Doesn’t it seem that everyone has a specific view on what should be most important in your life? My title of “3 Most Important Areas of Your Life” really should have an additional “dot dot dot” because for me my faith should be the most important followed by family then work. I am human just like you. Ironic, don’t your think? Mike, Mike, Mike… but wait, you’re telling me the 3 most important things in life aren’t “Love, Sex, and Rock-n-roll”? I guess you could make a persuasive argument. JK

Over the weekend I attended the high school graduation for the seniors of Smithville High School. Jenn’s brother finally completed his 13 years of the public education system and will be off to boot camp before we know it. We are certainly proud that he accomplished this milestone that is the beginning of a new era of his legacy and name.

3 Areas of Your Life

Their principal, Dr. Rudy Papenfuhs had a strong yet simple message for each of them. Ironically I started thinking back to my high school graduation and frankly don’t remember any of those inspiring messages we were given. He had a basic strategy of relaying what 12 years ago looked like by bringing out two kindergartens wearing a graduation hat and gown out to center stage. His message…. this was what 12 years ago looked like and how far you’ve come. Could you image? Frankly… it is hard to imagine but the reality of his message is true. The meat of his message focused on 3 things to focus your life on.

You’re Skill Set

Look at what skills you have developed and what others have told you that you are very good at. Analyze those skills to determine what sets you apart from your peers, classmates, and others around you. Ah, good point. I could imagine everyone in attendance gave that deer in the head light look or depression sunk in when they realized they’ve let 20 years go by and haven’t came to terms with this. I know sometimes in the game of life you have to do things that aren’t desirable but don’t allow that to be your outcome.

Your Passion

Next he said to find what gets you excited in the morning that gives you that attitude of enjoyment. What drives you to be inspired? What makes your world go round with joy and enthusiasm?

Working For Income

This step he referred to that many jump right to this one without analyzing the first two steps and then try to work backwards. That they jump into the work force to start earning that dollar participating in the monotony of the grind.   Of course the money is appealing when you didn’t have much of it before.

His message was clear…if you find your skills, pin point your passion, then what you do in life to develop income for your adult life will be far more enjoyable yet… will make a difference in this world. More importantly, you’re overall level of contentment.

Closing

12 years after I graduated high school, I would agree that if I knew now what I known then… life would look slightly different. Our journey takes many paths and I would encourage anyone shooting out of the gate to take his advice because you can set yourself up for success in whatever it is that you’re trying to achieve by making sure you have a clear and concise notion of what makes your tick. Worse case… you’ll have a bit more focus.

For me, my childhood ambition was to become an architect. I was encouraged by several people around and felt that I found what I wanted to be “when I grew up”. Into college I went with this in mind but reality started to give me a dose of another world…business/ entrepreneurship. My immediate surroundings during childhood weren’t quite filled with that environment for the most part. I was just told I could be anything I wanted to be but I only knew of a few industries in life. I sometimes giggle when I hear someone ask a child, “What do you want to be when you grow up”. I often feel we should be harboring an environment from a young age that promotes exposing our children to exploring different ideas of entrepreneurship. I have a big job to do with 3 sons.

Read Article by Mark Cuban: The Coming Meltdown in College Education & Why The Economy Won’t Get Better Any Time Soon

Looking back now, I cannot say with a 100% certainty that I wish things would have been different. I have an incredible amount life to be extremely thankful and humbled for. I am excited that I have so much knowledge to propel me in a positive direction.

In a way that makes you tick, make a list of skills that you are best at, identify any passions you’ve made note of, and find a way to weave that into your income stream.

Find a mentor today. You’ll need that support in life.

~Stults

*photo credit inline with text: http://www.thisisjustcool.com/

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1. Practical and Down-To-Earth

No, I’m not talking about the Duracel batteries but recharging your internal battery. We all get beat down and need that source of energy to fight through the rollacoaster they call life. You exactly know what I mean!

Today life throws so many curve balls at us that it is easy to get distracted. Such as in my industry, working online can even provide additional distractions. Things like email, instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook, online forums, blogs, other social networks, news sites, phones, mobile devices, text messages, Skype, podcasts, Google Alerts, mobile apps, videos, online music, online shopping, internet radio, paperwork, online games, solitaire, internet TV, and ebooks all provide a source of potential distracting outcomes through out the day. Oh, did I miss something? I am sure you can add kiddos, spouse, and etc to the list.

At times I feel the need to always be learning something new or trying to get better at my current skills. Although this is a strong asset and desire to have, it can back fire on you. Sometimes you feel like a kid in a candy store and your attention is equally spread out amongst the many things you feel you need to accomplish. Have you had a similar feeling? What if you took a day or a weekend day and just didn’t turn on any of your electronic devices? I know for me I start getting the itch to “check in” to the world and get an update.

Do you have habits of any kind that you would like to break and replace with more productive or positive ones? I know we are all guilty of this and that is why I suggest grabbing this free manifesto on focus by Leo Babauta. I’ve recently came across it and although it doesn’t provide every chapter from his book he extends a great deal of information that I suggest you pick through and find some points that you feel apply directly to your life. Click Download button below to get your Free eBook “Focus”

I like how he talks about picking the subtle very little actions that can lead up to bigger ones. Sounds funny and we’ve all heard this a million times. Some of you may even be getting that gagging feeling about now! LOL It’s ok because the truth of the matter is he is right. I know I sometimes just want to conquer the objective but you need to build the foundation to lead up to that success.

In our society today we are asked to spend more time trying to increase speed, efficiencies, and productivity yet we lack the proper things to help us get their like our overall health, sleep, and diet. If we could find a way to stay more focused during those short busts of energy we get throughout the day then we could come closer to getting there. Leo has a part in the ebook that talks about these things listed below.

Tips for a slower-paced life:

1. Do Less
2. Have fewer meetings
3. Practice disconnecting
4. Give yourself time to get ready and get there
5. Practice being comfortable with sitting, doing nothing
6. Realize that if it doesn’t get done that’s OK.
7. Start to eliminate the unnecessary
8. Practice mindfulness
9. Slowly eliminate commitments

No need to elaborate on them with my post but make sure to go check out what ol’ Leo has put together. He is an author with other great books out there.

Feel the need to purchase the full copy?

 Paperback

 Kindle Version

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1. 30 Years And Counting
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I thought this would be a quick easy thing to share as it is something that I run across that needs to be done occasionally. I would bet that people are searching all the time on how to create a jump page or what is a jump page. It basically is simple HTML that you can add in your page that will give you a great way to allow people to move swiftly inside your page….especially if it is an extremely long page with a lot of content.

Jump Page How To:

1. Create a basic link pointing to another section on the page using the A HREF (HTML).
2. Give the “point” on the page a definitive “name”. Click Here Example

Example:

<A HREF=”#keywordcode”>Jump Page HTML</A> 

Here’s how you denote where the jump will scroll the page:

<A NAME=”keywordcode”>

Additional Example: Jump Page In Action

What is Happening Using A Jump on Your Page

• The A HREF is very simply just like creating a HTML link except you don’t spell out the link. Just put the keyword code <A HREF=”#keywordcode”>Jump Page HTML</A>
• You need to use the # sign so that it tells the browser to look inside the page you’re on and not outside of the page.
• You name your Keywordcode anything you want. Best tip of advice is to keep it short. .
• Do not use a # sign within the <A NAME=”keywordcode”>. You just need to use it once to where the initial click action will occur.
• Once a link is clicked it will appear in the browser URL. Ex: http://www.domain.com/page/#keywordcode

Jumping from another page

So let’s say you’re on Page A and you want someone to go to a specific part of Page B. That link would look like http://www.domain.com/PageB/#gohere. When that link is clicked on Page A then they will be taken to that specific part of Page B as long as you have defined your KeywordCode on that page.

Additional Information:

My HTML Tutorials

WordPress Splitting Content

Back To Top

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I woke up yesterday and before I left early that morning to head to the gym, I told God “thank you” for allowing me 30 years on this earth. I told him that I hope that he has many more for me. This post isn’t going to be any detailed in depth reflection of my life up until this point but more to express my gratitude for some of the things I have been blessed to experience.

Everyone has a different perception of how life should be and what they want to accomplish. I’ve been blessed to have a wonderful wife whom I love very much. I have 3 sons when many couples struggle to even have children and I’ve been able to accomplish some success in my working life.

Sunrise 3-13-12

Sometimes I need to stop and reflect on what is most important in life. Do you ever feel that way? I’ve been beyond thankful for all the generosity of my friends, colleagues, and even people that I really don’t know. After all, it’s about people isn’t it? Now, no one said you had to like them all! ha

30 years old doesn’t feel really any different for me. I was truly blessed to have so many kind people to wish me a happy birthday. For the years to come, I hope that my heart grows closer to the lord, I develop more of the skills and abilities I’ve been blessed with, and have a overwhelming positive impact on people.

If you’re having a bad day… just imagine if you were this guy?

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Have you had a situation where you needed to restore WordPress or clone WordPress for any reason? Those reasons could be that you made an update and it messed up your site, your site was infected with a virus, or you simply wanted to duplicate your site to another domain. Guilty as charged? You may be more than aware of the various options out there. Backup Creator is one of the newest plugin’s on the market that gives you the ability and security knowing you have all those files. Sure, there is BackupBuddy, which I also use. I mean… who said you just had to have one option to backup your sites?

What Backup Creator does for you is it creates an easy to use plugin to install, click, and the patience to know you have your WordPress sites secured. You simply click one button to backup your site. Then choose where you want to send that backup you created!

Backup Creator Backup Options

1. Download the file to your hard drive
2. Email it to yourself (if you have a super large site… may not be the best option)
3. FTP to backup offsite (probably the most recommended).

I’ve considered for a long time that I wanted something in addition to BackupBuddy. Backup Creator convinced me that it was the right tool for the job. It was incredibly simple to use. Once you download the plugin to your computer then we can get started. Essentially I tell my clients all the time that they should have a backup solution in place and that is why I decided to write this quick post about it.

Install Backup Creator Plugin

Just like normal if you’re familiar with this process, you will go to “Plugins” on the left menu about midway down and select “Add new”. Then select “Upload”.

Activate

Once you’ve selected your file to upload and done so, it will ask you if you want to activate it? Of course…select “activate”.

Next, you will need to go to the Backup Creator’s settings and enter your email and license key for Backup Creator. This will activate your copy of it. Get your license key here.

Additional Settings for Backup Creator

Now that you are ready to roll, Backup Creator has given you some additional settings to control what you would like to do once you do create a backup in your WordPress. You’re options are to Automatically Backup, Email Backup, and FTP Backup. On the automatic backup, you can set a “schedule” if you choose to automatically backup your site. When selecting to “Email Backup” to you once a backup is done, just be cautious and know that most hosting companies and email programs will put a limit on how big of file can be “emailed”. If you have a big site then that option may not be best for you.

Regarding the FTP Backup…this may be a nice suitable option for many. Essentially I would create a new FTP user on your hosting account or another a separate hosting company (if you have more than one…ha) and enter those details below like hostname, username, and password. I’m really pleased to see this option because so many times developers leave this out as an option or they just give you the option to load to Amazon S3 which is solid but some people don’t want to pay for that service.

“Press Backup Site”

Once done with “Settings” you want to select “Backups” on the top left of Backup Creator’s Plugin screen. Now for the nitty gritty! The first radio button will say “Backup This Site” and it should be checked as this is the default action. Next, hit the big blue button below that says “Backup This Site” and watch the magic happen.

The process takes only a few minutes at most and depending on the size of your site, it can vary in times.

Restoring Your Site With Backup Creator

Let’s say that you’ve needed to restore your site to a new domain or your existing one.

First let’s go the route of installing it on a new domain. You basically get your wordpress installed like you’ve potentially done a million times. Install Backup Creator plugin and activate. Once that is accomplished referring to the screenshot above, simply select “Restore From File” and select your backup file on your compter and hit “Backup This Site”. Should be golden from there. You just have a few minor changes like “site title” and etc that you will have to update but the rest of your content will be ready to rock. At least this is one way.

If you’re restoring on your current domain, you have the same options as above except the plugin is already installed (assuming you don’t gut your site and start clean).

*I have included my affiliate link in this post.

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If you’re crazy and you know it, please clap your hands! (clap, clap). On January 28, 2012 around noonish, I participated in the 2012 Polar Bear Plunge out at Shawnee Mission Park/Lake in Shawnee Mission, Kansas. This was my first time ever doing it. I owe a big thanks to my friend Steve Hugunin who has done this the last 6 years. He is a great guy who loves to help others and especially these special causes such as the Special Olympics. The event raised money for that organization. 

The Good, The Bad…it’s cold!

It was a cold windy day of about 37 degrees. The water was similar in temperature. The coldest part really was just waiting that 1.5 hours until we got  our turn to go into the water. When we did get our turn… I felt no need to go all the way out to high five the fireman who volunteered their time to help keep this a safe event. I think they got plenty of props from the almost 2,000 participants. It felt like forever when I got to a stopping point and turned around to come out of the water. It was like that slow mo feeling you see on films! I will diffidently be doing this again next year! Hopefully we can get a group together to do this! Below is a video of all the shenanigans!

What I Took Away

My feelings on the event are that in life you don’t always start out with the type of cards you would like if this was a hand of poker. Children and adults with special needs are just like you and me. They want to be loved, they want to be taken care of, and they want to feel apart of what is going on around them. Having two sons with a rare disease  also helps me remember these things.

As I walked away from this yesterday, I felt good that this was a for a note worthy cause. Sometimes in life the best way to get over your own problems is to help others. I try real hard to remember those feelings when we are working on awareness for Niemann-Pick Type C disease with our non-profit Niemann-Pick Children’s Fund. I also realized that people are a million times more familier with issues that the Special Olympics encompasses in our society. With a rare disease like what my boys have, it is difficult to get the participation like what we saw Saturday. Either way though, we are doing something to help fight it all! Motion creates emotion!

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Are you trying to find a way to market online? Are you a traditional local business needing to expand online? We all have heard no matter how new you are to any type of marketing concepts this word called “niche”. Sometimes just reading it makes me want to itch in confusion because it gets used quite frequently. This article is short and is intended to initiate some ideas you may have.

What is a niche?

The very definition of niche is that it is relevant to a specific area of interest. An exact definition out of the ol’ dictionary states: “A special area of demand for a product or service”. “Weddings” could be considered a niche, but it’s not a very specific one. “Wedding Cakes” is more of a niche. You probably get the idea that the more detailed you are, people will gain the impression that you will be able to answer their questions. You will gain the trust if your information provides value. It is important to balance the broad range of knowledge you’ve developed to create a great user experience while you develop your niche/information online.

On whatever topic your niche is in, sometimes being too specific might pigeonhole yourself but at the same time it could answer people’s question like I stated earlier. With the evolution of the internet, many people are searching online for answers. They may need your product/service but if you don’t position yourself online, then you are losing opportunities. It’s best just to get started and dive in. Otherwise, time will go by and nothing has taken place.

Common sense seems to say that if you appeal to a wide audience as you can then that is the best way to attract more customers to your product, services or information. You have to love the internet because of the fact you can share your passions and interests with people outside your immediate area as well.

Start Locally

There is some truth to this, and it’s very true that the most profitable companies are international. But the flip side to this is that most of these companies did start out as local entities that simply kept growing. Think about Facebook. They started at Harvard in 2004 and now today they span across the globe in most countries that allow their people to have freedom to share life online in the community. Very few companies make their start hitting the international scene directly. Working worldwide requires an incredible attention to detail and generally a large staff of people who can pay attention to what regions are interested in what products and services you may have to offer. I mean, who can afford to do that right out of the gate?

Act Locally

In short, if you’re a smaller business, you’ll undoubtedly find it’s much more cost effective to market to your local area first. Of course, the nature of the Internet, international shipping, and product demand being what they are, if you’re running a car parts dealership in Kansas City and you get a query from Kansas City, you’ll be able to help. Yet for marketing to be most effective, if you’re based out of Kansas City, it will help if most of your marketing is targeted toward Kansas City. This means that even if you don’t have a brick and mortar outlet, the costs of shipping and communication are much lower as compared to trying to do business with people in Moscow. (I wonder if we can borrow some of their tennis players? Ha)

Once your business takes off, you can start marketing yourself to a wider range of audiences. If you start in Kansas City, move from there to the greater Kansas City suburbs, to the Midwest, to the country, to Canada and across the world. Assuming your product/service is accommodating on a global scale. Maybe you start out within 200 miles from your city?

Just like any type of endeavor, understanding the basics to build upon will be a key to develop your niche. Starting out locally may lead to a smaller audience but you can test out several ideas without the anxiety of trying to “take over the world” all at once. Especially doing it online. Check out Affiliate Marketing – 7 Steps for Beginners.

Start with your niche, start local – and grow.

PS- Don’t worry, there will be more information I will provide soon J.

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It came to my attention that in the past when setting up Google Apps via Fatcow Hosting, that Google Apps doesn’t give you much help with what MX records you need to use to make it all work. So I had just a couple of minutes and decided to make this quick post to give you some ideas on how I was able to get it to work for a few of my clients using Fatcow.

Essentially as you may know, that in Google Apps you need to point your MX Records from your hosting company to Google’s.  This gets the major part out of the way to get you started on that process. Visit here to learn more about setting up Google Apps.

Follow these steps to access your MX Records to modify:

1. Access your control panel
2. Click on “Domain” drop down on the top menu
3. Select “Domain Central”
4. Select the “plus sign” next to the domain you want to change
5. Select “DNS”
6. From the Modify drop down box below select “MX records”
7. Then enter the below MX Records

>>>>> Update

So I was a bit of a slacker because I should have mentioned that you could us the “@” instead of the asterisks. After a few of you fine folks contacted me for help, I realized I better get this up to save you a few more minutes!

I hope this helps a little and my apologies it was a tad bit short on explaining! If you have questions.. just leave the comments below and I will attempt to do my best to help!

Sign Up for FatCow Hosting Here: Udderly Fantastic Web Hosting (yup, that is my affiliate link)

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and search ranking can be a beast to tackle. I typically tell clients that there is no magic pill you can take to just mysteriously show up on the first page of Google.

I hear stories all the time of the local business owner, who are good at their craft receiving a call with someone promising the first page of Google in no time. A few weeks later they wasted a few thousand dollars leaving them in a state of frustration! They are better off reading Search Engine Optimization for Dummies using its SEO checklist to make the changes. This is why WordPress is recommended to give the average Joe the chance to do some of the work themselves.

Internet Marketing SEO

Search engine traffic is the method of someone online whether that is through Google, Yahoo, Bing, or AOL typing into the search bar of one of those sites looking for information about a certain topic. Generally this method of people coming into your website from a search online is preferred because they have a natural interest in the topic. Ideally if you were selling a product, this would be advantageous for you.

Internet marketing is a term that is thrown around a lot essentially describing how to promote your product online so people can find you by your site optimization that you have set into place.

Below I will talk about where you can do some keyword research so you can put together a plan of action. In the mean time… to the nitty gritty of the post.

8 Simple Steps to Search Engine Optimization

1) Keyword Research – You will need to find out more on how people are searching on Google for your information. A good start is Googles Keyword Research Tool to see what terms are being searched on a specific basis. Some resources listed below.

2) Keyword Rich Domain – Once you find out what terms people are searching for, you will need to obtain a web address. That is also known as a “domain name”. Good places to find a domain are GoDaddy (thanks Danika), Fatcow, and Bluehost to name a few. I would shoot for a .Com address verse all others because it is the most preferred and recognized ending to a web address. Example would be www.KEYWORDHere.com.

3) The Right Platform: WordPress – Such as my site, it is built on WordPress. It allows the flexibility and creativity to build the world in an easy fashion without knowing HTML & PHP coding. Understanding some will help you greatly. WordPress is SEO friendly and typically optimized for search engines like the giant Google.

4) Permalinks – One of the first things you will need to do is change your URL structure for optimized Permalink SEO strategy. You will find this on your menu in your WordPress dashboard under “settings” à “permalinks” à then select the structure. An idea SEO friendly URL would be /%postname%/.  You could go also go with /%category%/%postname%/. Selecting a keyword friendly category could go a long ways too.

5) SEO Plugin – This is where WordPress gets awesome. You have the world at your fingertips. You have several SEO plugins to choose from that help set up the necessary things for your site. The All In One SEO and YOAST plugins are just a couple that would do the trick for you in making sure you site is search engine optimized!

6) Quality Content – A good rule of thumb to remember is write for your readers and not for Google. They say content is king! Ideally you want to add new content to your site once a week but if super serious you should aim for 3 times a week. To put it simply, just add new content to your website. It is tough so do what you can because life throws curve balls at us.

7) Social Media – I can’t help but to think about this Youtube song by Your Favorite Martian titled “Grandma Got a Facbook”. Hilarious stuff! Make sure you share all your content online with Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus. This can help boost traffic to your site if used properly.

8 ) Backlinks – Sounds like a bicycle chain doesn’t it? While things in the SEO circles are constantly changing, high quality backlinks to your site count. That is if someone links to your site of a similar if not same topic site, that gives you link juice. Think of the slogan “Milk does a body good”. Now replace that with “Backlinks does a website good”. Relevancy when linking goes a long way.

Keyword Research Tools

Here are a few tools that are free and paid that you can do research on how to describe to the world properly what you are wanting people to read.

• Google Keyword Tool
• WordStream
• Wordtracker
• Market Samurai
• Long Tail Pro

SEO Conclusion

Search Engine Optimization generally can be easily achievable if you have some SEO basics under your tool belt. I encourage you to dive in and take it all for a test drive. It’s like riding a bike; the more you practice the better you become at it.

Changing The World One Pixel At A Time – Michael G. Stults

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General stress is felt everyday in some shape or form. Most of us wake up in the morning and instantly start thinking about our work place stress because it plays a big part of how we will react to situations. You feel it because if you don’t go to work, you won’t have a place to live. If you don’t feed your body, your health will go down. If you don’t perform at work, you will find yourself fearful of being unemployed.  Have you felt stressed over anything lately?

Stress Leads To Depression

Stress in general is all about depression and the dangers that can arise if stress isn’t dealt with properly.  Each one of us is flat guilty of allowing everyday moments affect how we think and react. A situation at work or home might not go the way it seemed planned and your mind starts to respond sometimes in weird ways. We’re all human aren’t we? We make mistakes, forget to do simple tasks, and even allow our physical health to decline due to pressures we self impose.

Work stress management is a topic we could debate over and over again for the next 20 years as the medical industry has spent billions on trying to understand how to overcome and conquer stress relief.

Stress By The Numbers

Symptoms of stress in general by the numbers show that 75% of people experienced stress in the past two weeks. 42% of people reported stress increased over past year. 54% of people are concerned about daily stress.

The cause of stress in the work place are approximately 40% fear over job security, 60% over heavy workloads, and 20% over a hostile work environment. I have had the rare opportunity to work from home the past few years and I think that you tend to have a slight more stress only because you’re not putting in your face time. Thankfully my situation is completely non typical of Corporate America where lots of pressure is disguised a bit differently when you essentially work for a small company or yourself.

How about your health? Let’s look at the approximate percentage of people who report suffering the following afflictions due to stress.

• 48% lying awake at night
• 44% irritable/ angry
• 42% fatigued
• 39% lack of motivation
• 33% sad/depressed
• 30% like crying

Three Areas to Reduce Stress

Often we have read on how to reduce our stressful situations that arise everyday we walk/talk/breathe on this planet. The University of Maryland Medical Center suggests an overview of three areas we can work on in our lives.

1) Exercise – Yes, the thing that some of us tend to avoid or never start.

2) Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy – Listening to music? Recreation?

3) Relaxation and Other Alternative Techniques – Acupuncture? Relaxation methods.

No one is perfect including myself but maybe we all can catch that extra breathe. I mean…we only have one life to live right?

I hope this information was helpful –  ”Michael G. Stults”

*Data collected from the “APA” and “National Health Interview Survey” between 2009 and 2010.

*Image Source: http://www.mycatismytherapist.com/how-to-dramatically-lower-your-stress/

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