Community Is Vital

One useful conclusion that people can draw throughout their life is that, all things considered, it is not easy to find a path that hasn't been walked on before.

Most likely, the ones before you have already tried what you are thinking about, so why not taking into account their reactions to the events when planning on taking up the same path?

Once you have decided on a certain path to follow for your professional life, you might also want to consider reading and learning a bit about any subject that can be connected, even in a small degree, to your field. This can be extremely useful and interesting.

The reason why we don’t do anything useful with our time is that we lack self-discipline.

But when you write every day, you strengthen your discipline. And you can transfer that better self-discipline to achieve anything in life.

Nothing will help you to get to know yourself more than translating your thoughts into words.

When you force yourself to write every day, you automatically become more aware of your thoughts. And self-awareness is one of the most important skills that predict career success.

Beliefs about events do. Bad feelings are caused by irrational beliefs, so if you’re feeling negative emotions, focus on the belief you hold about what happens. 

For stoics there is no good or bad, there’s only perception. And you control perception. 

Ignore the rest. We worry about things that we have no control over. But worrying never fixed anything. 

The stoics are saying that if you focus your energy on what you can change, you’re going to be a lot more productive and effective. 

“To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.”

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.”

• Meditate to improve working memory. Take a pause to empty your mind and to reduce stress.
• Although still debatable, drink coffee to help improve memory consolidation.
• Eat berries for better long-term memory. Berries contain flavanoids,  which appear to strengthen connections in the brain.
• Exercise not only to improve memory recall, but also to enhance cognitive abilities.
• Chew gum to make stronger memories. It is proven that it increases activity in the hippocampus. It also increases heart rate which causes more blood to flow in the brain.
• Sleep more to consolidate and easily remember memories.

To get the most value out of what you consume, it helps to have a mode of output: Talk about it, write about it or condense it into a tweet.

To improve your idea generation, zoom out your perspective to a macro level. 

For example, on a micro-level, a Billy Joel concert may just be a fun way to spend a night. On a macro level, it is packed with ideas about how to connect with an audience.

When you want to hook up with a wonderful person, there is a chance you may get rejected. If you don't think you can handle it, increase your rejection rate.

Getting used to being rejected builds mental muscle that will eventually get you a yes from someone you thought were out of your league.

Every day, a billion things could go wrong for you and create a negative experience.

Learn to embrace the negative. Reframe your brain, and you will experience something new. Think to yourself, "Isn't it great that it is raining today. Now I can stay inside and read a book."

Try not to use technical language. If you do, make sure it is absolutely necessary in order to help the audience understand or appreciate your point – and ensure that you explain the word or term immediately afterwards.

Keep your words as simple and clear as possible, and use real-life examples and illustrations where possible. But don’t patronize your audience.

If you look alert but relaxed, your audience will mirror this and feel the same way. Stand up straight, but relax any tension or stiffness in your body. 

It’s a good idea to gesture with your hands in such a way that helps to make clear what you are explaining – but only do this if it feels natural, and try not to wave your arms around unnecessarily.

When you have fewer things to react to or you make it harder to react to them, you’ll be less reactive.