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01:31

Projections for the next 20 years

Based on current global trends, financial, military, social, technological, etc... what are your predictions of what the next 20 years will have in store for your country, state, business, world, or all the above??
Compare what you think will happen to what you hope will happen.

The end of this conversation is drawing near. The theme of which has been very much what I thought it would be. Every one of us can pin point the problems of today that will lead us into a dismal future unless rectified. None of us here on TALK has the "power" required to solve these problems. Individually we are far too powerless. Take a look at the size of this online community, there aren't very many of us. We are the people who choose to discuss, debate, and challenge each other. If our need to speak out and communicate about substantial issues was being satisfied completely in our daily lives many of us would not be registered in an online community seeking other like minded individuals who will care about the thoughts we think. An ignorant complacency has been epidemically spreading for too long and feels irreversible which makes the future seem a dark and dreary place. My optimism lies in the fact that we all get "it", we know, we understand, but in order for anything to come out of this understanding of what changes need to be made and what the end result has to be for all of us we need to buckle down and do something. I'm in no way trying to make that a personal attack statement, I don't feel as though we're all standing idly by as everything happens to us.
There were numerous comments suggesting that something big is speeding toward us, a game changer, a war, a revolution, a revelation, a...something. Whatever "it" is I just hope that we can discuss, debate, and challenge each other to become empowered individuals with answers as opposed to a list of problems.
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05:56
We tend to think of homework as a necessary part of learning, a practice that teaches children discipline and keeps them from idleness. Yet a growing body of research reveals an astonishing truth: homework has little to no benefit in enhancing learning or performance in elementary and middle school, and only minor benefits, usually in math, in high school. This conclusion comes courtesy of a review of all major homework studies recently highlighted the Washington Post, including an update to a 2001 review conducted by the leading U.S. researcher on homework, Harris Cooper of Duke University.
While this data may seem counter-intuitive to some, many families have already discovered the negative impacts of too much homework, as early as kindergarten, ranging from a loss of quality family time or play time, to middle schoolers with stress induced headaches, anxiety and even ulcers. As a result, more parents are deciding enough is enough, and choosing instead to opt their kids out of homework.
Liz Onstad of Portland, Oregon is mother to a 10-year-old daughter who had no problems with homework until fourth grade. Even though Onstad created a dedicated homework space where she’d be available to help her daughter get her homework done, the tediousness of the assignments led to resistance and fights.
“It turns out much of this year’s homework really is stupid,” Onstad said. “As the year has progressed I’ve seen only increased frustration in my child and I haven’t seen any of the value of the schoolwork. The mental health of my child and the sanity of my household is more important to me than doing the work for homework’s sake.” She partly blames her daughter’s ready-for-retirement teacher, who she says is “pretty much checked out.”
Onstad is herself a formerly high-performing student who attended a respected four-year college, which was once a priority she held for her daughter. Now that value has changed. “A couple years ago I would have said a good college and an education would be a high priority. But now as I see my girl become who she is, the idea of ‘good college, good job’ is less important. My definition of success has more to do with her learning to be a responsible adult.”
This sentiment is echoed by other parents across a variety of experiences. Rene Denfeld, a death-row investigator in Portland, has been a foster and adoptive mother for 20 years. She routinely opted her three adopted children out of homework beginning in elementary school. “Homework takes all the joy out of learning. I want my kids to see learning as the world’s greatest adventure, to feel joy and magic and passion in life. Nothing kills passion faster than a stack of worksheets.”
Denfeld also points out that for kids with non-English speaking parents, working single parents, or other hardships, homework can be especially challenging, since so much of it requires assistance at home (which might, in fact, defeat its purpose).
Too Much of a Not-So-Good Thing
According to Duke homework expert Harris Cooper, students should be assigned no more than 10 minutes of homework per grade level per night, Monday through Thursday. This should equal 10 minutes per night in first grade up to a maximum of two hours per night in high school. Yet many parents report a doubling and tripling of those standards, beginning as early as fourth grade.
This shift in homework — away from project-based homework assignments and toward the kind of busywork that now takes hours — likely began in 2002, when the No Child Left Behind Act was passed under President George W. Bush., according to Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish, co-authors of the book The Case Against Homework. “Driven by fear that we’re falling behind in the global marketplace, policy makers have turned to the schools to save us once again,” they write. “They seem to believe that everything will be fine if we can just get American students to pass their standardized tests.”
This focus on standardized testing has become the bane of teachers, parents and students alike. And homework designed to help kids take tests doesn’t provide them with the complex critical thinking and analytic skills required to excel in either college or the workplace.
Margery Bloom of San Gabriel California has been teaching English and Social Science to grades 7 through 12 for over 25 years. She is also a mother of two boys, aged 14 and 10. Her older son has Asperger’s syndrome and weak fine motor skills. “Homework would take hours because he didn’t want to write. In Kindergarten, I wrote a note to the teacher and explained that coloring homework would not be completed. Later on, via a 504 and Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) we negotiated how much ‘practice’ homework he would have to complete,” she says. Bloom also routinely refuses to have her sons do homework over vacations, and puts less emphasis on homework over family or down time.
“The reasons for homework are pedagogically unsound,” she said. “You either ask a student who has already mastered a concept to do more of that concept—which is essentially busywork. Or, you send a child who has not mastered the concept home to practice and they will likely practice incorrectly, unless they have assistance.”
Sentiments of that sort appear repeatedly among teachers, educators and students in the popular documentary The Race to Nowhere,directed by Vicki Abeles, a mother of three. Abeles, who lives in Danville, Calif., launched the film project after a 13-year-old girl in her community killed herself over school pressure. The documentary reveals the disturbing amount of stress kids are under, with some of them forgoing sleep and using the drug Adderall to finish homework and keep their grades high. Some kids in the documentary say they feel deprived of their childhoods, and that they’ve missed out on typical child play time.
“I believe that play should be the only work that kids do as homework,” said Karen Fitch, a Silicon Valley mother of a third-grade boy, and a former teacher. “Children are in school for hours on end; they don’t need to work on school subjects at home.” Fitch opts out of homework assignments for her son when she feels they are “time wasters.” But she always makes it clear to her son’s teacher that their opting out is a decision, not laziness or lack of caring. “My kid isn’t slacking off if he doesn’t do an assignment. The family is making a choice.”
Parents with teenagers can bear witness to the impact too much homework too soon can have on young learners. Tina Ingenthron of Morgan Hill, California, has five children ranging in age from 18 months to 19 years. Her two oldest were in gifted programs in elementary school, but have since received failing marks in their high school classes. “I question, and slightly blame myself, for forcing them to do things in the robotic way of the system, versus stepping in and guiding them in ways that were better suited to their personalities,” she said. “They disengaged completely from their school work, and their marks.” She found it not worth the fight, and almost impossible anyway, to make her highschoolers do their homework, and she is using these hard won lessons to be more lenient about homework with her younger children: she has opted her 7-year-old son out of homework since she becoming familiar with recent homework studies.
Dawn Carr, a San Martin, Calif. mother of two, shares Ingenthron’s perspective. A social science researcher at Stanford University, Carr values education and hopes her children will attend good colleges. But that doesn’t stop her from occasionally allowing her highly motivated 7-year-old son to take a night off homework for family time or better rest. “Homework,” Carr says, should be about giving kids “interactive, personalized learning opportunities that involve creative problem solving and fun.
“Given the projected needs for the kinds of thinkers and doers in the next generation,” she points out, “this is really the only way homework should be employed.”
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08:59 2


In just two short months, I’ll be headed to Spain to go see one of my best friends who is teaching there. It’s a dream come true for me, as aside from paying off debt, traveling is my true passion.
But how is someone who is so focused on paying off debt, able to travel abroad? Through travel hacking! I was able to book my flight to Spain for a mere $63 in taxes, and 40,000 miles.
But, what is travel hacking? And how can you use it to travel while working towards other financial goals?- Melanie Lockert

 

What is Travel Hacking?

Travel hacking is the term used for people that use reward-based credit cards to receive a sign-up bonus in order to redeem free travel.
Oftentimes these sign-up bonuses are enough for a free trip, and smart consumers are reaping the rewards quite often. Then they simply cancel the card before the annual fee is due (most cards waive the annual fee for the first year).
If you are curious about getting started with travel hacking, here are some tips to get started.

Check Your Credit Report

Before you even apply for a new credit card, you should check your credit score as well as your credit report. Your credit is an important factor in determining whether you get approved for a card, so you’ll want to verify that you are in good standing and that there are no errors on your report.
You can check your credit report for free once a year at AnnualCreditReport.com, and get your free credit score at Credit Karma.com. And yes, these are completely free options that don’t need your credit card information. Plus, I personally use and like them.

Assess Your Situation

As great as travel hacking is, it isn’t for everyone. If you already have credit card debt, or if you know that you spend more with a credit card, then travel hacking isn’t a good fit for you. It won’t be worth it!
The key to travel hacking’s success is to assess your situation beforehand and truly know yourself and your spending habits. It’s easy to get lured into spending more for the rewards, but that doesn’t really make sense, does it?
Assess your financial situation as well as your consumer behavior to determine if travel hacking is something that you are comfortable with. Travel hacking does affect your credit in a few ways, but maybe not in the way you think. Any time you apply for a credit card, your credit score will drop a few points because of an inquiry.
If you get approved, you may find out that over time your credit actually improves. If your credit limit is higher, and you only use 10-30% of your available credit, your credit utilization will be low, which can have a positive impact on your credit.
However, if and when you close your card to avoid the annual fee, your credit score is likely to take another hit. If you have excellent credit, a few points won’t make a huge difference, but it’s important to know the ramifications of travel hacking on your credit.

Pick the Right Card

I have to admit that I didn’t get my first credit card until 2 years ago, at age 28. I abhorred debt and didn’t understand why people would buy things on credit, and pay for it later. But as I got older, I wanted to improve my credit (it was good from student loans, but not excellent) and also learn more about this travel hacking business.
I didn’t want to detract from my debt repayment, but I also didn’t want to wait several more years to travel — so I found a way to continue paying off debt and travel for free/cheap through travel hacking.
The first credit card I got was a Venture card from Capital One with no annual fee. The reward bonus wasn’t great, but it was also my first credit card, so I wanted to proceed cautiously with something easy. After months of paying the balance back on time, I redeemed my points for a hotel stay. It felt so nice!
The card that’s getting me to Spain for $63 is the American Airlines credit card card. I don’t spend that much, so I opted for the card with a 30,000 mile bonus, after spending $1,000 in three months. I knew I could do that and still be safe with my budget.
I received my bonus, flew to New Orleans for a conference, and ended up with 40,000 miles — enough to go abroad off-season. I didn’t feel like I had to spend a lot and didn’t really do anything out of the ordinary.
It’s important that you sign up for the right card for you. Make sure it’s for a reward you like (such as airline miles or cash back), with spending requirements that are in your budget, etc. You want this to be pretty painless and not feel like work — after all you should only be spending money on things you are already planning on buying, like groceries, insurance payments, etc. The card defeats the purpose if you use it as a buy-anything-I-want-card!
It’s also crucial that you understand what those bonuses can get you. I did my research beforehand, so I knew I could go abroad for as little as 40,000 miles between October and May.
In a nutshell, here’s what you need to look for in a credit card:
  • Annual fee. How much is it? Be sure to mark in your calendar when you got the card, and put in the calendar when you want to cancel, if you choose to avoid paying the annual fee after the first year.
  • Rewards. Is it miles, cash back, or something else? Make it something fun that you enjoy!
  • Blackout dates and restrictions. Be sure to see if there are any red flags that would dash your dreams.
  • Spending requirements. Many of the cards with bigger bonuses require you to spend $3,000+ in the first three months. As I mentioned, I don’t spend a lot and I didn’t feel comfortable doing that, so I got one with a smaller spending requirement. Yes, it took me longer to accrue the necessary miles, but I had peace of mind.
  • Interest rates. Know them well! To avoid any issues, pay off your balances in full every month.
If you are curious about travel hacking, use these steps to get started. But be careful and watch out for any credit card creep, and always pay off your balances in full.
Most importantly, once you accrue enough miles book that dream trip, or get that cash back, don’t just sit on rewards. Actually use them, as they may expire soon.
Have you tried travel hacking with credit cards? How have you used it to save money on travel? 
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07:26

 



The Neuroscience of ISIS


The gap is widening between visions of a brilliant future and one of deliberate Apocalyptic destruction.
 
This is the first of a series of columns for The Daily Beast about the intersection of medical technologies on the cusp of changing our lives, and how they fit into the real world. Join me every other Saturday.

Call it a tale of two brains: the extreme dichotomy of human behavior that runs the age-old gamut between evil and good.

Recently this duality has manifested in the rise of the so-called Islamic State (also the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS) set against an accelerating pace of technological breakthroughs. One worldview wants to burn people alive, the other to regenerate damaged cells, engineer advanced artificial limbs, and send tourists to the moon.
Put another way, it’s Homeland versus TED.

For those optimistic about the future this is an exciting time to be alive. They believe we are on the cusp of an era when millions and possibly billions of people will be connected, vital, well fed, entertained, and so healthy that some may live extra decades in youthful bodies free of many diseases that now afflict us.

Contrast that with the likes of ISIS and Boko Haram, the Charlie Hebdo gunmen in Paris, and the Tzarnaez brothers in Boston. They remind us with a jolt that not everyone sees a bright tomorrow. Not for themselves. Nor for a society that they want to first return to the brutality of the seventh century and then annihilate in a sea of blood. For the Islamic State this is literal, as Graeme Wood reported in his recent Atlantic cover story, “What ISIS Really Wants.”

According to Wood, the tens of thousands of young men (and a few women) flocking to Syria and Mesopotamia yearn to leap back to a time when torture, rape, beheadings, and other brutalities were commonly deployed by Muslims, Christians, and others under the guise of religious purity. Led by self-proclaimed “Caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the followers of ISIS eagerly await their demise in an Armageddon that could not be more antithetic to techno optimists who yearn for a future where pain, suffering, and even death may be eliminated.

In this column, I will be writing about a moment in history when thousands of inventions and discoveries, from big data tracking our every move to editing DNA like you would a Microsoft Word doc, are rapidly expanding and converging. Poised to profoundly change how we live, they may also change what it means to be human.

Where this convergence—I call it “fusion”—will lead is anyone’s guess. Nor do we fully understand the pluses or the minuses of this Age of Fusion. The impact, however, will be felt at every level of society—in politics, business, law, philosophy, ethics, advocacy, and the arts. We already have seen the effects, both beneficial and not, of rapidly accelerating technologies over the past century on our environment, lifespans, transportation, communication, and ethics—and how people live.
Science has very little to say about what exactly causes some brains to embrace such extremes of evil and violence, or such a vehement rejection of change.
People’s response to new technologies is equally critical. Reactions range from fear and suspicion to exhilaration; from “I can’t figure out this dang app” to eagerness for a day when humans and machines merge into a super intelligence—what futurist and Google Director of Engineering Ray Kurzweil calls the Singularity.

For instance, are drones that sell for $399 cool or dangerous? Will Amazon use them and others to more efficiently deliver groceries and Google to bring Internet transponders to the poor, or will governments use them to spy on us and to continue to drop bombs?
In the context of the ongoing “technology: is it good or bad” debate it may seem far-fetched and even farcical to talk about villains that seem drawn out of Hollywood thrillers behaving like barbarians on the other side of the Earth from where most of us live. Indeed, ISIS’s penchant for running about swathed in black like the Dread Pirate Roberts and their rejection of 1,300 years of change is so astonishingly extreme that it’s hard for us to process. So are the images of beheadings and auto-de-fés conveyed, ironically, via the 21st technology of social media.
ISIS and the others should hardly be dismissed, however, as distant anomalies or blood-soaked curiosities. Like good, evil has a nasty predilection to reappear across history and across peoples and ideologies, including in recent decades the likes of the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge.

Regrettably, science has very little to say about what exactly causes some brains to embrace such extremes of evil and violence, or such a vehement rejection of change—a gap in science that should be addressed.
Biologists have identified a handful of genetic mutations that seem to portend violent behavior. For instance, researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden recently discovered two genetic mutations that seem to correlate with the violent criminal behavior, including murder. First is the gene Monoamine Oxidase A (MAOA), which is linked to dopamine levels in the brain, associated with people feeling happy and adjusted. The second is Cadherin 13 (CDH13), which has a strong correlation to controlling impulses. Both need further study to confirm and better understand.

Neuroscientists are also working on using Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans that measure activity in the brain to better understand and perhaps predict who might commit a terrorist act. So far, however, no one has identified a telltale terrorist gene or brain profile.
Nor do scientists have a deep understanding of the mechanisms of belief, extreme or otherwise, in the brain. One study I have written about previously, conducted in the lab of neuroscientist Jordan Grafman when he was the National Institutes of Health, measured the blood flow to locales in one’s head associated with religious belief. “The purpose of the study has been to discover the underlying cognitive structure of religious beliefs—to find out what cognitive processes take place when religious and nonreligious people think about religion,” said Dimitrios Kapogiannis, a postdoc in Grafman’s lab at the time. “Then we want to identify brain regions that become active with each such process.”
Kapogiannis and Grafman have tested only a few dozen subjects, however, and much work remains to be done, including studies on the combination of belief and violent behavior. (Kapogiannis’ and Grafman’s most recent results appear in the journal Brain Connect).
I have no doubt that various national security agencies are working in secret to better understand the genetics and biology of extremists—something I plan to write more about. I also want to look into the interplay of genetics and the environment to try to better understand the tale of two brains—the environment including the influences of ideology, unemployment, abuse, and lack of purpose that likely interact with genetics to produce extremists, and are likely to keep producing them until we understand this toxic interaction better.

Those of us already enjoying the burgeoning world of the future—that live lifestyles and have opportunities that no one in the seventh century could have dreamed of—need to understand with some urgency that not everyone shares their enthusiasm. Whether it’s genetics or environmental factors, or both, the human impulse to fret and dither about change—or to abhor it to the point of blowing up people and dreaming of world destruction—can be as powerful as the impulse to innovate.
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07:17

Don’t Stop Daydreaming: Why a Wandering Mind Is Good for You

If you can’t get through this article without checking your Facebook, walking to the fridge, scrolling through your phone, and choosing something on Netflix, don’t worry. 
 
I am one of those people who will be unlikely to finish writing this paragraph without checking my Twitter account, staring out the window blankly, changing my mind about what to have for dinner, and mentally rewriting what I will say three paragraphs from now. Once I ordered a book called Mindfulness to try to conquer my eruptive mind. I eagerly tore open the cardboard package, only to realize that I had bought the book several months before and forgotten about it.
According to many studies, mind-wandering saps our attention and makes us worse at performing a given task. Unsurprisingly, science supports the intuitive notion that it’s a bad idea to fantasize about snuggling with a warm, squirmy dachshund while operating heavy machinery. Much more tenuous data show that mind-wandering makes us unhappy, although that may have something more with what our mind wanders to—and our frustration with our poor performance at the task at hand.
For my fellow daydreamers, however, who only experience “flow” when floating down a river, there is some consolation. Other studies show that when our minds wander, we may be doing our planning and perhaps having creative moments.
In a new study, researchers at the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University in Israel were actually able, for the first time in a laboratory setting, to cause subjects’ minds to wander. When they applied transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to the frontal lobes of subjects’ brains, the tendency to mind-wander increased (my mind reels, jumps, and shimmies at the thought of increased mind-wandering).
“When the situation is appropriate—for example, not during exam or intensive traffic while driving—mind-wandering is important and beneficial.”
“Just think about it, mind wandering is something very personal and individual. A person himself or herself does not know when and how she starts to mind wander,” Vadim Axelrod, lead researcher of the study, wrote in an email. “Here, by using electrical current, we temporarily changed something in the brain circuitry in such a way that a person decided to mind-wander more. And all this happened unconsciously because subjects did not feel that they were stimulated.”
“We also showed that performance on external task also increased. The result was not significant, but the trend was clear in all experiments,” Axelrod continued, noting how his study differed from most other studies that show that mind-wandering detracts from task performance. The best explanation for the difference in his study, he suggested, was that we use the same cognitive systems for attention to external activities, such as driving or cooking a meal, that we do for mind-wandering.
“I don’t think that mind wandering is inherently good or bad, although several theorists have argued pretty convincingly that we do it so much that it’s unlikely to be overwhelmingly costly and perhaps likely to be quite beneficial—whether for personal problem solving, planning for the future, imagining life’s possibilities, or simply escaping the realities of the here-and-now,” Michael Kane, a professor of psychology at University of North Carolina, Greensboro, told me via email. Kane’s research includes mind-wandering.
“Some ongoing activities are so cognitively demanding, or have such dire consequences when errors occur, that most people would agree that mind wandering should be avoided at all costs—think about auto racing or brain surgery,” Kane pointed out. “In thinking about the costs and benefits of mind wandering, though, we really have to take the perspective of the actor or thinker. For a given person at a given time, it may be much more important to think through a personal concern, mentally rehearse an argument, or solve a creative problem, than it is to perform their ongoing task perfectly.”
Axelrod agreed with Kane (and all my irritated elementary school teachers) that there are situations where mind-wandering is inappropriate or downright dangerous. Axelrod also thought, perhaps more emphatically than Kane, that there were times and places where mind-wandering could be beneficial. “I think that when the situation is appropriate—for example, not during exam or intensive traffic while driving—mind-wandering is important and beneficial,” he said. “To this extent, modern technologies decrease the amount of time people mind-wander because people always have a gadget to play with, instead of being with their own thoughts. Just look what passengers in the buses are doing.”
Axelrod is excited about the possibilities indicated by his research. “First, it might be interesting to combine tDCS stimulation with fMRI, so that we can see more directly and precisely what regions in the frontal lobes were influence using tDCS,” he said. “Second, it is interesting to test whether tDCS stimulation can not only enhance mind-wandering, but also to improve creativity and future planning. So, probably, one future day by applying tDCS we will be able to solve the problems that could not be solved before!”
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07:05

Does your life flow effortlessly, or do you find yourself in an overwhelming mess thinking “There aren’t enough hours in the day!” on a daily basis?

Is your happiness and fulfillment a constant, or does it appear to wax and wane like the phases of the moon?

How many of these habits do you share in common with people who are instead experiencing both happiness and success on a daily basis?

5. They Utilize Time Management
 
You can only do so many things in a 24 hour period (including sleep!), so it’s infinitely important to prioritize your activities so you can achieve the results you’re after.
Successful people intuitively understand and appreciate the value of their time, as well as the time of others.
If your goal is to lose weight or get yourself in shape - yet you place a higher priority on updating your Facebook status, or playing one more round of Call of Duty - not much is going to change for you.
However, if you’re able to manage your time and create a “space” to workout on a daily basis, then your routine is virtually unaffected, and you can still do everything else that you’d be doing anyway.
This is the subtle power of time management; it’s not about sacrificing, but optimizing.
Most people waste so much time, they’d probably be amazed at how much they could actually get done in a single day. That is, if they didn’t allow themselves to turn on the TV for a few, or just check their Facebook or email one more time before heading out…
 
4. They Prioritize Their Health
Successful people understand how artificial fillers and other ingredients affect their overall health in the longterm, and strive to make intelligent, healthy choices in regards to what their body is digesting/processing.
There’s no getting around it; low quality food actually temporarily lowers your consciousness. Things like MSG and partially hydrogenated oils are fillers used to add flavor and texture (and a long shelf life), but are absolutely disastrous to just about every fiber of your body.
Heart disease and diabetes are diagnosed much more frequently than they should be, with the number one culprit almost always being poor diet and exercise.
Even if you have a hereditary disposition to such things, you can greatly minimize your risk by becoming conscious of what you’re eating. Good meals aren’t hard to prepare, and you can cook enough for an entire week all at once to save yourself time (see what I did there?)!
 
3. They Use Emotional Intelligence
Without conscious awareness of your emotional state, you’re at the mercy of your environment – which is highly unstable and unpredictable.
Therefore, in order to make any sort of progress, you need to establish a constant.
That constant is conscious awareness of the control you have over how you think and feel about any given thing at any given time.
When you surrender this control, you behave reactively.
It's this very level of reactivity that allows marketers and advertisers to have such a high level of success, because reactive people can be predicted and pseudo-controlled (behaviorally). Harnessing the skill of behaving independently of your environment ups your odds of staying on track and achieving both happiness and success in the bigger picture.
 
2. They Prioritize Serving Others
This isn’t about having a day job in which you’re performing customer “service”.
This is about providing genuine value to people using your unique skill set - whether this is through a traditional employer or not.
Until you're doing the work that drives you, you’re actually doing a disservice to yourself...and ultimately, the rest of humanity.
We don’t need more button pushers; we need creative, innovative people to help us get through the troubles plaguing this planet.
Each and every individual possesses a unique combination of skills, that if consciously leveraged, can be transformed into the career of their dreams. This very article is an example of an individual providing value (in the form of writing geared towards helping others help themselves) to others.
Not all forms of service involve punching a clock (who has time for that...)!
 
1. They Understand That Their True Power Lies in Their Choices
This is the fundamental axiom of conscious living. The power of choice precedes everything on this list, as well as all of the social, cultural, and global assumptions we all take for granted on a daily basis.
Whether you’re aware of it or not, you’re making choices constantly.
However, choice doesn’t merely apply to chicken or fish, large or small, black or white. It spans across all dimensions and dynamics of our existence and experience. Thoughts, emotions, actions, responses; these are all choices.
Here’s the mind blowing part: you can never, EVER give away responsibility for your choices. It’s literally impossible. You’re always making choices and dealing with the consequences. You can surrender control of your choices, but NEVER your responsibility for them.
This is why becoming progressively more conscious is the secret to personal empowerment, because you become progressively more aware of how your choices directly affect your quality of life, experience, and level of fulfillment.
Your boss might choose what work you’re doing for the day, but his choice is dependent on you choosing to continue to show up for work.
Life’s a much more exciting adventure when you accept full conscious responsibility for your choices, instead of trying to hand them off to someone like your boss, spouse, or friends.
You'll soon realize it's the very ability to choose your next course of action that's responsible for the level of happiness and fulfillment you experience in life. All you have to do to take that first step is remember your true power, and begin choosing consciously!

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06:58

A healthy dose of constant motivation is necessary to be successful in blogging. Blogging is a solitary job. Often, bloggers look for ‘how to get motivated’ guides because they lose the desire to create new content and continue blogging as the blog is ‘invisible’ to others. There is a lack of significant traffic and engagement.
Further, writing consistently on a daily basis is not an easy task. The enthusiasm to blog soon disappears, replaced by a resigned attitude.
If you’re in a similar state of mind, here’s how to get motivated for blogging once again.

How to Get Motivated for Blogging? 6 Ways

1) Build a Reward Model

As I said, blogging being a solitary profession, getting disinclined and de-motivated is easy. Building a reward model for self will work well.
Set up achievable benchmarks and mention rewards. For instance, gift yourself a cup of cappuccino on publishing 50 posts daily. Or, gift yourself a new gadget on achieving 1000 page views consistently for 30 days…and so on.
Write these down on a whiteboard or on a chart paper, and follow it religiously. Don’t cheat yourself.


2) Track Blog Progress and Growth

Again, you need to setup achievable targets for the blog itself. To keep on writing without setting goals and monitoring results is a negative attitude towards blog growth.
Things like traffic sources, earning leads, domain authority, page authority; affiliate product promotions, content leveraging, comment engagement and other factors should be regularly monitored.
Tracking blog progress will keep you motivated. You will be automatically pushed towards setting higher goals and achieving them will give a much needed motivational boost.
Hang a big whiteboard in your workspace, and note down the goals and how to achieve those goals.
Following the first and second strategy will give two benefits: first, there is personal growth. You get more involved in blogging and its growth. Second, your blog grows in every way possible. You are designing the growth path with your own hands. There is nothing more satisfying to see your labor bearing fruit, ultimately.

3) Avoid Negative-Minded People

People aren’t negative. Their thoughts are. You can’t actually avoid negative people if you know them on a personal level but online, you need to filter the kind of people you’re connecting with.
By negative people, I mean those who are discouraging you from pursuing blogging as a career. It could be your friends or someone from the family. You can’t avoid them; simply stop reacting to them and be firm in your choice of work.
Online, you will find people criticizing your blog. They will leave negative comments, spread bad rumors, pass negative reputation and so on. They do this to discourage you.
Whenever you will come across such people, know that you’re doing something right because it is only the feelings of insecurity that drives others to talk negative about you and your blog. They feel threatened but never let it discourage you.
Hold on to your motivational levels.

4) Use Pomodoro Technique

I am a huge fan of the Pomodoro Technique. What is it? The Pomodoro is a time tracker where you time every writing session and try to complete the task within that session.
Writing consistently over long periods of time can be boring and uninteresting. What happens is even if you love writing, soon the pressure to add blog content builds and within some time, writing doesn’t remain an enjoyable task. It’s becomes a pressure.
Now, I am sure you will agree with me, nothing good ever comes out of working under pressure, and writing…never! You need peace of mind to write.
Therefore, I recommend the Pomodoro technique. Time every writing session; complete whatever you can in, let’s say, 30 minutes and start another session.
It’s also a measure of your writing productivity.

5) Boost Revenue

Let’s be candid here and embrace the fact that we are into blogging to generate some kind of earning source for us. There are many professional bloggers out there who share their monthly income reports that are no less than mind-blowing and impressive, and yes, we do want to earn the same or more.
You can get motivated for blogging by scaling on revenue sources. Again, set a target. Set the goal of earning 1000 USD this month. Channelize all blog earning methods to achieve the target. Did you fail? Don’t give up. Try again next month.
Did you achieve it? Good. Pat your back and treat yourself to something you want. Share the success with other blogger friends on Facebook. In the process, you will help other bloggers to improve their earnings and motivational levels too.

6) Create a Peer Group

Working too hard is bad. Working too hard alone is damaging. One of the ways to learn how to get motivated for blogging is to build a peer group.
Ideally, create a group of bloggers. You can create it on Facebook Groups or on Google+. Make it a ‘by invitation’ only group. Network with the bloggers – ask questions, share tips, share guides, relevant software tools and anything that makes everyone’s time worthwhile to be in that group.
You can host Hangout to learn new things. You can even meet some of them outside the online sphere and be friends.
You can talk to them and share experiences, and listen to their blogging journey.
Creating a peer group keeps the mind sane. You know you’re not alone. Even when feeling discouraged and uninterested, talking to other bloggers will keep your spirits up.
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20:08

Whether you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, picked a fight with a loved one or struggled through that morning commute to a job you don’t particularly enjoy, it can be a tough task to plaster a smile across your face when you’re feeling less than chipper.

But by choosing to smile, happy changes start to occur automatically, both internally and externally. Great power lies in a random smile, so long as you choose to share it with the world.

Here are 11 reasons why it’s worth showing those pearly whites daily — even when you don’t necessarily feel like it.

Smiling can improve your mood.

Our facial expressions do more than communicate our current mood — they have the ability to influence our mood as well. Emotions may originate in the brain, but the muscles in the face either reinforce or transform those feelings. Recent studies have revealed that through the enhancement of positive emotions — or the suppression of negative ones — with facial expressions, a person’s mood begins to align more strongly with the emotion his or her face is communicating.

Even fake smiles do the trick.

While some researchers insist the benefits of smiling can only be rendered from a geniune expression of happiness, others have found that a forced smile can still make you feel happy, even when your existing mood and surroundings suggest otherwise. It only takes smiling for a brief period of time to experience its benefits — no matter how contrived it feels initially. In this case, maybe it’s OK to fake it a little.

Smiling helps reduce stress.

In a 2012 study published in the journal Psychological Science, University of Kansas psychological scientists Tara Kraft and Sarah Pressman studied 170 participants who were told to hold chopsticks in their mouths in three formations, making them smile to various degrees without realizing it, after performing a stressful task. The experiment revealed that subjects who smiled the biggest with the chopsticks experienced a substantial reduction in heart rate and quicker stress recovery compared to those whose expressions remained neutral.

Smiling makes you more approachable.

A 2004 Penn State University study found that authentic smiles shared by employees in the service industry influenced their impressions on customers in a positive way. Smiling employees came across as more likable and friendly, and customers left the interactions feeling more satisfied about their overall experience. While job performance and the busyness of the venues were also factored into subsequent experiments, the researchers found that the added display of an authentic smile helped workers appear more competent as well.

A smile makes you seem more trustworthy.

From a psychological perspective, a person who is smiling appears more trustworthy than a person who is either frowning or holding a neutral expression. In a University of Pittsburgh study, researchers explored the potential connection between a model’s level of attractiveness, the intensity of her smile and her perceived level of trustworthiness. Study participants ranked 45 models on these three conditions, revealing that the bigger the models smiled, the more trustworthy they seemed.

Smiling actually retrains your brain for the better.

While the brain is naturally inclined to think in negative terms as a defense mechanism, the habitual act of smiling helps the mind move to a more positive space and remain there longer the more you do it. According to Shawn Achor, the author of The Happiness Advantage, by making smiling a part of our everyday practice, we help our brains create happiness loops that encourage more positive-thinking patterns.
“Happiness is a work ethic,” wrote Achor. “It’s something that requires our brains to train just like an athlete has to train.”

Smiles are contagious.

Ever notice how often a friend or colleague will reciprocate a smile after you share one? There’s a scientific explanation for that phenomenon. According to neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni, we all posses something called mirror neurons, cells in the premotor cortex and inferior parietal cortex that are activated when we perform a given action as well as when we witness someone else performing it. And when it comes to smiling, mirror neurons respond to the acts of both seeing and doing.
“The way mirror neurons likely let us understand others is by providing some kind of inner imitation of the actions of other people, which in turn leads us to ‘simulate’ the intentions and emotions associated with those actions,” Iacoboni told Scientific American. “When I see you smiling, my mirror neurons for smiling fire up, too, initiating a cascade of neural activity that evokes the feeling we typically associate with a smile.”

Smiles may strengthen the body on a cellular level.

Just as this happy facial expression helps rid the body of stress, smiling can release tension on a cellular level as well, according to biochemist and artist Sondra Barrett. In her book, Secrets of Your Cells, Barrett explains how cells can distinguish between safety and danger, find and repair problems and create an overall sense of balance within the body. She also highlights how a person’s thoughts have a direct effect on cell function. When we smile, we reduce the rigidness of our cells, and this physical relaxation can help combat the risk of stress-induced cell mutations that can lead to the development or persistence of various cancers.

Smiling boosts your productivity.

The benefits of putting a grin on your face at the office don’t begin and end with a mood boost; that dose of happiness can help make you a more productive employee as well. In 2010, a team of economic researchers found that happiness has a significant and causal effect on productivity in the workplace. And just as the positive emotions prove invigorating, negative ones are equally draining.

Smiling makes you more creative.

This same mood boost can get those creative juices flowing. A 2013 study from the University of California, San Francisco explored this connection in men and found that those who were happier had a more comprehensive approach to problems, improving their ability to think of more solutions than their negative-minded counterparts. The researchers connected this finding to the release of dopamine triggered by happiness, since the neurotransmitter is involved in learning, processing and decision-making.

Smiles are free!

This all-around mood booster is one of the few available to you each day at no cost whatsoever. So why not take advantage of your own power to create happiness?

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20:05
If someone on the street asked you if you were happy — what would you say?
Many factors influence how we feel on a day-to-day basis, whether it’s a struggle at work or an issue in our personal lives, and most of them can decline our feelings of positivity and well-being. And we aren’t alone — according to the 2013 World Happiness Report, North American countries are less happy now than they were five years ago. But, as scientific research has discovered, happiness, to some extent, is a choice — so why does it sometimes feel so hard to choose it?
One answer is a bit surprising: As it turns out, we may be more joyful than we realize — we just aren’t mindful of the signs. While no one can escape the pressures of jobs, inevitable conflicts and even bouts of depression and anxiety, much of our emotional well-being isn’t entirely dependent on external circumstance. To find more happiness, you might just want to look on the bright side. Below find 14 signs you really do have a sunny disposition — and how to keep it that way.
You want others to share in your happiness.
Whether it’s paying someone a compliment or performing a random act of kindness, when you’re really happy, you want others to be happy too. And sharing that joy can help continue those positive feelings — studies have shown that being kind to otherscan actually help increase your overall happiness levels.
You don’t sweat the small stuff…
Just miss the train? Spill your coffee? It doesn’t matter. If focusing on what’s important and not obsessing over minor annoyances is a priority of yours, it may be a sign that you’re in a good place. Research has shown that those who swap focusing on the small, everyday negatives for emphasis on brief, joyful moments tend to be happier overall. Happy people don’t deny that there are peaks and valleys in life — but by concentrating on what goes right instead of what goes wrong, you set yourself up for longer-term contentment and greater resilience when dealing with negative events.
…In fact, you appreciate the little things.
Nothing is greater than hearing your favorite song come on the radio or being outside and hearing a few birds chirp. The little things are what contentment is composed of — and you recognize that. Studies have shown that practicing gratitude is a key component to a happy life, and if you’re thankful for the little things that make you smile, then it’s a good sign you’re on the right path.
You’re proud of other people’s successes.
When you’re happy, not only do you revel in your own accomplishments, you also bask in the success of others as well. You know that celebrating other people’s victories connects you to others and offers a bit of good karma in the form of maintaining your own sunny outlook. As motivational speaker and coach Tai Goodwinexplained in her blog on The Huffington Post, expressing genuine joy for other people can really pay off when it comes to your own happiness:
Rejoicing with others creates an opportunity to multiply the good times you get to celebrate. By seizing every chance to sincerely congratulate other’s on their success, you are creating an atmosphere for others to be willing to celebrate your successes.
Living in the moment is very important to you.
Happy people know that living in the here and now is key to perpetuating a positive disposition. In his TED talk on how to be happier, happiness researcher Matt Killingsworth detailed how getting lost in the present moment actually increases our feelings of joy. After developing an app that measures happiness in real time, Killingsworth found that most people were at their happiest when they were focusing on the current moment.
“As human beings we have this unique ability to have our minds stray away from the present,” Killingsworth said in the November 2012 talk. “Maybe to really be happy we need to stay completely immersed and focused on our experience in the moment … as it turns out, people are substantially less happy when their minds are wandering than when they are not.”
You’re in a healthy relationship (and not just with your significant other).
As a happy individual, you know that people — not things — are the true keys to a joyful existence. Physical and emotional intimacy are both important contributors when it comes to maintaining overall happiness levels.
In a 2012 study published in the Journal of Research in Personality, researchers found that marriage can protect against the normal declines in happiness levels that may occur during adulthood — but you’re also deeply aware that’s not the only critical component to building a happy life. By making sure you have an extended social circle, you open yourself up for more joy — especially as you get older. According to a study published by the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, being surrounded by a larger social circle during midlife has a positive impact on psychological well-being. By keeping healthy, interactive relationships — with friends and significant others — you’re making a large contribution to your overall happiness.
When something is stressing you out, you know how to calm down.
Keeping stress at a minimum is key to a happier lifestyle — and if you’re really happy, chances are you’ve found some stress-relieving practices that work for you. As Heidi Hanna, a fellow at the American Institute of Stress and author of the bookStressaholic, points out, having go-to tricks helps you fight off everyday stressors that you may not even know are affecting you.
“It’s important at the first sign of stress that you have go-to strategies because it allows your brain to stay more flexible,” Hanna tells The Huffington Post. “By having certain tricks like taking a break, or meditating, you can think more positively and practice things like gratitude because your brain is more open to seeing the positive around you.”
Studies have shown that practicing meditation or spending a chunk of time exercising each day can not only lower your stress levels, but it can also make you a morepositive individual.
Burning off some steam with your best friends can also help reduce anxiety and increase your happiness levels. Whatever method it is, you know what works for you in times of distress — and you use it whenever necessary in order to keep those bad vibes in check.
You’ve gotten your “affluenza” shot.
Happy people know that money isn’t the influencer of joy — in fact, after a certain point, it may even hurt their well-being. Recent data has suggested that people who pursue material goods — as opposed to the pursuit of emotional fulfillment — tend to be less satisfied and express fewer positive emotions each day. Instead of seeking the latest gadget in the store, you’re seeking other things (like good relationships) that have a positive impact on your life — and that is making a significant contribution to your overall happiness.
You’re constantly adopting a glass-half-full mentality.
When you’re happy, you want to do everything in your power to make sure you’re capitalizing on those emotions. So when life throws you a lemon, you throw a party. Adopting a realistic optimistic attitude has been linked to greater success and overall happiness, and optimists even have healthier hearts and stronger immune systems. If you’re constantly looking on the bright side — even when it’s a challenging situation that would normally get you down — you know overall you’re really happy with life (because you intend to keep it that way).
You have a sister.
You may not think of your little sister as the key to your happiness or your older sister as an optimistic influence, but research conducted by the University of Ulster suggests otherwise. The 2011 findings showed that having at least one female sibling made both young men and women more able to communicate effectively and maintain positive emotions.
Making new friends seems to come easy for you.
People want to surround themselves with those who make them feel good, so others are easily drawn to you. In a study published by the British Medical Journal, people naturally choose to connect with those who are happy because it improves their own happiness levels. Researchers found that if a social contact is happy, it can increase the likelihood that you are happy by 15 percent.
You’ve reached a goal (and you have more you want to accomplish).
If you’re really happy, chances are your feelings have been reinforced by obtaining goals you’ve set for yourself — and you’re not stopping there. A 2011 study published by the the Journal of Consumer Research found that those who set themselves up for higher goals tend to be more satisfied with their lives than those who keep lower expectations. And it makes sense. Having something to work toward — and then ultimately achieving it — can help boost our feelings of personal worth. As Carleton University psychology professor Timothy Pychyl explained in a 2008 Psychology Today essay, pursuing our passions just makes us feel good.
“Progress on our goals makes us feel happier and more satisfied with life,” Pychyl wrote. “Interestingly, positive emotions have the potential to motivate goal-directed behaviors and volitional processes that are necessary for further goal progress or attainment.”
You say cheese.
Can your yearbook photo offer insight into your happiness? Possibly. According to aDePauw University study, adults who fashioned big grins in their school photos were actually less likely to be unhappily divorced decades later. “The explanation with the most support, is that people who smile in their photographs have a more positive disposition and more extensive social network. When life throws us inevitable curveballs, those with a positive emotional disposition and strong social support tend to thrive,” explained study researcher Matthew Hertenstein in his book The Tell: The Little Clues That Reveal Big Truths about Who We Are. If you can’t stop grinning from ear-to-ear whenever there’s a camera around, there’s a good chance you’re actually boasting a positive disposition.
There’s nothing keeping you tossing and turning at night.
You may not think that you’re feeling content — but if you’re not tossing and turning, it may be a sign that you’re living a life of happiness. A 2013 Cornell University studyfound that those who have consistent positive emotions tend to get a better night’s sleep. Researchers studied 100 participants and found that those whose reactions vary to life’s daily ups and downs tend to suffer in sleep quality compared to those who have stable, optimistic outlooks.

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