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Nearly 600 Students Named to Spring SD Mines Dean’s List

RAPID CITY, SD (May 24, 2018) – Nearly 600 South Dakota School of Mines & Technology students were named to the Dean’s List for the 2018 spring semester.

In order to merit a spot on the Dean’s List, students must earn a grade point average of 3.5 or higher for the semester. See list of students on the Dean’s List here.

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5 Ways Cooking Benefits Your Mental State

It’s no secret that cooking healthy food provides benefits to our bodies, but there’s also evidence that the act of preparing meals can benefit our minds as well.

Mental health experts credit cooking with helping to relieve depression, anxiety, eating disorders and other conditions. As various forms of meditation have become in vogue as ways to relax in our busy world, cooking is joining that genre, according to health professionals, working adults and people who cook for a living.

“Cooking at its core is comprehensive meditation with the assurance of a good, healthy meal as the reward,” says Zipora Einav (www.chefzipora.com), a chef to celebrities and  author of Recipe for a Delicious Life. “Cooking can lift you to a meditative place you often don’t get in the outside world. It starts with the environment you create in your kitchen. Mine is filled with music. Combining cooking with music provides the optimal environment to experience the many benefits of meditation.

“However you cook, do it with real peace and genuine happiness for yourself in mind. You’re giving to others; now give some of this to yourself.”

Chef Zipora lists five mental health benefits that cooking brings:

• Relieves stress. Cooking can clear the head and relax the body. Family therapist Lisa Bahar told Psychology Today that a mindfulness on the moment – kitchen tasks such as chopping and stirring – makes the act of cooking meditative. “You are present in the task, doing something physical, and not distracted by the stresses of the day,” Zipora says. “It’s a nourishing, centering act that gets you to slow down.”

• Gives joy. It’s easy to dismiss cooking as just another household chore, but you may derive joy from cooking that you don’t get from mundane tasks. “Cooking is an innately rewarding experience,” says Zipora. “You can enhance it however you like. Music happens to be the seasoning of my life. Classical puts me in a zone when I’m cooking. When you’re enjoying working in the kitchen and listening to your favorite music, all of a sudden you’re not just cooking, it’s like you’re flying with your feet on the ground. Cooking has all the ingredients of good vibrations.”

• Provides better brain health. The clearest link between cooking and mental health is good nutrition; numerous studies have found compounds like antioxidants, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamins and minerals found naturally in food can help protect your brain. “It’s easier to control the quality of your diet when you prepare much of the food yourself,” Zipora says.

• Makes you more creative. Part of the fun of cooking is thinking outside the box. “Cooking should be considered an art, and with new ingredients, you can explore new areas of cooking and surprise your family with a meal that they will have never seen coming,” Zipora says. “Perfect recipes, come up with new ones, and let your creative juices flow.”

• Boosts self-confidence. “You feel a strong sense of accomplishment when you’ve prepared something satisfying,” Zipora says. “When you’ve prepared a nice meal for several people that confidence will surge, and it can spread into other areas of your life. It will inspire you to try new things.”

“Cooking without a doubt nourishes your psychological well-being,” Zipora says. “At the end of a long work day, it soothes the soul and the mind.”

About Chef Zipora Einav

Chef Zipora Einav (www.chefzipora.com) is an accomplished private chef who has cooked for some of Hollywood’s most notable celebrities – Bob Hope, Jack Nicholson, Mariah Carey, Pierce Brosnan, Scarlett Johansson – and for professional athletes, including former National Football League star Donovan McNabb. She is the author of Recipe for a Delicious Life, which includes recipes, a classical music CD titled Music for a Delicious Life, and her anecdotes and adventures while travelling the world as a private chef. She founded her company, Chef Zipora Enterprise – Comfort Food in Harmony with Your Health ™ to improve people’s lives by empowering them to eat well and embrace a healthy lifestyle. The company achieves this through its food, music products, books and edutainment programs.

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 BARE DREAMS

Premieres Debut EP Au Revoir with 

Pure Grain Audio

Tel Aviv, Israel - May 24th, 2018 - Tel Aviv pop-punk band Bare Dreams are premiering their debut EP Au Revoir today with Pure Grain Audio. Listen to the full EP stream HERE. Au Revoir will be released this Friday, May 25th and will be available for purchase digitally HERE.

"We wrote Au Revoir while I was coping with the loss of two people that were very close to me," states singer Itay Aviv about the story behind the EP. "The songs came from the bottom of our hearts, which gave Au Revoir its name."

Bare Dreams have released three singles off of the debut EP, "Why Can't I", "Last Night", and "Birthdays". Each single is available for purchase HERE.

In support of Au Revoir, Bare Dreams will be playing a hometown EP release show in Tel Aviv at Tmuna Theatre on June 2nd. Then, the band plans to hit the road for a full UK tour in support of the EP this summer. Fans can stay up-to-date on upcoming tour dates by following the band on socials.

Coming all the way from Tel Aviv, Israel, Bare Dreams provides a new and unusual sound inspired by new and old punk and alternative music. The band was formed two years ago by Itay Aviv (vocals/guitar) and Eldar Moshe (drums), originally with the idea of being an acoustic duo. However, a year later Roee Berezowitz (guitar) and Itamar Hayuth (bass) joined the group solidifying what has now become the four-piece Bare Dreams. The line-up change enabled the group to recreate themselves and their music helping to inspire the band's forthcoming EP.

Au Revoir Tracklisting:

1. Eldar's Song

2. Birthdays

3. Last Night

4. Why Can't I?

5. Mayday! Mayday!

6. Between A Bus & A Hospital Bed

Tour Dates:

June 2 - Tel Aviv, Israel - Tmuna Theatre

Follow Bare Dreams:

Website: https://www.baredreams.com 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Baredreams/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baredreamsband/ 

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5 Ways Small Business Owners Plan

Intelligently For Retirement

Preparing financially for retirement can be complicated for anyone, but for small business owners the process often poses even more challenges.

Teachers, police officers, firefighters and other government employees generally receive a pension. The corporate world can offer benefit plans or matching contributions. But entrepreneurs can’t automatically rely on any of those features; instead they have to put saving/investing plans in place for themselves and their employees.

And often, Small Business Owners (“SBOs”) aren’t preparing sufficiently for retirement. A survey of SBOs, conducted by BMO Wealth Management, showed 75 percent had less than $100,000 saved for retirement.[1]

“Small business owners have to do it on their own, and many aren’t preparing properly,” says Troy Bender, President and CEO of Asset Retention Insurance Services Inc. (www.asset-retention.com). “Many feel like they will never make it, but they can. The idea is to simply start.”

Bender lists five ways small business owners can wisely plan for retirement, which include:

• Decide how much to save each month.  An ideal average for saving per month is 15 percent of your pay, Bender says. If that seems too much at first, you might ease into it. “To begin, you may start with 5 percent and then ramp up 2 to 3 percent each year,” Bender says. As a better gauge, he says, note that an employee with a 401(k) can contribute up to $18,500 of their salary for 2018 if they’re less than 50 years old. Someone aged  50 and over with a 401(k) can save $24,500 a year. A good goal is to try to match these amounts annually.
• The SEP IRA. As defined by the IRS, a Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) plan provides business owners with a method to contribute toward their employees’ retirement as well as their own retirement savings. “It doesn’t have the start-up and operating costs of a conventional 401(k) or profit-sharing employee plan,” Bender says. ”Your business pays no taxes on annual earnings, as it grows tax-deferred.
• Rule of 100.  “Retirement accounts that offer the highest return may seem ideal, but a business owner who goes down this path can be easily overwhelmed and stressed,” says Bender. “As a business owner, you generally already have enough stress, which can manifest in so many ways. A basic rule to follow is known as the Rule of 100.” Under that rule, you subtract your age from 100, and what’s left over is the percentage of your portfolio you put into investments with some risk. For example, if you are 50, then 50 percent of your assets would be at risk and 50 percent would be allocated conservatively – placed in a bank account, or perhaps in an annuity, for example, to provide income for you in your future.
• Life insurance. A small business owner with a family should have 10 times their annual net income in life insurance. Bender says. “The life insurance can be set up to provide a Tax-Free income in the future, too, that a small business owner can draw from,” Bender says. 
• Key Person Insurance. Like having life insurance to provide financial help for your family when you pass away, a SBO may want to consider “Key Person Insurance.” The death benefit offered through “Key Person Insurance” helps ensure that should a “key person” within a company pass away, there will be continuity of the business for its employees (and customers).

“You need to save for the necessity stream as well as the discretionary stream,” Bender says. “You should get the basics down and really look at covering your lifestyle, so you can look back and smile from the thousands of hours you worked owning a business.” 

About Troy Bender

Troy Bender, President and CEO at Asset Retention Insurance Services Inc., can be found at (www.asset-retention.com), and has more than 30 years of experience in the insurance and annuity industry. He started his career in the financial services industry as a bond and stockbroker with Merrill Lynch and then moved to Prudential Securities. In 1999, he started Asset Retention Insurance Services Inc. Bender also co-authored the book “The Ultimate Success Guide” with best-selling author Brian Tracy, and Troy has been featured on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates around the country, and has been in Newsweek, Designing Wealth magazine, the Wall Street Journal and Forbes. Ca. License # OD73702.