Rev up your engines, with horsepower, that is! Equestrian events are here! Whether a hack, jump, race, or show, you may find that pain, muscle spasms, and imbalance prevent personal best performance when riding. Pain in the lower back, neck, hips, shoulders, knees, and wrists often sidelines riders and can limit participation in the equestrian activities they enjoy. Research indicates that tens of thousands of people are hurt riding horses each year. Often, their conditions are the result of not only traumas and falls, but also abnormal spinal structure.

In the U.S., there are almost two million American horse owners, and seven million riders. According to the U.S. Equestrian Federation, children under the age of 18 make up approximately 23 percent of their membership. Although horse racing is the most highly publicized of the industry, four times as many people are involved in recreational riding, with an astounding three million people participating in horse shows each year. Injuries are an unfortunate part of any sport, and quite common in equine activities. The average rider is 13 feet from the ground when sitting on horseback, and an average horse can travel at speeds of 40 mph. Should a horse stumble or misstep, a rider can experience quite an impact. Approximately 80,000 riders each year are admitted to the emergency rooms due to horse riding injuries; the majority of which occur in the head, back, pelvis, leg, and shoulder regions, often leading to fractures, concussions, and other soft tissue and musculoskeletal injuries.

A rider’s body undergoes a variety of stress and spinal structural changes, due to several equine activities, such as mucking stalls, moving hay and bedding, grooming, picking hooves, holding and leading excited horses, and pushing wheel barrows. In addition to falls, all of these strenuous activities can cause shoulder, arm, and back injuries, as well as knee and leg injuries. These injuries coupled with abnormal posture can cause riding insufficiencies. Do you ever notice when riding your horse that it will continually veer to the right or left, regardless how you ride? Or perhaps one of your legs feels more soreness than the other? Or maybe while jumping, your horse favors one side of the jump to the other side. Perhaps when riding, your horse fails to turn or bend well. This can be due to abnormal spinal structure.

Rider Gait and Horse Gait

Many riders have abnormal gait, due to falls, laborious activities, and heavy lifting. When looking in the mirror, do you notice one shoulder higher than the other? Or maybe your head tilts in one direction or your hips are twisted? Perhaps you notice that one of your hips is higher than the other? This is most likely due to an abnormal spinal alignment, which can cause you to ride ineffectively. Misalignments in your spine and pelvis can also cause back, knee, and foot pain to occur. When the spine is misaligned, throwing posture off balance, the resulting aches and pains typically stop a person from competing or participating in a sport. Often times, this is because abnormal spinal structure can cause a rider to unknowingly compensate their body, causing unbalanced weight-bearing on the horse. Ultimately, this can lead to lower back and hip pain. Ever feel like your seat bones are out of alignment? This can cause the horse to pick up one canter lead easier than the other, causing a training issue and frustration for both the rider and horse. If a rider has crooked spinal structure, it can cause a horse to walk with a corked gait. When the rider’s body is straight and correctly aligned, it is much easier to keep the horse straight, enabling the rider to move forward and bend around circles correctly. A rider with even hips can get their leg down and “around” the horse easier. Equestrians tend to blame their horse for their lack of balance and asymmetry, when in most cases; it is the actual rider that is need of spinal balance and structural chiropractic care.

Corrective Spinal Structural Care

Our chiropractic practice is chock-full of horse people, who present with a variety of ailments. They choose to address their primary condition of abnormal biomechanics, with spinal and extremity correction. Many riders find that their horses perform better due to their own spinal correction. When presenting to our office, we do a thorough exam including range of motion analysis, spinal structure check, and a variety of orthopedic and neurological tests. We then take radiographs of the spine that can conclusively show what specific corrective measures need to be taken. We then use a series spinal adjustments and specialized restorative equipment to gently mold and shape the spine back to its normal position.

Whether participating in dressage, jumping, racing, or any other equestrian activity, preparation ahead of demanding physical activity is time well spent to avoid unnecessary injuries as well as contribute to a healthier body overall. Chiropractic is a growing profession not only caring for riders, but for horses as well. In one of the most competitive and intense sports, gain an edge on your competition, by correcting your own spinal biomechanics.

Investors typically use performance benchmarks like the Sharpe Ratio or the Sortino Ratio to rank mutual funds, ETFs, and index trackers. However, these common performance benchmarks have several drawbacks and can often be very misleading. The Omega Ratio addresses these shortcomings and delivers a far more sophisticated method of ranking investments.

The Sharpe Ratio originated in the 1960s and is also known as the reward-to-risk ratio. It’s the effective return of a fund divided by its standard deviation, and its primary advantage is that it is widely given in fund data sheets. The standard deviation is employed by the Sharpe Ratio as a proxy for risk. However, this is misleading for several very important reasons.

Firstly, standard deviation assumes that investment returns are normally distributed. In other words, the returns have the classic bell-shape. For many investment vehicles, this is not necessarily the case. Hedge funds and other investments often display skew and kurtosis in their returns. Skew and kurtosis are mathematical terms that indicate wider (or narrower) or taller (or shorter) distributions than that typical of a normal distribution.

Secondly, most investors think of risk as the probability of making a loss – in other words the size of the left-hand side of the distribution. This is not what is represented by the standard deviation, which merely indicates how widely dispersed investment returns around the mean are. By discarding information from the empirical returns distribution, standard deviation does not adequately represent the risk of making extreme losses.

Thirdly, the standard deviation penalizes variation above the mean and variation below the mean equally. However, most investors only worry about variation below the mean, but positively encourage variation above the mean. This point is partly address in the Sortino Ratio, which is similar to the Sharpe Ratio but only penalizes downside deviation.

Finally, the historical average is used to represent the expected return. This again is misleading because the average gives equal weighting to returns in the far past and returns in the recent past. The later are a better indication of future performance than the former.

The Omega Ratio was developed to address the failures of the Sharpe Ratio. The Omega Ratio is defined as the area of the returns distribution above a threshold divided by the area of a returns distribution below a threshold. In other words, it’s the probability-weighed upside divided by the probability-weighted downside (with a higher value being better than a lower value). This definition elegantly captures all the critical information in the returns distribution, and more importantly adequately describes the risk of making extreme losses.

However, an investment with a high Omega Ratio can be more volatile than an investment with a high Sharpe Ratio.

Both the Sharpe Ratio and Omega Ratio can be easily calculated using tools like spreadsheets or other math packages.

Hiring a bankruptcy lawyer is a great way to feel less overwhelmed by the entire process of having to go through bankruptcy. Without professional help, it’s often a scary thought to try to figure out what you’re going to deal with. By finding a qualified attorney who can help you to get through the experience and learn what to expect, what you need, and what you will get from the entire process, you will be much better prepared for bankruptcy than you might have thought possible. Filing for bankruptcy is a serious step, requiring excellent advice and the right representation.

Here’s how to find, and then choose, the best bankruptcy lawyer for you.

My Lawyer Practices Specialization

You’ll want to ensure that the lawyer you choose specializes and works often on bankruptcy cases. Some attorneys work on just about every single kind of case you can think of. When you choose an attorney who specializes in bankruptcy, you’ll be sure to get service and results that can only come from a true expert. The laws and specifics of handling a bankruptcy case change all the time, so the more your bankruptcy expert specializes in the bankruptcy process, the better chance you’ll have of having a great experience. Choosing an attorney that works almost exclusively with the bankruptcy process is the best way to get the service and results you want without all of the stress.

My Lawyer Is Accurate and Consistent

Excellent work means your attorney has attention to detail. He or she will really listen to you and personally handle data entry for your important paperwork. The difference between having an ‘average’ lawyer and an excellent lawyer is the difference between losing a car or home and keeping your valuable things protected. It is the difference between your case being a mess requiring extra cost and taking extra months, and having your case completed quickly and painlessly.

My Lawyer Has the Experience

You want someone who does a lot of cases, but is personally handling your case. Ask how many cases the lawyer files each year. Now, some firms will say “thousands of cases” because they are ‘factories’ and the lawyers don’t do the cases personally but instead push off this important legal work to paralegals and other non-lawyers. If your lawyer files a lot of cases, that is great! Just make sure he or she personally handles the cases. I am generally in New York and New Jersey, but I know one great attorney who works with me in my California office. He files thousands per year but he manages and personally does each of his cases. He is very rare. The more questions you ask, the better for you!

My Lawyer Knows His or Her Practice

Most importantly, however, hiring a bankruptcy attorney will ensure that you get the proper footing in dealing with the legal process. There are a lot of myths that seem to cloud up California laws regarding bankruptcy, and if you are not well-versed in the legal process, you might overlook important facts. For example, bailing out of debt could be tackled through Chapter 7, while avoiding a foreclosure is best addressed with Chapter 13. Dealing with these types of bankruptcy declaration ensures preparation of a heap of legal document – a task that is more efficiently achieved by someone familiar with the system.

Remember who you choose to handle your case is your business (and make no mistakes about it, bankruptcy law is a business). But having the right representative on your side, fighting for you, makes a tremendous difference in how easy the process is, and how you come out on the other side, so make sure you choose the right attorney for you.

Though most of us believe an effective communicator is someone who speak persuasively, mastering the art of listening – a skill anyone can develop but few do – is perhaps the most essential element in oral communications. Listening, by the way, is not the same as hearing. Most of us have no problem hearing. It’s listening to what we hear that we don’t always do well.

Since we learn more by listening than we do by talking, let me share with you 10 quick rules certain to make you a better – and smarter – listener?

Listening goes on in all types of environments. The most common is perhaps our daily one-on-one conversations with spouses, friends, family members and fellow workers. Those instances are followed quickly by what we hear while watching television. In truth, we hear words almost everywhere we go. Yet we don’t always listen, and seldom listen well. While the sources of the words we hear will vary, the rules for better listening remain essentially the same.

In many cases there can be barriers to good listening – distractions, if you prefer… Some are physical, such as lack of sleep or a loss of the ability to hear. Others can be environmental, including noise, temperature, uncomfortable seating, even poor acoustics in the room.

The 10 rules that follow apply regardless of such barriers. Most of them – actually eight of the 10 – apply to the process of listening. The last two apply to what goes on once the listening has taken place. Give these rules a try. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much – and how quickly – they a can improve your listening skills.

1. When possible, take control of your listening environment.

2. Despite distractions, concentrate on what’s being said.

3. Focus early on the “central idea.”

4. Determine what that central idea mean to you.

5. Overlook any speaker eccentricities or delivery errors.

6. Listen “between the words” for attitude, tone, level of conviction.

7. Concentrate on what is being said rather than how you are tempted to respond.

8. Take careful, organized notes, even if they’re only mental notes.

9. Mentally summarize what was said, what its impact is or may become.

10. Judge the message only after you completely understand it.

The value of improving your listening skills is that you will hear what it is that’s actually being said. No, not just the words, but the meanings behind them, their implications, their intent. Once you’re able to identify the meaning, implications and the intentions of what you hear, your life at work, at home and at play will be far more rewarding. And you’ll be a much smarter, more effective total communicator.

Let’s face it, if you’re in network marketing then you have to learn to be a better public speaker to make the big bucks. The man or woman at the front of the room is the one that makes the most money and it is always going to be that way.

While you do not have to be the best public speaker in the world, you do need to be able to convey your message with confidence. If you are shaking in your boots, people often wonder what you have to hide and if they can trust you. Here are the five simple ways to become a better public speaker.

# 1 – Study Your Material

I can’t tell you how many people love to just wing it and hope that it comes out okay. Sometimes this is over confidence and sometimes it is laziness. Whatever the reason, it is not a good idea to just wing it. You want to make sure that you study the material and know it very well so that you feel confidence when you are delivering your material.

# 2 – Know Your Audience

Who is it that you are speaking to? Do they enjoy jokes? Are they more of a serious crowd? When you know who you are speaking to, you can tailor the message so that it feels like it was meant just for the person you are speaking to. When people feel like they are being spoken to personally, they love listening!

#3 – Rehearse

It’s great if you follow #1 and study your material but you also want to rehearse. Find a friend, family member, pet or even some stuffed animals and rehearse your heart out.

#4 – Don’t Apologize

I’m sorry, but there is nothing worse than someone that starts their talk with I’m sorry, but. People do not want to hear your apologize. People want to hear you deliver.

#5 – Concentrate on the Message

You want to make sure that you bring the message home. When people leave, they need to know what you were conveying to them. Nothing is worse than getting your time and coming out of a talking being confused about the message.

Follow these tips and you will begin to become a better public speaker.

Do you get so wrapped up in making sales phone calls or putting out work-related fires that you never seem to get anything else done? Are you having a problem meeting your business goals or sales quotas? Do you feel like you are missing out on possible fun parts of your life outside of work? Are you looking for a better way to manage your time while growing your business? Can you open your mind to success possibilities using a powerful tool that are simple to implement?

If you find yourself responding with a “yes” to any of those questions, it is time for you to utilize a time management system that includes color coding to make sure you have a good balance of activities. It is time for you to update your typical work calendar to include something from each of the color categories below.

• Green (the color of money) is for key activities that lead to current income. As a sales professional, this would include all prospecting activities and customer contacts. When you look at your work calendar, this should be the majority of your day.
• Red (stop light) is for administrative activities such as filing, writing proposals, service calls, and database entries. Plan time for this during a slow period during your typical day so it does not pile up and does not interfere with getting to the green.
• Blue (think water and beaches) is necessary relaxation activities that include vacations as well as important time with family and friends. Doing a hobby, exercising, or planning a little fun into your week will help reduce stress and keep you motivated.
• Orange (a bright future) includes activities that lead to long-term results such as career goal planning, sales conferences, advanced degrees or certifications, and additional learning in your industry. Some of this might fall under fun too depending on where you go or who you meet – it is a true requirement if you want to become successful in sales.

Use the suggested color codes to update your current work calendar to make sure you are including something from each category in your week. Although most of your work will be green and doing red is necessary, using the color system will help you to put the right balance into your life while you continue to grow your business. Knowing that you are accomplishing more blue and orange items will keep you motivated at work and well balanced in both professional and personal aspects of your life.

RIGID Radiance + SR-Series Single Row LED Light Bars

8 Backlight Options: Red, Green, Blue, Light Blue, Purple, Amber, White or Rotating

Off-Road enthusiasts know the industry leaders in LED light bar performance. RIGID Radiance Series LED lights have been standard over the past few years for good reason. Top of the line construction and performance, matched with killer design, keep RIGID at the top of the game. The versatility of the RIGID Radiance Series line up has always kept pace with the needs of off-road motorists.

That versatility just got bigger with the new RADIANCE + SR-Series. And best of all, Green light is back, and better than before!

Are you doing an Off-Road build and looking for the perfect single row light to top it off? Looking to replace your white flood lights? Want to have a hot new RGBW LED Light Bar on top of your truck?

With this light bar, you will have the flexibility of eight back light possibilities, with just the flip of a switch. You will have seven color options: Red, Green, Blue, Light Blue, Purple, Amber, White. Plus, there is a special option for rotating between the colors.

Yes! That’s right. Green Light is back!

For everyone who has been writing and asking about the discontinued green lights? When will the green lights come back?

Off-Roading just got better with the announcement of RIGID’s newest and improved LED Light Bar, and it features a GREEN back-light option. This is exciting news. The search for the elusive green light bar is over.

The new Radiance Plus SR-Series is available in 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 inch and fits all the existing RIGID SR-Series mounting options and covers.

This is the perfect light bar for the off-road enthusiast who wants the awesome quality, legendary design, great appearance, reliability, and high performance that RIGID is known for, at a level accessible to everyone.

Whether you are doing a build and want to give it the legendary look of a single row LED light with all the design, appearance, and function of more expensive units, or you are a motorist looking to outfit your vehicle with a killer LED Light Bar with green light and six other color options, the new RIGID Radiance + SR-Series LED Light Bar is the product that will give you the most bang and value for your investment. Performance, reliability, design, and quality.

The Green Light is back. Hit the gas and get yours, pre-order now.

• 7 Back Light Colors
• 8 Back Lighting Options:
• Red, Green, Blue, Light Blue, Purple, Amber, White or Rotating
• Broad Spot Optics – Optimized Beam Pattern & Light Output
• Prominent RIGID Branding Plates & Radiance Backlighting
• Back Lighting Independently Controlled Using Switch Logic
• Same Construction as RIGIDs SR-Series, Fits All SR-Series Light Covers & Mounts
• Black Exposed Printed Circuit Board, Black Powder Coat Finish
• High Grade Aluminum Alloy Housing & Heat Sink
• High Impact Polycarbonate Lens
• 9-15 VDC, Over/Under Voltage Protection, RFI/EMI Protection Built In
• IP68 Compliant – Dust & Water Ingress
• 10 Year Warranty, Off-Road Use Only

How do you like to think? Negative or positive? How do you analyze your life so far? Good, fair or poor on the overall? Read on to find out how you can have better results in life.

Let me start with the following statement:

“Good thoughts bear good fruits. Bad thoughts bear bad fruits. And man is his own gardener.”

Do you agree with above statement? Does it ring a bell?

How can you have better results in life for instance, your relationships, career, spirituality and work/life balance? Can you do better by thinking better?

This is what the statement in quotes really means.

So how can you think better? You need to feel good about yourself. And the easiest way to do that is to smile. Start smiling and saying Hello to everyone you meet throughout the day. You will get smiles and Helloes back. That would certainly make you feel better. And that makes you think better.

How can thinking better lead to better results? You will behave and talk better. Your body language will exude confidence. All these strengthen communications in career and relationships. You have better things to say to Almighty God and thank Him. Your spiritual connection, as a result, gets enhanced. Life gets better and you find a good balance between work and life.

How can you train yourself to think better? Because like anybody else, your inner critic will let you into negative thoughts, majority of the time.

The trick is to defeat this inner critic, go past it and focus on positivity. What is good about the current moment? Go still for a few seconds. The answer will come to you soon. It can be a good conversation with a colleague over having coffee, getting joy from playing with your child, an appetizing hearty dinner, a wonderful chat with a complete stranger and the list goes on.

So how can you actually beat your inner critic so that you can think better most of the time. Don’t believe it – say to yourself: It is wrong and I have better things to think about. Ignore it completely. That way you let in more sunshine and positivity enter your life. You are apt to say: This is it. This is the kind of life I enjoy. This is how I would always like it to be.

So thinking better leads to better outcomes. Believe it all the time and always manage to surround yourself with positive stuff: an eBook/book on self-help, motivational quotes, positive friends and colleagues and training your family to feel positive as well.

We can never underestimate the importance of diet in protecting and improving our eyesight. For example, certain fruits consist of antioxidants such as Lutein and Zeaxanthin that protect your precious eyes from free radicals. This serves as a safeguard against age related vision disorders. Additionally, such fruits containing these antioxidants provide the lens, the retina and the macular with vital vision supporting nutrients for better vision. An often overlooked fruit that is useful for improving our vision health is the Papaya. Therefore, here are some of the vision benefits of Papaya for better eyesight and general health:

Eye Health Benefits: this food for better vision consists of the vision supporting nutrients Vitamins A, C and E. This eye food also contains important nutrients that protect vision health such as Lutein and Zeaxanthin. These antioxidant nutrients have been shown in research studies to reduce the risks for various age related vision disorders such as Macular Degeneration, Cataracts and Glaucoma.

Promotes Heart Health: Papayas are rich in antioxidant nutrients that neutralize the negative effects of oxidative stress on the eyes. Therefore, they prevent the buildup of dangerous plaque in the arteries due to high cholesterol and a condition called Atherosclerosis. Consequently, this food that is good for your eyes has a combination of antioxidant rich nutrients that reduce the risks for strokes and heart disease.

Improves Digestive Health: This fruit consists of a digestive enzyme called Papain. This enzyme makes it easy for the body to digest proteins thereby enabling the digestive system to function more efficiently. Additionally, it consists of Beta- Carotene as well as vitamins A and C and Folate. Its fiber and water content provides better elimination for a properly working digestive system.

Weight Loss Benefits: Just one medium sized papaya fruit consists of about 120 calories. Due to the fact that it consists of a substantial amount of fiber it can help you to achieve your weight loss goals. For instance, its fiber content leaves you feeling full and helps to curb your appetite for food cravings.

Improves Immune Health: One of the best sources of Vitamin C actually is not necessarily derived from oranges or tomatoes but from papayas. This is due to the fact that Papayas actually provide you with 200% of your daily recommended allowance for Vitamin C. Therefore, this boosts the body’s immune system significantly. We rely on the immune system for protection from sickness and infections. This fruit makes an ideal addition to your diet for better immune health.

Papaya improves vision, increases heart health and aides the digestive system in functioning more efficiently. This eye food is ultimately, a great nutritional ally for better vision and increased general health.

In many ways I would say that living in this modern world is better but in many ways too it seems that our forefathers had a better life.

Today we have radio, television, telephone, computers and hundreds of gadgets that our ancestors never had nor could imagine possible. So we enjoy these things enormously. However our ancestors never had to put up with mindless talk-shows on television and too loud pop music on the radio. I suppose our ancestors had more time to talk with one another too instead of being like us who spend so much time just staring at the ‘idiot box’.

On hot days I really appreciate that we have the air-conditioner to cool us down. Our forefathers probably had to put up with the heat or at best fan themselves with a leaf or something. However, we have become too dependent on the air-conditioner, especially the one in the car. On rare occasions when it malfunctioned I realized how uncomfortable it can be to sit in a car without air-conditioning.

Talking about cars, we are also so dependent on them. It is great to whiz along the highway eating up the kilometers and arriving at our destination in a short time. It seems everyone has the same idea too. So now, on our highways, it is virtually impossible to whiz along. It is more like crawling bumper-to-bumper in a traffic jam, breathing foul fumes and arriving late. Our ancestors of just a hundred years ago never had to undergo such infuriating jams. They probably trudged along on their feed or rode horses. Come to think of it, they probably had to put up with sore feet and horse dung. Which is better, fumes or dung?

Medical care has improved by leaps and bounds. We are no longer plagued by many diseases that killed our forefathers. Tuberculosis, smallpox and leprosy, the scourges of yesterdays, do not bother us anymore. However AIDS never bothered our forefathers. We face a new threat.

It is said that modern men and women have longer life spans. Does living longer necessarily mean a better life? I do not know. Long ago there were no hospitals and people died. No one paid anything to have their illness treated then. We pay huge sums nowadays but eventually we still have to die. Also a longer life span means we have to put up with more pollution, over-population, unemployment and other modern ills. My great-great-grandfather could probably pick a mango from a tree and eat it without giving it a second thought. I do not have a tree to pick a mango from. I have to buy one which may be loaded with pesticides and who knows what other poisons they put in it.

By looking at the few examples above, I cannot decide which era is better. Modern living has its good parts as well as bad. Similarly it was so for living in bygone ages. Actually we have no choice but to live in our modern world whether we like it or not. How things will turn out will only be known when they happen. We just have a live as best as we can.