Nothing is more beautiful than the loveliness of the woods before sunrise.

Self Improvement

<ul>
<li>To get something new in life, we must first identify the stuff that has fulfilled its purpose and discard it with folded hands of gratitude.</li>
<li>To calm your inner turmoil, remove the outer things that unconsciously are the reason for your stress.</li>
<li> Let go of all your unnecessary material possessions as well as the physical and mental baggage you are carrying.</li>
</ul>

Minimalism: Discard What You Don’t Need

Happiness isn’t a ready-made concept but comes from our own actions. 
We don&#39;t need to make happiness an elusive goal to reach but can take the actions required for the art of simple living.

Happiness Is Not Bought But Crafted

The past mostly regrets, and the future is anxiety and worry. The only thing that is real is the present moment, and the art of mindfulness delves into the present, instead of being in dreams or illusions.
Our breath connects us to the present moment, like an anchor. By focusing on our breath, we eventually become mindful by default and live in the Now.

Be In The Present Moment

Morning is a time of the day that we need to be alive, awake and practice mindfulness. 
Get away from all your distractions in the morning and take a deep breath, reconnecting with the immediate environment and breathing in the morning air.

The Morning Air

Any development we see was at first just an idea. We all were born naked and did not have the possessions, the hair, the clothes, and the relationships that formed as we reached our adulthood. We started from nothing and inside nothing (zero) there lies infinity.
One has to know that one has limitless potential and start from the first principles, pressing the reset button and starting the game again to pursue the seemingly impossible.

Everything Is Just An Accumulation

<ul>
<li>To tell someone what you really feel about them is incredibly freeing.</li>
<li>Instead of holding on to unhealthy situations and relationships due to fear, obligations or ‘being in the good books’, we need to live with a light heart and should have the freedom to be at peace. </li>
<li> If we detach from people who feel toxic or a burden to us, we begin to feel truly free.</li>
</ul>

Emotional Catharsis

In this confusing and chaotic world, happiness sometimes seems like an impossible goal to reach. Yet as much as we lament about the troubles of our time, contentment is always within our grasp. If…

4 Zen Principles That Will Change the Way You Think

Habits and work systems can produce the best return on your time.
Getting more work done is about knowing what to do, when to do it, and how to get it done in order to maximize the little time you have every day.

There are no productivity hacks

Time Management

Busy work makes you feel like you are moving quickly and being productive in the process. But the truth is you are not. 
When you&#39;re busy, you&#39;re more likely to make poor time-management choices : for example, taking on commitments you can&#39;t handle, or prioritizing trifling tasks over crucial ones.

Busy doesn't mean productive

Urgent but unimportant tasks = distractions.
Urgent tasks put us into constant “reply mode.” Important work is related to planned tasks that move us closer to our goals.

Unimportant tasks are really just distractions

<ol>
<li>Before the day ends, identify and write down the best actions you need to take tomorrow. </li>
<li>Every morning, focus on completing your action list from yesterday before midday. </li>
<li> Improve and repeat every day.</li>
</ol>

Planning today for tomorrow

Anytime you are pulled away from your tasks, it takes time to readjust to them when you jump back in (sometimes it can take up to 25 minutes).
Interruptions (notifications, loud noises, social media, checking email etc.) harm your concentration.

Interruptions break your flow

There's no single hack for getting more work done in less time, but instead a host of habits, and work systems can produce the best return on your time. Getting more work done is about knowing what to do, when to do it, and how to get it done in the shortest possible time to maximise the little time you have everyday.

How to Get More Work Done in a Week Than Most People Do in a Month

Denmark has the happiest people in the world. One reason is that 92% of them belong to some kind of social group, ranging from sports to cultural interests. Starting a group is the easiest way to manage 5 friendships with 20 % of the effort.&nbsp;Ideas could include a weekly lunch, a monthly sewing circle or a movie night.

Start A Social Group

Love & Relationships

Communication

Go past discussing only the weather. Allow yourself to be vulnerable to help lay the ground for a closer personal connection.

Be Vulnerable

Make the time to spend time with your friends so that they will know that you value them.Research suggests to check in with your friends at least every two weeks.&nbsp;

Don’t Be A Stranger

You have probably met a large number of friends through just a handful of people. Those are your superconnectors. Rekindle those friendships and ask them if there is anyone you should meet.

Reconnect with old friends

Don’t be interesting. Be interested.<ul><li>Listen to people and ask them to tell you more.&nbsp;</li><li>When they mention something you have in common, point it out.</li><li>Be enthusiastic and encouraging.</li></ul>

Connecting to people

Having a weak circle of friends carries the same risk as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Researchers suggest that the core factors in a happy life are the number of friends, the closeness of friends, the closeness of family, and relationships with neighbors and co-workers.

The importance of friends

Before we commence with the festivities, I wanted to thank everyone for helping my first book become a Wall Street Journal bestseller. To check it out, click here. *** When you were a kid it was a lot easier. In college you almost had to be trying not to make friends.

Love & Family

This Is How To Make Friends As An Adult: 5 Secrets Backed By Research - Barking Up The Wrong Tree

If people are made to develop certain basic and related skills, including foundational understanding in an objective way, they perform better at certain tasks.
Being aware of the blindspots that one can have, the emotional awareness that one may not have, or about the nature of Dunning-Kruger Effect can help individuals who are already aware to some extent that they might not be the centre of the universe after all.

The Backdoor To Create Awareness

Problem Solving

<ul>
<li>Known Knowns: Things we know, like how to ride a bicycle.</li>
<li>Known Unknowns: Stuff we don’t understand, like quantum physics.</li>
<li>Unknown Knowns: Things we know but never realized that we knew it. Most of it comes naturally to us, like parenting or crying.</li>
<li>Unknown Unknowns: This is the information we have no clue about, and we don’t even know the fact that we don’t have a clue about this.</li>
</ul>
Most people have information in all these four types, making each brain a combination of a labyrinth and a jigsaw puzzle.

The Four Types Of Information

To overcome the paradox of overcoming our own ignorance is itself a contradiction due to the fact that we need to look for something that we cannot see.
This is the same contradiction experienced by any conspiracy theorist: The basic premise of their belief (even if it is right) is based on zero-reasoning and the foundation that only they are the reasonable ones.

Overcoming Our Ignorance Of Our Ignorance

We are heavily blind-spotted with regards to our unknown unknowns as we continue to believe our own rhetoric and start to project it on others. 
Our delusion is further complicated by the fact that even if people point to us our problem, we are unable to believe them, due to our lack of emotional awareness.

The Emotional Awareness Blindspot

As most people do not like ambiguity and uncertainty, they are much more comfortable in knowing something even if it is completely false. 
Knowing something wrong is better than nothing, as our beliefs let us make sense of the world, which is subjective by every measure.

The Comfort Of Knowing

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is the mind&#39;s tendency to overestimate one’s own knowledge or competence and to underestimate one’s own ignorance. It usually occurs when the information is unknown to us, with one peculiar complication: The information that something is unknown to us is also unknown to us.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect is essentially a meta-layer of ignorance. Example: drivers who pride themselves as being competent and safe drivers making highly unsafe driving errors.

Ignorance Of Our Own Ignorance

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

Quote

<ol>
<li>Do not ridicule them, as it can make them defensive.</li>
<li>Provide examples and gently guide their minds towards the possibility that their belief may not be true.</li>
<li>Being humble, unbiased and objective are important values that can be nurtured in all, especially youngsters.</li>
</ol>

How To Deal With Meta-Ignorant People

The Dunning-Kruger effect stems from the ignorance of our own ignorance. But how do you fix something if you don't even know it's broken?

The Dunning-Kruger Effect: The Paradox of Our Own Ignorance

Emotional intelligence is the strongest predictor of performance.Your emotional intelligence is the foundation for a host of critical skills—it impacts most everything you do and say each day.

EQ and performance

Teamwork

Personal competence:<ul><li>Self-Awareness:&nbsp;perceive your emotions and stay aware of them as they happen.</li><li>Self-Management:&nbsp;use awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and positively direct your behavior.</li></ul>Social competence:<ul><li>Social Awareness: pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on.</li><li>Relationship Management:&nbsp;use awareness of your emotions and the others’ emotions to manage interactions successfully.</li></ul>

The 4 core skills of emotional intelligene

When emotional intelligence first appeared to the masses, it served as the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the time. This anomaly threw a massive wrench into what many people had always assumed was the sole source of success-IQ.

Career

Why You Need More Emotional Intelligence

&quot;Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.&quot;

Leadership

<ol><li>Pacesetting leader - “Do as I do, now”:&nbsp;expects and models excellence and self-direction.&nbsp;</li><li>Authoritative leader -&nbsp;“Come with me”: mobilizes the team toward a common vision.</li><li>Affiliative leader -&nbsp;“People come first”:&nbsp; works to create emotional bonds that bring a feeling of belonging.</li><li>Coaching leader - "Try this": develops people for the future.</li><li>Coercive leader - “Do what I tell you”: demands immediate compliance.</li><li>Democratic leader -&nbsp;“What do you think?": builds consensus through participation.</li></ol>

Daniel Goleman’s leadership styles

Sometimes a teammate needs a warm hug. Sometimes the team needs a visionary, a new style of coaching, someone to lead the way or even, on occasion, a kick in the bike shorts.&nbsp;For that reason, great leaders choose their leadership style like a golfer chooses his or her club, with a calculated analysis of the matter at hand, the end goal and the best tool for the job.

Change Leadership Styles

Taking a team from ordinary to extraordinary means understanding and embracing the difference between management and leadership. According to writer and consultant Peter Drucker, "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." Manager and leader are two completely different roles, although we often use the terms interchangeably.

6 Leadership Styles And When You Should Use Them

<ul><li>Try not to stress over your inability to fall asleep again.</li><li>Make relaxation your goal, not sleep.</li><li>If you’ve been awake for more than 15 minutes, get out of bed and do a quiet, non-stimulating activity.</li><li>Postpone worrying and brainstorming.</li></ul>

Ways to get back to sleep

Health

Is a naturally occurring hormone controlled by light exposure that helps regulate your sleep-wake cycle.&nbsp;Your brain secretes more melatonin when it’s dark, making you sleepy, and less when it’s light, making you more alert.&nbsp;However, many aspects of modern life can alter your body’s production of melatonin and shift your circadian rhythm

Melatonin

If you need a bedtime snack, try:<ul type="disc"><li>Half of a turkey sandwich</li><li>A small bowl of whole-grain, low-sugar cereal</li><li>Milk or yogurt</li><li>A banana</li></ul>

Nighttime snacks help you sleep

<ul><li>Keep noise down.&nbsp;Earplugs may help.</li><li>Keep your room cool (around 65° F /18° C).</li><li>Make sure your bed is comfortable.&nbsp;</li><li>Reserve your bed for sleeping and sex.&nbsp;No TV or working in bed - it will be easier to wind down when the brain associates the bedrom with just that.&nbsp;</li></ul>

 Improve your sleep environment

<ul><li>Try to go to sleep and get up at the same time every day;</li><li>Avoid sleeping in,&nbsp;even on weekends;</li><li>Limit naps to 15 to 20 minutes in the early afternoon;</li><li>Fight after-dinner drowsiness. If you get sleepy way before your bedtime, get off the couch and do something mildly stimulating.</li></ul>

Keep in sync with your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle

<ul><li>People who exercise regularly sleep better at night and feel less sleepy during the day.&nbsp;</li><li>The more vigorously you exercise, the more powerful the sleep benefits. But even light exercise improves sleep quality.</li><li>It can take several months of regular activity before you experience the full sleep-promoting effects.&nbsp;</li><li>Try to finish moderate to vigorous workouts at least three hours before bedtime.</li></ul>

Effects of exercising on sleep

<ul><li>Deep breathing. Close your eyes and take deep, slow breaths, making each breath even deeper than the last.</li><li>Progressive muscle relaxation. Starting with your toes, tense all the muscles as tightly as you can, then completely relax. Work your way up to the top of your head.</li><li>Visualizing a peaceful, restful place. Close your eyes and imagine a place that’s calming and peaceful. Concentrate on how relaxed this place makes you feel.</li></ul>

Relaxation techniques for better sleep

<ul><li>Limit caffeine and nicotine.</li><li>Avoid big meals at night (within 2 hours of bed).</li><li>Avoid alcohol before bed.</li><li>Avoid drinking too many liquids in the evening.</li><li>Cut back on sugary foods and refined carbs.</li></ul>

Be smart about what you eat and drink

During the day:<ul><li>Expose yourself to bright sunlight in the morning.&nbsp;</li><li>Spend more time outside during daylight.&nbsp;</li><li>Let as much natural light into your home or workspace as possible.</li></ul>At night:<ul><li>Avoid bright screens within 1-2 hours of your bedtime.</li><li>Say no to late-night television.</li><li>Don’t read with backlit devices.&nbsp;</li><li>When it’s time to sleep, make sure the room is dark.</li><li>Keep the lights down if you get up during the night.</li></ul>

Influence exposure to ligh

How to Sleep Better Simple Steps to Getting a Good Night's Sleep Sleeping well directly affects your mental and physical health and the quality of your waking life. Fall short and it can take a serious toll on your daytime energy, productivity, emotional balance,

How to Sleep Better

<ul><li>Evaluate purchases by cost per use. Higher cost products may last longer, but go unconsidered because of their initial price.</li><li>Spend on experiences, not things, as they give you more happiness for your investment.</li><li>Shop solo to avoid buying unnecessary things due to social influence.</li><li>Spend on the real you, not the person you want to be.</li><li>Ditch the overdraft protection as it often trips people into overspending.</li></ul>

How to Shop Smart

Money & Investments

<ul><li>Paying off the little debts can give you confidence to tackle larger ones. It’s recommended to focus on debts with the higher interest rates, but sometimes a moral boost is worth it.</li><li>Don’t cosign loans. If the borrower misses a payment, your credit score plunges and the lender can charge you.</li><li>Every student should fill out the FAFSA;&nbsp;many miss out grants that don’t need to be paid back because they are not filling out the forms.</li><li>Choose federal student loans over private loans, they have flexible payment terms and often better interest rates.</li><li>Investigate repayment options for federal student loan payments.&nbsp;</li><li>Opt for mortgage payments below 28% of your monthly income. That’s a general rule of thumb on how much you can afford.</li></ul>

How to Keep Debt at Bay

<ul><li>When negotiating a salary, get the company to name figures first,&nbsp;otherwise you can’t know if you’re lowballing or highballing.&nbsp;</li><li>Try to negotiate more than just your salary. Work hours, official title, parental leave, vacation time, and which projects you’ll work on could all be negotiable.</li><li>Assume you qualify for unemployment and learn its rules. Many do qualify but are unaware.</li><li>When negotiating salary emphasize the value you bring to the company as employers don’t care about your dreams but do about keeping a good employee.&nbsp;</li></ul>

How to Amp Up Your Earning Potential

<ul><li>Draft a Financial Vision Board, it motivates and helps you to stay on track with your financial goals.</li><li>Set specific financial goals stating the reason, the way, numbers and dates.</li><li>Adopt a spending mantra, a phrase that serves as a rule of thumb for how you spend.</li><li>Love yourself. Taking control of your finances is part of that.</li><li>Make bite-size money goals. Make the bigger ones but also small step goals to get there.</li><li>Don’t be a financial fatalist, and switch to more positive mantras.</li><li>Get your finances and body in shape. The discipline associated with regular exercising translates to managing your money well.</li><li>Appreciate what you have now, instead of being a consumerist.</li><li>Get a Money Buddy. Studies indicate people pick up good habits from friends with similar traits.</li></ul>

How to Get Money Motivated

<ul><li>Reviewing your credit report and your credit score regularly can save you money</li><li>Keep your credit use below 30% of your total available credit,&nbsp;as it can ding your credit score. You calculate it by dividing the total amount on all of your credit cards by your total available credit.</li><li>If you have bad credit, get a secured credit card. It helps build credit like a regular card but won’t let you overspend. And you don’t need good credit to get one.</li></ul>

How To Best Build And Track Your Credit

<ul><li>Start Saving ASAP. Money you put in your retirement fund now will have more time to grow through compound growth.</li><li>Avoid cashing out your retirement account early as it prevents your money from being invested and leads to penalties and tax bills.</li><li>Contribute money so your employer can match it if you have a 401(k)</li><li>Invest your raise in your retirement savings. Up your automatic transfer to savings, and increase your retirement contributions.&nbsp;</li></ul>

How to Save Right for Retirement

<ul><li>Get more life insurance on top of your company’s policy, as it is often far too little.</li><li>Get renters insurance and be covered from robberies, vandalism, natural disasters, and even things like the medical bills of people who get hurt at your place, damages you cause at someone else’s home, rent if you have to stay somewhere else because of damage done to your place.</li></ul>

How to Get Properly Insured

<ul><li>Make savings part of your monthly budget.&nbsp;</li><li>Keep your savings out of your checking account,&nbsp;as it may prevent you from spending it.</li><li>Open a savings account at a different bank than where you have your checking account so it won’t be too easy transferring between them.</li><li>Direct deposit to your savings account so only the money you want to spend goes to your checking account and your savings are preserved as they stay out of your mind.</li><li>Consider switching to a credit union;&nbsp;they could be the place to go for better customer service, kinder loans, and better interest rates on your savings accounts.</li><li>Only use your emergency savings account if you’ve lost your job, have a medical emergency, a car break, emergency home expenses (like a leaky roof), or you need to travel to a funeral.</li><li>Think about investing if you have more than six months’ savings in your emergency account (nine months if you’re self-employed), and you have enough socked away for your short-term financial goals.</li></ul>

How to Prepare for Rainy (Financial) Days

<ul><li>Pay attention to the fees you pay in your funds, also called expense ratios, as they can eat into your returns. It’s generally recommended to stick with low-cost index funds.</li><li>Rebalance your portfolio once a year. You need to take a look at your brokerage account every once in a while, to make sure that your investment allocations still match your greater investing goals.</li></ul>

How to Approach Investing

<ol><li>Create a Financial Calendar: prevent yourself from forgetting quarterly tax payments and to get credit reports.</li><li>Check Your Interest Rate: Pay off loans, open saving accounts and negotiate credit debts based on interest rates.</li><li>Track Your Net Worth: The difference between your assets and debt — it tells you your financial standing.&nbsp;</li></ol>

3 Financial Basics

<ul><li>Consider an All-Cash Diet,&nbsp;as limiting yourself to physical currency combats overspending.</li><li>Set aside 1 minute a day to check on your financial transactions,&nbsp;to identify problems, track goal progress and set your spending tone.</li><li>Allocate at least 20% of your income to financial priorities like emergency funds, debts and retirement fund.</li><li>Budget about 30% of your income for nonbasic spendings, like entertainment. Abiding by the 30% rule, you can save and splurge at the same time.</li></ul>

Budgeting Like a Pro

We've certainly amassed a wealth of knowledge over the years covering the money beat-be it the dozens of "I got out of debt" success stories we've featured to the scores of psychological studies we've covered linking better financial decision-making to behavior change.

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4 Zen Principles That Will Change the Way You Think

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GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

4 Zen Principles That Will Change the Way You Think

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smart people like you
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