Podcasts and pop culture phenomena

There are generally three ways we give luck to an object.

• Through association: A penny you had the day you met your partner.
• Through symbolism: Like a sock with four-leaf clovers or black cats printed on them.
• Magical contagion: The idea that there is some essence or physical property that can rub off from contacting it.

According to research, secondhand engagement rings are much less likely to sell if the listing indicated that the previous owner had been through a divorce or a broken engagement. One explanation is that we believe that various properties can be transmitted through contact.

Sometimes, you create the story yourself. The item has to be prominent in the situation. But if the item is branded as unlucky, it's hard to forget the association.

Your manager may not put in the effort up front to articulate the expectations she/he has so that you're on the same page from the start. It may leave you guessing what successful completion might look like, and then frustrate you both when you think wrong.

To be fair, at a certain level of seniority, it becomes more reasonable for a manager to expect you to know what you're doing and work out the details by yourself. But even then, a good manager knows when to invest the time to get more aligned on those things.

• Name the issue. Your manager might already be aware of the problem.
• If your boss wants you to take more ownership, you can say that you want to take more ownership for your projects but that you want to do so with confidence knowing what she/he is envisioning.
• You may have to draw those details out of your boss with each new assignment.
• Once you get started on the work, consider giving an early view of your work to your manager, to have a chance to be provided with input early on.
• It may take a few rounds to figure out exactly what something should be.

In-person interviews tend to focus less on the skills and experience, and more on who is more cordial or great to talk to. It does help build rapport in some cases, but also promotes an invisible bias towards the candidate’s race, gender, class and other factors unrelated to the job performance.

Phone Interviews level the playing field and let both the parties focus on the essential.

A phone interview can also be used to build rapport, but instead of small talk, one can build up on the conversation, avoiding stiff, rehearsed responses to whatever the employer is asking.

If the conversation is genuine, one can easily connect with the employer on a human level.

In a recent study, focused on measuring the systematic inflammation, a large number of participants were asked to rate the extent to which they had experienced both positive and negative emotions throughout the day, for 30 days. As a result, the people who experienced a wider range of positive emotions were also the ones who had the lowest rates of inflammation.

Experiencing both negative and positive emotions can lead to better mental and physical health.

Furthermore, the chances to get depression or even bad habits seem to be smaller in this particular case when compared to individuals who experience only positive emotions.

Preserve your sanity in a VC meeting by these methods:

• Introduce ground rules in the meeting requesting it to be free of negative talk, on the pretext of detoxing the audience/team members and improving their mental health.
• Intentionally keep things positive, promoting sharing of positive things and ending the meeting on a high note, so that the negative is by default kept out, without pinpointing it.
• In case a higher-up or a boss is the one with the negative talk, one can bite the bullet and request the person personally and politely to stop or reduce the negative banter.

While connecting and making new friends can prove quite exhausting sometimes, it does eventually pay off. In order to find it easier to know new people, make new friends and reconnect with the old ones:

• Learn to actually ask your friends for the things you want from them.
• Seek professional help to forgive and love yourself first: the empathy that you feel for yourself is a key to the empathy that you end up feeling for the others.
• Learn to say no, even when you fear the possible disappointment that this can lead to.
• Accept your friends without judging them.
• Learn to be honest with your friends: this always goes a long way.

There are now many things to consider before ordering something:

• Should we add to the burden of the ‘essential workers’ already toiling hard?
• Shouldn’t we save the money for the uncertain future?
• Shouldn’t we give it to a homeless charity, to those less fortunate in these troubled times?
• Is ordering safe?

This seems to be the new mantra among the responsible people who are worried about themselves and their families. Large supply chains have a greater chance of transmitting diseases. Small shops also need our business to survive this catastrophe.

These small shops are also trying very hard to follow all CDC recommendations regarding protective gear and social distancing.

Understand that life is cyclic, and ups and downs are a part of our daily existence.

Trusting yourself is essential, and if you find there is a problem that you need to address, don't be afraid to seek help. If you feel you are miserable constantly, you can get therapy for an unbiased diagnosis and treatment.

• Writing is therapy, and listing out what we are grateful for, on a daily basis amplifies our happiness about the good things in our lives.
• Eating healthy and unprocessed food, like fruits and vegetables makes our body and mind happy.
• Nature is pure delight, and even being next to a tree can provide a silent kind of happiness.

When writing emails or even in speaking, individuals, tend to use quite a lot the word 'just'; while it is a polite term, 'just' suggests also insecurity and the need to ask for permission.

Therefore, whenever you are try to show some authority, go for another word. It is safer.

While the two verbs are totally synonyms, their use has quite a different impact on people. Therefore, when you invite someone 'to talk', studies have shown that you are more prone to meet resistance than when you just propose them 'to speak'.

The first verb, it seems, is often associated with the idea of not paying enough attention to the other person's words.