fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Entrepreneurship Is More Than Being a Founder
By: Tim Denning
Tags: Life Lessons, Entrepreneurship, Startup, Self Improvement, Life

Entrepreneurship Is More Than Being a Founder

It’s an approach to life

Photo by lucas clarysse on Unsplash

The word entrepreneurship is drastically misunderstood. It is often thought that entrepreneurs are superior or a higher breed of human being. They are not. Entrepreneurs are associated with starting companies and all things business. This association explains about 1% of what entrepreneurship is.

How do I know? I was once a creator of businesses and now that I’m not, people often mistake who I am. The number one question I get is:

“Why don’t you start another business?”

I have no intention of starting a business because that has nothing to do with me living like an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is a way of life.

Entrepreneurship is this:

It’s how you think

It’s how you view the world

It’s an expression of creativity

It’s creating something new

Entrepreneurship is so much more than being a founder or creating companies. We are missing the whole point of entrepreneurship and I’m going to explain it to you in simple terms. You may already be an entrepreneur and not realize it because its meaning has been lost.

I am going to help you rediscover what it means to be an entrepreneur so you can utilize its true meaning in your own life.
A plastic for a penny
By: Thuận Sarzynski
Tags: Travel, Vietnam, Sustainability, Environment, Photography

Now let’s go to Vietnam where there is no infrastructure for plastic waste management.

How does a middle-income country with other priorities manages its waste? Easy. It burns it or let it go to the sea. Most plastic wastes are not recycled in the country. That’s why Vietnam is one of the champions of pouring plastic into the ocean.

A tiny part of the plastic used in the country is recycled. In the south of Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital city, there is a neighbourhood dedicated to plastic management. I went to visit this beautiful place.

People who don’t want to bother with their plastic waste often burn it on the spot. It is a harmless practice in the countryside, but in Hanoi which is one of the most polluted cities in the world, plastic burning contributes to air pollution and respiratory diseases.

People who don’t want to burn their trash simply put in a plastic bag and let it on the side of the street. During the night, trash collectors come to take those bags. These collectors are paid according to the weight of waste they bring to the recycling company.

Wastes are not made equal and some are more valuable than others. For example, hard plastic used for tables and chairs is more valuable than plastic bottles. Waste collectors try to get the most valuable waste to increase their salary.
On Writing How
By: Kerim A. Altuncu
Tags: Spirituality, Writing, Life, Writer, Science

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

Artist is the man or woman who gets to know the structure of the mind rather than its content for then he can shape words into words thus his words will become of universal mind then the content of thought may it be the passing leaf or the flow of times finds absolute resonance in every word and in every heart that read the words. For now, the minds see themselves on the page, and words are his or her words. Now the man at the decades apart is here, and his mind is written unto pages saved on disk writers, and in painting, those who had recognized the same patterns of the mind found ways to live and live and live and go on!
How Catastrophes Change Your Anxiety
By: Heather Ashman
Tags: Self-awareness, Mental Health, Perspective, Anxiety, Grief

“You have dug your soul out of the dark, you have fought to be here; do not go back to what buried you.” – Bianca Sparacino

I’ve battled anxiety since I was a child. When I was young, regular life was enough to send me into a panic. Being late, forgetting a schoolbook, a teacher looking at me oddly. Anything and everything was fodder for my mind to start kicking the crap out of me.

Over the years, I’ve dealt with and survived more of the worse ends of the life: abuse, financial problems, homelessness, the death of my long-time partner. While going through those things, the day-to-day problems that used to plague me became background noise. When something really bad is going on, like during my partner’s illness leading to his death last year, day-to-day stresses were like pouring acid on a raw exposed nerve. I was a mess for pretty much all of 2018.

Huge catastrophic problems may mute your day-to-day anxiety. When you are dealing with a loved one dying, you forget you even have a stove, let alone that you used to worry if you left it on when you went out.

Yesterday was the 10-month anniversary of my boyfriend’s death. Anxiety has still not returned to normal. I’m still anxious. But now I am anxious about big existential issues.

Two things help me get through it.

Breathe

This is my most fundamental tool for dealing with my anxiety. I have to remember to breathe. If I lose control of my breathing and let myself start to hyperventilate, it’s too late. I’m going to have a panic attack.

When I feel myself losing control, I’ve ingrained a habit of telling myself to breathe. I try to block out whatever words my brain is trying to run on repeat and just say breathe. Over and over. I focus all my attention on that one word. If my brain starts running it’s freak out record again, I drown it out with the word breathe.

Until I can get the mental loop to stop, I cannot get myself to physically breathe. Once I get the panicked words to stop and only hear my own voice saying breathe, then I follow up with the action. When I was younger, I’d try to force the action over the words that were playing in my mind. That never worked for me. I am a very auditory person and also a writer. I would focus on the words that my brain was feeding me, and the action of breathing could not break through them. So, I chose to fight words with words. One word. Breathe.

Perspective

The reason I was able to be panicked by seemingly ordinary life stresses when I was younger is that I lacked perspective. Everything seemed so awful at the time because I did not know how much worse it could get.

Now I know.

It can get worse. A whole lot worse. Worse than I ever could have imagined.

Having that perspective helps me to not panic about things I know will be okay. They’ve happened before and it hasn’t been a catastrophe. They can happen again and not be a catastrophe. Catastrophes happen. I will save my panic for them.
Everyone loves a great story.
By: Katy Velvet
Tags: Storytelling, Writing, Community, Life, Inspiration

Everyone loves a great story.

And behind every great story, there’s an even better storyteller.

Welcome to our ever-evolving community.

The Narrative is the groundbreaking, independent publication that is unique in its ability to create a platform for cutting-edge, influential writers. With a forward-thinking approach, we address an eclectic mix of topics from the perspective of educated, culturally aware individuals from across the globe.

Our publication displays a strong emphasis on inclusivity and diversity, and we welcome contributions from all voices.

Do you want to write for The Narrative?

The Narrative is currently open for new submissions. To become an active contributor for our publication, please comment below with 2–3 sentences stating why you’re the perfect fit.

Please note that as of 11/23/19, The Narrative has transitioned into a community-based pub where every writer is made an editor. This means that you have the privilege to self-publish posts whenever you please without waiting for our approval.

Why self-publish?

As Medium’s userbase keeps growing, I understand that it may become increasingly difficult to get eyeballs on your articles. This is why I decided to re-brand the publication and use a model that has been working for a lot of active users.

When you self-publish, other writers will instantly receive a notification for your article. This will not only help you gain a few new followers, but it will also provide more exposure for your writing too.

Things to remember.

As an editor of The Narrative, editing the posts of other authors without their permission will be frowned upon. Please be mindful of this when contributing to the publication.

The Narrative does not promote any hate speech or plagiarism. If you violate these terms, we will immediately revoke your participation from the publication.

Supporting other writers is highly encouraged. To keep the publication a positive space, we recommend you to read the work of others, highlight and comment as much as you can.

Thank you for your interest in becoming a part of The Narrative. We look forward to hearing your stories.
How to Move a Mountain
By: Chad Prevost
Tags: Self Improvement, Authors, Books, Psychology, Two Minute Takeaway

I love this quote because it captures so much in such an aphoristic statement. To move a mountain may be a miracle, but it’s a miracle that comes through incredibly hard and persistent labor and (self) belief. It’s a lesson on habits. It’s a lesson in persistence.

What I also find so inspiring about this book is that it gives you hope that you can and will succeed in finding your path to happiness if you still with it. You have to try and you have to keep trying. It will happen. You can live a virtuous and contented life.

The Analects by Confucius may be the most influential book of all time. As Leys states in his introduction to the Penguin edition:

“No book in the entire history of the world has exerted, over a longer period of time, a greater influence on a larger number of people than this slim volume.”

As the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle emerged during a period of conflict between Greek and Persian power so too did Confucius (and Sun Tzu) emerge during the “Warring States” period of Chinese history from roughly 475–221 BCE which overlaps with the emergence of the Greek philosophers.

Confucius lived and taught in the 6th century BCE. To put things in perspective, that’s when Buddha and Zoroaster were active, and 10 years after Confucius dies, Socrates is born. One of Confucius’ most revolutionary ideas was redefining the term junzi, meaning noble person or person of status, as anyone who was educated and moral.
The Best Thing for Your Productivity? Get Uncomfortable.
By: Maddie Mcguire
Tags: Self-awareness, Self Improvement, Productivity, Goals, Change

I moved to Virginia Beach, a city where I don’t know a soul besides my boyfriend and his mother.

Under normal life circumstances, I would never pick this city as a destination I desired to call home. But it’s 2020, so hellooooo new normal.

A decade ago, I moved to Los Angeles for my career in the entertainment industry. I swore I would never leave, I was wildly determined to “make it” in LA. I told my family they’d have to cart me off in a straight jacket to get me over state lines.

Flash forward to October 1st of this year, I shipped my belongings across the country and my ass willingly walked onto a plane

My career has never been better. And it’s not because I’m some badass. It’s because I’m so damn uncomfortable.

I have tossed everything in my life that made me feel safe out the window. The place I called “home” for the last decade is gone. The “normal” of my life doesn’t exist anymore.

My perspective has completely shifted. The mental barriers I had set on what I thought to be true in life have dissipated. What I believe I’m capable of has expanded and the possibilities in my life seem more limitless.

We avoid getting uncomfortable because… it’s not sexy or fun. It’s coupled with a lot of emotions, soul searching and change.

Humans resist change, yet change is the only thing that’s certain in life besides dying.

We try to create as much routine as possible and fill our schedule up with plans to predict what is going to happen. If we know what’s going to happen, we can expect how we’re going to feel, and we can try to avoid pain at all costs.

When trying to be more productive, you take on the challenging task of looking at yourself in the mirror. And being honest as fuck with yourself about where you’re at in life and with your goals.

It’s more “comfortable” to keep using the same tactics towards your goals, hanging out with the same people, going through the same routine of life. And then sitting in the “woe is me” victim club complaining about how hard you’re working and still not achieving any results. Instead of analyzing what’s working, what needs to change, and then shaking up your life.

Forcing yourself to get fucking uncomfortable and changing how you’re working towards your dreams.

Look at your life. What routines are you so ingrained in? Are they serving you? Or do you feel like a newborn baby that’s swaddled into an infant burrito, feeling all snug and safe?

It’s time to bust out of that blanket baby and climb some mountains.
Is Authenticity Being Abused as a Marketing Ploy?
By: A Singular Story
Tags: Language, Internet, Writing, Psychology, Culture

Is Authenticity Being Abused as a Marketing Ploy?

Genuine narratives don’t need empty buzzwords, do they?

Photo by explorenation # on Unsplash

Why are humans becoming brands, complete with taglines?

As our interactions become increasingly monetized, everything gets commodified, including people. In a country where celebrity is the only measure of success, there’s no shortage of wannabes vying for our eyeballs and validation.

To attract attention is the only goal, and it has to be achieved by any means necessary.

Now that we can all avail ourselves of the megaphone that is the internet at the touch of a screen, anything goes.

Applied to writing, this can lead to peculiar copy as earnestness, integrity, and humility occasionally lose out to grabby fingers.

Instead of using the individual experience to humanize universal issues, this kind of copy hijacks clicks and bucks with overwrought pathos to bring readers to their knees. Whether in annoyance at such transparent greed or from being overwhelmed with empathy for a fellow human’s suffering, we’re forced to react.

Often, it’s difficult to parse the emotions that arise when reading this material.

Does it monetize human misery instead of invite reflection?

Or is it a genuine, and thus credible, attempt to transcend difficulties and survive?
The Fire From Within
By: Haiku Love Bites
Tags: Poetry, Self-awareness, Motivation, Life Lessons, Life

Photo by John T

The Fire From Within

a poem about the passion, success and failure

.

dancing around a smoke sent free

lifted to rafters expanding

until eyes cannot see what nose

smells between walls unfolded

.

stairs snake up steps of potential

trying to outrun older flames

with a passion born from knowledge

it will end in light gray ashes

.

leap it’s the only chance I have

before the weight of those hanging

on limbs of my tired body

bring me down like an autumn rain

.

on my back I lay deserted

with liquid sheets and concrete bed

cupping eyefuls of rainwater

stabbing at my skin from heaven

.

blistered hands lay unmoved at sides

evidence of fire burning

like a good letter stayed with me

long after thin paper faded

.
I Hate Being a Writer in New York City
By: Lindsey, Lazarte
Tags: Personal Development, Writing, Life Lessons, Self, Productivity

The thing is, once that fear started to settle in, my writing collectively started to take a turn for the worse. I started to care less about making anything happen through writing. I started to put less effort into writing and I nearly lost interest in it completely.

I felt inadequate, unmotivated, and irrelevant. Plus, the struggle to not compare myself to others was a losing battle in and of itself. Witnessing the overflow of new content that was published each day created this constant pressure for me to keep publishing [anything] to the point where the quality of my writing began to suffer due to the mass quantities in which I was producing.

I started to hate calling myself a Writer. I was ashamed to even consider myself as one. And the thing that I hated most was being a Writer in New York City. I hated knowing that there were so many others out there, just in this city alone, who were so much more talented, more intellectual, more creative, more focused, more driven than me. I hated it so much that I made myself become a statistic — I became another one of the many people who called it quits before things really started happening…Though, I wouldn’t say I’m down and out quite yet — After all, I did write this article.

Instead, I’d say, I’m taking it slow. I’m taking it down a few notches and I’m trying to find that raw passion that once drove me to writing in the first place. Maybe if I keep digging for that, then something good will come from it. Maybe.
10 Ways to Make Extra Money as a Designer
By: Danny Sapio
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Visual Design, Design, Graphic Design, Money

Whether you’re laid off, unemployed, furloughed, or want to make some extra money on the side as a designer — this article will give you ten ways to start making money from your design chops today.

There is no magic to making money as a designer, but I’ve had personal experience or seen all of the following methods be fruitful for anyone who gives it their best effort and is patient for results.

As a college dropout, I needed to hustle to make a living. I’ve tried dozens of ways to make money online — everything from getting rich quick schemes to building businesses from scratch. I ultimately found success through developing my design skills and using them to create content, build products, and sell services.

In this post, I’ll review methods to earn money with design skills and share my personal experience with a few of these techniques.

1. Fiverr
Crossing the Metaphors
By: Pratik Mishra
Tags: Storytelling, Motivation, It Happened To Me, Self, Life

Crossing the Metaphors

It means nothing, yet everything came from it.

Photo by Paul Murphy on Unsplash

For a very long time, I struggled to write linearly on unruled pages. Consequently, my teachers and my parents convened their best efforts to keep me in line. They taught me to make lighter straight lines with a ruler, at the top, and the bottom. Consequently, my words learned to stay within their boundaries. With time, these preparatory lines grew lighter and faded soon after.

A little later, I saw my dad write official mails at home on unruled sheets. It was the time before electronic mails. He had this nice trick he used to create vertical margins on the paper. He folded the page lightly on both sides and used these creases as a reference to write in his glorious handwriting. I was too young to make sense of the content, but, in those letters, he never swayed outside of the uninked margins, and the letters — they looked pretty.

I grew up, and I carried these imaginary lines with me and laid my words upon them. They kept them from falling or flying away while stacking neatly one over the other.
How to Turn Your Anxiety Into Excitement
By: Chris Wojcik
Tags: Self-awareness, Self Improvement, Anxiety, Mental Health, Meditation

I’m trying to bask in the chaos.

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” — Soren Kierkegaard

It was a Monday of my senior year in college. I was sitting in COMM 101 — Public Speech.

Apart from the whole public speaking thing, COMM 101 is a hilariously easy class. There were about 20 students. It’s a gen-ed composed of mostly freshmen. I was taking it for one of my last credits before I could finally apply for graduation.

That Monday was the day of our first in-class speech, and I was sitting in the back corner of the room obsessively going over my notes. I was terrified.

Public speaking is a huge fear of mine.

As I studied, I pressed my hand on the paper that was my script and… shit. I left a sweat imprint that went through paper straight to the table.

I was anxious, uncomfortable, and dreaded that speech.

“Oh God, what’s going to happen when you freeze up and forget what to say?”

This and other unhelpful thoughts raced through my brain. I couldn’t control what my brain was thinking and how it was making me feel.

Let’s leave it at this: the speech did not go well.

I stumbled through my words, I forgot an entire paragraph, and I could barely maintain eye contact with my script, much less the audience.

Though no one else in the class gave a damn about how my speech went, I was embarrassed, humiliated, and irrationally annoyed with myself.
Start Using Pandas From the Command Line
Tags: Programming, Software Engineering, Data Science, Technology, Productivity

If you work in the data analysis world, chances are you do a lot of data wrangling. If you use pandas in your data workflow, you’ve probably noticed that you often write the same bits of code.

Although some complex datasets or data exploratory require going to Jupyter notebooks, on the other hand, some datasets require simple processing, going through the process of setting up an environment, and creating a new notebook can be a little overwhelming.

So you probably end up opening it in a spreadsheet. However if spreadsheets are accommodating, they are difficult to automate and do not offer as many features as pandas.

How to take advantage of the features of pandas while keeping the flexibility of spreadsheets?

By wrapping pandas functions in a command-line interface with chainable commands. A command-line interface or CLI allows us to quickly open a terminal and start typing in commands to execute some tasks. Chainable commands mean the result of one command is passed to another, which is particularly interesting in processing data.

In this article, we will use Click to build a CLI. Click is a Python package to quickly build CLI without having to parse the command line arguments with native python libraries.

We will first install a template Click project taken from Click documentation that allows chaining commands. Then I will walk you through writing commands to read, filter, display, and write files using pandas under the hood. In the end, you would be able to write your own commands to fit your needs.
Things Are So Much Harder Than They Have To Be
By: Gretchen Lee Bourquin, Pom-Poet
Tags: Anxiety, Adhd, Mental Health, Productivity, This Happened To Me

Things Are So Much Harder Than They Have To Be

Snapshot of a mixed-up mind

Photo by James Pond on Unsplash

As I begin this, it is 9:46 on Monday night. Normally, my highest creative and productivity potential happens in the early morning, before the muck of the day has soiled my mind. I have been trying to sleep for over an hour. But I keep grabbing my phone to check on random thoughts that cross my head from how easy would it be to make a quick batch of mini corn muffins to contemplating possible details surrounding the lastest too soon tragic celebrity death.

I have writing assignments that are due in the next couple days, things I plan to look at in the morning sometime before 7 a.m. That’s when the house starts to bustle and my mind starts its fog all over again. I do not know how much is straight anxiety and how much is my ADHD in overdrive. I should get off my bed and start writing things that have a higher potential for profit on the actual computer, rather than dinking on my phone.
Divi Theme Review
By: Casey Botticello
Tags: Journalism, Technology, Social Media, Freelancing, Writing

Main features of Divi

Divi comes with a number of standout features that set it apart from many other WordPress themes.

A comprehensive WordPress content editor/builder

One of Divi’s main selling point is its easy-to-use drag and drop content editor. This handy but powerful builder can be used to make changes to chosen templates, as well as to derive completely new designs. You can easily make WYSIWYG changes via a visual editor and create reusable content sections. The Divi content editor also comes with a wireframe mode that you can use to review your page structure, along with preview modes that helps you see how the content will look on mobile, desktop, and tablet devices. You also have the option to add a range of page items and customizations into your design, including sliders, animations, players, CTA buttons, and more.

A huge library of editable templates

Divi offers hundreds of pre-designed templates that are suited to almost any website need you might have. In fact, the theme is among those with the largest collection of customizable templates, which can be used for business websites, blogs, online stores, learning management websites, and much more. There are also individual layouts that come with the theme, which can be used to set up your individual pages (home, about, contact, etc.) exactly how you want them.

A special split testing tool you can use to optimize your content

If you are unsure what looks and features of your website will work best with your audience, Divi’s convenient split-testing tool allows you to run A/B tests and compare the results. You can use this for multiple pieces of content and page features, as well as run several tests simultaneously.

The ability to build your own theme

With the Divi theme builder, you can customize more than just the design elements of posts and pages. You can also use it to make changes to your footers and headers, as well as category pages, 404 pages, blog templates, theme templates, etc. In fact, you can use it to change up your entire WordPress theme to match your individual design goals.

Portability

Divi allows you to save a lot of time when working between different WordPress websites due to its portability. You can easily transfer various website design elements, assets, and layouts between your sites, which is another reason why people find it so efficient to work with the Divi Theme.
Starting Diversity and Inclusion at Your Startup
By: Linh M. Phan
Tags: Diversity And Inclusion, Equality, Startup, Diversity In Tech, Software Engineering

Design a Bias-Free Hiring Process

As you’re educating yourself and your leaders on what D&I means to your business, you’re likely going to be adding to your team. Before hiring, it’s critical to design and implement best practices to mitigate bias throughout the interview and selection process. Otherwise, your D&I efforts will be stripped away by unconscious bias from the most well-intentioned of staffing personnel and interviewers.

Most people try to do the right thing when deciding on the best hire for their team. You want to hire people who will be successful in their role, easy to work with, and fit in with your company’s culture.

However, bias can start seeping in from the start of your search — from something as simple as not having gender-neutral language in your job descriptions to rejecting a resume due to preconceived notions about a candidate based on where they went to school.

Biases can continue to appear when you pick up the phone to talk to a candidate or walk into the interview room and make quick judgments based on a candidate’s appearance, accent, or manner of speaking. Whether the search for a fit is conscious or unconscious, keep in mind that you want to consider someone who can be a culture add instead of just a culture fit.

Overcoming unconscious bias in the hiring process requires investing in the education and training of your employees to set up a structure in the interviewing process. Training can help people think about good questions that will provide the most accurate signals about someone’s ability to do a job well rather than relying on their gut feelings. Train your interviewers to ask the same questions to each candidate for calibration purposes. Test questions with internal hires first to set interviewing expectations.

Consider the person’s hunger for the role, problem-solving abilities, and ability to learn and adapt. Ensure that underrepresented employees have a voice in hiring decisions, but also give them the opportunity to opt into processes rather than assuming that they want or have the time to participate in every D&I interview.

When it comes time for offers, overcoming bias involves knowing that women initiate negotiation less than men due to the negative social costs attached. In 2019, 13 states implemented a salary ban law that prevents employers from asking applicants about their previous or current compensation. A recent study shows that the law has been effective in improving pay by 8% for women and 13% for Black people.

This law is a good reminder that policies can make a difference, and companies can take additional steps to create policies or structures within their organization to ensure the continuation of gender and racial equity.
3 Stories for All Immigrant (Indian American) Kids
Tags: Storytelling, Book Review, India, Books, Parenting

3 Stories for All Immigrant (Indian American) Kids

They are a must-read for parents as well

Photo by Mat Reding on Unsplash

When my family and I arrived in the land of opportunity, the free public library system, not the Statue of Liberty, reaffirmed our decision to immigrate. As a “good-boy”, I read voraciously. The public library, the greatest invention of Benjamin Franklin, opened the world to me. Like many others, I was astounded by the vast volumes of fiction. Occasionally, I would yearn for stories featuring Indians. Apu from the Simpsons did not make his debut until 1989.

Fast forward a few decades and I present novels featuring immigrant Indian American characters. I cannot express the joy at having my children read these amazing works. I probably enjoyed these stories more.
The Literally Literary Weekly Update #9
By: Jonathan Greene
Tags: Poetry, Nonfiction, Ll Letters, Fiction, Writing

Literature Doesn’t Have to Make Sense by Matthew Ward (Art)

“There’s something weird about the internet age that has caused us to lose touch with art — especially story-driven art forms like movies and literature. As soon as anything new comes out, there are hundreds of youtube videos, magazine articles, and twitter threads tearing it to pieces.”

I’m Here With You by Mary Keating (Poetry)

“Built a fortress strong

enough to bend

where only Love

holds the key”

To Pamela by Sydney Duke Richey (Poetry)

“even before opening it

I knew I would have paid

a dollar or more for

a book with the title”

I Met My 8-Year-Old Self by Omar Gahbiche (Fiction)

“I, a twenty-something guy, was looking at my eight-year-old self.

And I was not hallucinating. It felt real. I was still aware that it couldn’t be, but strangely, it was as real as a regular sunny summer afternoon.”

The Evolution of Dating by Jerry Windley-Daoust (Fiction)

“The love you share with him is the easily domesticated kind, and it becomes as comfortable as a faithful old dog, happy to see you every time you come home.”
Travel virtually during lockdown
By: Tim King
Tags: Travel, Escape, Mental Health, Covid-19, Coronavirus

Travel virtually during lockdown

How to escape right from your living room with this simple tip

Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash

Being at home for so many weeks on end can become a real drag while the world is experiencing the COVID-19 crisis. You’re stuck inside seeing the same four walls each day, with little escape on weekends.

But fear not, I’m here to show you how you can travel over vast distances without ever leaving your living room.

What you’ll need

If you have a decent internet connection and a Google Chromecast, Apple TV, or other streaming device, then you have everything you’ll need for this simple escape.

YouTube is a weird and wonderful thing

Yes, there is plenty of entertainment available on YouTube, but there are some beautiful things available to stream absentmindedly in the background while you’re stuck at home, and some of these are ambient experiences from video games.

Those who love good ambient music will probably already be familiar with YouTube’s unending supply. But did you also know that there are people who upload ambient experiences from popular game titles like Skyrim, Fallout, and Red Dead Redemption?

Now these aren’t just static, they are records from right in the game with the trees waving in the wind, water flowing down rivers, and even people moving around. Sometimes these are also accompanied with music from the game that fits the scene.

Here are a couple of examples of the ambient experiences from the hit title Red Dead Redemption 2.

Of course you aren’t at all limited by just the outdoors, if it’s the inside of a quiet tavern you’re looking for with the roar of an open fireplace warming you through, I’ve got you covered.

Or perhaps its the quiet, radiation fuelled post-apocalyptic climbs of the Fallout 4 wasteland that interest you.

If video game locations aren’t your thing, then there are plenty of other ambient escapes for you to experience. Like this beach in Thailand.

Or if you really have a hankering for the on-plane experience.

Wherever you’d prefer, it’s almost a guarantee you’ll find somewhere interesting to visit.

Not only will this give you a different experience from the inside of your home, but it might even help clear out the cobwebs and support your mental health at the same time.

Completing the experience

Now, you’ve chosen a video to put on while you’re at home and perhaps you’ve setup a playlist on YouTube to change throughout the day.

Great! Time to dust off your Chromecast or other streaming device and send the video to your home entertainment system.

Once the video is streaming, turn the speakers up to an acceptable level and enjoy the bliss of somewhere else, be it the plains of New Mexico, a cosy tavern in a medieval setting, or the post-apocalyptic sea-side vistas of Far Harbour.

Remember that a new escape is just a quick YouTube search away…

Originally published at hellotimking.com on April 8, 2020
How to be Your Own “Writers’ Contest” Judge
By: Danika Bloom
Tags: Books, Writing, Writing Tips, Writer, Fiction

If you’ve been struggling, working on your book for more than a couple of years, then the odds are pretty darned high that from time-to-time you’ve lost perspective about how good your writing is, how interesting your characters are, how clear their motivations are, and whether readers will care about or connect to your story.

Entering your story into a contest can give you fabulous feedback on all kinds of important areas about your story that can help boost your confidence and make your story even better.

But, if you’re still in the editing stage, you may not be ready to enter real contests. So, creating a contest situation just for your book is a perfect solution!

Although you could absolutely use the questions in this mock contest evaluation to review your own manuscript, it really will work better if you find two or three trusted readers to “judge” your first 25 pages.

By ‘trusted’ I mean a couple of specific things:

Your ‘judges’ read and love the genre you’re writing in.

They have an appreciation for the fact that books do not fall from fingertips in their final form and know how to offer constructive feedback.

They are people whose opinions you trust

If you send your pages to three judges you may get back three very different scores and comments. So, when your judges send back your scoresheets, it’s often helpful to review their comments and then set them aside for a few days to see what resonates and what you can ignore.

And make a conscious point to celebrate all the high scores and positive comments!
Maker Mindset for Data Entrepreneurs
By: Roy Klaasse Bos
Tags: Startup, Entrepreneurship, Data Science, University, Academia

Academia 🤝 Industry

In line with my previous post I asked Arjan about his view on the differences between the two worlds: “Most companies are very far away from science. That is a bit of a shame, but experiments can close this gap. Once companies start adopting a data-driven mindset they come closer to the basic principles of science. On the other hand, I expect that scientists will shortly reap the benefits of industry collaborations due to the exponential growth of data collection. This will lead to new research areas which you already see happening at tech giants such as Twitter and Facebook.”

Despite his general concerns about the lack of an experiment-driven culture in business, it turns out Arjan is very excited about the tech giant whose head office is located in the beautiful capital of our very own country: Booking.com. In his former role as — what his mentor Mats Einarsen likes to refer to as — Travel Scientist Arjan was trying to find answers to questions such as: “Are we able to accurately forecast at which holiday destination potential travelers will have the best experience of their life?”

What he relished most in this position was the data-driven culture: “In the morning you drank a cup of coffee, thought of an experiment and delivered it to the ‘Experiment Tool’ (i.e. Booking’s in-house built A/B testing platform). You thus executed the experiment and evaluated its results after which the process started all over again the day after. This approach was so radically different than what was common for most companies at the time: first a meeting to brainstorm ideas, then someone needed to write a project plan, another meeting to discuss the project plan, yet another meeting to create a budget to find out two years along the line that the experiment did not work at all.”

He continues: “In business assumptions are often still the norm: ‘I think that…’ [followed by a list of personal beliefs]. The first thing they asked at Booking.com once you had shared your new idea was: ‘Do you have any data to support that claim?’. I have not yet come across a single company that has integrated this data-driven approach across all departments and processes to such an extent.”
How to Start and Keep a Daily Journaling Habit
By: Danny Jackson H.
Tags: Writing, Productivity, Habits, Writing Tips, Journaling

How to Start and Keep a Daily Journaling Habit

Writing down your thoughts every day can change your life.

Photo by Hannah Olinger on Unsplash

I’ve been journaling almost daily since I was a kid, long before everyone started touting its mental health benefits.

I’ve also known that I wanted to be a writer since I first learned to read at age three.

Because I had a difficult time making friends, books were my only companions for several years in my childhood. As a result, I wanted to grow up to create more books so that awkward kids like me would feel a little less alone.

I started writing stories whenever I could. My parents bought me new notebooks all the time and I filled them up just as quickly.

At age six, I started keeping my first diary. Every night before bed, I’d write down what had happened that day and how I felt about it.

That diary is actually still at my parents’ house. I reread it last year when they moved, and it brought back so many memories I’d thought would never resurface.

It reminded me of one of the main reasons I journal in the first place: to record memories.

I tend to forget things unless I write them down. Maybe that’s a side effect of my ADHD. Whatever the reason, I like to go back and read old journals to remember how my life used to be. I also enjoy reflecting on how far I’ve come since that point in my life.

For those reasons, I’ve kept a journal almost constantly since I was a child. Most of the time, I’d use it as a sort of record of my life, but I’d occasionally use it to organize story ideas, brainstorm characters, or scribble lines of poetry.

More recently, keeping a daily pandemic notebook helped me figure out that I’m actually a lesbian.

These days, my journal is a place for all of my random thoughts. I pick a time every morning and every evening after work to write down whatever is going through my head.

I find journaling to be therapeutic because it helps to physically transfer bad thoughts from your brain to the page. This gets them out of your head so that you don’t think about them quite as much anymore. As someone with severe depression and anxiety, journaling is a lifesaver.

But even if you don’t have any mental illnesses, journaling can be beneficial fo you too.

If you’re part of the LGBTQ+ community, journaling can help you better come to terms with your true identity.

If you’re a writer, journaling can help you organize your ideas and figure out what you really want to write about.

No matter who you are, I believe that journaling can help you.

But it can be a bit hard to get started. After all, I know better than many people how intimidating it can be to stare down the barrel of a blank page.

That’s why I’ve written this easy guide that should help you get started.
How Reading 50 Books in a Year Greatly Improved My Writing
By: Yang Chun Wei
Tags: Writing Tips, Books, Self Improvement, Reading, Writing

Reading Purposefully

Speed-reading may help us to cover more ground, but sometimes it comes with a compromise. We might inadvertently sacrifice some depth in thought for a few extra pages. To me, I think the beauty of reading is to really get to understand what the author is trying to convey. Reading speed can be slowly improved by simply reading more, so there is no need to race yourself to read faster all the time.

It is one of the very few moments in life in which you can take it slow. I want to treasure it.

The What

Reading with purpose is to understand the text at hand rather than simply finish it. A good demonstration of understanding is knowing how to ask yourself the right questions that prompt you to think. The key is to draw connections to what you know and be radically open-minded to explore new possibilities.

The How

A good start would be to use the K-W-L method for learning. It is a graphical organizer developed by Donna Ogle to allow readers to take charge of their own learning.

Typically, readers would have a chart that is divided into three sections:

What I Know What I Want to Know What I Learned

Firstly, examining what you know helps to establish a foundation that can be useful for comparing with what you learned in the end. A well-written book provokes you to rethink what you know and challenges your preconceived notions.

Following this, I personally will read the synopsis and contents of the book to get the gist of what I aim to achieve out of reading it. I will then write down my learning objectives in the W section and subconsciously pay specific attention to whatever can enhance my knowledge. For example, in the book “Principles: Life and Work” by Ray Dalio, I wanted to learn about how I could change my day-to-day decision-making framework to become more systematic so that I can be decisive even in the face of ambiguity.

For this section, there is also a need to strike a healthy balance between focusing on finding the information you seek and being receptive in the face of new information. There is a clear danger of tunnel vision, which we want to avoid as much as possible to gain the most out of our reading experience.

Last, but not least, I write down the key takeaways for each chapter in the L column. I set a limit of five bullet points per chapter, keeping it concise and readable. Every time I finish a book, I take on the role of critic, summarizing the text and giving it my honest review. Doing so enables you to practice being an independent thinker as it empowers you to formulate your own opinions and encourages you to think more deeply about what you read.

I encourage you to find whatever method that works best for you. If you’re a visual learner, why not try a mind map? Some concepts can be put into practice, so why not try them out in real life and see the results for yourself? As long as there is a way for you to internalize the lessons you’ve learned and review them in the future, you are set to go.
Whiteboard View v.0.0.1
By: Michael Dubakov
Tags: Canvas, Productivity, Startup, Whiteboard, Fibery

Note that you can filter entities in Tree Component to see only relevant entities:

Filter entities in Tree Component.

You can also double click on entity to see its details. And that is it so far :)

How is this useful right now?

Well, so far the only case is hierarchy visualization. For example, you may want to see Goals, Initiatives and related Work in a hierarchy. With filters you may see only active goals and active initiatives, thus narrowing down the view.
Waste Less Time on Smartphones with these Simple Tricks
By: S Pats
Tags: Self Improvement, Time Management, Technology, Productivity, Self-awareness

Waste Less Time on Smartphones with these Simple Tricks

Be the one who pushes the buttons, not the one whose buttons get pushed

Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash

Something weird happened when I got my first smartphone. I realised that I could basically throw my expensive laptop out the window and still be able to play games, surf facebook (back when young people were on it too), watch movies etc. Except, unlike a laptop, I didn’t have to sit down indoors and carry a case around. This is like black magic for a 12 year old.

Like a lot of young adults today, I was in my formative years when I got my first smartphone which means I got hooked easily by its convenience and ability to kill boredom at any time. It was only a decade later, when I was 22 that I realised my addiction. My time and happiness were being sabotaged.

It’s taken a while, but I’ve finally been able to get back my time and mind for the most part by following a few simple but effective techniques:
16 Free Online Courses for Learning Content Marketing Strategies
By: Eva V.
Tags: Marketing, Content Marketing, Design, SEO, Social Media

Here are 3 different lists of digital marketing courses that offer a ton of valuable information.

I like how these online learning platforms focus on courses related to skill-building. Whether you’re starting out in the field or already working.

Hope you find these sources useful.
10 Ways to View the Creator Economy
By: Executive Program, News Innovation
Tags: News, Creators, Journalism, Entrepreneurship, Newsletter

10 Ways to View the Creator Economy

How journalists see the new landscape of independents

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

By Elise Czajkowski

2020 has been a big year for journalists launching their own newsletters, podcasts, YouTube channels and other products. It’s not an easy path, and many are looking around for lessons and models.

This fall, to serve this growing community, the Newmark Graduate of Journalism’s Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program became one of the first academic programs to focus on helping independent producers sustainably build and grow their niche journalism products. For those interested in exploring this emerging ecosystem, here are 10 stories about the creator economy that showcase how independent journalists are forging their own paths.