My children are adults now and when they were growing up, computers had really only just begun their ‘take over’ of the world. Sounds dramatic, well have a look around you. How many things in our lives are now run by computers?
My children had one second hand 486 desk top computer that I scrimped and saved to provide for them;

A computer from years ago – a 486.

and they throught they were “just it” and would boast to their friends that they now had this great computer. So funny looking back, 486 – do the young people of today even know what that was?
So for a bit of nostalgia – here is what the super fast 486 computer looked like.

Now back to the serious topic of how the internet has become a massive threat to the children of today – your children or grandchildren, nieces and nephews.

It only takes a very quick Google search to find countless articles on internet threats to children.

Cyber-Bullying
With the ever increasing strength of the social networks that children have access to, like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and it seems a new one attempts to launch weekly now, children are at threat of this new type of bullying, we call CyberBullying. They can be even attacked in this manner by sms on their mobile phone! Take a look at the shopping mall, or school yard, how many children have a mobile phone? And then their is the online gaming that lures children in to ‘play’ and they may end up with horror experiences to the point that we read of increasing numbers of teenage suicides that have occured due to this personalised type of bullying.

Child Predators
Every parents greatest fear! I remember how worried I would get if one of my sons was late home – this fear is now greatly increased as the internet makes it possible for these predators to stalk children in their homes. These child predators frequent online chat rooms, gaming rooms, and social media sites, in search of an unsuspecting child to ‘befriend’.
They could then become their next victim. How many cases do we read and hear about in the media of children that have been kidnapped, raped, molested, abused, even murdered and the investigations have linked the attacker back to an online meeting?

Cyber-Stalking
Ah this is getting worse as I go along!
This is when someone uses a database to stalk their victim. The social network sites are great databases to support these horrid actions. In past times, a stalker had to actually physically follow a person around but not now. With the internet the stalker can be located anywhere, and they can watch your every move via your Facebook or Twitter posts (for example) And this list continues to grow and the horrors become more and more real as part of the everyday lives of our children.

Of course the question we must ask is:
How can children be protected from these Internet Threats?

Back to the conversations I have been having about this topic that is so close to our hearts, the security of children on the internet.

A dedicated and caring group have taken this problem to heart and tackled it head on. I have had lengthy chats on the phone hearing all about the solution they have come up with. As I have mentioned before, I don’t discuss products or services on my blog unless I have had personal experience with it or someone close to me that I trust has.

I have asked a tech guy I trust to test this product and he has given me glowing comments and in fact, has said he is going to recommend it personally as well, AND I have personally known one of the creators of this product for a good number of years now – so I would like to introduce you to a product that I feel solves this problem and provides a safe internet environment for children.
It is aptly called CyberSafe247

So now I hear the questions! What is it? How much is it? Do I need to be a computer geek to use or install it? Will it keep up with the changes online? and when it comes to children, I really feel you cannot ask enough questions.

A visit to the CyberSafe247 Website provides us with a lot of answers.
So lets discuss a few of these questions.

What is it? It is a unique ‘plug and play’ wi-fi modem router that provides internet protection for your entire family.

Do I need to be a computer geek to use or install it? No, it has been designed with an easy to use interface.

At this point for those who need to know, and I know that there are the techs that have to know everything about how it works (my goodness I raised one and live with one), well you will be happy to know, there is a long tech information page that you can read. If you have any questions, please just contact the guys and they will answer them for you.

This was a BIG one I thought! The CyberSafe247 can protect your family on many online device they have: iPhones, iPads, gaming machines, laptops, desktops – now that is offering security to children!

Ok now the question you thought I would not answer.

How much is it?
The answer may stun you, I know it really surprised me. You can get this super internet security for your family for under $200. So it is extremely affordable and is available in many countries.

Now, I am not going to say now that you should rush off and buy this product. I would strongly suggest you give it thought.

Are you children at risk when they are online? Do you know what websites they are viewing and who they are chatting to? Do you know what they downloaded last night?

Have a look at the CyberSafe247 Website, do some reading, contact the guys and ask questions. Personally, I think the security and safety of children is one of the most important things we need to be concerned about as parents.

About 6 years ago, I had a business meeting with a gentleman at his home in a Sydney suburb. We got onto the topic of trading and he took me to his office to show me his bookcase, packed full of folders of the different trading systems he had purchased over the years. He told me he had spent close on $100,000 on these systems and used none of them to actually trade, however he felt that money had been well spent as he had received an amazing education from the content of these systems.

I cannot tell you the number of people I have met since then that have told me very similar stories and they have all spent various sums of money on these trading systems they do not use to live trade with. They have all supported his comments that the education they have received was worth every cent.
Have you purchased a trading system, spent a reasonable sum of money on this and now find it is sitting on your bookshelf like a well earned trophy? If yes, you can see you are certainly not alone.

I am sure you have heard that you should always invest in yourself and become educated in the things you are wanting to do – trading is no different.

Back to my ‘great debate’.

What is the main difference between Trading yourself or enlisting an Auto Trading System?

My answer is quite short and simple really.
I believe the difference is TIME.
How much is your Time worth to you? I know my time seems to be in very short supply and so I feel my time is precious. Do you feel the same?

Back to my ‘great debate’.

I have done the years of education, training, practise – you name it, I have done it. Can I trade myself? Yes, I can and I have. I have learnt about forex trading, commodity trading, trading ETFs and about many different options trades that I can place. I have learnt how to use trading platforms and the different ways each requires me to place the trade. I have learnt how to calculate the risk on a trade and on my account. I have studied extensively to be very aware of how mindset plays a huge part in the success in your trading……. all this education and I have spent years helping and supporting other new traders to learn all this and more.

An old saying pops into mind now – “I wish I knew what I know now many years ago!”

Fact is, we cannot put an ‘old head on young shoulders’, so we need to go through the learning curve to gain the information we need to make informed decisions – educated decisions.

All the learning I have done, all the seminars I have paid to attend and the systems I have purchased have all been worth it. I have been educated by this process and education needs to be paid for. Here’s an example to consider. If I didn’t buy a Trading system I would think the only way to learn to trade would be to read as many books as I could, do as much research online as possible and maybe find some charts to look at on a page something like http://finance.yahoo.com/ or similar such finance sites. Then I would think I would need to search the internet for a platform to place my trades on, then I guess it is trial and error until I got this trading ‘thing’ somewhat correct. I have met a good number of people who gained their trading education in this very method AND they say it cost them dearly, financially, emotionally and in their relationships often.

So where am I at these days? Am I totally turned off trading altogether? No Way!
I do have a different view of it though.

Everything comes at a cost of some sort. You have to decide what cost you are prepared to pay.

To Trade Yourself will take time from your day, time away from your partner, family and friends and time away from doing the things you want to do or really ‘need’ to be doing (like sleeping perhaps!) If you want to do intra-day trading, you are sentencing yourself to late nights and early mornings sitting at your computer, watching and waiting for that elusive signal that says “take this trade.” You can sit there for hours, not able to leave that computer and not see that signal – move away for a while and you may miss that signal.
I met a couple that did this sort of trading. The husband traded from 8pm till midnight, while the wife slept – then they changed places. The wife traded from midnight to 4am while the husband slept. Gosh, that is not my idea of a marriage – well I guess they wouldn’t argue much though. They told me they did make what they considered ‘good money’ from trading this way, but they paid a very high personal price for that result.

What other options are there if I still want to trade?

What about Auto Trading? But wait, don’t you have to pay to be able to have these systems trade for you? Yes you do and again, lets look at the costs. Is your time worth sharing some of the possible profits with an expert who is trading for you? My decision was, “Yes it is!”

I decided it is definitely worth paying for someone who is a trading expert to trade on my behalf. So this is the direction I am now taking. Am I upset at the money I have spent on previous systems? No. To the contrary, I am pleased that I am now educated and I know what these ‘experts’ are talking about. I now understand the ‘language’ used in the trading arena by the people that trade as a way of making their living. These people love trading and they ‘want’ to spend their time trading, so of course, I should pay them for the extra knowledge they have that I don’t have AND I pay them so I can have my time back.

Do I hear a BUT? But, there are so many auto systems – how do I know which one works or will get the returns I am hoping for – how will I know they are a reputable company?
I went through all these questions and more.

My answer – take your time. Do your due diligence. Talk to people, read comments on the internet, watch a system for a time before getting out your wallet to send them your money. Read the fine print. Really, you don’t want to have your money locked away so you can’t get access to it should you need to or just want to. Ask the company questions. You are now educated so ask educated questions about risk management, percentage of your funds that will be in the market at any time and what returns the system might bring to you.
In my mind, if a system is charging a monthly fee, well I think I want to see them make a fair bit more than that fee as a return on my funds so the trading system is paying for itself.
(I do understand that with trading the system is most likely going to have the odd backward month or 2, however I would expect the overall general result to be positive)

Do you agree?

So where to from here? I believe I have found a system that will do just that – more than cover the monthly fees (and start up costs) plus bring me a reasonable return on my funds in my trading account. I have been watching an Auto Trading System for a while now and I have been very pleased with these guys (and gals). They have answered my questions (and I ask a lot of questions) and they have continued to provide good returns. My funds are not locked away and I can cease my account when I choose – just why would I if I am actually making money?

So while they are trading and making money for me…….. I have my time back to do the other things in my life that I want and need to – and yes I can sleep!

What is this system?
Well I am still watching them, so keep tuned to my blog and I give you their details soon. Then, I don’t want you to take my word for anything, I want you to ask your questions, follow them, track their results, read about them……. then you can make your own educated decisions as to whether this is a system you are interested in.

This article quotes from several books and talks about the hugely reduced hours that the children of today actually play outdoors. It says that there has been a huge shift “in children’s outdoor recreation time – reduced from 73% to just 14% in the space of one generation.” It went so far as to say “studies are finding that outdoor play affects their cognitive, emotional and physical health,” and further that “children with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) have also been found to perform better after contact with nature.”

I was previlidged enough to have raised 3 sons and now I think, lucky enough, to have always had large backyards for them to run and play freely in. To me it was my way of ‘remaining sane’ to be able to have the 3 boys run and play outside rather than be full of energy and confined indoors. Gosh, if they weren’t able to ‘burn’ off some of that energy I fear they would never have slept. Times certainly are changing and backyards are becoming smaller and smaller and in the major cities, many children are now raised in high rise buildings – with no yard at all. This article really made me think about how life must be to raise children in this sort of environment.

I am sure there are local parks that parents can take their children to so they can play outside, however, think for a moment of the reality of “life” that most parents endure now. Mostly both parents work full time jobs and so the children would be in some sort of ‘care’ after school. So what would happen every week day, the family would wake, devour breakfast and dress at a furious pace, off to school and work, then leave work to collect children from care, then home again. Now it would be late if not dark, so time to prepare the evening meal, homework, then bed. To visit a local park would take time that is not really available in the average working day, and the children would always need to be supervised in such a public place, unlike my boys that could run freely (and safely) in our backyard.

The reasons quoted in the article for this massively reduced amount of outdoor play are were “parents concerns about crime and safety” and really I can see these fears are real in our modern society – sadly. The article then went on to say that a study “showed that between 2004 and 2008, six to nine year olds spent (on average) just under 2 hours a day outdoors on the weekend with the rest of their time spent on sedentary indoor activities. The result… is a growing list of health issues including rising obesity, attention disorders and depression – the latter appearing at an increaseinly early age.”

Why am I raising this topic today? I believe that raising awareness is an inportant part of what the internet can offer to the modern world. Education is paramount to the health of the people in the fast moving society and the more we discuss everyday topics like this the more aware we all become. As I have said, my definition of Complete Wealth is to have good health, finances, relationships and mindset.

The standard of the future generations health begins with our children’s health now.

It seems as the modern world takes hold with everything being fast, online, on mobile devices and access to the world becomes easier each day, that the old fashioned concept of ‘keeping your word‘ is dissappearing. It has greatly disturbed me to see people and businesses going down this path.

What happened to the “good ole days” when a hand-shake and a promise was all that was needed to be able to ‘trust’ someone?

So a business moves to the internet to find new custom and as an effective method of supporting clients in diverse locations. Does this mean ethics just disappear? No. I can never accept this is the direction the world is heading in, and in fact, I see evidence that this type of issue has ‘turned the corner’ and is returning to old fashioned standards. Right now I see that people have been shaken by the world economy and they are concerned, if not fearful of doing business transactions as ‘what people and business say is often not what they do.’

How sad is this?

I have spent years being engrossed in topics linked to personal development and things like ‘goal setting’, ‘being aware of what you think and what you say’ and ‘integrity’ that have all become paramount in my world.

I decided to look up the word ‘integrity’ on dictionary.com. (yes I do most things online now also) This site quotes the meaning of integrity as “adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.” I am dumbfounded as to why acting in this way seems to be a challenge for so many people and that then flows through to the businesses they are part of. It is time to make a stand! To stamp out everything from our world that is anything less that what this description gives us – adherence to moral and ethical principles.

How many times have you purchased a product from a business only to find it is much harder to work than was first implied or it doesn’t really do what the sales people said it would?
What about investments – ah yes, I am only too aware that the disclaimer with investment product really covers them as you cannot really predict future returns – but wouldn’t you think it should be something like what the sales people said to you?
I could really go on with so many comments here as I have fallen victim to these types of low integrity purchases as well.

Selling with integrity!

Share with others if you have dealings with businesses that show high integrity. That do what they said they would do, to the very best of their ability. Whose products work in the way the sales staff said it would. This is how we stamp out the other lower standards displayed in the world today.

For me, You Are Your Words, is a phrase to stand by and hold ones head up high. Do we make mistakes? Of course, we are human after all, but always doing the best we can in what ever we do, and encouraging the person beside you to do the same – this can only start a revolution of the highest standard the world has seen. Individuals carry these traits through to their business dealings and so the world becomes a better place.

Sounds like an ideal? Yes maybe so, however, I have walked away from people and businesses that showed a lower level of intergrity than I was prepared to accept and I am determined to always carry out my businesses with the highest level of integrity that is possible.

I guess this has been my ‘rant’ for the day and hope you share some of my views.

“You Are Your Words” – DebbieRein.com

This entire process has been quite a learning curve and I thought I would share some of that learning here today.

My first major learning has been to make sure your website has secure usernames and passwords. I have had websites hacked and this was purely because I didn’t make my password secure enough. Ah yes, I can hear my tech guys now and yes, they DID tell me so. So what is the best way to get a secure password? Open a word document and then randomly type letters (both upper and lower case), numbers and symbols – this is nearly impossible for the hackers to break through. Of course, now this blog has a very secure password and we move on. Lesson learnt.

We hear often, WordPress is free, it is user friendly – just load up a theme and add a few plugins and you are up and running. Gee I wish it was that easy. Now I think I am fairly internet savvy, its just, well really, it is NOT that simple. When you load wordpress and look at the simple themes, well they are just that, simple and make your site look, well simple and they really don’t do much for the ‘look’ you might be seeking to create with your website. To get a more ‘sofisticated’ look to your site, you need to seek out a better theme.

So you could build one and hey, I really don’t have those skills so you then seek out where to purchase a ready made theme from. Once you find a source you then purchase the one you select and then you should be underway – easy. Well maybe not.

You will want the banner to ‘look like you’ and then you want the headings to be ‘what you want’ – my gosh the challenges I had to just create a simple form for people to fill out to contact me was amazing! It is now that my tech’s were asked to step in and HELP ME! The thing that can be so annoying is how simple they make it look and they say, “oh Debbie, you just needed to apply this and add this and then it works.” Yes easy, so how on earth is the ‘average’ internet user ever going to be able to load a website to be able to begin creating some sort of communication or even better, an income online?

Really if you do not want to go paying for tech support to personally assist you with these techie tasks, then you really need to find a system that gives you that and more.

I’ve been involved with the internet for a number of years now – and there are a number of things you must know to be able to just ‘be found’ by another internet user. These ‘things’ are not particularly difficult and I do not believe you need to be an expert in any of them – you must know about them though, or you will not be successful in any degree on the internet.

In this blog, I wish to share the things I have learnt of my many years in business, both online and off. I do not promote myself as an expert or heavan forbid, a guru, in anything. I am someone who has really worked in business for over 25 years and in a number of different industries and those years have taught me many lessons. After working with a Wealth Creation company and then attending what seemed to be an endless number of seminars and trainings, read (and continue to read) books on linked topics and supporting and learning from hundreads of clients along the way – I have developed my version of what “WEALTH” is.

Complete Wealth Is……..Health, Finances, Relationships and Mindset.

All these areas of your life need to be worked on and in a ‘healthy’ state for you to be completely wealthy.

What use is millions of dollars to you if you find you are ill and all alone?
What use is being super healthy and fit, if you have no money and feel you are useless?
How can you really feel great if you meet the perfect person to spend your life with, you have have no money to live with and believe you are not deserving of such a fine person?

You must have good Health, good Finances, good Relationships and a good Mindset to really have Complete Wealth.

In my blog, DebbieRein.com I will share my thoughts and experiences in these areas and the systems or products I have tried and tested to assist me on my path to Complete Wealth.

After my boys left school, I decided it was time to learn how to find the all elusive “financial freedom”. I made the big decision and moved interstate to live in a small studio apartment while working with a small wealth creation company. I was always looking for ways of implementing into my life the three wealth creation strategies that the company had been teaching others: creating money through real estate, trading and businesses.

I saw an opportunity and learnt how to trade the financial markets. This taught me how important mindset really was and that the cliche of ‘sticking to your rules’ was actually the reality with trading.

By now I had returned to Queensland to live and establish my business where I assisted new traders to do what I had learnt with trading.

Formal training was inevitable in a highly regulated financial industry and I was quite proud to have passed and been certified compliant with government authority regulations.

It was during my time supporting these new traders that I published my first book, “Don’t Trade Your Lifestyle. To be honest, I wrote this book out of pure frustration, after watching new traders make the same mistakes I had seen others make over and over again. So Easter of 2009, I sat at my computer and wrote this book.

Life moves on and more opportunities continue to present themselves to me. Mindset has become one of my major focuses and I see how this has such a huge effect on where different peoples’ lives travell to.

With my newly revamped blog site, DebbieRein.com I will discuss the lessons I have learnt as well as what my passions are. Many are seeking the elusive ways to increase their income and indeed their wealth. Why does it seem that opportunities follow some people around and not others.

My focus on wealth is not just income or money. In my opinion, Complete Wealth is much more than this.

Complete Wealth Is……… Health, Finances, Mindset and Relationships.

If one of these areas falls down for you, the others just don’t have the same worth. These are the topics I wish to discuss with you through my Blog – DebbieRein.com