Author: Kim Siever

This person seems to think renting a house is more beneficial than buying. Given the fact that I have already built up enough equity in my home to not only pay off the mortgage, but to take in cash the value of my mortgage (in other words, my house has doubled in value), I have to disagree in my case.

I just finished reading “How To Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. It’s an excellent book and showed me several places where I need to improve in interacting with others.

The book is written in chunks, with each chunk (chapters really) elaborating on a principle. I listed these principle (and their corresponding sections) below for your enjoyment. If anyone has read it, I’d be interested in your thoughts as well.

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

1. Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Six ways to make people like you

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
6. Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

Win people to your way of thinking

1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
2. Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.
9. Be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires.
10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
11. Dramatize your ideas.
12. Throw down a challenge.

Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
2. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.
3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
5. Let the other person save face.
6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

Google Personalised Homepage now has themes. And not just the Yahoogroups kind of themes either.

http://www.google.com/ig

Oh, you may be asking yourself, “Woah! Kim Siever is on a diet.” That all depends on what you call a diet. Let’s just say in the last eight years or so, I have not had a large weight gain (more than five pounds). So what’s my secret?

1. Don’t eat crap. Eat healthy food and a wide variety of it. Sometimes my breakfast consists of an butter-fried egg and mozzarella cheese on two pieces of buttered toast and eaten like a sandwich. Sometimes it’s an apple, grapefruit, orange and banana combined in a blender. Sometimes it’s a bowl of Cheerios. Sometimes it’s all three. I never eat crap like Fruit Loops or Pop Tarts or that sort of thing. And when I do eat something iffy like a cinnamon bun, it’s once or twice a year.
2. Don’t sweat it if you do eat crap. Occassionally. Since I eat a wide variety of healthy foods, I don’t feel guilty when I occasionally eat something indulgent (like a Cheesecake Cafe banana split cheesecake). I know that in the long run, occasional treats (high sugar, or high fat or high salt) do not ruin my health as long as I have a mostly healthy and varied diet.
3. Rarely stuff yourself. Some of you who know me may be laughing yourself silly at hearing me say this. The truth is though that I rarely stuff myself. When I do, it’s at an all-you-can eat buffet and my Scottish/Dutch background forces me to get my money’s wroth. But it’s only a couple of times per year and doesn’t affect my long-term health.
4. Don’t worry about five pounds. If you are five pounds overweight (even ten pounds really), don’t worry about it. Especially, if it’s been that way for a long time. Five pounds will not affect your long term health, and accepting it will improve your self confidence.

Overall, my philosophy is to simply be healthy. I eat what I want, but I eat healthy.

What tips do you have?

Thought I’d keep up the tradition. Here’s a list of places outside of Lethbridge I went this year. I’m not counting gas stops or places where I spent less than an hour.

• Calgary, AB
• Cardston, AB
• Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, SK
• Penticton, BC
• Surrey, BC
• Vancouver, BC
• Waterton Lakes National Park, AB

Where did you go?