A few months ago I was informed of a very good school that could provide me with a very good opportunity.

As some of you may know, I am Jewish, although I haven’t been raised in a very observant family. I’m on a mission to learn more about Judaism, and be in touch with my culture, so I’m doing what I can to learn.

This school that I learned about is a Jewish studies school, located in Israel, and it’s known to be the best in the country. It’s the best at what it does.

It’s not designed for people that have always been religous, and want to learn more. This school is designed for people like me, that have one foot in, and have made this decision to learn as much as they can.

The one thing about this school, something that I can’t say for all other schools, is that they’re strictly against all kinds of holy-holy brainwashing. This school takes 25 people a year, many of whom American kids that attend ivy league schools such as Harvard, and MIT.

The way that I was even considered for this school is by conveniently meeting several powerful and influencial people. These people believe in me, and see that I’m on a mission in life. They’re enrolled into the fact that I operate with the greatest good of all in mind.

They’ve seen this website, which has been a good show-case, or portfolio, of how I think and how I am as a person. They introduced me to the person in charge of this school, and it seems like his thoughts and mine really resonate, so he said he would make room for me, even in these late stages of the game.

The school’s name is Machon Shlomo, and classes start Wednesday September 3rd. Trying to arrange payments for the school is one thing, but I first need to make my way over to Israel.

I don’t have money for this. To be honest with you, my family does not support me. They don’t know why I have to go. I feel like it’s necessary for me, and my time to go is now. I just finished my Masters degree, and I have a year off until Dental School.

This is the year to make this happen. Many of the other students of this school come out to be Doctors, Lawyers, and very successful businessmen and professionals. I think this is the perfect fit for me, and you can call it luck, or coincidence, but the way everything came together to give me this year off, to allow me to meet the people that I met, and everything else that points me in this direction is amazing.

I need approximately $1,400 to get a plane ticket from New Jersey to Tel-Aviv. I don’t have too many options at this point, so I’m going to appeal to my readers, the people that I love, and have supported through my writing over the past year and a half.

If you can help out by donating through paypal, by passing this message along, either by e-mail, to your rich uncle, posting about it on your blog, buying advertisement space, or simply leaving a comment with some words of encouragement I would appreciate that greatly.

My paypal account is alex((at))alexshalman((dot))com or you can simply click on the ChipIn widget in the post, and in the sidebar, which will allow you to donate securely through paypal or credit card.

I can’t express how thankful I am, I really appreciate your tremendous support.

Update 1: It’s been only a few hours since this post, and the mail to my newsletter, and already $255 collected (a $25 check is in the mail), and someone said they’ll be purchasing a $100 ad spot shortly, specifically for this cause.

Also, one of my Rabbis is trying to raise money from several people he knows. I followed a readers suggestions in the comments, and I’m working on getting additional scholarships through google searches. Thank you so much for your tremendous support. I can feel this trip is going to go great!

Update 2: Thank you for everyone’s support, I am no longer accepting any support. After two weeks of Israel I realized that it wasn’t for me. I’m back in the states and starting an internship today 9/18. More on this soon.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

Those days are now officially over. How is this possible you ask? With the creation of WordPress for iPhone I can type out a quick article and publish it from the road.

You might have noticed that with the new site design, Nate Whitehill added a Twitter feature to the sidebar. This enables you to see where I am, what I’m doing, or what I’m thinking in real time.

This is accessible by coming to AlexShalman.COM or directly following me on Twitter.

Although WordPress for iPhone is convenient, it leaves something to be desired as far as editing goes. Twitter is still a better option for newsflashes and microblogging.

So here’s a quote from a book I just read called ‘Doesn’t anyone blush anymore.’

“A person can’t be like an animal, eating food because it’s infront of him. You don’t have to eat everything you see. You can control yourself.”

With that said, today is a day of fasting for the Jewish people to commemorate the destruction of the second temple. I was going to fast this past Tuesday, just as a healthy thing to do, but skipped because of an intense workout. Luckily today came along.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

While I’m gone I have prepared a bunch of guest posts (and when I say I prepared THANK YOU guys for sending them in). There is also a new series that will be launching early next week, so stay tuned for that.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

I’ve taken that, as well as other considerations into account. I’ll give you a quick peak at what the top of the blog will look like. I’m not sure when this will be finished – possibly after I’m back from vacation.

Vacation

Between the 29th of June and the 13th of July I will be on vacation. This is an organized trip that is going to Budapest, Vienna, and then to Israel for most of the trip. There are about 40 peers in our group, 7 of which are among my very best friends as well as my girlfriend. This is basically going to be a trip to remember.

I’ll take plenty of pictures and set up my flickr page for you guys to see. The new design should have a flikr area in the sidebar as well. Perhaps I’ll even take the Everio digital camera with me, it’s the best.

Guest Authors

I know that all of the people reading this site are very much interested in personal development. Perhaps even have a blog of their own or a great story to share. I am inviting you to submit an article to the site. The deadline is Wednesday the 25th of June. Please see the contribution page for additional details.

Feedback welcome

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

Yesterday when I woke up I realized two things. I realized that I was still in Panama, and life is very good to me for providing me with all these opportunities. I also realized that the subscriber count on this site has reached a milestone of 1,000 readers.

This means that besides the 50,000 times the articles on this site have been read last month, 1,000 of you want to keep up with the lastest content, and can’t wait to see what’s next. I think that’s awesome.

Through your overwhelming support, encouraging comments, and enthusiastic e-mails you really let me know that I was making a difference for you. You have given me purpose, and I have been very fulfilled creating our journey together.

A tremendous thank you to all the readers that have stuck by over the year, and a big welcome to all the new people that are now in the Practical Personal Development family. I’m really looking forward to doing my part in this relationship, and providing you with the very best content I can muster.

When I first created, and began writing on this blog, I had no experience blogging, and was a complete rookie in the field. I remember checking site stats, and seeing 10, 12, 15 people had read what I wrote. Since part of why I was writing was to increase my own personal development, I was very thrilled to see that a few others were getting something out of it as well.

You can imagine my excitement now. Most days see well over 1,000 new readers, people leave positive comments, and encouraging e-mails. I’m very happy you chose me. Thank you.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

December 15th 2007 marks the one year anniversary of Alex Shalman dot com. It’s an understatement to say that this has been an incredible journey, an amazing pass time, a captivating passion, and a full filling devotion.

The benefits that I have seen in my life as a direct result of this website are colossal, yet immeasurable. It seems unrealistic to define an amount of growth I’ve experienced, knowledge I’ve gained, and friends I’ve made due to being a part of this journey.

I will say that this experience has been priceless. I’ll also say that it’s all thanks to you. Thinking of you guys, all over the world, being supportive and reading what I’ve had to say over this past year is what pushed me to keep writing.

I’m not sure that if I didn’t have the constant reinforcement of inspiring e-mails, as well as intelligent comments that I would have been as motivated to continue writing this long. I wasn’t even a big fan of writing when I started the site. It’s actually a very addicting process.

I would also like to thank all the wonderful guests that have shared their stories, experiences and wisdom with us throughout this year. The articles that you have submitted have been nothing short of amazing, and have added more color, flavor, and voice to the site.

Thank you to all the bloggers that have thought enough of my ideas to link to specific posts, and tell others about what I do here. Thank you to everyone else who helped spread the message.

Thank you to stumbleupon users. You guys have brought new readers by the boatload this year. I appreciate it.

Another great benefit that has come from blogging is accountability. Over the past year I’ve shared some experiences and given some advice. By putting thoughts and ideas out there, I feel as if there is every reason in the world to live my words.

Everything is perfect right now, and I have no complaints about where I stand. No complaints with this website, nor my life as a whole. Everything is exactly where it is, and no where else. I hope that in the coming year I can provide even greater value for you, and that you’ll find my ideas to be interesting and inspiring. I am committed to helping you discover your potential you.

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Photo by brokenchopstick

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

No, this doesn’t mean I’m jumping ship and abandoning this site. On the contrary, this means that we’ll have some more friends joining us from the lifehack community.

I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting all my fellow contributors, but you might be able to recognize them from around the blogosphere.

Adrian Savage, Bob Walsh, Craig Childs, Susan Sabo, Tatsuya Nakagawa, Mike St. Pierre, Tejvan Pettinger, Donald Latumahina, Shane Magee, Alex Shalman, Tom O’Leary, Michael Leddy, Marco Adragna, Scott Young.

A great group of writers, all contributing to the 40th most popular blog in the world. Lifehack has been one of my daily reads for almost 2 years now. It is my honor to be a part of this great team.

For my first article you can see how I’ve been able to harness the power of compliments to control conversations. Check it out.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

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In the mean time, I will be giving out two $25 amazon.com gift cards. Participating in this blog contest is fairly simple. All you have to do is sign up for my free newsletter. You can do so up above in the header.

_________

I’m currently accepting guest bloggers. If you’re interested in writing on various personal development topics and think that you have something interesting and valuable to add, I’m interested in hearing from you. Please read the contribution page and get back to me.

_________

Please bear with me as I continue to tweak this new theme. I think Nate created one beautiful unique blog design, and I’m really happy with his level of support and quality of his customer service.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

Nate Whitehill of Unique Blog Designs came to the rescue with his team of designers and coders. They put together everything you see here. We worked very closely side by side to put every idea I had to work.

We decided to do a live test of this new theme. Yes, this is risky, and there are a bunch of tweaks to be made. However, I think we have a good working model on our hands. I’ll be working diligently all week on getting the rest of the site running and matching the new theme.

In the mean time, let me know what your initial thought is of this new theme.

Update: I’m reverting to the old theme for now. After tweaking a bit the new theme will be back up, stay tuned!

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

We’ve all been there, driving in the car, listening to audio tapes or music, and suddenly had a great idea occur to us. “As soon as I get home I’ll make a note of that, I’m sure I’ll remember, this is too good to pass up”. The human memory fails us repeatadly. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to take preventative measures.

Tips To Capture Your Great Idea

1. Digital voice recorder. I find this to be the most convenient way to capture ideas when on the road. If you hear something on your audio tape, you can back up the track, press record, and capture a great quote. If something inspires you to have a huge idea, recording it is much easier (and safer) than trying to write while driving. I use an Olympus recorder, similar to Olympus DS-2 Digital Voice Recorder.
2. 3×5 note cards or notepad. Anything that you can fit into your pocket along with a pen makes a great idea capturing tool. I personally use a small leather journal that I received as a gift from things remembered, but anything will do as long as you use it.
3. Use Something – Use Anything. Capturing the idea is more important than where you capture it. If it comes down to it, use a napkin, receipt, or even your arm! If you have a million dollar idea, do you care what you do in order to capture it?
4. E-mail Yourself. I’ve often opened up gmail, or outlook, written up a quick note, and e-mailed myself. It captures the idea.

What To Do With These Great Ideas. Once you’ve captured these great ideas, you want to put them to use, or store them in a safe place for later.

1. OneNote. My favorite program for recording notes. The tabs, folders, password protection, and search features make OneNote superior to writing on a cave wall as Firefox is to Explorer. It’s a no brainer! Transcribe your voice recordings and written work into the proper categories within OneNote. (see: list of features)
2. Blog It. Many of my blogging ideas come when I’m away from the computer. As I experience life, I connect the dots between things I have read about and learned in the past. Things start to make sense and once they become practical, I begin to share.
3. Journal It. Do you keep a journal of your greatest life ideas, accomplishments, and contributions? Consider it as a way to leave your legacy and pass your hard earned experience to future generations.

What Are Your Tips? Hit the comment box and let us know your favorite practices for capturing great ideas.

Attention: Don’t forget to download my free ebook, How to Get a Girlfriend!!

I didn’t want to completely abandon you guys, so I left this site in the hands of some of my favorite bloggers. They will be posting here for your reading pleasure, and leaving links back to their sites so you can read more from them.

My trip is planned out on a very strict schedule with 40 of my peers. We’re basically getting up anywhere from 3am-6am to go sight see, and going to sleep anywhere from 2am-3am after experiencing the night life in Israel. After this vacation, I’m going to need a vacation!

Some of the things I’m really excited for are climbing mount Masada, swimming in the dead sea, and seeing Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv. The Holocaust museum is going to be an experience – a sad one. We’ll also be visiting a number of other tombs, museums and cities during this trip.

I’ll put up some good pictures when I come back after July 2nd. However, I won’t be back for long, on the 7th I’ll be going to Dominican Republic for a week, for the real vacation.

In the mean time, I suggest that you read some of the blogs that are currently in my feed reader to keep yourself entertained.

• Liz Strauss – successful blog
• Wendy Piersall – eMomsAtHome
• John Chow – Make Money Online
• Steve Pavlina – Personal Development for Smart People
• Darren Rowse – Problogger
• Dan and Jennifer – Ask Dan And Jennifer
• Brian Kim – Invest in Yourself and Make it Happen
• Steve Aitchison – Change Your Thoughts to Change Your Life
• Steve Olson – For People Pursuing Freedom
• Scott Young – Get the most out of your life!

I’m going to stop this list at 10, even though I read many many more blogs than this on a daily basis. I just don’t think anyone looks through a list of more then 10. I would rather include some great content from my favorite bloggers in the future.

With that said, if you are a blogger, and you enjoy writing about the things covered on this site, feel free to submit some of your work via the contact form. When I come back from Israel, and have one million e-mails to look through, I’ll be choosing some guest bloggers for my time away in Dominican.

While I’m gone, feel free to look through the archives for some of my old posts. Use one of the various ways mentioned in the new visitors page to save this site for later reading. Last but not least, please sign up for my free newsletter, as I will be sending out interesting info, available only to newsletter subscribers, sometime late July.

For each participant I added $1 into the donation pool, until I reached the current total. I wrote down all of the names of the participants and numbered them. I then used the random number generator to pick the lucky winner.

The lucky winners are our neighborhood relationship experts Dan and Jennifer. The donation that they have selected is Operation Kindness, which is a no-kill animal shelter in North Texas. This charity is legit, and its such a great cause. If you look at their front page you’ll fall in love with some of these animals as well.

While the amount of participants in the contest generated only $27 towards this charity, I’m going to round it up to $50. I also hope that this contest encourages people to donate to a charity that they believe in.

If you are interested in donating money to Operation Kindness, you can do so via their donation page.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this charity event, and I hope you will participate next time I host something of this nature.

Topics:

• How to guarantee the success of your online ads
• Tips for packaging your inventory and maximizing ad revenue
• Online Advertising Basics – Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask
• Advertising in RSS feeds – the next big thing?
• Marketing Beyond Google, Yahoo, AOL & MSN with Scale, Quality and Safety
• It’s all in the creative – how to create successful online ads
• Targeted Ad Networks – Cost Per Influence Vs. Cost Per Thousand
• Ads in Online Video – the future of interactive advertising?

Speakers:

• Erick Schonfeld (Business 2.0)
• Henry Copeland (Blog Ads)
• Jim Coudal (Coudal Partners)
• Mike Hudack (blip.tv)
• Jay Adelson (digg/revision3)
• Darren Rowse (ProBlogger.net)
• Greg Stuart (IAB)
• Carla Hendra (Ogilvy)
• Matt Freeman (Tribal DDB)
• Jeremy Allaire (Brightcove)
• Chas Edwards (Federated Media)
• Steve Rubel (Edelman)
• Andrew Goodman (Page Zero)
• Michael Walrath (Right Media)
• Steve Olechowski (FeedBurner)
• Alyson Racer (New York Times)

I’m excited about both SOBCon and FOOA. After these two conferences, I’m going to be much more knowledgeable about blogging and online marketing. So if you’re into that sort of thing, you’re going to love that this blog will be discussing many great ideas on making money online and effective blogging. If you aren’t interested in that sort of thing, well than I promise I’ll give you plenty more of what you’ve already learned to love from me.

If you’re going to be there, let me know, I’d love to meet up.

I have previously mentioned that I will be attending SOBcon. You can get more info about it at SOBEvent.com, but I’ll tell you the gist.

Purpose
We will demonstrate to 250 bloggers how to take their existing blogs to the next level through interactive presentations on publishing, design and branding, tools, analytics, social networking, marketing, and coaching, from the perspectives of the blogger and the audience.

Some of the speakers include, Wendy Piersall of emoms at home. If you remember, I did a guest post for her not too long ago, about having a magnetic blog .

Edit: I through this post up in a hurry, in order to qualify for Wendy’s contest. First person to make a new post about SOBCon and e-mail her wins. I WON!!! So excited! I’ll put some more info on SOBCon below.

If you’re going, or thinking about going, contact me. I’d love to see some people that read this site regularly or live in my area (New York/Jersey).

I found a press release that was put out on SOBCon. It’s like a little review of it and is found on PRWeb .

So far we have had 21 participants in the contest, that is a total of $21 going to some charity, but theres still $479 to go! There are two more weeks left in order for you to participate, and have money donated to a good cause.

Contest Rules

In order to participate, and help me spread the word about this contest (and this site), you need to include the following sentence, all links intact, within a blog post. Doesn’t have to be a new post, could be part of a speedlink, shout out, or weekly recap, but it must be in full, with all links attached.

Alex Shalman at Practical Personal Development (a blog about self help and personal growth) is hosting a Donation Contest in which you press a button and he donates a dollar.

My favorite link of the week to the donation contest was written by Brian Lee, over at Genius Types. He talks about the buzz around this project, and why there will always be nay sayers.

If you already participated in the contest, and would like to further support it, feel free to e-mail it to a friendly blogger and pass on the good word.

In other news, I am on my way out the door to the New York ProBlogger Meetup, so expect some sort of feedback about it.

The Easier-Than-It-Sounds Guide To Living An Outstanding Life

This is my official copyright and announcement that I am working on a new book. This book, The Personal Development Bootcamp , will serve as a launching pad for people just getting started on personal development, personal growth, self help, or just looking to kick their life up a notch or two.

Whether this will be your first personal development book, or you’re a seasoned veteran (…junky), this book will contain the fundamentals to get you well on your way to creating a better, more balanced, and outstanding life.

Together, we’ll build a plan to improve all areas of your development. This includes (but is not limited to) character, motivation, time management, goal setting, communication, relationships, accelerated learning, health, fitness, spirituality, finances, money management, depression, addiction, disciplines and more.

If you are already familiar with my tell-it-like-it-is writing style, you know that I focus on being practical (easily applied). The Personal Development Boot camp will take you through the motions, get you into some good habits, and most importantly it will get you thinking about what is most important for YOU to get out of life, and you’ll be able to achieve it.

Get off your lazy butts!!! and… No, I’m not a drill sergeant, (more of a coach) despite what you might be thinking if you’ve found this site just now (the cover art screams this, I know). I’m not going to make you drop down and give me twenty, but I’ll help you realize why you need to give yourself twenty, and why you’ve been avoiding it all this time.

Want to be the first to get this ebook, a must have on any self improvement product list, when it’s launched? The best way to do this is to sign up for my free Practical Personal Development Newsletter, where I’ll send you updates and exclusive information you won’t find anywhere else.

In the mean time, feel free to browse through the most popular posts, as found in the sidebar on the left.

This is my first weekly update for the Donation Contest, which is ending on April 15th.

Subscribers to the website increased by a whopping 20% according to feedburner. While the posts traffic accounts for only 1.67% of the sites visits in the past 7 days, this is due to the explosive traffic drawn to yesterdays post Seven Questions That Will Change Your Life.

Another side effect and what has generated the most buzz about this donation contest is the amount of backlinks that it received – the current count is 15 backlinks, which means that I am putting $15 into the donation pool, so far.

It’s not too late to participate!

Like I said, the contest is running until APRIL 15TH. Get on the bandwagon and help me donate money to a good cause. Everytime you post the following line into your blog or website, I will put $1 into the donation pool. On April 15th I will pick one of the “lucky linkers” and donate ALL THE MONEY (up to $500) to a legitimate charity of THEIR choice. Good deal huh?

You can copy/paste this line. All links must be intact for the entry to be valid.

Alex Shalman at Practical Personal Development (a blog about self help and personal growth) is hosting a Donation Contest in which you press a button and he donates a dollar.

I did mention that this contest has generated a lot of buzz, some good and some bad. One group of people think it is very evil of me to use a charity to gain publicity. Another group of people think that it’s a wonderful thing that I’m donating money to a good cause, and I’m being smart about promoting this site. The comments section is the perfect place to voice your opinion on this subject.

Here is how you can get me to donate $1:

Link to this post and alexshalman.com from your blog. You must use the line “Alex Shalman at Practical Personal Development (a blog about self help and personal growth) is hosting a Donation Contest in which you press a button and he donates a dollar”, with all links intact and any additional things you would like to say. I choose this specific sentence in order to build search engine rankings, in a plan to have my dollar go a long way.
Recap

You post about the contest in your blog and I donate a dollar. That’s a total of $1 going to charity! My budget for this charity project is $500 so feel free to be generous and spread the word of this donation contest around to other bloggers.

How do YOU get to decide?

In exactly 1 month, on April 15th I will be randomly selecting a person that has linked to this contest. I will contact them and let them pick a legitimate charity of their choice! If this contest goes very well I have plans to acquire more funding to increase the donation love.

The more people that participate, the more good will that is spread around. So, tell a friend or ten and we’ll contribute to a good cause.

[edit] If you checked the blog between 10:30 – 11:30am on 3/15 there was mention of adding this blog to technorati favorites in order for me to donate an extra dollar. I decided to do away with that part of the contest and perhaps do something with it at another time. Linking to the blog with the key sentence is the way to get the donation going.

I present you with five essential plugins that you don’t want to blog without.

Show Top Commentators: This plugin rewards the top commentators by providing back links from my site. This should improve their google ranking and possibly send some traffic their way. I will increase the Top 5 to Top 10 once the comments get to double digits.

MyBlogLog: Ok, this isn’t exactly a plugin, you’re right. It is a pretty cool thing to have up on the site though. This is another reward system for my readers, as it provides a way to interact and check out each others blogs. As you can see my community is a bit lacking in the people department, so don’t be shy and join!

Subscribe to comments: This plugin puts a check box after the comment box so that you can get e-mail updates to the comments and come back to reply. In case you haven’t figured it out, I want you to comment, because I want to know what you have to say, so comment.

Feedburner Feed Replacement: This plugin converts all the RSS feeds to feedburner so that I have better tracking functions. How does this benefit you? It makes me happy, which will trickle down to you, somehow.

Related posts: The link that most other sites offer to this plugin is not functioning, so here is the latest one. It was a bit of a pain to install so I enlisted the help of Charley. I expect this plugin to get my readers to look at more pages, since older articles will be more readily available.

If you go over to my first post, you will see some of the other plugins that I’ve used when launching this site in mid-December, 2006. I will keep you updated whenever I get a really good batch of plugins in.

The Making: an outline of what it took to make this site

• Hosting – my host is 1and1, which have been reliable and very competitively priced.
• Software – for all my coding/editing I stuck with Macromedia Dreamweaver.
• Engine – the meat behind the blog is the WordPress blogging utility.
• Guides -
• Editing wordpress with dreamweaver guide by Max.
• Official WordPress manual, The Codex.
• The WordPress Chatroom on IRC.
• Template – the wordpress template that I have edited to fit this site is Greening, by Mihalev.
• Plugins – (subject to increase gradually)
• Exec-PHP by James Van Lommel.
  
• Share-This by Alex King
• Sidebar Widgets
• Clean Archives by Shawn Grimes
• WP-ContactForm by Ryan Duff

That’s the start of it all. Of course, expect me to introduce miner tweaks to the site. Anything to offer more accessibility and ease of use. The main page describes more of what you can expect from this site in the future.

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