If you'd like to catalyze more change for your self or others, here are some things that can serve as catalysts for you individually or for groups in which you want to be a catalyst:

*Give and get authentic feedback.

*Create a force field of environments that support and reinforce direction in which you want to move.

*Continue to visualize what you want to create - we know that subconscious brain starts paying attention to those things in environment that we place in foreground of our consciousness.

*Create some cognitive dissonance by bringing more diversity into your life so that you interact with ideas, people, and situations that challenge your beliefs about how reality is. When you do this, you allow yourself to open to new possibilities.

This article wouldn't be complete, of course, if I didn't say that when change isn't happening way we want, acceptance and patience can be greatest virtues.

For, as Buckminster Fuller said, ""You never change things by fighting existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes existing model obsolete."

Here's a challenge: Use this next month to change something about which you've been discontent or perhaps have been putting off moving forward on! Create some new movement in your life or your team's life, and pay attention to new possibilities that open up!

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FURTHER ACTION STEPS YOU CAN TAKE!

1. Buy a book you've been wanting to read for a while or check out something that's been persisting in back of your mind.

2. Do something atypical for you! Make a (small) mistake intentionally like wearing two mismatched socks, and see what happens!

3. Increase your self-awareness. Assessments are a great way to gain insight about our preferences. Armed with this knowledge, you can better leverage your strengths and manage your frailties to bring about change you desire. To learn about how our assessments can help you, click here http://www.arond-thomas.com/assessments.

4. To learn more about our leadership and career transition coaching and our consultations for helping teams/organizations manage change optimally, visit http://www.arond-thomas.com/services.

(c) Copyright 2003. Manya Arond-Thomas, all rights reserved.

Another thing to be aware of are scams. There are numerous scams around, from people sending out emails pretending to be from PayPal asking you to confirm your credit card numbers, to hackers going in to your account and spending all your money.

Other negative aspects of PayPal are that it is not available in all countries and you can only receive payment in a few currencies.

By using PayPal you take a large risk compared to using normal banking system. The chance of loosing your money is there. At moment there are several lawsuits filed against PayPal and a lot of people who have lost money and not received any compensation. Have a look at these web sites:

http://www.paypalwarning.com http://www.aboutpaypal.org/

A few tips for using PayPal

The majority of people having problems with PayPal are people selling items via auctions etc. Some examples: Payment is cashed from buyers account and not transferred to sellers account. A buyer uses a stolen credit card number to purchase items from you and your account risk being frozen for being involved with criminal activity.

As long as you use PayPal to receive money and don’t connect you PayPal account to a credit card risk is relatively low. In worst case you could loose money available on you PayPal account, threw whatever reason: hackers getting in to your account, PayPal freezing your account etc.

Having read a few of horror stories about PayPal, I am very cautious using their system. But I still use it for receiving small payments. Basically out of lack of alternatives. PayPal was first company to offer this kind of service, and for a long time it was only company providing this service.

In last year or so a few other companies have started providing same service or very similar services. Most of them are very new companies and still not industry standard. When I ask agencies if they pay via Moneybookers for instance, they have never heard of this. But many of them can offer payment threw PayPal.

I am sure there soon will be very good alternatives. But for now it seems we are stuck with PayPal whether we like it or not.

Guidelines for using PayPal

The only advice I can give is to be careful using PayPal. Here are some tips to help minimize risk of loosing money threw PayPal.

1. Only receive smaller amounts threw PayPal. 2. Never leave large amounts on your PayPal account: Withdraw your money as soon as you have a couple of hundred Euros/Dollars. 3. Log in to your account and check that everything is ok each time you expect to receive payment. 4. Be prepared to loose money on your account.