background preloader

True Secret to Success: Gratitude

I'm utterly convinced that the key to lifelong success is the regular exercise of a single emotional muscle: gratitude. People who approach life with a sense of gratitude are constantly aware of what's wonderful in their life. Because they enjoy the fruits of their successes, they seek out more success. And when things don't go as planned, people who are grateful can put failure into perspective. By contrast, people who lack gratitude are never truly happy. If they succeed at a task, they don't enjoy it. Therefore, if you want to be successful, you need to feel more gratitude. Practice Nightly The best time to exercise gratitude is just before bed. Did you help somebody solve a problem? What you're doing is "programming your brain" to view your day more positively. Reprogramming Your Brain More important, you're also programming your brain to notice even more reasons to feel gratitude. The more regularly you practice this exercise, the stronger its effects. This method works.

Top 40 Useful Sites To Learn New Skills The web is a powerful resource that can easily help you learn new skills. You just have to know where to look. Sure, you can use Google, Yahoo, or Bing to search for sites where you can learn new skills , but I figured I’d save you some time. Here are the top 40 sites I have personally used over the last few years when I want to learn something new. Hack a Day - Hack a Day serves up fresh hacks (short tutorials) every day from around the web and one in-depth ‘How-To hack’ guide each week.eHow - eHow is an online community dedicated to providing visitors the ability to research, share, and discuss solutions and tips for completing day-to-day tasks and projects.Wired How-To Wiki - Collaborate with Wired editors and help them build their extensive library of projects, hacks, tricks and tips.

7 Tips for Creating Your Own Destiny | Inc. 5000 Too many people whine about not having the life they want. The main reason people fall short of their own expectations is the same reason most companies fail to achieve their objectives: poor planning and execution. In fact, I am amazed at how many successful executives create strategy for their business, leaving their life to chance. Often it's more comfortable (note I didn't say easier) to complain and blame outside factors for lack of accomplishment or unhappiness than to take time to work on life rather than in it. I choose otherwise. 1. As Lewis Carroll said: If you don't know where you are going, then any road will get you there. 2. Neither of us will be playing for the NBA at our age (or my height). 3. We're defining who we want to be at 60, not what we want to be doing. 4. J and I will challenge each other constantly to get to the truth of who we are and who we wish to be. 5. Every resource is important. 6. I live for constructive criticism. 7.

30 Habits that Will Change your Life Developing good habits is the basic of personal development and growth. Everything we do is the result of a habit that was previously taught to us. Unfortunately, not all the habits that we have are good, that’s why we are constantly trying to improve. The following is a list of 30 practical habits that can make a huge difference in your life. You should treat this list as a reference, and implement just one habit per month. Health habits Exercise 30 minutes every day. Productivity habits Use an inbox system. Personal Development habits Read 1 book per week. Career habits Start a blog. What do you think? Update: A reader put together a downloadable copy of all these habits.

5 Signs That You're an Entrepreneur at Heart | Inc. 5000 Entrepreneurs can be a wacky bunch, but it can get weird to see some of these personality traits in the people you select to help build your business. When you look at entrepreneurs who have built businesses larger and longer-lasting than themselves, you see some fascinating and surprising characteristics. Some of these attributes are contrary to the stereotypes that are propagated by television and movies. Here are five observations we've made about the entrepreneurial mind and personality. 1. Whatever they immerse themselves in, entrepreneurs typically invest fully and passionately. 2. Most people with ideas don't build businesses. 3. It's notable how many entrepreneurial business owners we know who are building multiple businesses at once or are leading nonprofit organizations at the same time they are building for-profit businesses. 4. Most entrepreneurs have healthy personal lives, despite in some cases being "married" to their work. 5.

Online Reputation, Personal Branding. BrandYourself: Control Your Google Results at BrandYourself.com BrandYourself offers Online Reputation Management tools and services to make sure you look great when people Google your name. Now that the majority of people turn to Google to find more about you (both in business and personal life), online reputation management has become extremely important to anyone who cares about their career. . Until BrandYourself, online reputation management was either time consuming (if you knew how to do it yourself) or expensive (if you paid a reputation company to do it for you). We specifically built BrandYourself to empower anyone to do it themselves - and to make it easy, fun and free. We also recommend that you be wary of other online reputation management companies that charge thousands of dollars to improve your results for you.

5 Entrepreneurship Lessons From Obama and Romney In an election in which job creation is one of the biggest issues, it's kind of glaring how little entrepreneurship we find in the backgrounds of the 44 men who have served as president, to say nothing of the current candidates. Most of our previous presidents have been career public servants. Thirty-five were former vice-presidents, governors or senators. True, a few started or ran businesses. All of this led me to think about how entrepreneurial in spirit (and how friendly to entrepreneurship) President Obama is, or how entrepreneurial a hypothetical President Romney might be. 1. President Obama first announced his candidacy for president on February 10, 2007. Back then, the Iraq War was by far the biggest political issue. Lesson for entrepreneurs: Set a goal and stick with it, even while understanding that circumstances may change greatly in the meantime. 2. Think about how the president looks in Hollywood movies: He has a full head of hair. 3. 4. 5.

What Successful People Do With The First Hour Of Their Work Day Remember when you used to have a period at the beginning of every day to think about your schedule, catch up with friends, maybe knock out a few tasks? It was called home room, and it went away after high school. But many successful people schedule themselves a kind of grown-up home room every day. You should too. The first hour of the workday goes a bit differently for Craig Newmark of Craigslist, David Karp of Tumblr, motivational speaker Tony Robbins, career writer (and Fast Company blogger) Brian Tracy, and others, and they’ll tell you it makes a big difference. Don’t Check Your Email for the First Hour. Tumblr founder David Karp will "try hard" not to check his email until 9:30 or 10 a.m., according to an Inc. profile of him. Not all of us can roll into the office whenever our Vespa happens to get us there, but most of us with jobs that don’t require constant on-call awareness can trade e-mail for organization and single-focus work. Gain Awareness, Be Grateful Choose Your Frog

The Case for On-Again, Off-Again Retirement A funny thing happened on the way to retirement. It turns out that not everyone feels the all-consuming need to escape from the working world. Some people actually enjoy the benefits that come from working with others in a company environment toward a common goal. Staying engaged and involved mentally and physically can help senior citizens realize a more fulfilling and exciting second act. And for some, the working world offers an increasingly attractive option. One obvious motivation for working longer is to counter the financial hardship brought on by a challenging and unpredictable economy. But the appeal of working beyond retirement age is more than just monetary. Here's where it gets interesting. Having successfully negotiated a career and satisfied the requirements of raising a family, retirement age historically meant exchanging the stresses of working for a peaceful second act filled with relaxing hours and happy pursuits. More From US News & World Report

100 Amazing How-To Sites to Teach Yourself Anything | Rated Colleges Posted by Site Administrator in Online Learning May 7th, 2009 Learning new skills and expanding your knowledge doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg. There are loads of free resources on the Web that can help you find instructional videos, tutorials and classes to learn a wide variety of skills from fixing basic car problems to speaking another language. With 100 sites to choose from, you’re bound to find something here that will help you learn just about anything you could want. General Tutorials These sites offer a wide range of tutorials and videos. Around the House Want to know how to fix that broken cabinet or hang up some great wallpaper? Business and Management If you feel like you’re seriously lacking on business and management skills at work, no need to worry. KnowThis? Language and Writing Those who want to learn a new language, improve their writing skills or just learn more about literature will be well-served by these instructional sites. Technology Math S.O.S. Science Creativity

Related: