fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Neuroplasticity: the key to change
Tags: Brain, Neuroscience, Happiness, Change Your Life, Improvement

If you feel unable to change some things you do or that they determine who you are, let me tell you that you can change aspects of yourself. Even when you are an adult, your brain is an incredibly plastic and resilient organ due to a very important property: neuroplasticity. And of course, you will need patience and time to discover yourself and reach your goals. I think it is important to understand first how we work and then start.

Neurons can compose very big nets related to certain information, the most used are the strongest ones. When you try out a new activity, neurons create new connections, which equals that will be able to do that activity more easily. For example, if you start stretching every day, with time it will be easier for you: repetition of the action makes the habit. Your brain will like to repeat the experience because it does require less energy, like “copying and pasting”. But, if you stop doing an activity, the neurons in charge of giving the signals to do it will start to be useless and die. This is neuroplasticity, the ability to create new connections to develop new functions or abandon others.

Now, how can you use this to change? You can literally change your brain physically with just thoughts and little changes on your routine, being repetitive. We need to understand that this requires patience and focus, because you are spending more energy on it than the things you like or you are used to do.

Pause and analyze how you feel towards that thing you want to change or improve. Take little steps, and the day you stop checking you phone right after you wake up, or you remember to change your bad posture, you will have started!

Every day I try to have more patience, to not to get frustrated to understand myself. I like to remember the things that motivate me and I try to think before acting. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but I still having the goal in my mind every day.
The 85% rule
By: Arnold Widjaja
Tags: Inspiration, Productivity, Self Development, Improvement, Self Improvement

Everyday we are constantly hit with tasks, workloads, productivity videos and travel instagram stories that made you feel bad when you’re doing less. But the truth that I found, at least for me, is that people are not always able to give 100% of their effort 100% of the time.

Hugh Jackman once said a very important story on the Tim Ferriss’ podcast and I quote :

Whereas Carl Lewis stayed exactly the same and then [whooshing sound] he would just breeze past them. So that’s where he invented the 85 percent rule.

To give some context, he was telling a story about a runner who was always losing in the first 40 meters in a 100 meter sprint race, but always end up 10 yards ahead at the end of the race. What researchers found was that he never made any changes in the first 40 meters to the last 60 meters, he stayed consistent.

This rule can be applied to anything, not just running. Hugh Jackman explains that when watching a live performance, the best performances are on the sixth week after instead of the opening night. Why? Because by then the performers are relaxed and are already familiar with perfoming the show that it becomes in a relaxed state for the performers.

It’s mind blowing how different it is that if you can give 85% all the time instead of 100% for a short time, you will eventually win the marathon.

It is not an easy rule to apply because it is very easy to exert the maximum effort that you can give for a short amount of time due to energy bursts in human nature.

But to actually control that burst and stay consistent in doing something. That’s the key, to actually lose the battle, but win the war.
Getting Naked: Making My Portafilter Bottomless
By: Robert Mckeon Aloe
Tags: Espresso Machine, Coffee, Espresso, Improvement, Food

Two years ago, I got my first bottomless portafilter for my Kim Express. I was aiming to get a better insight into how to improve my shot, but I didn’t realize I would see an immediate improvement. My skill didn’t change immediately, only the obstacles between the coffee and the cup changed. Recently, I decided to go bottomless on my Pavoni and my Enrico of Italy, and that decision requires some word to cut the bottoms off.

The Naked Advantage

There are four main advantages to a bottomless portafilter:

Nothing between the coffee and the cup (other than the filter). Ability to watch and adjust shot live. Ability to video and review later for further failure analysis. No need to clean a portafilter on a regular basis.

I didn’t anticipate the first advantage, but it made a big difference. I have since used a regular portafilter for the same shot, same basket, and it reduces the mouthfeel and complexity of a shot. That small residue that builds over time on the portafilter is key to the cup.

Failure analysis has been key for me to improve my shot by allowing me to see where my shot preparation or shot technique went wrong. It has helped make sure if the shot isn’t level, not distributed well, or the levels of my staccato shot are not dialed in. Videotaping also takes away some stress of having to be so focused on viewing the shot looking for the key detail. Additionally, I use the video to recording pre-infusion, bloom, and infusion timings, which allows me to focus more on the shot.

Recording the shot for me has become as vital as recording data for the shot.

Finally, I don’t like to clean. I’ve only more recently been regularly cleaning the piston head of my main machine. So going bottomless certainly helped.

Too Many Machines

My mother-in-law gave me an old Pavoni in the basement, and I bought an Enrico of Italy from an old guy on a boat in South San Francisco. Both machines work well, la Pavoni a bit better, but I knew they had even more potential. So I decided to go bottomless.

The beauty of an espresso machine is the resulting coffee, not the machine.

At first, there was resistance. My mother-in-law and brother-in-law were insistent that I not do it. They said it would ruin the beauty of the machine. To me, I don’t care so much for the astetic of the machine; the beauty of an espresso machine to me is the espresso it produces. However, I had a spare portafilter, so game on without hurt feelings!

Buying a bottomless for la Pavoni was a possibility, but it was more money than I’d like to spend. I saw online that some people used a drill, drilled multiple holes, and eventually they got to the bottom coming off. I bought a drill bit, tried, and quickly failed. I didn’t have a drill press, but even still, the drill bit was not going to be easy.
Improving TokoMember’s experiences with search and categorization
By: Adrian Sirait
Tags: Technology, User Experience, Improvement, UX, Product Design

TokoMember is a part of Tokopedia which consists of official brands that have joined Tokopedia and also promotions from the brands itself. There are so many brands in TokoMember, more than 100 brands exist in there. While doing my internship in Tokopedia, I got a task to improve the experience in TokoMember.

Why did TokoMember’s experience need to be improved?

As I mentioned before, there are more than 100 brands in TokoMember and it’s getting bigger and bigger. Let’s say you want to find your favorite brand in TokoMember and it’s one of the 100 brands. Well, you are lucky enough if you can find the brand that you are looking for if it’s placed on the home page, but what if it’s not? You need to view all of the brands and scroll through all brands in that page.

How did I come up with the idea as a solution to the problem?

To achieve the solution, I went through the design thinking process which including :

Understanding the problem (it’s not only about the solution, but about how we see and understand the problem to get it right)

(it’s not only about the solution, but about how we see and understand the problem to get it right) Ideate and sketch (try to come up with any ideas as the solution, no need to find a perfect idea at first but make sure to improve the idea based on any feedback you get)

(try to come up with any ideas as the solution, no need to find a perfect idea at first but make sure to improve the idea based on any feedback you get) Design and validate (this is a crucial part, how do we know that the design works? by validating it through a test with the user)

(this is a crucial part, how do we know that the design works? by validating it through a test with the user) Synthesize the data gathered by the test to understand what lacks and what works for user by the design

to understand what lacks and what works for user by the design Deliver the final design

Understanding the problem

First, we need to understand what’s the problem for the user here. I start to go through the user journey and then realize that the problem is starting to arise when users landing on TokoMember home page looking for brand X and if they can’t find it and have to scroll through all of the brands, it starts to get painful for the user.
Advanced SEO Tips for Technical Documentation
By: Kesi Parker
Tags: Documentation, Optimization, SEO, Improvement, Technical Writing

Technical documentation should be optimized as any content to help your readers to find your documentation quickly and make your content more user-friendly. SEO is a great recourse of optimization rules, it helps not only to promote your docs but also make them more readable for all people. Here are some advanced SEO tips for your technical documentation but don’t worry they’re easy for implementing.

Avoid Uncrawlable Content

The essential rule that you should follow is to avoid content that is “hidden”, it will not only improve your content but also SEO. This includes content hidden in images or videos which the crawler may not understand. Of course, you can write alt text for the visual content, but if your video is long, it can be difficult to describe the whole video content via the alt text. For a video in your docs, make sure the rest of that page describes the content of the video.

Redirects

If your content has moved, it’s essential to tell search engines that you did it. For example, if your guide moved from guides/seo-tips.html to guides/advansed-seo-tips.html, the search engines will still have the old URL in their index and show it to users. And when your website returns 404 frequently, it’s bad for your SEO. Read this article to learn how to Redirect a Web Page:

Moreover, don’t forget to change the link in your documentation content.

Use a sitemap.xml File

A sitemap is a file that contains a list of pages and other files on your site and some metadata or relationships about them. It’s created for crawlers, so they can easily understand your website structure. A good sitemap provides information like how frequently a page or file is updated or any alternate language versions of a page. Some professional help authoring tools like ClickHelp provides you with the ready sitemap.xml file of your documentation portal. You can learn about this here: Documentation Portal Sitemap.

Use Analytics Tools

Use analytics tools like Google Analytics, it will give you feedback about the search terms people use to find your docs, your most popular pages, and lots of other useful data. The feedback will be useful for content optimization for certain keywords or for related keywords. Knowing your popular pages can help you prioritize where to spend your SEO efforts. Optimizing your already popular pages can have a significant impact. Moreover, if your help authoring tool provides you with internal statistics, it will be also great for SEO optimization. For example, ClickHelp has a search queries report that allows you to monitor the keywords queried by readers. So, you can examine what your readers search for and improve your content.
Performance Improvement
By: Ankit Pradhan
Tags: Ethics, Attitude, Performance, Performance Management, Improvement

Performance Improvement

Performance Improvement method called the Rapid Improvement Model (RIM+). It’s a quick way of improving work process that alows teams to make a small change, test and evaluate it, and then adopt if it works — or reject it if it doesn’t. However, there are 3 questions we can ask ourselves to improve quality, service ad affordability and to make your respective departmet a great place to work:

What are we trying to accomplish ?

Clarify the improvements your team wants to make and define how do you want to be change. Be specific.

H ow will we know a change is an improvement ?

Identify what you will measure to make sure you know whether the change you make is truly an improvement.

What changes will help us improve ?

The options are most likely to work and is a good idea. Keep objectives in mind. Use the team’s knowledge and experience as a guide.

The rapid PSDAs part of the Rapid Improvement Model. It allows teams to rapidly test a change on a small scale. Risk taking is encouraged and failure are okay because the team learns from them.

Progression

The PDSAs steps are-

Plan: Plan the test or observation, including how you’ll collect data.

Do: Try out the test on a small scale.

Study: Set aside time to analyze the data and study the results.

Act: Refine the changes based on what team members learned from the next.

Now start preparing a plan for the next test.

Additionally, PDSAs there are a diversity of performance improvement tools — process maps, fishbone diagram and more that can help teams understand what’s working and what’s not working about their team processes and which are the best ideas for improving them. Teams use consensus decision making to decide things like which project the team is going to tackle and which improvement idea is going to be tested first. Consensus is a form of group decision making that is often used in collaborative work, Because everyone discusses the issues to be decided, the group benefits from the knowledge and experience of all members. Consensus occurs when every member of the group supports the deicision. Internet Based problem is a process that addresses individual and group differnces. Participants work together to reahc agreement by sharing information and remaining cretaive and flexible, rather than by taking adversarial positions.

The 4 steps fo Internet based problem solving are-
Be aware of the people who bitch about other people
By: Sherry Bansal
Tags: Quotes, Experience, Self-awareness, Improvement

I am sure most of us have already heard the quote,

“Surround yourself with people who talk about visions & ideas, not other people.”

But how many of us have truly paid attention to it? There will be very few people who are following this. I am sure most of you would be thinking that what bad it can do to me! In fact, I also thought that way till last week. But what had happened that caused this idea to trigger me?

So, this is in short what happened;

My smartphone was taken away from me so that I cannot chat with my college mates(boys of my class) just because my parents heard of someone’s silly talks about a girl who eloped with a boy and she used to chat with boys. Now if she had done that, this doesn’t mean all girls will do that, what’s our fault? I couldn’t have access to my phone for 2 and half days until I said them that from now on I will not talk to boys. Just imagine for a girl in an engineering college where the girls make only 20% of the students, and you are telling her that she should talk only to girls.

What I concluded from that incidence is this,

“Never allow yourself & your family members(especially parents) to be surrounded with people who talk about other people.”

And I mean it. Because we never know how badly they can affect us in a way, we cannot even think about it.

Maybe your freedom (even if you had a little of it) could be taken away just because your parents heard some gossips about anyone’s daughter from someone (can be your neighbors or door ke rishtedaar). Just like what happened with me.

And they have the potential to affect not only girls but boys also. Maybe you would not be allowed to pursue the profession you want, just because your parents have heard about someone who failed in that profession.

But remember, if he failed it is not necessary that you will also fail.

These are just two of the many things that can directly affect us even if we are not directly in touch with those people just because our parents are hearing those gossips. And we all well know that how much our parents are influenced by these neighbors and relatives or we can say society.

Emotional Atyachaar……

And then comes the emotional atyachaar part. We are told that ‘woh aapke parents hain, woh aapka bhala hi chahte hain, they are always right in whatever they are doing, so how can you disobey your parents aur fir hum bhi in emotions me beh jaate hain’ but what we fail to realize is that ‘whatever decisions, rules, restrictions they make are not solely theirs, it’s only because how their mind is influenced by those toxic people who have no other work other than gossiping’.

Conclusion

Their talks may be cheap, but the cost of listening to gossip is expensive.

So, in short, that’s good to keep a distance from the people who talk about other people and it’s equally important to keep away your family also from those people.

Do comment below if you also came across any of these situations !!!
Being a beginner is better than being an expert
By: Monke B.
Tags: Beginner, Improvement, Expert

When you start a new video game or pick up a new skill, you get so absorbed with learning the fundamentals. You explore new things, test the what-ifs, and get excited with every baby step of improvement.

Things are different when you’re an expert. You have expectations to fulfill, less patience for mistakes, fewer things to explore, and a slower rate of growth than before.

But there are always new things to learn and improve on — so what is the key difference between a “beginner” and an “expert”? Mindset.

A mindset is fair-game that anyone can adopt. If an expert adopts a beginner mindset, the joys of being a beginner come back. A beginner only looks forward to what more they can accomplish because there is nothing to look back on. They are able to see things from unconventional angles and ask questions that test the core fundamentals. An expert equipped with this mindset would break new ground.

If you “max out” a skill, you can either be stagnant or pick up a new skill, level it up, and use it in combination with your maxed skill. You would be way stronger than before.
The time I got First place for trash design
By: Yash Reddy
Tags: Perfectionism, Improvement, Design, Opinion, Criticism

In university, a competition was held to present our research and participation was mandatory. Thankfully, we were allowed to partner up with a group of our choosing. We split up the work to create our presentation. I took the responsibility of designing it as I volunteered to do so.

I always wanted to create the best which would impress everyone. I spent hours working on the presentation. I looked up inspirations for professional presentation layouts and made a custom one for our purpose.

It was time to show the slides to the group mates. Everyone loved it. I got compliments about my design skills, how wonderful the whole thing looked. Two of my mates, however, had difficulty understanding an illustration I created.

The other two mates and I tried my best to explain how clear it was, yet they could not see it. My perfectionistic nature kicked in. I ignored everything good they told me about the presentation and only thought about what was not good.

I upset myself. I worked so hard and long and still wasn’t good enough 2/4 of my group mates. I could not do anything to switch up the illustration as it was too late for last-minute changes. I set my mood to the lowest possible and accepted my work was nothing but failure. I did not expect anything from this competition.

The presentation day was in the University Auditorium, packed with people. We were competing with eight other groups. After a few groups got done with their presentation, it was finally our turn. I would not do any speaking as I worked solely on the design work.

I stood there, no smile for the crowd, waiting for the horrible slides to be over. We received a good reception at the end of the presentation like every other group. My expectations were still low. We went back to our seats.

Finally, it was time to announce the winners. Our group won first place and asked to come forward. I did not know what to feel. All I knew that I did not deserve this. We received ovations while I felt like an imposter. I did not want the attention and was looking for an escape to distract myself. Everyone came forwards to socialize after the event. I was looking to avoid interaction with others. Luckily, I spotted my friend Ashar, who was collecting attendance forms. I saw this as my gateway of escape and helped him out collecting them, and made my escape from socializing after submitting them.

Later, I spoke to one of my group mates, who mentioned that a person told them that they liked the design work very much and was further inquiring about the tools used.

Being able to critique your work is helpful in producing good work. Being too self-critical, I failed to acknowledge the compliments. Despite the majority liking the presentation design, two of my group mates’ opinion was enough for me to classify the entire work as trash. Design is a subjective matter. There will be people who might say that certain things are unclear to them, and that’s okay! We can either take their feedback and improve our work or let it be!
SELF CONTROL:
Tags: Depression, Helping Others, Self Control, Improvement, Self Improvement

SELF CONTROL:

Self-control is an important factor in our life. It is all about having control over our emotions and actions. I am an incensed person and get irritated easily because of some past incidents which I don't have enough courage to speak about. I wanted to groom myself and clear out all the faults in me, of course, it took me a lot of time but still, I'm trying hard to attain my goal but it is not that easy to become an ideal one. Here are some events in which I made self-control practical.

1. SELF-CONTROL WITH MONEY:

I was broke at the end of a month and needed money for my necessities but my mother got a call from her friend asking her to lend some money to a heart patient as he was in the ICU and was fighting for life. I asked my mother that I want to contribute a little thinking that what if my small amount would help in saving a person's life. It was a small donation of 1000 rupees but it gave me satisfaction. I controlled my need for money and prioritized lending money.

2. SELF-CONTROL OVER ANGER:

I was not on good terms with friends and we were not talking to each other. One day she abused me on reading her messages I didn't reply and gave a cold shoulder. I considered her behavior childish and ignored it because I was trying to keep myself on the right path. Due to this she realized her mistake and cut a sorry figure. I came off in the end with flying colors.

3. SELF-CONTROL OVER EMOTIONS:

People always get hurt when taken for granted and are not treated in a way they deserve to be treated.

I am an emotional and sensitive person. I get attached to people and it becomes difficult for me to accept any change in their behavior. I met someone who became an important part of my life things were right we were happy but due to some issues that bond broke. "Someone" didn’t leave me but started treating me worst, I kept on trying to fix the bond but it was a hard nut to crack, and forgot that it isn’t my responsibility to rebuild a bond that I didn’t break.

• Dealings:

In this, I realized not to get mad in any relation always know your worth... People change things get change but it is okay... If someone leaves, you must have enough courage to say Goodbye with a waving hand and leave the table if respect is no longer being served! ... Move on! Don’t stick to his/her memories... I left "someone" on his/her own.

• I get upset on listening to some songs hearing something nostalgic but still trying to overcome/having control over all those thoughts because it’s better to live life with a smiling face rather than by telling people the reasons for your sadness...

In conclusion, one must have control over one’s emotions. Life is full of ups and downs, pros and cons, sweet and bitter experiences but to handle them is the main objective. Life is not a bed of roses one must have enough courage to face the difficulties and act accordingly... The one who burdens him/herself lives a life of great misery... Accept the changes overcome them and ENJOY EVERY SECOND OF LIFE...
Ideas are beautiful; tactics are useful.
Tags: Techniques, Self, Ideas, Improvement, Self Improvement

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Consistency is key, but how can you consistently “do” an idea?

For some time, I have been a frequent reader of the same content you read. Since you were intrigued enough by this title to click on it, I will make a general assumption that you and I are of a similar mindset. You and I both frequent places like these — Medium, Inc, the local library and so on.

You and I are thrilled when a new concept comes our way.

In the rushing seconds of learning something fresh and powerful, I typically believe that I have found something that will truly make me unstoppable — and starting from the very moment I am on a highway to achieve my ultimate visions!

A lesson learned.

Usually the next morning, or if it’s one that really sticks, two mornings later I will lose the neuro-association I have with the idea, and at that point, I’m just repeating words of something that was transformative in my head. How many times have you heard a great piece of advice and not followed through on living it for more than a few days, or even a few weeks? How many times have you made lasting change? If you’re like me, it has to be about ninety-nine times it doesn’t stick to one time that it does.

A lesson unlearned.

I’ve been repeating this cycle for many months. I have been seeing some of the absolutely most stimulating and stunning ideologies, that if I implemented into my life consistently would have profound effects, get reduced down to nothing more than words. No longer do they TRULY mean anything, they are just words that I know the definition of.

I do not feel them.
You’re Doing Fine.
Tags: Anxiety, Perspective, Gratitude, Improvement, Life

You’re Doing Fine.

A valentine from my six year old. Even he knows.

“I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” -Mark Twain

We had a great Valentines Day. I typically dismiss it as a Hallmark holiday and do anything I can to downplay it.

But with little kids bouncing around, excited about candy and valentines for their friends, it became harder to ignore.

So we had a nice day — we gave candy, hung out as a family, the kids drew butterflies and rainbows on cards with the occasional backward letter to show their love for us.

Dinner was lovely, the kids went to bed and my wife and I retired early. It was, by all accounts, a pleasant day. And so, as I fell off to sleep, I thought:

You’re probably going to die tomorrow.

And why not think that?

We have this fatalistic, lopsided view that if good things happen, bad things are right around the corner. Isn’t that how the universe works? Through balance?

Sure…. But it doesn’t work through balance because we seem to believe that if bad things happen it’s because we deserve them. We expect them. The bad things are “right”, the good things are debts we’re just waiting to pay.

Naturally, I did what anyone would do — I spent time laying in bed, contemplating my mortality and calculating the odds that I will die tomorrow. (Right now, it is tomorrow, so things are really looking up — about 13 hours to go!)

At some point in the midst of the calculations, I made the critical change from life insurance assessor to Eckert Tolle. This is when I thought: This is my pattern. This is what I do. And it’s exhausting. And I’m really, really tired of doing it.

And I started thinking my problematic thought patterns and then about perspective…
What Analog Photography Taught Me About the Beauty of Failure
By: Anna Holling
Tags: Improvement, Life Lessons, Film Photography, Failure, Photography

What Analog Photography Taught Me About the Beauty of Failure

A friend once introduced me to the saying ‘you win or you learn’. It’s comforting to recognise that failure is a stepping stone to accomplishment, and yes, it’s productive to frame whatever happens to you as good.

But what about the beauty in effort alone?

A creative slump, late-night research session, and fantastic eBay find at the end of 2018 had me attempting film photography. I say ‘attempt’ because six rolls of film later I was incredibly disappointed with the objectively bad images, frustrated at all my apparent mistakes.

Film is a steep learning curve from digital — with my new (old) camera I have to do everything manually, the heftiness is foreign, and composing must be done through a flipped-image waist-level viewfinder. I’d never shot film before, so I also made newbie mistakes loading the film, exposing poorly, and not understanding how to troubleshoot when the camera didn’t work. At times it felt like a 3kg paperweight.

Nailed it

Fantastic

Crispy

Missed it by THAT much

Intentional?

The mistakes I made with those first photos were not ones to easily ‘learn’ from. Instead of saying ‘focus a little better’, they scream ‘YOU’RE DOING THIS ALL WRONG!’ They couldn’t neatly fit into the ‘win or learn’ framework. They were a mess.

So I studied, asked for advice from real people (not on forums), and overhauled the way I was making photos with film. Through much trial and error, it’s slowly working.

Not horrible!

In focus!

DOG

You can see her face now :)

Six weeks later I’m still not a good analog photographer. I’m impatient with the process, make bad compositions, and get confused when the camera sporadically beeps at me… what do you want NOW!? But the images are decipherable and the hit/miss ratio is improving. Progress.

Portra colours, woah

Struggled shooting on the street, way too fast for my abilities

B L U E

Getting there!

Of course, it would’ve been nice for those first rolls to turn out, but there’s a charm in the effort they took to make.

They were the start of a new venture and have given me an extra appreciation for the photos that do work. If anything they are painful evidence that everyone starts by sucking.

Worth a shot… could’ve been good! RIP

Sucky but spooky? If that’s what you’re after…

The trials & tribulations of analog photography reinforce the message that it’s okay — better than okay — to mess up.

Not all of our mistakes need to have redemptive meaning or obvious lessons. Sometimes you just lose time and money (especially when paying for film). All we can do is mourn the loss, be humble, appreciate our effort, and get back to work.

When the cost of failure is small compared to the cost of not trying, what other option is there? Stagnancy?

Lessons, wins, or neither: we fail, then keep trying. Onwards.
Not Enough Faith…
By: Cliff Duvernois
Tags: Writing, Writing Life, Improvement, Life Lessons, Self Improvement

Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

For many years, I was out on organized religion. On the church. A few bad experiences turned me off to the whole thing.

The tenants of Christianity remain at the core of my life. Those lessons I learned in Sunday school still stick with me to this day. On more than one occasion, I’ve been asked if I was a pastor.

Over the past few years, I’ve had this yearning to get into something. I’m not sure what. But to poke my head back into the territory of spirituality. I think my soul has run bone dry.

For me, I’m becoming more cognizant of my time on earth. I want to spend my time wisely. Doing or being where I want to be.

Sunday morning, binge-watching Netflix is not how I want to spend my day.

But rather take the time, to do some reflection. To be a part of something that makes me think.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot of rituals in a lot of religions. Chanting, taking communion … Those things hold no meaning for me. I wasn’t raised to appreciate them. But I respect everyone’s religious beliefs so I hold no judgment in those areas.

For what feeds me, feeds my soul, is having

I'm used to being challenged. Challenged personally and professionally. Across many areas.

My spirituality needs that challenge as well. Because for me to become better, to improve, it starts from the inside out.

My most recent challenge is how I handle inter-personal adversity.

Last Sunday, the Pastor of this church was speaking on the topic of relationships.

He said something that really struck me.

“When we are in a relationship, and the other person hurts us, our first impulse is to lean back from the relationship. Instead of doing that, why don’t you lean forward into the relationship?”

That hit home.

I’m on this path to be better. To improve.

And I admit: this is something I have done many times in the past.

I have a relationship with someone, whether that is a friend or a lover. They do something that hurts me. I lean back. Sometimes the relationship has survived if we talked about it. Other times, the relationship collapsed.

But then I start thinking about it in a bigger context. Leaning back or leaning forward with my relationship with others. In my real estate business, leaning forward with my teammates and my clients. But what about the community? Or a higher power?

No. I haven’t “found religion”. I do believe I’m part of something bigger than myself. It directly involves my relationship with myself, others and a higher power. If you choose to call it “God”, then so be it.

Of course, my atheist friends would say “Cliff, you’re too smart to believe in God.”

As Pastor Rick Warren, author of the New York Times Best Selling book ‘A Purpose Driven Life’, said in his TEDx talk “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.”
The worst entrepreneur mentality you can find
By: Jonathan Sánchez López
Tags: Mentalities, Improvement, Business, Entrepreneur, Bad Habits

Learn how to be a better entrepreneur by breaking bad habits. Here I present to you the guideline of the incorrect mentality if you want to achieve success.

Mental breakdown equals no business

The know-how and, even worse, execution. I will not say that your business is a failure because of you because I don’t know you. We have millions of different cases and everybody is different, but one thing always seems accurate, the majority of people start a business with big emotions of success, and like a candle that emotion goes away in like a week. The root of this behavior I think is that most people at some point have some type of situation which motivates them to take action, but soon enough they don’t see the purpose to keep going because it is too much work and no reward has been achieved, they get stuck thinking that life was going to be easier.

No mental breakdown, but an entrepreneur with no knowledge

Now, this might sound funny, but it’s not. You have individuals from time to time getting into more than 100 businesses in like 1 year and none of them worked out, why? They just want to go and make a quick buck, learning almost nothing about the business they just got into. Just like college, if you don’t find the right book to know about the subject you my friend are going to fail.

The no spender entrepreneur

This kind of business owner is hilarious, they actually think that success comes with paying literally nobody, not even self-promoting. They create a business and start promoting on their Facebook to their friends and if it doesn’t work, they stop working the business.

The know it all, but no achievements made.

This type of entrepreneur starts a business, and usually, they are very talented in the type of service they offer, or may have the best product in the world. That doesn’t mean this individual can run a whole business. Usually, this happens more than you think, somebody believes that because they are talented in a certain area, they know how to market themselves and even how to fully run a business.

The one that doesn’t care how it looks, as long as the business is running

When was the last time you saw a business with poor visuals and decided to trust what they sell? as a business owner, you need to understand that the same perspective you acquire when seeing a business is the one that a potential customer may have when seeing yours. Be sure to have high-quality images and awesome designs in your profile to show credibility and trust.

If you liked reading this, please follow me so you can learn more and have valuable content for your business.
4 things you can perform to improve self-management
By: Shameer Ahmed
Tags: Self Help, Emotional Intelligence, Improvement, Self Improvement, Wellness

In the ongoing rat race for domination in today’s fast-paced world, it can be extremely hard to manage ourselves on all such different occasions, somewhere we are happy to be there, some not so much, but on all those occasions, we are needed to keep our emotions in check and try to erupt a burst of emotions which we may later regret. To avoid such situations, we can adopt 5 habits that can help us in managing our emotional burst.

Know your trigger points

It can be extremely helpful in knowing what things and people trigger your strong responsive emotional reactions. Try to note the things, behaviors, or people which turn your ticks On, so that you don't regret your actions later on.

Understand our emotions great or sad

Emotions are dispersed and wide. It can sometimes be tough to distinguish what you are going through, but understanding and identifying your emotions will help you understand more about yourself. It will help which things make you happy, sad, frustrated, and depressed.

categorizing our emotional reasons with logical reasoning

Work on separating your emotional reason to do a task versus having a logical reason to do it. It can help count what main reasons and priorities regarding the task at hand, is it derived by emotional reason which may be temporary or there is a very logical reason for you to do that task and vice versa.

Improve breathing

breathing helps in providing oxygen to the brain, if the brain does not receive proper oxygen, a person may have tension, frustration, and depressed state. It is recommended to use meditation breathing techniques to enhance breathing which provides clarity and calmness which provides a way to a healthy and good life.

To summarize, work on understanding your emotional trigger points, try to analyze whatever you feel, take pros and cons from logical and emotional reasoning, and finally improve your breathing.

Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel
What to do while stuck at home?
By: Metin Karaman
Tags: Stock Market, Money, Improvement, Home, Coronavirus

There are plenty of options while staying at home. Sure, everybody would want to make money if they stayed home while doing nothing. Well not exactly doing nothing. You sure have to do something to make some money.

How to earn money If you forced to stay at home?

Well, you could;

start your own blog,

start making videos for your channels,

sell things on marketplaces,

improve yourself by reading, creating, etc.

Also, for some people, the stock market would be the best option. So why not for you?

The market is not as hard as you think. People think that is for experts. Sure, they know better than most of us. But that does not mean, you cannot do well or be in the market without them. So now, you are asking yourself, How?

First of all, before getting into the stock market, you have to start reading to gain some knowledge about the market. Like, what to do when the market is going up, or going down. What to do when the economy is crushed by something. e.g (2008 crises, or simply Covid-19 situation) With this kind of information you could gain from ‘Guide to Financial Markets’ by Marc Levinson. For anyone who needs an understanding of financial markets, there is no better guide.

‘With chapters on markets in money, foreign exchange, equities, bonds, commodities, financial futures, options, and other derivatives, the Guide to Financial Markets looks at why these markets exist, how they work, and who trades in them and gives a rundown of the factors that affect prices and rates.’

Also, you could use some websites that will help you to gain data about the markets;

stockflare.com, stocktwits.com, seekingalpha.com, and of course The Wall Street Journal.

With these sites, you can get better AI-supported predictions about a stock that you’re following or tend to buy. On these sites, you will see AI-supported predictions that will guide you to gain market insights.

Where do I trade stocks at?

There are many brokers that you can work with, or simply you can use an app to trade stocks. Of course, you can use big companies apps’ to trade stocks. But have one with commission-free. Until recently, many of the markets’ brokers had let you trade stocks with a commission e.g. (TD Ameritrade, Fidelity, E-Trade, etc.), but it’s changed, now they’re all commission-free. This has been changed because of Robinhood app. It’s an app that lets you trade stocks with commission-free. It is easy to use and gives you market insights and news that help you to understand what happens in the market. Just explore and see what works best for you.

If you found this helpful, feel free to hit 👏 !

Follow me for tips, stories, and contents on all things business, entrepreneurship, finance and more…
Little things that made my weeks super productive and hopefully yours too
Tags: Life Hacking, Productivity, Life Management, Improvement, Self Improvement

Little things that made my weeks super productive and hopefully yours too Davidlange Mar 23, 2020·2 min read

A few weeks ago, after playing all Saturday video games and feeling bad as f, I decided to use the Sunday to figure out a way to be more productive. My past weeks have been super productive and so I wanted to share what I do.

The first thing is to wake up early and working directly for 2 hours on my side business. Before that, I woke up, then started work, and tried to work on my side business afterward. But with all friends and family members back home it’s too easy to get distracted. Waking up two hours earlier and working directly after waking up does the trick and is nearly effortless as well as increasing my productivity throughout the day.

The next thing I started was a daily to-do list that I now prepare the night before. Having this list makes it easy to keep on track and not forget something important. It also feels amazing every time you get a task done and can eliminate it on the app :). In case you want to know, I use the app Wunderlist.

Two weeks ago I had a great conversation with a friend and realized that I should definitely go more outside and also that I should spend more time thinking about my life, so that’s what I did the next day. It really does wonders. Being active in nature makes my life way happier and thinking about my life helps me to find areas to improve. I take now every day 10 minutes to sit outside and review my day.

The next thing I started is to review my week every Sunday — writing down what I learned and could have done better. Then I have a list where I write down what I want to start/stop and what I want to do more/less of next week. I also have a weekly goal list which helps to define the daily goals. This all helps to stay on track and to deepen what I learned.

All together those things do wonders for me and help me to improve every day as well as getting sh+t done. I hope some of those things are also useful to you and let me know what you do to increase your productivity. :)

Best, David
Hoping to be a better version of yourself? These 3 Apps may help.
By: Lutfor Rafe
Tags: Personal Development, Improvement, Self Improvement, Apps, Habits For Success

Our lives are messy. Always dictated by our screen time and never-ending notifications and the stress that comes with it, we rarely feel accomplished at the end of the day. The satisfaction of personal development is unknown to most of us. We feel the need to invest in ourselves, but don’t quite know how.

Use it to your advantage

But over the years, I have found that we can use this weakness to our advantage. We can build new habits, take control of our personal finance and accumulate more knowledge using the very device in our hands that can be used for 101 other unproductive activities. I found 3 apps that helped me in this journey.

Blinkist

Reading great books change our lives. We get new ideas and sometimes our entire philosophy about life changes after reading a book. But of course we don’t have enough time to complete a 400-page-marathon (it’s always better if you have, though. I salute you,sir). That’s where Blinkist comes in. Blinkist gives you summaries of a book curated by their experts in under 15 minutes.

You can choose to read the summary or you can listen to the audio version. I personally prefer the audio version which is perfect if you want to utilize the time while you’re commuting to work or taking a short break. Getting the premium version will give you access to hundreds of books anytime you want. But, I prefer the free version. Free version gives you access to 1 new book everyday which is more than enough.

It’s always good to start small when you’re trying to build a habit, otherwise you’ll overwhelm yourself and possibly fail. Listening to or reading 1 book summary everyday will change your life. You’ll suddenly start to learn new things on a regular basis and become a more knowledgeable person. Better yet, sometimes you’ll find certain books so intriguing that you’ll buy the original book for complete understanding.

When I listened to the summaries of Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, I found it so interesting that I bought all three of his books and read them one after another. And that, my friend, is an extremely rewarding experience.