like the one above.
4. Right click your QR code and save it to your computer.

You can now add this image on all your marketing materials like business cards, brochures and more. Have fun with your new code and I’ll keep my smartphone ready for a visit to your site.

-iKE ALLEN

Filed Under: Community, News, Relationships, Success Tagged With: , , , , ,

Who are you pointing at?

October 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
AmandaGore_300dpi_color


Whenever we blame someone else for anything, we are non verbally (and sometimes
physically) pointing our finger at them!

I am sure you have heard that described in the past at pointing your finger at someone, means
there are THREE pointing back to you!

Recently, an alert reader (as Dave Barry calls them), pointed out to me
that we ignore the position of the thumb – which is usually pointing upwards.

So why is that significant? In several ways.

One, because it’s a great reminder for us that whenever we point the finger at someone, not
only are we three parts to blame but we usually forget to consider the whole picture. To look at
all the components contributing to the current situation.

Two, if you are spiritually inclined, it is a reminder to look towards God (or whatever you
believe in) and remind yourself to look at the person and situation as God would look at it –
with love, compassion and understanding! To consider the spiritual wisdom that might be
behind the current events or even to consider forgiveness!

Since I started thinking about this, I try to do it when I have a ‘disagreement’ with my husband!
We ALL point the finger at others at times – we either blame them out loud or silently condemn
them for causing us grief!

So the last time I did this – it was a silent ‘blaming’! Where I was feeling hard done by, feeling
sorry for myself as, once again I was a mere innocent victim of his random mood! LOL

Suddenly, the image of my hand pointing at him flashed through my mind! Darn. I realized I
had to take SOME responsibility and look at my own actions leading up to this particular event.
OK, well quite a LOT of responsibility!

I also needed to do a little reframe from God’s perspective – to look at the situation from above
– seeing the WHOLE picture and acknowledging ALL the elements that we in play.

How many times do we point the finger at someone at work – we blame them for being
incompetent or useless or irritating or annoying. We make it very personal – particularly as
leaders.

And of course, everyone needs to take responsibility for their own actions BUT many times
there are other circumstances and YOU ….yes, YOU…contribute significantly to the behavior
that annoys you!

Have you ever noticed that when you stop reacting to something a person does that annoys
you, they either stop doing it – or it just seems to disappear as an issue?!

Or when your first reaction is compassion and an attempt to understand, YOU remain calmer
and deal with life’s curve balls much better?

Pointing our finger can become a really useful tool to remind us to be forgiving; to use
compassion; to check our own actions before we cast aspersions at another; to be a better
parent (remember – we are a large factor in who our children are); to be a better leader – and
just plain old responsible for our actions!

Imagine if you introduced this symbol to your family or your work ‘family’ – if you taught
everyone what it REALLY meant!

It would be something you could do with a smile if you suspect someone is silently blaming
you! Or even if they are overtly blaming you!

Do it when you find yourself blaming someone else to trigger a) looking at your own
contribution and b) to consider the higher spiritual truth going on; or to trigger forgiveness if it is
necessary – or just to remind you to be compassionate and be kind.

Discuss this over dinner tonight and make it a family ritual to use with humor – asking each
other (if you hear blaming happening or victim like statements) “you wouldn’t be doing this
would you?”!

It might even start a new trend at work or home where people not only take more responsibility
for their own actions but also more consistently consider the bigger picture or spiritual wisdom
in situations.

WHOO HOOO – wouldn’t that be special!!

Amanda Gore is an international speaker, author and featured in the AVAIYA film,
MPower: Empowering Women in Business and Beyond www.avaiya.com
Learn more about Amanda at: www.amandagore.com
Filed Under: Community, Emotional, Psychological, Spirit & Wisdom

Forgiving with Free Admission

July 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Ashley

It was a Sunday morning last fall when the inspiration behind Free Admission, a practice that has now changed my life, came to me seemingly out of nowhere. The evening before, I realized something shocking about myself – that I was more committed to making others wrong than to making them happy. This awareness hit me like a Mack truck. Then an interesting thing happened. Rather than dwell on this knowing and beat myself up, an enticing path I had traveled down many times before, I was inspired to get it out in the open and share it with my Facebook friends. With this simple inspired act, the weight of my realization was miraculously lifted, and I was overwhelmed by a sense of freedom and peace. This marked the beginning of my daily process of recognizing and admitting the not-so rosy things about me, cleansing my mind of them, and practicing forgiveness along the way.

 

The Free Admission practice is now my vehicle for accepting ‘what is’. This means accepting all aspects of myself, even the parts I want to run and hide from. I’ve learned that when something has been hidden in the closet for years, it can come out angry and hurt. But once I shed light on whatever I’ve been hiding, consciously or unconsciously, I’m then able to start the process of acceptance, forgiveness, and letting go.

 

Recognizing that nothing is ‘wrong’ with me when I admit there’s a part of me that tries to sabotage my romantic relationship, creates a sense of freedom within me that language cannot articulate. Recognizing that I’m not a ‘bad’ person for secretly feeling more comfortable when I’m the thinnest person in a room, clears a space for peace to move in. In making daily admissions to myself and my community, I’ve come to understand that these thoughts and ways of being stem from a universal thought system. This ‘egoic thought system’ is inherently flawed, and by design, is committed to creating separation, drama, and chaos. My first direct experience in knowing that the voices and thoughts inside my head aren’t me, was a liberating, life-changing moment that I’ll never forget. As I continue to shed light on everything that simply is, the layers of fabrication are peeled away, and peace and freedom become more and more accessible.

 

Free Admission has not only been an incredibly freeing and healing practice for myself, but has burgeoned into an amazing community and is now a vehicle for others to see themselves in the various admissions posted. It’s a safe place where we can all realize that whatever it is we’re holding onto – it’s okay! We’re not alone.

 

What if more of us began to admit to ourselves and our communities the very thoughts and ways of being that weigh so heavily on our minds? What if we all chose to love and forgive ourselves for the deepest, darkest secrets we hold onto? What if we chose to no longer identify with these thoughts and secrets, and stopped judging ourselves for them? Imagine the possibilities…

 

What started off as simply an avenue for me to bear my soul, and to forgive and heal myself with my admissions, has transformed into a phenomenal community where people come to discuss, share, and make their own declarations to the Universe. We all want to have the experience of freedom and peace in our lives. By simply accepting ‘what is’ and declaring it to the Universe, serenity is truly at our fingertips.

 

Bio:

 

Ashley is the creator of the Free Admission Facebook community, where she and many others bear their souls in a supportive, non-judgmental environment. Ashley also co-created and is featured in the film MPower: Empowering Women in Business & Beyond from Avaiya Media.

 

www.facebook.com/FreeAdmission

www.avaiya.com

 

Filed Under: Community