fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
6 Things I have learnt in 2020 that changed my life…
By: Sharne Kruger
Tags: Make A Difference, Be The Change, Living With Purpose, Inspiration, Lessons Learned

This year has brought about so much change to our lives. It has challenged, scared, excited and inspired us. It has definitely been a year to remember. I have realized that this year has actually taught me so much. So, I decided to narrow it down to 6 things:

Life is tough, but so are you: Becoming a mom is one of life’s biggest blessings but also one of life’s toughest. One’s life becomes so full. Accompanied by that fullness is also a lot of change. You discover a strength you never thought you possessed. EFFORT is key: I Loved being jealous of successful people. It’s something I used to thrive off. That feeling of “Oh, that person is perfect!”. “They have it all figured out!”. Then one day I stopped, sat down and actually thought about my life. I came to the realization that I have everything I need and more and perhaps if I put in some effort, I would be as “Perfect”as those I envied. If I put effort into my home, mindset and how I present myself, things would actually be different. No, it’s not always easy and you don’t always feel like it BUT if you want change you have to feel uncomfortable in the beginning. You are who you believe yourself to be: This was a game-changer for me. I am starting to show up as the person that I want to be. There is no such thing as ‘Someday when…’. Why wait till then? What’s stopping us in this moment? I am coming to the realization that I will never actually be ready to start working towards my goals. So why not start now?… What you consume becomes you: I have started paying attention to the content I expose myself to. I have started asking myself, “Does this support the person I want to be?” “Does it inspire me?”. If the answer is no, I move on. I started seeing things differently. I became aware of how much our environment actually plays a role in our confidence, attitude and view of the world. Enjoy the phase you are in whilst working towards your goals: I used to want to rush everything in life. Get this over with so the next thing can happen. I never gave myself time to enjoy the moment I was in. This actually makes me realize how much valuable time I lost. I don’t feel like there is anything wrong with being excited for the next big thing but don’t forget to enjoy the present as well as the journey towards your goals. RELAX! This is a challenge for me on a daily basis. I tend to worry or become frustrated when things don’t go according to plan. I have forced myself to take a few deep breaths and just RELAX! Everything happens for a reason. Everything falls into place in the end. Everything will be alright. So, just RELAX!

These things were not achieved overnight and many days I still have to remind myself about them. I can confidently say that when you apply a few of the above, there is definitely a positive change that starts taking place…

Lots of Love

xxxxx
ILLUSION
Tags: Illusion, Self Improvement, Distraction, Life Hacking, Lessons Learned

The life on earth is filled with distractions and illusions as no living-thing exists forever on earth; it’s all attachment with the illusions making us crave for it and forget our true self. The journey of illusions is mystical as it comes with awareness of surroundings and acceptance of change.

In reality, it’s difficult to overcome these illusions as they deal with emotions and temporary comfort with deep traps set within that make us feel lost and anxious where we forget to live and cherish the moments of life. Thus, it’s very important to identify and strongly stand against its impact as we start thinking that we can’t live without it by being excessively attached to it and are scared to lose it. However, the journey of life teaches us to evolve and believe in ourselves rather than others as we all have our own journey of life to live and experience it to the fullest.

5 simple ways to tackle the trap of illusion 1.Before asking or buying something check if we really need or it’s just a greed. 2.Believe in yourself and follow your heart rather than being possessive about objects or people. 3.Accept that nothing lasts forever and strive to let go the ego and pride by being polite. 4.Seek for higher purpose in life by contributing towards well-being of society. 5.Spread love and joy while tracking on cravings of expectations.

P.S : Let’s turn inward than outward to find true happiness in life ; rather than getting stuck in deadly trap of illusions , strive to be satisfied with what we have as true success lies in contentment. Thanks for reading until end!
Little Comets
Tags: Lessons Learned, Small Towns

I am from a teeny town I won’t mention by name but wouldn’t be that hard to find if you dug a little bit. Not mentioning a name is a curtesy because I will not be pulling any punches while talking about it. Let’s call it Comet since that’s my high schools mascot. In Comet everyone knows everyone and most went to school together, whether you’re 7 or 47. It’s a tight knit community that cares about each other, or that’s what it seems like to people when they visit. All that “fudgies”, as we have coined the tourists, see are connections. I have connections in almost every store in Comet. The store where my mom buys her favorite fish, the market where I get lunch everyday, the bookstore; my summer job all throughout high school, etc. When visiting, people are constantly seeing people run into each other and act like old friends, this creates a comforting veil that people believe Comet doesn’t only project but honestly is. But when everyone knows everyone they also know everything. There is very little privacy in Comet and rumors run amuck. Rumors of infidelity, promiscuity, substance abuse and assault. There isn’t much else to do in Comet but make poor choices and talk about other people’s poor choices. As a kid there were rumors about my parents, about my sisters and even about me. Rumors about my best friends older sister or their boyfriend. I grew up an aggressive gossip and I like to think I have changed but when I come home from college I am met with the truth; when I am in Comet I will always be who I was in high school. Nothing ever changes here, so how could I? There will always be snobby kids who drink at the beach or the soccer field. There will always be bored housewives who insert themselves into their children’s lives. There will always be creepy dads and creepy boys who think that they own the world and you. I graduated with only 30 kids. Do you know how much I kept secret about myself in high school? Maybe just my distaste for most of my classmates. I used to think that I was the problem, that Comet was a utopian puzzle and I was a jagged piece. Over time and meeting new people I learned that I wasn’t the problem, just a part of it. I wholeheartedly believe that I was a worse person only one year ago and that I perpetauted the things that I detest now. I didn’t know it wasn’t normal to talk shit about your friends when they left a party or to always be wondering what people were saying behind your own back. It sounds melodramatic but I needed some serious deconstruction of my belief system and to strive to be better than Comet. Sometimes I think that I am permanently strange because of where I grew up and how my environment affected me but other times I think that I’ll just write a book about it.
My students told me my promotion video sucked.
By: Peter Hostrawser
Tags: Teaching, Lessons In Life, High School, Pedagogy, Lessons Learned

Many elective teachers understand the importance to make students aware of their important classes. As a high school business teacher, I completely understand this. This year, I worked on a promo video that I thought would do a great job getting our Career Internship class noticed. I was feeling good about my creation. Then I showed it to the current Career Internship Class.

“It seems scripted” “The music is too loud” “It sounds like it is not authentic”

That one, two, three punch hurt me. I quickly changed subjects and was fighting the anger in my voice. I made it through the Google Meet class without showing my anger and I dismissed everyone. The silence was deafening once the class logged off. I was mad. I took the criticism personally. I was fuming.

This was my last class of the day and I headed home shortly after. Usually, my car ride home consists of me playing my Pandora music and enjoying my peaceful thoughts after a long day working with students in class and online. Not today. I centered myself as I drove. I thought about why I was getting upset. I thought about the things the students were telling me. I thought about my reaction. Upon arriving home, I was on a mission to learn more about how I could improve this video. I knew I needed to speak with the class to learn more about their ideas to make the video better. Before I did that, I needed to explain and apologize for my reaction on the Google Meet.

I sent the class an email apologizing for my reaction. Then I asked for help with the video.

The next day, I spoke to the class about the criticism. I was open and honest. I let them know that I was hearing the harsh criticism and taking it personally. A student let me know he could have said his critique in a kinder fashion. I explained to him that the rawness and honesty of his thoughts were really helpful for me. We had a discussion about responding versus reacting. I then asked the class if they would be willing to help me re-do the video.

We all had a deep conversation about what to do to make the video better.

By the end of the period, we had a plan to all work together. We made a panel like discussion video where the students were the center of the conversation speaking about the class. It was authentic. The students and I worked together to make a great video that will really connect with students who might be interested in the class.

The best thing came from the reworking process. It was a lesson within a lesson with the students. It is a Career Internship class and we all had the opportunity to discuss how it can be very difficult to work on teams. How if we don’t agree or take criticism the wrong way, it can deteriorate the team quickly. The experience of my failure with the class provided a lesson that was far better than a traditional memorize and regurgitate lesson. As educators, in times that are uncomfortable, we have to work out things. We have to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations. This experience with your students can make lasting lifelong lessons.
The Biggest Lessons I Have Learned in the Corporate World
By: Mike Schoultz
Tags: Corporate Culture, Management, Lessons Learned

I have been in management and leadership positions in the military and business world for forty years and I often get asked what the best lessons I have found. Surprisingly (or not) my list of lessons probably has varied to a degree, depending on when in my career it was constructed.

The following lessons represent my favorite lessons on business management that I believe could make the biggest impact. If I was starting my career over and could take leadership lessons back in time with me, these are the ones I would choose:

Create an environment of continuous learning

It is absolutely necessary that business people be good learners. They need to instill this in all their team. They must learn from their mistakes. To be most successful, managers must acknowledge, understand, and improve on their shortcomings. And they must encourage their team to also focus on continuous learning.

Be a multiplier

Multiplier business managers know that at the apex of the intelligence hierarchy is NOT the lone genius. Rather, it is the genius who knows the importance of bringing out the smarts and capabilities in everyone in the team.

Related material: Lessons Learned in Life … Class Continues Daily

Build connections

Both managers and leaders know their job with their teams is about building lots of connections. They make people feel they have a stake in common problems.

Encourage feedback

It is vital that you let your team know you are interested and will listen to their concerns and ideas and contribute to solutions to any and all problems.

Offer recognition and always share success

Focus on building team confidence by publicly recognizing their efforts and achievements. Think of it this way; anything is possible if you share the glory. Giving others a chance to claim credit is an easy, and effective, way to magnify results.

Be decisive

One of the key jobs of a manager is to be an effective decision-maker. Employees are never comfortable with managers who make slow decisions and frequently change their minds. Quality managers make decisions quickly and stick with them.

Building and maintaining trust

Always do what you say and set good examples. Demand from yourself the same level of professionalism and dedication that you expect from others. Trust, once broken, is seldom restored to its original state. It is the most fragile yet essential attribute of leadership and management.
Today I’m Glad I Have the Courage to be Viewed as Different
By: Carla D. Wilson Laskey
Tags: Courage, Choices, Wisdom, Beyourself, Lessons Learned

I realize I am different.

My way of believing about certain things is different.

Because of this.

I have chosen to have the courage to be viewed as different.

I know being different is not necessarily negative or bad.

It is simply not being the same as others.
Java Online Course Lesson 1 Part 1
By: Tij Tech Private Limited
Tags: Course, Java Course, Programming, Java, Lessons Learned

For more details and informations, please refer the video link given below:

For compiling and executing of Java program, please use the online java compiler:

1. Importance of core Java

2. Parts of Java

3. Java keywords (50)

4. Class elements

5. Java coding conventions

This Tutorial will help you understand how to write java programming and, compile and execute java programming outputs, but before that we should be knowing some of the Basics on Java.

Java is the most popular digital application in web designing and it is preferred by high end users because of various purposes.

Importance of core Java

According to the SUN, 3 billion devices run on the Java language only.

Java is used :

To develop Desktop Applications, Web Applications, Enterprise Applications, Develop Mobile Applications, Embedded Systems, Smart Cards, Robotics, Games, etc.

Parts of Java

1. J2SE/JSE (Java 2 Standard Edition)

#Design Build for Basic Java codes.

2. J2EE/JEE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition)

#Design Build on J2SE for development of Websites, Web Applications etc.

3. J2ME/JME (Java 2 Micro Edition)

#Design Build for developing Mobile Phones etc.

Core Java vs Advance Java

Core Java is basically the basics of Java such as datatypes, syntax, objects etc.

Advance Java mainly deals with frameworks such as Spring, Hibernate etc. and deals with Database connection etc.

Keywords of Java (50)

Java has a set of keywords that are reserved words that cannot be used as variables, methods, classes, or any other identifiers.

Data types :

byte, short, int, long, float, double, char, Boolean (8) Flow control :

if, else, switch, case, default, for, while, do, break, continue (10) Exception handling :

try, catch, finally, throws, throw (5) Object level :

new, this, super, instanceof (4) Methods :

void, return (2) Java5 :

enum, assert (2) Unused :

goto, const (2) Source files :

class, extends, interface, implements, packages, import (6) Modifiers :

public, private, protected, final, static, abstract, synchronized, strictfp, volatile, transient, native (11) Predefined constants :

true, false, null (3) Reserved words (53) = Keywords (50) + constants (3)

Class Elements

1. Variables

#A piece of memory that can contain a data value (data type). 2. Methods

#A block of code which only runs when it is called, and can pass data known as parameters into a method (Perform actions). 3. Constructor

#A special method that is used to initialize objects. 4. Instance block

#To initialize instance variables. 5. Static block

#To initialize static variables.

Java coding conventions

It is the rules and regulations that we have to follow when writing java codes for making the codes reliability and easier to do maintenance.
4 Lessons I Learned From Almost Losing My Income From Medium
By: Jyoti Meena
Tags: Money, Self Improvement, Lessons, Personal Development, Lessons Learned

One fine morning I woke up to this email from Payoneer.

Screenshot of the mail. Provided by the author

Payoneer informed me that they were shutting down my account because of a violation of their terms and conditions. Even after numerous queries, they refused to tell me the exact reason for the step.

I could not figure out why they decided to close my account when I was using it for the past 4 months without any issues.

I asked the fellow writers in the Medium Facebook group and nobody had an answer. The only possible reason I could find was that I was using a penname on Medium and that caused issues. However, my Stripe account was under my legal name.

I was devastated, to say the least. Shutting down of the Payoneer account meant that I would no longer be able to get paid. November was going great for me. I was going to earn the most amount I had ever earned from the website. I was even hoping to cross the $100 mark.

My dream of making my passion into a side hustle came crashing down.

I felt like I was fired from a job I was really enjoying working.
8 Critical Entrepreneurial Lessons from Starbucks CEO Howard Schulz
By: Alan Kong
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Startup, Entrepreneur, Business, Lessons Learned

1. Focus on being a Disruptor

Most of us dream about bringing a new and revolutionary idea or product to the market, but as Schulz explains, being a pioneer is the riskiest strategy.

Your idea and platform need to be so compelling that consumers are willing to take a chance on you. You also need to have piles of cash to burn for the long stretch of time in order to alter the mindset of your target consumers.

Therefore, it might be easier to focus on a business industry that captures your passion and seek opportunities to improve and disrupt existing foundations that appeals to the consumer.

For example, when Schulz’s venture capital firm invested in “Allbirds”, they saw an opportunity through the company’s unique proposition by employing unique eco-friendly fabrics, competitive pricing and a mission-driven vision that can connect with the green consumption market.
Lessons from a Dog
By: Kelly Klein
Tags: Happiness, Ladakh, Choices, Reflections, Lessons Learned

Living in Ladakh, the Himalayas of northern India, provides endless opportunties to observe and learn. Here, dogs are free to roam and wander when and where they choose. Zawa, my dog, or more accurately now, Sonam’s dog, or the village dog, is a great teacher.

These are some of the lessons she offers me.

follow those who nurture you, who feed your soul and love you. Avoid those who do not respect you or treat you unkindly

rest often (ok, maybe not as often as Zawa!)

Zawa sleeping on my “bed” during a month of solo meditation in a mud hut, Hamalayas, Ladakh
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return -I love that line a lot.
By: Sen Sarmiento
Tags: 2020, Love Yourself, Moulin Rouge, Love, Lessons Learned

The greatest thing you’ll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return.

I love that line so much. It may as well be my all time favorite line, and I learned about it from a movie. Since hearing it from Moulin Rouge! I have always kept it close to heart. I mean, they did say it was the greatest thing I’ll ever learn, so I took it on as if it was a challenge. I was determined to learn everything there is to learn about love.

Defining how to love is easy. It doesn’t matter what your love language is. Loving someone was easy to do, adapt to, and work towards. As an ENFP, I can charm my way into any type of relationship and love the person just as easily as I have charmed them.

No one talks about how difficult it is to allow people to love you.

Allowing people to love you does not seem like a challenge at all, doesn’t it? You spend enough of your time with people and soon you will be familiar with each other long enough to think that they love you and presto, you are loved in return and you have allowed them! They say “I love you” and you say “I love you, too.” Easy, right?

Allowing someone to love you is to allow yourself to be vulnerable in their presence. It is knowing that you are showing the rawest version of yourself and do not care about you being judged, or worse, hated.

Allowing yourself to be loved in return is giving them the power to hurt you. It is breaking down your walls for them. Walls that you have built around yourself to keep you from being hurt again. It is letting the other person see you for who you are, along with all the other archetypes in your persona.

Allowing yourself to be loved is showing them your muchness without any form of filter.

In the isolation brought about by this year, this indeed has been the greatest lesson that I am still learning how to do. And I am learning that I have not truly allowed myself the greatest love that is there to be felt. Learning to love who you truly are without your walls or filters; learning to love the vulnerable version of myself. It is indeed, the greatest love of all.
I Answered 100 Questions on Quora in 30 Days
By: Antonello Zanini
Tags: Quora, Blogging, Social Media Marketing, Marketing, Lessons Learned

Experiment

First ten days

It is November 1, and my experience on Quora is limited to only a few weeks. Honestly, I am still trying to figure out the best way to use it. The plan to achieve my goal is simple: answering at least three questions a day. However, my real goal is to promote my blog. So I intend to apply what I learned in my first month on the platform.

Struggling to find the three best questions of the day, I quickly decide to move to a new approach, answering the first three suitable ones. Instead of focusing on questions, I invest my time in thinking of the best possible answers. Although the experiment I am conducting is based on a quantitative objective, I know I cannot sacrifice quality.

Crafting a valuable, original, satisfactory answer can easily become a grueling task, and the first few days are undoubtedly the most difficult. What I do not know yet is that all I am doing is planting the seeds of success in this experiment.

The following two weeks

It is November 10, and I am beginning to realize how users tend to ask the same questions over and over again. The time invested in the first part of the experiment is being widely repaid. What I have to do day after day is to look for questions similar to those I have already answered, adapt my answers, and publish them.

Easy, huh? Well, no...

While I am delivering answers faster than ever and becoming one of the most active users of the Quora Italian community, some haters notice me. Between the second and third week of my experiment, I have to deal with at least a dozen different haters. Some question my competence, others accuse me of spreading false hope. Naively surprised about what is happening, I try my best to prove my good intentions, failing miserably.

Last week

Having no time to waste, I make a bold decision and decide to disallow users to comment on my answers. At the same time, I invite really curious users to send me an email if they are interested in knowing more about my answers. Not surprisingly, the remaining days of the experiment are the quietest and most uneventful.

It is November 30, and I have just met my goal. I have answered more than a hundred questions in just a month, and I feel genuinely relieved.
Books Make You Mentally Travel To Places You Have Never Been Physically
By: Silently Noisy
Tags: Life, Journey, Books, Readers, Lessons Learned

Often we take the power of words for granted. Words have an amazing way to change and shift a lot of thinks within.

Life is all about different experiences one goes through and learns from. And most of them when they learn from such experienced instances they get an insight into what mistakes one can avoid.

Books are one such source that we can lean on for inspiration and perspective at the same time. I am glad that these days writers are putting their thoughts so openly which exactly fits one’s life and helps them understand and find a solution.

It’s amazing how our lives are so interlinked and can help each other move ahead. The value that books add to our life is underrated and underestimated. Only an avid reader can understand what a non-reader is missing.

There is no difference between an educated person and a non-educated person if one is not reading. (Read somewhere)

Also if someone had a flair for writing, they need not refrain from putting their thoughts on paper cuz you never know what may just change someone’s thought process. Today, everyone is so busy to even be aware of the words said and the lessons learned that they may miss on to most of the major punch lines that they might learn from. Hustling through the day is a thing these days, most of them are acting busy, very few among them are actually productive.

Authors are putting so much effort into conveying their entire life’s experiences in a 5–6 hour read, most of these books are really worth a takeaway. Because someone else’s past experience might be someone else’s lesson that can be applied in the future.

What amazes me that, books can make you take a ride into instances which never really occurred in your life, but the way someone puts it into words compels you to live the moment.

Well, not everyone loves to read, but if you choose to start with books with interesting content, you surely will at least try to get your hands on a few of the gems.

Books serve to show a person that those original thoughts of yours are not so original at all..(read somewhere)

Reading is a beautiful joy ride, some of them I’d love to take trips with multiple times…
How A 28-Year-Old Got Fired Then Built A $500K-A-Month Business While Traveling The World
By: Eugene Owusu
Tags: Work From Home, Enterprise, Startup Lessons, Marketing, Lessons Learned

John Crestani was sitting on a beach in Thailand, poor and lost in his life when he opened a book that helped transform him from a job drifter to a successful internet entrepreneur.

It was 2009 and Crestani, then 21, had fled to Thailand after dropping out of college. He was bumming around the country on a small loan from his family and trying to “find” himself. To that end, he brought along spiritual works like The Bible and the Bhagavad Gita (Hindu scripture). But his saving grace turned out to be a business book: The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, the now-classic manual for breaking free of the nine-to-five by building an online business.

Ferriss’s key tenet in the book is to stop trading time for money and build businesses that can, eventually, operate almost entirely on their own after you set them up: passive income.

“I was at a point in my life where I had very little direction, didn’t know where I was going, and had this void,” says Crestani. “I thought ‘This sounds freaking awesome and I want to do it.’”

And he did. Crestani used his own hustle and Ferriss’s tips to build an affiliate marketing network that currently generates $250,000 to $500,000 per month, enables him to travel the world, and scales on-demand.

While plenty of people aspire to join other followers of Tim Ferriss’s lifestyle design, Crestani is its high prophet. But he didn’t get there overnight.

JOIN HIS SECRET TRAINING COURSE FROM THE LINK BELOW

https://bit.ly/3o1sSIu
Two Lessons Learned From YouTube Going Down
Tags: YouTube, Distribution, Email Marketing, Content Creation, Lessons Learned

Today YouTube has gone down. While this is a very big deal (YouTube is the #2 website after Google which owns YouTube), it’s being down proves two things:

You don’t own YouTube — so you need an email list You need to control your video distribution

You Don’t Own YouTube — So You Need An Email List

As I have stated here on this site before, you don’t own YouTube. Whenever YouTube goes down, you cannot bring it back up. Which is why you need an email list to communicate with your audience (Shameless plus: Sub to mine www.carlarjenkins.com/mailinglist ).

You Need To Control Your Video Distribution

I get it: YouTube is the number 1 video social media platform AND YouTube makes it easy to distribute your video.

HOWEVER after today, you cannot put all of your eggs in one basket (i.e. YouTube). Consider the other video platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Instagram TV, and LinkedIn.

Furthermore, think about creating your own standalone video like the one you are viewing right here on www.carlarjenkins.com. I have shot this using my laptop and I can upload it anywhere and everywhere including YouTube.

I just want to write this article to help you control what you create and where you send it. Oh and if YouTube every comes back up, kindly subscribe to my YouTube channel
So I was wondering why I was more than willing to pay $65 shipping fee for some clothes…
By: Henry Cheng
Tags: Start With Why, Self, Marketing, Lessons Learned, Psychology

If you’ve watched Simon Sinek’s famous TED talk: How great leaders inspire action, you know the power of why.

The main idea of his talk is this:

People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.

People buy something you make because they share a similar belief as you do.

People don’t buy Tesla because it’s a car, but because of the cutting-edge technology, the service, the improvement, and the future behind it.

It may be true for early adopters. But for me, it’s a little bit different.

Don’t get me wrong, I do like reading how brands tell their unique stories, what they represent, and why they started their businesses. It does provide more context for the purchase, and I feel there’s a good reason for me to take out my credit card.

However, that’s not always the case why I decide to buy. Frankly, I rarely buy something because I’m in love with the brand’s story.

It’s more like,

Reading online reviews, listening to friends’ suggestions, trying out after seeing ads.

For example,

I recently bought some clothes from Japan:

A jacket cost 80 USD

A sweater cost 60 USD

A long-sleeve T-shirt cost 33 USD

A hoodie cost 44 USD

+

Shipping fee about 65 USD

It was expensive. Especially for that shipping fee.

But I still took out my credit card and happily waiting for them to ship out from Japan.

The reason why I was willing to make the purchase wasn’t because I resonated with the brands, their mission, or what they stand for. None of that.

It was because I like the style. I couldn’t find a similar replacement here in the United States.

It was the WANT that was so strong that I didn’t care about paying extra to get it here.

Sometimes I feel businesses have been using this “start with why” approach too often that they overlook what they do.

The product still needs to be good enough to create buzz.

Once you convert prospects into paying customers, you need to prove your product or service is reliable to get their trust. And once they’re hooked, they’ll want to know more about your why.

At least that scenario happens more often to me.

A lot of times, it’s the reviews, the influencers, the testimonials, or the friends that act as the invisible salesperson who builds the first contact between you and your prospects.

-Some thoughts on want and why
My break-up letter to 2020.
By: Auntie J
Tags: 2020, Future, Breakups, Pandemic, Lessons Learned

Dear 2020,

I think it’s time for us to talk. At least I am writing, you are reading. You and I are almost through, but I have the urge to tell you how I truly feel about you.

I was still in 2019, but I was so excited to meet you. I was ready to start this new decade, and I can speak for everyone when I say that we all felt this way. I don’t know why but the sound of you was magical, hopeful even sexy. I was all about personal growth and freedom of mind.

I made so many plans for the next ten years, I bought a notebook, started a vision board and I was ready to find love. (LOL)

And then…

We were not even into Valentine’s day crap that you had already hit us with something we didn’t see coming. The death of Kobe Bryant.

Ok, If I can be honest, I am not a basketball homie. I have watched a few games, but nothing serious. However, nobody could have predicted that he and eight other people (including his 13 years old daughter) would die in the most terrible way.

It was fast, unexpected, choking. How can a helicopter ride take entire families in seconds?

I was damn sure that when this happened, we hit rock bottom.

And then…
A sonnet for those who tend to daydream
By: Maria Rattray
Tags: Poetry Sunday, Sonnet, Procrastination, Poetry On Medium, Lessons Learned

A sonnet for those who tend to daydream

It’s morning, and my plans are all in place.

My writing, in my mind is etched, but now,

For just a sec, my emails I will trace,

And then a Facebook view, just short, I trow!
Knight’s Teaching Nuggets #3: Focus on the Students, Not the Subject, Not Yourself
By: James Knight
Tags: Education, Teaching, Character, Advice, Lessons Learned

Knight’s Teaching Nuggets #3: Focus on the Students, Not the Subject, Not Yourself

Too damn many teachers focus too damn much on the subject matter that they teach and too damn little on the students they are teaching. Higher education should be focused on developing the whole person. Focus your teaching such that it not only conveys subject matter to students but also enhances their development of transcendent skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, oral and written communication, and teamwork. Also, assist students in realizing that academic compartmentalization is often arbitrary and meaningless concerning solving “real-world” problems.

And for damn sure, keep your ego out of the classroom! Focus on teaching and developing your students’ minds and character, not on showing off what you know. Teaching should not be a vehicle to stroke your ego. Don’t be a bumptious asshole!
Building an onboarding experience
By: Stephanie Gnatek
Tags: Design, Hackathons, Onboarding, UX Design, Lessons Learned

How our team approached the onboarding process for a hackathon project

In my last blog post, I wrote about my experience participating in my first design hackathon, UX Result. This hackathon's theme was onboarding, and a big part of our challenge was designing the onboarding experience for an app connected to a smart dog collar called BARK. Due to the number of steps required for setup, there were many onboarding screens that we wanted to cover.

Our goal was to make the experience simple, transparent, and delightful for users. To achieve this, we used different principles to help guide our design decisions:

Break it down

Since we had many steps in our onboarding process, we divided these steps into more manageable chunks. We divided the steps into two distinct categories:

1. Pup Details — this included entering all of the details related to a user’s dog (name, height, weight, age, and picture)

2. Connect Bark — this included connecting the device through Bluetooth and setting up geofences to keep track of the dog’s location

Show progress

Using these two categories, we wanted to be transparent with the user about where they were in the onboarding process. To do this, we created a stepper that indicated the number of steps left in the process. To keep it within the BARK app theme, we used paw prints to represent each chunk of the process.

The stepper we made to show the user’s onboarding progress

Provide options to skip when possible

In our design, we provided a skip link on most of the onboarding process screens. This link allows users to skip any parts of the process to come back to later.

Spread out information

We decided to use progressive disclosure whenever possible to keep information spread out and limit cognitive effort. One primary example of this was when we asked users questions about their dogs. Instead of putting these questions on one screen, we spaced them out over several screens to limit the number of information users needed to pay attention to at once.

Onboarding Questions using Progressive Disclosure

Make it delightful

To help encourage users to complete the onboarding process, we tried to create delight through playful copywriting, animations, illustrations, and bright colors.

What we missed

While we used these principles to help guide our design decisions, I would like to conduct user testing to determine how effective these decisions were. I would also be a bit more strategic in approaching the skip button throughout the onboarding process, as this appears on nearly every screen and some of these screens are mandatory for the product’s setup.

While these are some techniques that my team explored, they certainly aren’t exhaustive.

What are some of your tips for designing a successful onboarding process?

References:

(2003) Spillers, Frank. Web Usability Best Practice Handbook. Experience Dynamics.
Why can’t we…?
By: Andres Glusman
Tags: Tony Hsieh, Lessons Learned

Tony Hsieh died last week. We weren’t best friends, but he was on Meetup’s board, so I would spend time with him a few times a year in New York or in Las Vegas.

After every trip I would reflect on some counterintuitive thing Tony said or did that I really appreciated. Today I reflect on the common thread from all those moments that made Tony special for me.

Tony keenly appreciated how arbitrary conventional wisdom can be and was willing to question everything.

He boiled things down to first principles and was genuinely curious about how things worked. He would optimize for a bigger picture and a longer time horizon, which enabled him to be incredibly generous now and savvy in the long run.

It was almost as though Tony would look at a situation and ask: “Why can’t we …?”

Why can’t we offer free shipping on returns? Why can’t we give customers a year to return items? Why can’t we encourage customers to call instead of making it hard? Why can’t we give customers regular tours of our office throughout the day? Why can’t we buy rundown vacant lots in Las Vegas and engineer community? Why can’t we give entrepreneurs free housing and office space to incubate companies in Las Vegas? Why can’t we we pay 2x for engineers who are 10x better? Why can’t we reinvent organizational structures?

And on and on.

Not every bet worked right away. Some may not have worked at all. But Tony had the guts, platform and resources to question conventional wisdom again and again with staggering overall results .

In our meetings Tony would chime in with exceptionally unconventional ideas that would fundamentally up end how things are done and potentially leave everyone better off.

I am saddened by his passing. I believe your legacy is created by the people you affect. True to form, Tony’s life had an immediate impact on so many and the long terms results will emerge in surprising and delightful ways.
Λάθη στο σχολείο… ενοχή ή ευκαιρία για βελτίωση;
By: Anastasia Saraga
Tags: Growth Mindset, Learning And Development, Education, Teaching, Lessons Learned

Inspiring teachers and learners to fulfil their potential and achieve the very best of them. #Coaching #PersonalDevelopment #LoveTeaching #GrowthMindset
Knight’s Teaching Nuggets # 2: Apply the Red Queen Hypothesis
By: James Knight
Tags: Evolution, Education, Teaching, Advice, Lessons Learned

Knight’s Teaching Nuggets # 2: Apply the Red Queen Hypothesis

The Red Queen is a fictional character from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. The Red Queen explains to Alice that her world works differently: “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

The Red Queen hypothesis was coined in evolutionary biology to explain that a species must adapt and evolve not just for reproductive advantage, but also for survival because competing organisms also are evolving.

Exemplary teachers must be able to engage young minds with an artfully distributed diet of intellectual gems in both old and new modalities. In teaching, just like in life, we must accept that change is inevitable. Then prepare for it and embrace it with gusto!
3 lessons from my first month as a Digital Marketing Freelancer
By: Gaurav Tiwari
Tags: Marketing, Freelancers, Lessons Learned

So I did it! I took the plunge and set aside all my fears and self doubt to put up my freelancing website www.gauravtiwari.co out to the world.

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

This was not easy. I have struggled at times with telling people of what I am good at or what can I do easily that I see many people struggle with. So when I decided to make the move and start reaching out to people or friends or connections, it felt weird to do that.

But nevertheless, I put my brave face on and move on fully expecting rejections to my cold calls and messages. The journey so far has not been that bad honestly. Within a month I landed my first client and that too in a field which I am really passionate about : Sports and wellbeing.
Style of Celebrities
Tags: Life, Celebrity, Apparel, Relationships, Lessons Learned

Style of Celebrities

“File:Ranveer Singh snapped promoting his film Gully Boy.jpg” by Bollywood Hungama is licensed under CC BY 3.0

Fashion has become common today and most of us like to be a celebrity. We follow their styles, dresses, and a lot more things. When we go to buy some clothes, we look at ourselves in the mirror to see if we are looking like our favorite celebrity or not.

In social and traditional functions and festivals, people wear different types of apparel to look beautiful and try to make their presence felt at the place.

There are different types of apparels and it had their own demands depend on society and cultures.

In India, people are very much interested in following their favorite celebrity’s apparels.

But sometimes we see our celebrity in unique apparels that cannot be worn by people even if it is interesting.

One Indian star Mr. Ranveer Singh has been seen on many occasions in unique apparel that may also allow you to smile for a moment and surely will not allow you to purchase that apparel for yourself.

“File:Ranveer singh new look.jpg” by http://www.bollywoodhungama.com is licensed under CC BY 3.0

You will laugh to see Ranveer Singh's weird look, and you will be thinking that why this famous actor uses weird dress most of the time.

So I have a thought that it’s all about appearances and to look different from others. This is not new that only Ranveer Singh wears clothes like this but many others too mostly when they are in public. They know that people do not see usual things while when they see something different they start trying to know more like that and for a while they give attention to that.

After all, this could have a reason to promote fashion designers as well. For Fashion designers also this is a way to promote themselves to all those who do not know them.

Ranveer Singh is a fashion icon but the major takeaway is to enjoy his look but not to copy him. He is a film star and has to be on stage whereas common people have to fit in there on stage with clothes like these they will probably not get any jobs or people will laugh at them at their place. Each one to his own everybody is different.
Knight’s Teaching Nuggets: # 1 Teach with Enthusiasm
By: James Knight
Tags: Words Of Wisdom, Enthusiasm, Lessons Learned, Teaching

Knight’s Teaching Nuggets: # 1 Teach with Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm. There is only one way to excite students about what you teach. You must be enthusiastic about the topics that you teach every damn day.

Show the enthusiasm of a dog just given a new toy. Let oxytocin flood your system. Metaphorically speaking, prick your ears, get a glean in your eyes, wag your tail, pant. Be fucking excited!

Just roll in it. Like a dog on a dead skunk.

Walk down the halls reeking of history or math or music or English literature or reproductive physiology, grinning a shit-eating doggy grin.

Sure, some will hate your smell. But others will laugh and drop and roll with you.

Just love what you teach and love teaching. The rest will follow like a snowball rolling downhill!
The man stood watching, fascinated.
By: Maria Rattray
Tags: Compassion, Responsibility, Environmental Issues, Teaching And Learning, Lessons Learned

The man stood watching, fascinated.

Time and again the boy would pick up a stranded fish, cradling it in his hands, and escort it back into the ocean. What, he wondered, was he hoping for?

The previous night had been stormy, and that had created shallow ponds on the shoreline, where within these ponds were thousands of trapped fish. It had happened before and would happen again, he knew.

Still the boy continued.

And when the man could stand it no longer, he walked up to him and said, “Can’t you see it won’t work?”

The boy made no comment. Instead he continued to send the hapless fish back into the ocean. On a mission to save them, he would cup his hands reassuringly around their gasping bodies, fill his hands with water, and carefully walk into the sea, gently returning the fish to their homes.

You can read the rest of this article at:
Showing Gratitude In Your Life
By: Jo Ann Harris
Tags: Life, Grace, Gratitude, Thankfulness, Lessons Learned

Types of gratitude thoughts

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” — Melody Beattie

Gratitude for the ability to stand in truth. Gratitude for the love and acceptance I receive from people. Gratitude for the strong legs walking beneath me. Gratitude for the coffee that touched my lips. Gratitude for the change of seasons. Spring, when things come alive and the world’s energy expands. Gratitude for growth and change that is possible within all of us.

Gratitude is a powerful force in the universe. Feeling gratitude has had a healing effect on me. Gratitude feels really great. Give gratitude because it is important to others as well. Gratitude is powerful. It can move mountains. Metaphorical mountains, but really BIG ones. In fact, being gracious for the time you have with your loved ones will open your heart space so you can experience that love more intensely.
FLY ALONE
By: Randy Cooper
Tags: Living, Life Lessons, Intimately Intricate, Poetry, Lessons Learned

randy cooper

Fly Alone

No guide to show the way.

No net to catch you when you fall.

And you will fall

If you learned nothing else it is that you will fall.

But you learn to get up.

Dust off.

Shake off the stones

And start again.

No worse for wear.

But you learned a lot on the way down.

You learned to enjoy the view.

You learned that you really should smell the roses.

The roses all smell different.

Now the roses smell sweeter than they ever did before.

The second time around they bring a lot more pleasure.

The second time around they are a lot prettier.

You learned to take nothing for granted.

You learned that nothing will really last.

You now know that this could all end in one flash.

One moment and it is all changed.