fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Don’t Be Fooled. Looking for Inspiration Doesn’t Work Anymore.
By: Jessie Van Breugel
Tags: Inspiration, Freelancing, Writing Tips, Entrepreneurship, Writing

Don’t Be Fooled. Looking for Inspiration Doesn’t Work Anymore.

6 proven tactics to get your best work done in no time

Photo by Miriam Espacio from Pexels

I’m so done with it.

Every time I run out of ideas or my current ideas aren’t good enough, I switch on the Dora The Explorer-modus and I go surf the internet. Hoping to find the shiny coast of opportunity and inspiration. Better said — I browse YouTube.

I didn’t do the math, but I guess that in 2% of the cases it works.

I came to the conclusion that consuming more content isn’t the answer.

My desk is located next to my bookshelves and in those moments of incompetence I take out some books — interesting or not — and scroll through them. Trying to find inspiration as if the map to Mordor is hidden inside one of them.

The best part?

This strategy has a success ratio of 3,7% — not great either.

That leaves me with the last option: bang my head on the keyboard until I find something to write about. I’ve had days where this behavior took place 4 times a day, but in better times it only happened twice a week. Besides these mental shackles and some bruises, I’m fine. I guess.

Oh, the success ratio? Around 5%.

I’m not an idiot. This year, I’ve published over 65 articles, so there must be something that I do that enables me to consistently push out content. That got me thinking — what are my strategies whenever I’m stuck in this crazy content-block-limboland?

It turned out that there are 6 tactics I subconsciously apply every time I’m stuck.
The Bad Writing Habits We Learned in School: And Advice to Forget Them
By: Gavin Lamb
Tags: Writing Tips, Education, Productivity, Learning, Writing

Photo by Evan Leith on Unsplash

The Bad Writing Habits We Learned in School: And Advice to Forget Them

‘Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.’

Intro: Why Term Papers Need to Go

If you’re an undergraduate student right now, you are probably consuming and sharing more forms of communication than at any time in history: texts, blogs, Instagram, tweets, TikTok, email, news.

You are a node in a fast-moving network of incoming and outgoing communication of all kinds.

In a society in which most of us are immersed in massive amounts of information, sociology professor Deborah Cohan writes, the power of writing lies not merely in the ability to absorb and recycle endless amounts of information, but more so: “to appreciate essence, nuance, and depth, to distill and focus on important points without convenient guides to translate all the ideas for [us].”

It’s with this ethos of what writing enables us to do that Cohan calls for the end of a modern staple of higher education: the end-of-semester, final ‘term paper.’

In her essay, The Case Against the Term Paper, Cohan writes:
Pro Tips to Help You Get Started With Your Side Project
By: Thomas Guibert
Tags: Side Project, Technology, Software Engineering, Productivity, Programming

Pro Tips to Help You Get Started With Your Side Project

Begin with solid foundations to keep the excitement kicking in

Photo by Blake Meyer on Unsplash

Day 1 — You bought your <fancy-name>.io domain name and promised yourself you would finish this product for good, this time.

Day 56— <fancy-name>.io homepage is still a 404. You refuse to talk to anyone about what went wrong.

How often do you start a project and give up on it?

Justified by a lack of structure, discipline, or organization, this project that was once your best idea ever gets boring, messy, and doesn’t look as exceptional as when you had your first thought about it.

In short, your project is not even exciting anymore, and you gave up.

Here are some tips to help you stay motivated and keep focused on what matters until you ship.
A Simple Growth Marketing Plan For SaaS Startups
By: Nicolás Vargas
Tags: Startup, Marketing, Growth

Instructions

Similar to step three, you should prioritize your new markets/ channels based on the following criteria:

Profit margins

Market size

Control

Input/output time ration

Scalability

Please make sure you look into ways to identify and prioritize new markets only when your startup gets to the “growth” stage, as mentioned in the introduction above.

Bonus: Get A copy of the SaaS growth marketing framework now!

The spreadsheet above is broken down into six tabs. Here’s how to use each of them:
How I Read 69 Books in 2019 without Changing My Routine
By: Morton Newberry
Tags: Books, Readinglist, Productivity, Audiobooks, Reading

How I Read 69 Books in 2019 without Changing My Routine

And how you can do it too.

Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash

Even though we are (finally) reaching the end of the catastrophic year that is 2020, there is something I want to tell you about 2019.

Yes, 2019, or 1 b.C. (before Corona).

I have never read so many books in a year as I did in 2019. I fell one book short of seventy. I haven’t taken part in any special reading challenge or struggled to squeeze reading time into a tight routine, and I don’t do any form of speed reading (spoiler: I think speed reading fiction is a complete nonsense). It felt so natural to finish this amount of books in this timeframe, I got surprised by the result.

I love to read. It’s one of my favorite activities to pass the time — be it at home or in a waiting room. But this year, I applied some “tricks” that increased the number of works I finished.

These aren’t top-secret techniques, nor do they require any special ability or skill. These are easy steps you can do at home if you wish, like me, to read more books from now on.

If you, too, want to read more books in 2020 and 2021, here are some tips:
Mental Health vs. Strong Body
By: Eir Thunderbird
Tags: Fitness, Mental Health, Motivation, Feminism, Parenting

Since there were only a few things I could control entirely, one of them was to get fit.

In my entire 20s I have been slightly chubby, as I loved, and still do (whom am I kidding?) eating anything made from dough: pastries, bread, pasta, you name it. If it screamed carbohydrates, it was my go-to meal.

I have always had this excuse saying that if I ever wanted to lose weight I will do it. The only problem with this — let’s call it on its real name, a delusion — was that it’s been ages since I kept selling myself this, which only made me even more comfortable with the kilos I was adding on the scale on each passing year.

It was January 2018 when I have decided to make a change. While I was not actively thinking about motherhood, the mental seed was always there, waiting. So I have decided to try to lose some weight. I hadn’t had any target but I was sure as hell I didn’t want to reach a new weight milestone on the scale which I would become comfortable with it, too. I was 150 cm in height and weighing 59 kilos.

Since 2017 June, I have stopped eating other meat than fish, and that would have been only on occasions, having switched to a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet with a predominant preference towards carbohydrates — and lots of it. Anyone who moves from a regular diet to a vegetarian has to be careful on the caloric intake because of the trap of thinking your body will not get enough energy to support your normal activities.

Since this was an underlining concern for me, I ended up choosing very high caloric foods. Knowing what my culprit was, the decision to try the keto diet was a no brainer. At the same time, I also started a very light exercise plan, because I hate any form of physical exercise to even consider going to the gym. The plan involved approximately 10 to 15 minutes a day (usually in the morning) of medium intensity exercises that I could perform in the comfort of my home.

It worked like a charmer. The keto diet (which I would only dare to try again in case of emergency — aka nothing else works) was perfect. I lost around 2 kilos during the first week, which was a strong incentive for me to continue with it, even though, preparing the meal or eating out was very often a challenge for a vegetarian on keto. In parallel, as I was losing weight, my morning routine for exercises became more bearable to the point I started enjoying it and became even disciplined about it. That was it. First time in my life, I was owning it. Week after week, I became leaner and fitter so I decided, in that spring, to go for my first years' jog. It was nothing spectacular at the beginning, but my new discipline habit caught up and helped me come back to it whenever I felt that I will never be a runner.
An interview with Awkward co-founder Kevin Kalle
Tags: Design, Agency, Founder Stories, Interview, Startup

You first studied at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, then transferred to Maryland Institute College of Art. What drove you to move to the states and study at MICA?

I felt limited at the Willem de Kooning Academy. It made me look for a challenge and I knew the bar at MICA was really high. I signed up, got accepted, and packed my bags. These days education is behind on the industry, so I think the problem I faced then is something we still face today.

Why do you think education is behind on the industry?

The curriculum does not match the practical experience. It’s hard for schools to innovate, and at the same time, our industry is changing rapidly. Looking back, I’m glad I made the decision to transfer instead of dropping out. It’s not just design skills you learn at school but you also develop social skills, and you get a chance to work in teams and learn to understand other perspectives. These are the things that I think should be emphasized in the work we do; it’s not just about your skill set.

You finished MICA in 2006 and started Awkward in 2011. What did you do during the five-year gap?

Right after school, I co-founded a start-up with 3 others in San Francisco where I learned a lot of things besides design itself. I did that for a while but noticed I still wanted to learn a variety of things instead of just one thing. That’s when I started freelancing for multiple startups and agencies with a strong focus on user interface and icon design. During this time I met Pieter Omvlee from Sketch. Back then he was working on Fontcase and Drawit.
Are You A Walking Paradox Like Me?
By: Jordin James
Tags: Mental Health, Self, Psychology, Spirituality, Inspiration

It can get lonely and confusing out here, for us boxless ones — those of us who don’t feel like we really fit in with a specific category. It’s even hard to describe the category of “boxless”.

Here are some signs that you’re boxless like me:

You’ve felt lonely because nobody else seems to think and experience life the way you do. On the surface, it might look like you fit in but you don’t feel a sense of true belonging for who you really are.

Your experiences with therapy and coaching are mostly that you were a better therapist or coach to yourself than they were. This adds an additional layer of loneliness because this is the person who is supposed to see you — like, really see you — and even they don’t seem to get it.

You’ve outgrown your parents emotionally and aren’t sure what to do about that.

You can blend in and get along with most anyone, but rarely do you feel a true sense of belonging.

Your relationship with most friends involves you listening to them talk and/or helping them through their problems. On those rare times when you try to open up about your experiences, you don’t usually get a reaction from them that actually helps.

You feel deeply and think deeply and have a rich inner world. This has its perks but sometimes you study less-aware people and you envy their simplicity because it seems easier to be happy that way.

You are sensitive to your surroundings, other people, and your inner world. You are affected by things more deeply than many other people seem to be and you hold on to emotions longer. This is a gift, but instead of using it to your advantage, you beat yourself up for being too sensitive because in our society, sensitivity is equated with weakness.

You push yourself too hard and then burn out. You’ve had periods of your life that cycle through pushing, collapsing into burnout and hiding away, then pushing yourself again to start the cycle over.

You are spiritual, but wary of blindly following any religion or guru.

You have a still small voice always thinking, “There has got to be a better way.”

If you can relate to most all of these bullets — I see you.

Please know you are not alone. Please know it is my life’s mission to walk beside you, to enter your inner world with you and help you find all the answers that are already hidden inside of you.
9 Traits You Should Slowly Remove From Your Day-to-Day Life
By: Ryan Porter
Tags: Life Lessons, Productivity, Motivation, Self Improvement, Ideas

9 Traits You Should Slowly Remove From Your Day-to-Day Life

#1 Overthinking the little things

Photo by Ivana Cajina on Unsplash

We’re all human.

I know, so profound.

This isn’t the most enlightening piece of knowledge I’ve offered, but hear me out. In the hustle and bustle of our lives, it’s easy to lose perspective.

We are all, in fact, human beings. We are biological machines that take in oxygen to fuel our cells and exert carbon dioxide.

In fact, I had a real human-chemistry experience the other day.

I was wrapping up my emails for the day at work when one of my workmates rushed in. Their left eye was red and they struggled to keep it open. They anxiously asked if “I knew chemistry.”

Now imagine what kind of thoughts were computing in my head.

What about chemistry? What do you need me to do to your eye? I’m so confused and not qualified to do whatever it is you’re about to ask of me.

Lucky for me, my workmate’s contact lens was simply stuck, and they needed me to work with their chemistry student for a few minutes.

I felt instant relief. Oh so you’re working with a chemistry student, I thought. I can totally do that. I felt much better after absolutely overthinking the situation. Why do I stress so much?

Overthinking isn’t my only mentally draining character trait. There’s a long list of other thoughts and feelings I know I need to reduce in my life.

These traits wear us out and put us down, and for no good reason. Life presents us with new problems everyday. There’s a positive way to go about dealing with each one.
I wear this smile like a mask
By: Anangsha Alammyan
Tags: Self-awareness, Mental Health, Depression, Poetry, Resistance Poetry

I wear this smile like a mask

Poetry in free verse

No, I am not lying,

I am only showing you

what you want to see,

because it’s easier to pretend

than to explain

why I am not alright.

I am afraid

that if I try,

you will argue,

tell me how

I have everything I need

that there is something wrong with me

if I am still sad.

But how do I explain

that the opposite of happy isn’t always sad,

and there’s a difference between

not knowing where I want to be

and not wanting to be where I am right now?

I am an expert at pretending

to be happy when I am not.

I think we all are.

That we bury our sadness

beneath those layers of fake smiles

and laughter that fails to hide

the shadows around our eyes.

This is our blessing,

this is our curse,

and we would rather pretend

than explain to you

why we are not alright.
How Not To Apply To An Accelerator (part 6)
By: Andrew Ackerman
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Startup

This is part 6 of my “self-defense essay”. If you missed the prior installments, start here with The #EpicNovelFail

The #LinkerFail

(a.k.a. The “You find it”)

“Can’t I just send you my pitch deck? It’s all in there.”

I get that question from time to time and it’s a fair question. The entrepreneur has put a lot of time into crafting his deck and making it look pretty. Why fill out an application if the data are in the deck?

In many cases, the data are not all there. Our application questions represent the minimum amount of info we need to feel comfortable inviting a startup to the next stage of the process. I would guestimate that well over 80% of the investor decks we see are missing the answer to at least one of our questions. These aren’t bad decks. Many are likely very effective in getting the startup a meeting with potential investors. They just don’t have all the info we want to see.

The other answer is a bit more subtle. As I mentioned, every Dreamit reviewer sees hundreds of applications over the course of a few short weeks. Even if a deck is ‘complete’, each deck would still present the information in its own way and in its own order. We would have to hunt through the deck to find where the answer to a specific question is while mentally checking off the boxes to make sure all the bases were covered. That adds time and mental load to a process that already consumes massive amounts of both of these scarce resources.

Tip: don’t respond to an application question with “Please see my deck/website/video (link here).”

Next up: The #PoorAttentionToDetailFail
From Print to Online: Is the Truth Worth Paying For?
By: Mehboob Khan
Tags: Marketing, News, New York Times, Journalism, Advertising

The Truth Is…

Truth is bland. It lacks the glitter that catches our attention. It does not take any sides, so no one wants it. From the streams of information that floods our minds every day, the stream of truth is the least appealing. It’s like a ruin in the middle of a bustling city. It’s there, but no one really cares about it.

But in 2016 something happened that increased the worth of truth. Donald Trump became the President of the United States. So the first spike in the digital subscription of the Times came soon after Donald Trump was elected.

And shortly after Trump labeled the press “the enemy of the people,” the Times along with Droga5 NY came up with a campaign, The Truth Is Hard. That campaign video was played at the Oscars in 2017. It was the Times' first televised campaign in a decade.

The Truth Is Hard ad at the Oscars

The Truth Is Hard short documentary

The aim of the campaign was to show people that knowing the truth is important. And there is a lot of effort that goes into unearthing the truth. The Times wanted the curious reader to understand that by paying for the subscription, they will support the cause of truthful reporting.

After the first teaser at the Oscars and subsequent print advertisements, the newspaper came out with a slew of short documentaries reinforcing the message.

The documentaries ranged from the heart-wrenching stories of how kids were separated from their parents at the Mexico border, to the appalling conditions of the Rohingya refugees in Myanmar.

The Truth Is Worth It: a story about immigrant children separated from their parents at the Mexican-US border

The Truth Is Worth It: a story about the plight of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar

Toby Treyer and Laurie Howell, the creative directors at Droga5 who led the campaign, explained it in an interview. They said:

“We thought, wouldn’t it be amazing if we could show everything that went into a headline, but do it as if the journalist was discovering it as they were writing the story?”

The advertisements were giving the public a sneak peek into the life of a New York Times journalist. By showing how hard it is to get to the depth of the stories, dealing with hostile governments, anxious locals, grief-stricken mothers, and rogue assassins, the ads showed us how valuable truth is.
Azure — Deploying React App With Java Backend on AKS
By: Bhargav Bachina
Tags: DevOps, Cloud Computing, Web Development, Kubernetes, Programming

Azure — Deploying React App With Java Backend on AKS

A step by step guide with an example project

AKS is Microsoft Azure’s managed Kubernetes solution that lets you run and manage containerized applications in the cloud. Since this is a managed Kubernetes service, Microsoft takes care of a lot of things for us such as security, maintenance, scalability, and monitoring. This makes us quickly deploy our applications into the Kubernetes cluster without worrying about the underlying details of building it.

In this post, we are going to deploy a React application with a Java environment. First, we dockerize our app and push that image to the Azure container registry and run that app on Azure AKS. We will see how we can build the Kubernetes cluster on Azure AKS, Accessing clusters from outside, configuring kubectl to work with AKS cluster, and many more.

Example Project

Prerequisites

Install Azure CLI and Configure

Dockerize the Project

Pushing Docker Image To Container Registry

Creating AKS Cluster

Configure Kuebctl With AKS Cluster

Deploy Kubernetes Objects On Azure AKS Cluster

Access the WebApp from the browser

Summary

Conclusion

Example Project

This is a simple project which demonstrates developing and running React application with Java. We have a simple app in which we can add users, count, and display them at the side, and retrieve them whenever you want.

Example Project

If you want to practice your own here is a Github link to this project. You can clone it and run it on your machine as well.
Nine Ways to Tell Your Design Story on Medium
By: Kate Lee
Tags: Medium, Writing, Design

There are so many examples of successful design writing on Medium. Here are just a few that exemplify how you can use the platform.

I. Share your knowledge

You have a wealth of expertise and experience that readers would find of interest. Facebook product design director Julie Zhuo regularly writes on topics like design process, management, common mistakes, and more:

Pasquale D’Silva explains designing for animation:

A group of designers from leading tech companies collaborate to share best practices, lessons, and stories:

II. Reveal your process

Give readers a peek behind the curtain with insight into how their favorite products were made. Vanessa Koch, who worked on the resdesign of Asana, provided insight into the process:

III. Announce a feature or product

Press releases are passé; instead, many designers write Medium posts to showcase new features or products. When Foursquare underwent a redesign and launched Swarm, Sam Brown and Zack Davenport revealed their design thinking in announcing both:

IV. Solve a problem

Show how design can be used to solve a problem. Shortly after Caitlin Winner arrived at Facebook, she noticed that the “friends” icon didn’t adequately represent both women and men. So she redesigned it:

V. Engage with your audience

While you can always broadcast your ideas on Medium, the real value is its network — the ability to interact with your readers to advance thinking. Jennifer Daniel, Erika Hall, Mike Monteiro, and others launched Dear Design Student to solicit and provide advice:

VI. Promote your company’s design talent

Competition for designers has never been fiercer. Showcase your company’s design bench with a dedicated publication, like Facebook’s, Uber’s, and (naturally) Google’s design teams did:

VII. Write ‘non-design’ design stories

You can write about design without writing about the design process. Medium designer Marcin Wichary goes deep on typography and language:

Basecamp founder Jason Fried does design criticism — of the Drudge Report:

VIII. Relate to adjacent fields

Design doesn’t exist in a vacuum, of course. Designers work closely with engineers, researchers, user support, product scientists, content strategists, and others to craft their products. Andrei Herasimchuk is just one of the many designers who’s written about whether designers should learn to code:

Khosla Ventures’s Irene Au explains how designers work effectively with management:

IX. Adapt a speech

Many designers give talks at conferences like SPAN across the country and around the world. You can easily adapt your speech and publish it on Medium, like Google designer Rachel Garb did.
Loss of trust in American democracy is a crisis we have to confront
By: Knight Commission On Trust, Media
Tags: Trust, Journalism, Media

From CNN

Anthony Marx and Jamie Woodson write that American faith in democracy and the media has declined significantly in the last 40 years, but there are ways to increase trust in these institutions. They require every American to take an active role.

Full story here
Do You Think Hard Work Equals Success — Think Again
By: İlknur Eren
Tags: Books, Self Improvement, Productivity, Advice, Reading

Do You Think Hard Work Equals Success — Think Again

Lessons from “Outliers: The Story of Success” by Malcolm Gladwell

In NPR’s How I Built This podcast, the host, Guy Raz always asks his guest one question; “How much do you attribute your success to luck and how much do you attribute to hard work?” Episode after episode, entrepreneurs ponder on his question and answer whether their success was attributed to success or luck, or both.

From all of the episodes I’ve listened to, the founder of Canva, Melanie Perkins, answer stuck out to me the most. In the podcast, she answered Raz like so:

I think it's a very interesting question because I think that if you zoom out of luck, then you’ll say, where were you born, who were your parents, what was the education that you got, you know, having good health. There are so many layers of luck. So if you look at all of those things then I couldn’t be luckier. Then on the other side of it, I think we planned enough seeds where eventually one of them grows, so that's kind of another version of luck, maybe you plant 1000 seeds, eventually one of them will grow. You can attribute one of these seeds as luck or hard work for planting 1000 seeds. So I would say little column A, little column B.

Melanie Perkins was very articulate in her answer. Perkins elegant answer matches with Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Outliers: The Story of Success”.

In summary, Outliers proves that hard work does not always equate to success. Rather, success is a combination of lucky events and hard work. The first example Gladwell pointed out in his book was one interesting fact about every single professional hockey player.

Take a look at the two charts below and try to see if you can see a pattern:

Outliers: Page 20

Outliers: Page 21

Do you see a pattern for a person who is more likely to be a professional hockey player?

Most of the players were born in January. This is because in Canada, cut off date for schools in January. So a kid born in January can be a couple of months older than kids born later in the summer. While growing up, a couple of months of difference is a lot in children. This means that kids born in January were slightly older, slightly taller which gave them advances. Kids born in January got more training. As a kid, a couple of hours of training time doesn’t equal a lot. However, over time, these kids who got a couple more training here and there ultimately get better than kids who did not.

This means that you are more likely to become a professional hockey player if you were born in January. This sounds like luck to me.

Although you are more likely to become a hockey player if you were born in January, not every single kid born in January ends up playing hockey professionally. This is where the hard work comes in.

Success is a combination of hard work and luck.
Medium Article Format
By: Casey Botticello
Tags: Format, Typography, Design, Medium, Writing

Other Tools for Writing and Editing Your Medium Article

Customizing Your Article’s Properties Before and After Publication

Miscellaneous

Quick Answers to Questions About Medium Formatting

How can I center text on my Medium article?

You cannot center text utilizing the Medium editor or toolbar.

Can I automatically post my WordPress blog articles on Medium?

No, unfortunately you cannot automatically post your blog posts on Medium. This used to be an option in WordPress through a specific integration, but Medium discontinued this option.

Can I edit more than one article at a time?
Why Companies Should Pay Attention to the Trend of Minimalist Consumers
By: Jean-Marc Buchert
Tags: Minimalism, Product Design, Productivity, Consumer Behavior, Marketing

Deconstructing digital devices

These dangers of new technologies can also come from the digital devices themselves. The tools that have become our daily lives, such as smartphones, compact computers and touch-sensitive tablets, have features designed to do everything.

As such, hardware designers, be it Apple, Sony or Samsung, have promoted devices that make us pay attention to several things at the same time. They were based on the idea that increasing the multifunctionality of devices would bring more value to the consumer.

Yet, as neuroscience studies show, the brain is very good at doing only one thing at a time, as neural networks gather information simultaneously and not successively. As a result, these technologies lead to distracting and permanently addictive behavior for activities that require little concentration.

Many consumers have become aware of the need to have devices that only provide one service at a time (for example, by turning off social network or call notifications, or filtering applications). Some others have started to think about creating new kinds of products that address a single need.

The Light Phone, for example, is a phone that meets the basic functionality of a normal phone, like the models before smartphones, i.e. calling and SMS, and nothing else. Some others have conceived computers that would perform only a few cognitive tasks.

These initiatives are in line with what Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown called in their seminal article the revolution of “calm technologies”, i.e. less invasive technologies that are deployed in the peripheries of our senses and make less noise. They started from the conviction that technology must be made to serve the human being, the consumer who needs to minimize the influence of the machine on his work and his life.
Not Every Developer Wants to Become a Manager — And That’s Okay
By: Meriam Kharbat
Tags: Careers, Management, Programming, Startup, Software Engineering

Not Every Developer Wants to Become a Manager — And That’s Okay

Companies should create clear career paths for individual contributors

Photo by Jaromír Kavan on Unsplash

I have only worked in startups with flat hierarchies. Even at companies where there are no clear titles, you usually find three kinds of engineers: The junior developers — fresh out of school; the tech leads to whom everyone reaches out for help and whose technical opinions matter the most; and in the middle, between the juniors and the tech leads, a vast ocean of software engineers with various skills and experiences.

One topic that repeatedly came up in our retros is the lack of career growth opportunities. This topic seemed to puzzle some tech leads who thought that there were a lot of projects and a lot of new things to learn. There were surely a lot of learning opportunities. Still, when the only feedback you get in your 1:1 meetings is “You’re doing great, keep going,” you don’t feel like you’re progressing.

As software engineers, we want our opinion to matter — we want to have an impact. The obvious next step is to become a tech lead but it’s unclear how we get such a position. Or if we even want it.
How To Be A Successful Business Owner?
By: Colette Becker
Tags: Startup Lessons, Business Owner, Startup, Operations Management, Entrepreneurship

BUSINESS LESSONS

How To Be A Successful Business Owner?

Surviving The Early Stage Of Business Ownership

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

Many entrepreneurs answer the question of why they went into business with either their passion or the need for an income. The problem is, there is so much more to it.

We enter into business with a particular skillset. Some of us are experts in one area. Some of us are a Jack of All Trades, Master of None.

The true winner in the Entrepreneurial landscape has a mindset that combines the …

→ Go Getter that tackles the challenges in front of them without delay

→ Analyst that looks at the details, reviews results, and makes plans based on them

→ Communicator that shares knowledge with team members

→ Delegator that knows what to have done by others

→ Regulator that stays informed and in compliance with laws

→ Networker that stays connected to the outside world through local meetings and online forums.

→ Recruiter that attracts and vets the right people

→ Bean Counter that makes sure there will be a tomorrow by planning strategically and minimizing expenses

→ Coach that trains, supports, and acknowledges the team

→ Evangalist that doesn’t spend a day without building awareness and promoting their business

→ Director that tracks everything

→ Organizer strives to improve processes

→ Visionary that regularly thinks of new ways to attract customers, conduct business, and introduce new products and services

ALL OF THIS IN ONE PERSON… seems IMPOSSIBLE.

Exhausting → YES, but impossible no.

I am an example of a Jack of All Trades that took on a challenge in a completely different and heavily regulated industry, Cosmetology. Previously, I had a service-based sole proprietorship and a product-based sole proprietorship. I knew nothing about hair other than what I had observed or picked up from a friendship of 20 years.

Due to the economy and an outdated concept, the business closed. I am proud of all that I did to try to make it work and gained so much from the experience that I want to share as a Mentor to other business owners.

Being a business owner means wearing many hats.

To be successful, new owners do not just dabble, but dig in and master.

If I can do it, so can you. I am here to help!
4 Eye-Opening Mindfulness Lessons I Learned from a Depressed Buddhist Monk
By: Karolin Wanner
Tags: Self, Mindfulness, Spirituality, Psychology, Mental Health

4 Eye-Opening Mindfulness Lessons I Learned from a Depressed Buddhist Monk

How to make peace with your mind?

Photo by THÁI NHÀN from Pexels

After being a Buddhist monk for 12 years, Gelong Thubten became depressed. It was a shock for him. And for me, too, when he shared his story. I thought monks have it all figured out.

When we think we have arrived, we are stuck. We can always learn something new about ourselves wherever we are on our journey.

Gelong joined a 4-year retreat on a Scottish island, cut off from the outside world. No news, no internet, no meetings with people outside the retreat location.

He describes the first two years as “falling through space with nothing to hold him”. Gelong thought this retreat is gonna be a piece of cake, and then he found himself depressed and anxious.

When he reached rock-bottom after half of the retreat, something changed and made him overcome his depression.

What is it that can even make a monk with 12 years of meditation experience depressed? Do you recognize his situation? Have we not also been locked away, cut off from the people we love by the pandemic.

Since March, I barely left the house and only met very few people. For normal humans, the pandemic is like being on a retreat for monks.

The next months are going to be tough with corona cases increasing everywhere in the world. Let’s see how Gelong Thubten overcame his struggle. What can we learn from him to get through this winter happy and energetic, instead of depressed and anxious?
4 Thoughts I had to Kill to heal from Anxiety
By: Douaa El Khaer
Tags: Psychology, Anxiety, Life, Mental Health, Mindfulness

4. Life will never be as good as it once was

Have you ever listened to an old song and thought to yourself: “Songs were so good back in the day”? Or maybe you had the same reaction when you stumbled upon your childhood pictures: “This was the best time of my life”.

It’s because we only look back at the winners, the victories, the good times, the good feelings, and all the best memories from the past. Known as Survivorship bias or survival bias, it is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that did not, typically because of their lack of visibility. In other terms, we completely ignore all the losses, failures, and all the bad memories from the past. We completely forget the fact that, back in the days, those old songs or those memories were not as good as our brain is tricking us to remember them.

Change can be scary, which is why our brain is never happy with what it has in the present. But change also is inevitable. Thus, our brain always hopes and dreams of a perfect future, while nostalgically remembering only the best times of the past. It is always trying to trick us into feeling good so we get the little dopamine kick, which is the pleasure chemical of it. But that pleasure can only last long. Dwelling on the past, romanticizing our youth is sabotaging our growth.

“The past is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why we call it the present.” — Master Oogway

Stop living in the past and future, they don’t exist. The only thing that exists is the present. Enjoy the present. Savor it. Be grateful for what you have. Life is precious, unique, and beautiful.
How I Launched a Successful Gig Business with Only Gig Workers
By: Russ Pond
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Small Business, Gig Economy, Startup Lessons, Startup

Five key reasons for this business model

Running a gig business with gig workers can be efficient and smooth when done right. Here are five key reasons why I choose this business model:

1. Pay for what you need when you need it

One of the most beneficial aspects of utilizing gig workers in a gig business is that you only pay for what you need when you need it. When the projects are flowing, I’m happy to be hiring these creative experts to do amazing work.

But when things are slow, I don’t have any recurring salaries or overhead expenses chipping away at my bank account. I am able to quickly adjust expenditures whether in an up or down season, keeping my hard costs manageable.

2. No additional equipment

Most freelancers have their own tools. For video production, it’s very common. Camera operators will typically have their own camera gear, lights, and other accessories. Editors will have the latest workstation loaded with editing software and plugins. Sound technicians will have the latest microphones, mixers, and sound tools.

Since freelancers typically come with their own gear, I don’t have to purchase expensive equipment or keep up with the latest technology.

3. No office space

For my gig business, I have chosen not to have a business office. I know this is not ideal for everyone, but I want as little overhead as possible, so I run all of my productions from a home office. The bulk of my work is production management and client communication, which I can do via the Internet and through phone calls. A home office is perfect for my situation.

4. High-quality service

As I mentioned earlier, I quickly learned that I could produce much better work by hiring talented freelancers. As my productions expanded into Fortune 500 companies, I had to deliver high-quality work. This was key in transitioning my business from a small, mediocre video service into a thriving production company with a healthy list of recurring clients.

I’ll say it again and again — if it weren’t for my team of creative freelancers, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

5. Scalability

And finally, another great aspect of using gig workers in a gig business is scalability. The ups and downs of a gig business can be both terrifying and exhilarating. In the down times, yes, you can scale back accordingly and keep your costs slow. But when the projects are flowing, the ability to ramp up using freelancers is incredibly appealing.

A few years ago, I was in one of those flow moments. I was juggling about 15 different productions using a variety of freelancers from around the nation. It was intense, but it was also incredibly rewarding both creatively and financially.
Better Marketing Newsletter: How to Make Your Content Stand Out in 2021
By: Brittany Jezouit
Tags: Meditation, Writing, Media, Newsletter, Marketing

Hey y’all,

In this issue, we’ve got articles about mindfulness and marketing, a bunch of 2021 predictions and trends, and an explanation of why you’re so obsessed with getting 10,000 steps in every day.

We launched the Better Marketing Slack Community last week, and it’s been fun to engage in conversations about newsletter platforms, Medium design, gender in marketing campaigns, and more. If you’re interested in connecting with other Better Marketing readers, come join us!

Featured Articles
7 Common Dreams and What They Say About You
By: Bertilla Niveda
Tags: Psychology, Dreams, Mental Health, Philosophy, Self

7 Common Dreams and What They Say About You

How to use your dreams to understand yourself better

Photo by Joshua Abner from Pexels

Not many people pay enough attention to their dreams, and here’s why that should change. Dreams are manifestations of unconscious desires and wishes. They are signals from the brain and body.

Carl Jung, a highly reputed Swiss psychiatrist, saw dreams as “the psyche’s attempt to communicate important things to the individual”, and he valued them above all else, as a way of knowing what was really going on.

Dreams help you make connections about your feelings that your conscious self wouldn’t make. Think of them as free therapy sessions in your mind, nudging you to confront your suppressed emotions.

Before we get into the dream interpretations, let me clarify how you can tell when a dream actually means something. PET scans and MRIs have shown that some dreams are mere “data dumps”, where you dispose of excess information that you collected during the day.

Your brain discards “useless” memories, and saves the valuable ones. So, a random acquaintance or something you thought of during the day popping up in your dreams is very normal and may not signify something deep.

However, many recurring dreams reveal unusual and sometimes bizarre symbolism that cannot be written off as a coincidence. These symbols are strongly connected to the psyche and can help dreamers understand themselves much better.
My Top Ten Highest Earning Medium Stories for November 2020
By: Erica Martin
Tags: Medium, Analytics, Motivation, Reading, Writing

My Top Ten Highest Earning Medium Stories for November 2020

Plus one honorable mention.

Photo by Viacheslav Bublyk on Unsplash

Last month was my best month yet for my earnings on this platform. I made over $15 — something I did not expect. In addition, I achieved one other milestone I didn’t expect. The story that had been chosen for distribution in October had so many views from Medium readers that I was able to see their interests.

So, without any further delay, here are my top ten most popular Medium stories for November 2020, by the amount earned:

A Simple Process for Tracking All Your Goals in Google Sheets

This story made a whole 10 cents in November and has made $1.30 since I published it in January. In the post, I discuss how to set up a dashboard in Google Sheets so you can track all your goals. It’s received over 1000 views, but most of them came from Google. If you want to check it out, here it is:
7 Typical Traits of Medically Unsocial People
By: Nishu Jain
Tags: Social Anxiety, Personal Development, Relationships, Mental Health, Psychology

Almost all people suffering from social anxiety denies it until they start seeing it infecting other parts of their life. It degrades their health, destroys their relationships, and decimates their dreams; leaving nothing behind but an unfillable void.

No-one wants to live like this, and the majority of people don’t even accept it in their minds. But the reality begs to differ when the root cause of all their misery is right under their noses, unnoticed. We all want to live happily and become successful in life — you may have the right attitude, a burning desire, and an unshakable persistence to do so. But it doesn’t necessarily translate into success. You know why? Because of this one flaw in your personality — Social Anxiety.

Obviously, it is curable but, not all can fight it easily.

Here are the 7 major traits of medically unsocial people. If you find yourself in a similar situation, then it is time to stop denying it and seek some professional help, ASAP.
3 Open Source Tools for Ethical AI
By: Nicole Janeway Bills
Tags: Finance, Machine Learning, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Python

#1 — Deon

An ethics checklist for responsible data science, Deon represents a starting point for teams to evaluate considerations related to advanced analytics and machine learning applications from data collection through deployment.

The nuanced discussions spurred by Deon can ensure that risks inherent to AI-empowered technology do not escalate into threats to an organization’s constituents, reputation, or society more broadly. With AI, the stakes are monumental, yet the dangers are potentially indistinct. Instances of algorithmic malpractices are not always clear cut.

Deon checklist from DrivenData spans ethical considerations from Data Collection to Deployment

As example of use case where Deon could have been implemented to improve data product governance, consider the influence of Russian-crafted fake news on the 2016 election. Though the threat did not stem from AI, the impact of the intentionally misleading media content was amplified by the recommendation algorithms of social media, where controversy begets interaction, and users are pushed towards increasingly extreme belief systems.

This pattern of segmentation is beneficial to the algorithms underlying this technology as it leads to wider decision boundaries between classes — but it is detrimental to society, increasing the potential for foreign actors to sow division and undermine critical institutions such as the sanctity of national elections.

Social media companies have come under fire as a result of their failure to detect and reject fake news content. By failing to act, these firms permitted their artificially intelligent recommendation engines to strengthen the destabilizing impact of the deceptive foreign media.

If these firms had undertaken a systematic review of the potential ethical and social implications of fake news amplified by their algorithmic systems prior to the 2016 election, this effort may have resulted in a more robust plan to root out systematic disinformation campaigns.

With the threat of AI-generated deepfakes looming as an ever more realistic weapon in information warfare, the hazard posed by the current state of unpreparedness is heightened going into the 2020 election.