Knowing how to defend yourself in case it is needed is a good feeling. But the concept of self-defence is broad and includes many schools of thought.
Before you pay for self-defence classes, there are some things you should know that will help you in the long run.

Self-defence encompasses many schools of thought

Self Improvement

Much of the general self-defence curriculum attempts to teach students how to recognise the signs of risky situations that may not be inherently obvious. Learning how to de-escalate threats and avoid potential danger without compromising your safety is a remarkable skill. However, a program can point out what usually works best, but each situation is unique, and the best decision rests with the individual.

The general self-defence class

Many martial arts fakers teach unrealistic and often foolish techniques. For example, it's good to learn how to knee an assailant in the groin, but it becomes instantly dangerous if they claim that these techniques can equip you with the skill to overcome multiple attackers. You should be aware in what discipline your instructor trained. You want to take a self-defence course at a martial arts school that offers instruction in a specific discipline.

Choosing a self-defence course or martial arts instructor

The goal of being prepared for self-defence is different from training in a specific martial art. Yet, learning a particular style might equip you to apply your skills if necessary. Practical experience or years of training in a specific self-defence style, whether it's Judo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, kickboxing, karate, etc., is the best way to become prepared for a dangerous situation.

Understand your own training goals

Here's how to choose a self-defense class or martial arts instructor to get what you're looking for.

Are Self-Defense Classes Really Worth It?

Arthur C Clarke arguably did more than any other author since HG Wells and Jules Verne to catapult his mind into the future, taking a vast global readership along with him for the invariably wild ride.&nbsp;As a science writer, he conjured up the idea of a ‘personal transceiver’ small enough to be carried about, enabling contact with anyone in the world and also featuring global positioning, making getting lost a thing of the past. That essay was written back in 1959, and what he was essentially describing was the mobile phone.&nbsp;

The Personal Transceiver - Predicting The Mobile Phone

It's a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay was written by Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke.The idea sprang from The Sentinel (Clarke’s story) , a short story written for a BBC competition in 1948. It didn’t win, but in 1964, he and Stanley Kubrick decided to develop it simultaneously into a novel and a screenplay. It remains the definitive space film. It also happened to forecast the iPad, computer software that is able to read lips, and space stations.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Trying to predict the future is a discouraging and hazardous occupation.

As a scientist, many of Arthur C Clarke’s predictions for the future came true. But his wildly imaginative science-fiction writing is his greatest legacy.

Arthur C Clarke was never one to hide his light under a bushel. He referred to his office as his <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1969/08/09/ego-chamber">‘ego chamber’ </a>and bought an English manor house to accommodate his archives, aka the ‘Clarkives’. And yet, when it came to imagining the future, he adamantly refused to take credit for any predictions. The internet, 3D printers, email: he may have described them all long before they existed, but these were not predictions . They were, he insisted, extrapolations.

Terminology aside, Clarke arguably did more than any other author since HG Wells and Jules Verne to catapult his mind into the future, taking a vast global readership along with him for the invariably wild ride. As a science writer, he conjured up the idea of a ‘personal transceiver’ small enough to be carried about, enabling contact with anyone in the world and also featuring global positioning, making getting lost a thing of the past. That essay was written back in 1959, and what he was essentially describing was the mobile phone. Just five years later, in <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT_8-pjuctM">an interview on BBC TV’s Horizon programme </a>, he could be found contemplating telecommuting and even telemedicine. Elsewhere, he predicted everything from online banking to reusable spacecraft and the millennium bug.

Towards the end of his life, Clarke cited 2001 as one of his most significant achievements

Yet more than a decade after his death, it’s as an author of science-fiction that he is best remembered; and his best remembered fictional work of all is <a dir="ltr" href="http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180404-why-2001-a-space-odyssey-remains-a-mystery">2001: A Space Odyssey </a>. The idea sprang from The Sentinel, a short story written for a BBC competition in 1948. It didn’t win, but in 1964, he and Stanley Kubrick decided to develop it simultaneously into a novel and a screenplay. It remains the definitive space film. It also happened to forecast the iPad, computer software that is able to read lips, and space stations. There’s more, too, not all of it as accurate – or at least, not yet. Space tourism? We’re getting there. Suspended animation? Let’s just say it remains highly experimental.

Clarke and Stanley Kubrick developed Clarke’s short story The Sentinel into 2001: A Space Odyssey (Credit: Alamy)

Towards the end of his life, Clarke cited 2001 as one of his most significant achievements. In its prophesying prowess, it was far from unique among his many works of fiction. For instance, his first novel, 1947’s Prelude to Space, accurately predicted the year of the first moon rocket in 1959. And a long list of inventive gadgets, gizmos and ideas that pop up in the pages of his novels and short stories begins with ‘automatic control cars’ (driverless, we call them) and runs through the alphabet to zero ‘g’, a term, if not a concept, coined by Clarke.

A Somerset farmer’s son, he was born in 1917 into a world in which sonar, crossword puzzles and bras were all relatively new-fangled inventions. His boyhood was filled with science-fiction magazines, stargazing (he made his own telescope from cardboard tubes) and fossils, a source of fascination from the moment his father gave him a cigarette card with a dinosaur on it. He had a crystal set, and his mother, who ran the local post office, taught him to tap out messages in Morse code.

Trying to predict the future is a discouraging and hazardous occupation – Arthur C Clarke

He would never lose his West Country vowels, but he lost his father when he was just 13. By the time he left school a few years later, any money that might have been used to send him to university was gone. Instead, he ended up in London in 1936, working as a civil servant. By then, he was a card-carrying member of the British Interplanetary Society, a group fascinated by the idea of space travel long before it seemed realistic. He wrote for their newsletter, and contributed short stories to fanzines.

Clarke – pictured (top) with his mother and siblings – was born in Somerset in 1917; he never lost his West Country vowels (Credit: Getty)

Come World War Two, he volunteered for the RAF and became an early expert in radar technology. In 1945, this work led to an article in Wireless World, in which Flight Lt Clarke showed the possibility of finding an orbit, some 23,000 miles from Earth, that would enable a satellite to remain fixed, and to transmit radio and television signals. Satellites do now circle in what’s referred to as the Clarke orbit.

After the war, a fellowship to King’s College, London led to a first in maths and physics. By the 1950s, he was publishing both fiction and non-fiction, and winning awards, too. He would be renowned for more than half a century, consulted by the scientific community and spending his days fielding correspondence from around the world. In his later years, he seemed a relic from a distant era, his tax-free Sri Lankan lifestyle supported by a staff of valets and houseboys. And then of course there were those <a dir="ltr" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/74938.stm">tabloid accusations of paedophilia </a>.

The future is fantastic

Interestingly, his vision of the future has barely aged. Indeed, some of his predictions still seem impossibly distant. For example, life in Sri Lanka inspired his 1979 novel, The Fountains of Paradise, featuring a ‘space elevator’, a planet-to-space transportation system that would do away with the need for rocket travel. Those human settlements on Mars or Venus are decidedly behind schedule (we humans were expected to have set foot on both by 1980), and we’re still looking for the key that should have fully unlocked the languages of whales and dolphins by 1970.

Being a desk-bound writer, and later confined to a wheelchair by post-polio syndrome, travel occupied him greatly. He dreamt about teleportation years before Star Trek – which he in fact inspired. He predicted the (doomed) 1980s Hotol project, which envisaged a space plane that could get from England to Australia in 48 minutes, and the altogether more successful Apollo moon landings. He also imagined machines that would convey huge loads on a cushion of air, and later bought his own hovercraft. “I thought the hovercraft would be really big. I even went out and bought one. That was a mistake. Hovercraft are wonderful over ice and excellent for military purposes, but they've not become universal in the way I thought they would,” he once told the Daily Telegraph.

A model of the doomed Hotol project, which envisioned a plane that could fly from England to Australia in 48 minutes (Credit: Getty)

So how did he do it? As he explained in <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT_8-pjuctM">that 1964 episode of Horizon </a>: “Trying to predict the future is a discouraging and hazardous occupation.” If a prediction sounds at all reasonable, he went on, technological progress is sure to leave it seeming “ridiculously conservative”. But if, by some miracle, a person were to be able to describe the future exactly as it will unfold, “his predictions will sound so absurd, so far-fetched, that everybody would laugh him to scorn”.

Admirably far-fetched though many still seem, Clarke’s own ‘extrapolations’ generally ground the awesome in quotidian detail: foreseeing interstellar travel far beyond our own solar system, for instance, he took care to consider the expense of meals and in-flight entertainment. It’s a way of thinking that was likely fuelled by his inability to be anything other than utterly absorbed in all that interested him. At the very start of his career, he shared a flat on London’s Gray’s Inn Road with fellow science-fiction writers who nicknamed him ‘Ego’ because of his knack for tuning out distraction. Once he’d become a big enough name to be interviewed, he’d send journalists home laden with research papers. And while another person might have taken up scuba diving as a hobby, Clarke became so engrossed that he ended up moving to Sri Lanka where he discovered ancient underwater ruins, campaigned to protect coral reefs, and opened a diving school.

His fellow science-fiction writers nicknamed Clarke ‘Ego’ because of his knack for tuning out distraction (Credit: Alamy)

Beginning in childhood, he also immersed himself in his genre. As he put it in his still-startling essay collection, Profiles of the Future (published in book form in 1962): “The facts of the future can hardly be imagined ab initio by those who are unfamiliar with the fantasies of the past.” And this brings us to what surely is the real secret behind Clarke’s uncanny aptitude as a space-age seer: his imagination. To this end, though he saved his more serious prophesy for his science writing, his science-fiction writing was absolutely crucial to the process, allowing his mind to stretch far beyond the realm of what might seem immediately possible.

He once suggested that while no more than 1% of science fiction readers would make reliable prophets, almost 100% of reliable prophets will be science fiction readers – or writers. As he proclaimed back in 1962: “The one fact about the Future of which we can be certain is that it will be utterly fantastic.” It’s an oft-quoted line but it bears repeating, not least because Clarke used the word “fantastic” to capture not so much the wonderfulness of all that’s to come but its far-fetched nature.

Who knows – if we all could summon Clarke’s imaginative powers, perhaps our everyday lives would resemble the future he dreamt up still more closely.

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The fiction that predicted space travel

<ul>
<li>One legend is that Ancient Rome was founded on 21 April 753 BCE by two brothers and demigods, Romulus and Remus. But Romulus killed Remus in an argument of who should rule and then named the city after himself.</li>
<li>Another legend is that the city was named after Roma, a woman. The fall of Troy caused the survivors to move on. When they landed on the banks of the Tiber River, Roma and other women objected to moving on.</li>
<li>Others think the city came from Rumon, the name for the Tiber River.</li>
</ul>

The foundation legends of Rome

History

Rome was a small town on the banks of the Tiber and developed through trade. Seven kings ruled the city as it grew. Greek culture and civilization came to Rome from Greek colonies and gave the Romans a model on which to build their own culture.
From early on, the Romans improved upon the skills and concepts of other cultures. When Lucius Junius Brutus overthrew the last of the seven kings in 509 BCE, Brutus reformed the system of government and established the Roman Republic.

Early Rome

<ul>
<li>Roman warfare made the ancient city a powerful force. The Punic Wars (wars with the North African city of Carthage) helped the city to grow. With Carthage defeated, Rome dominated the region.</li>
<li>But with growth, the city of Rome started to suffer from the effects of greed and corruption. Unemployed Romans hired themselves out as thugs to whatever wealthy senator would pay them.</li>
<li>In the 2nd century BCE, Tiberius and Gaius, the Gracchi brothers, led a land and political reform movement.</li>
</ul>

Ancient Rome: War & Expansion

Rome was divided across the class line. The ruling class called themselves optimates (the best men). They favoured the power of the Senate of Rome and the superiority of the ruling class.
The lower classes were known as the populares (the people). They favoured reform and democratisation of the Roman Republic.

Ancient Rome: The optimates and the populares

Three men with opposing ideologies unwittingly brought an end to the Roman Republic.
<ul>
<li>Marcus Licinius Crassus was the richest man in Rome but also corrupt. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Gaius Julius Ceasar were great generals who made Rome wealthy.</li>
<li>The three, vying for power, could keep each other in check, but Crassus was killed in battle. With Crassus gone, the First Triumvirate disintegrated, and Pompey and Caesar met each other in battle where Caesar&#39;s forces defeated Pompey&#39;s.</li>
</ul>

The end of the Roman Republic

<ul>
<li>Julius Caesar ended the period of the Republic by having the Senate proclaim him dictator. He was popular among the people and created a strong and secure central government that increased prosperity for Rome.</li>
<li>He was assassinated by a group of Roman senators in 44 BCE. They feared that he was becoming too powerful and might abolish the Senate.</li>
<li>Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony), Gaius Octavius Thurinus and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus joined forces and defeated the senators in 42 BCE.</li>
</ul>

Julius Caesar's reign and death

<ul>
<li>Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate of Rome. They were all very ambitious.</li>
<li>It was agreed that Lepidus should rule over Hispania and Africa, Octavian should rule the Roman lands in the West and Antony the lands in the East.</li>
<li>Antony was involved with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII and caused a war with Octavian. Octavian emerged as the victor and sole power in Rome. In 27 BCE, he was granted extraordinary powers by the Senate and took on the name of Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome.</li>
</ul>

Towards Empire

According to legend, Ancient Rome was founded by the two brothers, and demigods, Romulus and Remus, on 21 April 753 BCE. The legend claims that in an argument...

According to legend, Ancient <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Rome/">Rome </a>was founded by the two brothers, and demigods, <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Romulus_and_Remus/">Romulus and Remus </a>, on 21 April 753 BCE. The legend claims that in an argument over who would rule the <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/city/">city </a>(or, in another version, where the city would be located) <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/romulus/">Romulus </a>killed Remus and named the city after himself. This story of the founding of Rome is the best known but it is not the only one.

Other legends claim the city was named after a woman, <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Roma/">Roma </a>, who traveled with Aeneas and the other survivors from <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/troy/">Troy </a>after that city fell. Upon landing on the banks of the Tiber River, Roma and the other <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/women/">women </a>objected when the men wanted to move on. She led the women in the burning of the Trojan ships and so effectively stranded the Trojan survivors at the site which would eventually become Rome. Aeneas of Troy is featured in this legend and also, famously, in <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/virgil/">Virgil </a>'s <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/aeneid/">Aeneid </a> , as a founder of Rome and the ancestor of Romulus and Remus, thus linking Rome with the grandeur and might which was once Troy.

Still other theories concerning the name of the famous city suggest it came from Rumon , the ancient name for the Tiber River, and was simply a place name given to the small trading center established on its banks or that the name derived from an <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/etruscan/">Etruscan </a>word which could have designated one of their settlements.

Originally a small town on the banks of the Tiber, Rome grew in size and strength, early on, through <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/trade/">trade </a>. The location of the city provided merchants with an easily navigable waterway on which to traffic their goods. The city was ruled by seven kings, from Romulus to Tarquin, as it grew in size and power. <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/greek/">Greek </a>culture and <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/civilization/">civilization </a>, which came to Rome via Greek colonies to the south, provided the early Romans with a model on which to build their own culture. From the Greeks they borrowed literacy and <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/religion/">religion </a>as well as the fundamentals of <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/architecture/">architecture </a>.

The <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Etruscans/">Etruscans </a>, to the north, provided a model for trade and urban luxury. <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Etruria/">Etruria </a>was also well situated for trade and the early Romans either learned the skills of trade from Etruscan example or were taught directly by the Etruscans who made incursions into the area around Rome sometime between 650 and 600 BCE (although their influence was felt much earlier). The extent of the role the <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Etruscan_Civilization/">Etruscan civilization </a>played in the development of <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Roman/">Roman </a>culture and society is debated but there seems little doubt they had a significant impact at an early stage.

From the start, the Romans showed a talent for borrowing and improving upon the skills and concepts of other cultures. The Kingdom of Rome grew rapidly from a trading town to a prosperous city between the 8th and 6th centuries BCE. When the last of the seven kings of Rome, Tarquin the Proud, was deposed in 509 BCE, his rival for power, Lucius Junius Brutus, reformed the system of government and established the <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Roman_Republic/">Roman Republic </a>.

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Though the city owed its prosperity to trade in the early years, it was the <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Roman_Warfare/">Roman warfare </a>which would make it a powerful force in the ancient world. The wars with the North African city of <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/carthage/">Carthage </a>(known as the <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Punic_Wars/">Punic Wars </a>, 264-146 BCE) consolidated Rome's power and helped the city grow in wealth and prestige. Rome and Carthage were rivals in trade in the Western <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/mediterranean/">Mediterranean </a>and, with Carthage defeated, Rome held almost absolute dominance over the region; though there were still incursions by pirates which prevented complete Roman control of the sea.

As the Republic of Rome grew in power and prestige, the city of Rome began to suffer from the effects of corruption, greed and the over-reliance on foreign slave labor. Gangs of unemployed Romans, put out of work by the influx of slaves brought in through territorial conquests, hired themselves out as thugs to do the bidding of whatever wealthy senator would pay them. The wealthy elite of the city, the <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Patricians/">patricians </a>, became ever richer at the expense of the working lower class, the plebeians.

In the 2nd century BCE, the Gracchi brothers, <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Tiberius/">Tiberius </a>and Gaius, two Roman tribunes, led a movement for land reform and political reform in general. Though the brothers were both killed in this cause, their efforts did spur legislative reforms and the rampant corruption of the <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Roman_Senate/">Roman Senate </a>was curtailed (or, at least, the senators became more discreet in their corrupt activities). By the time of the <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/First_Triumvirate/">First Triumvirate </a>, both the city and the Republic of Rome were in full flourish.

Even so, Rome found itself divided across class lines. The ruling class called themselves optimates (the best men) while the lower classes, or those who sympathized with them, were known as the populares (the people). These names were applied simply to those who held a certain political ideology; they were not strict political parties nor were all of the ruling class optimates nor all of the lower classes populares .

In general, the optimates held with traditional political and social values which favored the power of the Senate of Rome and the prestige and superiority of the ruling class. The populares , again generally speaking, favored reform and democratization of the Roman Republic. These opposing ideologies would famously clash in the form of three men who would, unwittingly, bring about the end of the Roman Republic.

<a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus/">Marcus Licinius Crassus </a>and his political rival, <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Gnaeus_Pompeius_Magnus/">Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus </a>(<a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Pompey_the_Great/">Pompey the Great </a>) joined with another, younger, politician, Gaius <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Julius_Caesar/">Julius Caesar </a>, to form what modern historians call the First Triumvirate of Rome (though the Romans of the time never used that term, nor did the three men who comprised the triumvirate). <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Crassus/">Crassus </a>and <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/pompey/">Pompey </a>both held the optimate political line while <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/caesar/">Caesar </a>was a populare .

The three men were equally ambitious and, vying for power, were able to keep each other in check while helping to make Rome prosper. Crassus was the richest man in Rome and was corrupt to the point of forcing wealthy citizens to pay him 'safety' money. If the citizen paid, Crassus would not burn down that person's house but, if no money was forthcoming, the fire would be lighted and Crassus would then charge a fee to send men to put the fire out. Although the motive behind the origin of these fire brigades was far from noble, Crassus did effectively create the first fire department which would, later, prove of great value to the city.

Both Pompey and Caesar were great generals who, through their respective conquests, made Rome wealthy. Though the richest man in Rome (and, it has been argued, the richest in all of Roman history), Crassus longed for the same respect people accorded Pompey and Caesar for their military successes. In 53 BCE he led a sizeable force against <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Parthia/">Parthia </a>and was defeated at the <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/battle/">Battle </a>of Carrhae, in modern-day <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/turkey/">Turkey </a>, where he was killed when truce negotiations broke down.

With Crassus gone, the First Triumvirate disintegrated and Pompey and Caesar declared war on each other. Pompey tried to eliminate his rival through legal means and had the Senate order Caesar to Rome to stand trial on assorted charges. Instead of returning to the city in humility to face these charges, Caesar crossed the <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Rubicon/">Rubicon </a>River with his army in 49 BCE and entered Rome at the head of it.

He refused to answer the charges and directed his focus toward eliminating Pompey as a rival. Pompey and Caesar met in battle at Pharsalus in <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/greece/">Greece </a>in 48 BCE where Caesar's numerically inferior force defeated Pompey's greater one. Pompey himself fled to <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/egypt/">Egypt </a>, expecting to find sanctuary there, but was assassinated upon his arrival. News of Caesar's great victory against overwhelming numbers at Pharsalus had spread quickly and many former friends and allies of Pompey swiftly sided with Caesar, believing he was favored by the gods.

<a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Julius/">Julius </a>Caesar was now the most powerful man in Rome. He effectively ended the period of the Republic by having the Senate proclaim him dictator . His popularity among the people was enormous and his efforts to create a strong and stable central government meant increased prosperity for the city of Rome. He was assassinated by a group of Roman senators in 44 BCE, however, precisely because of these achievements.

The conspirators, Brutus and Cassius among them, seemed to fear that Caesar was becoming too powerful and that he might eventually abolish the Senate. Following his <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Death/">death </a>, his right-hand man, and cousin, <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Marcus_Antonius/">Marcus Antonius </a>(<a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Mark_Antony/">Mark Antony </a>) joined forces with Caesar's nephew and heir, Gaius Octavius Thurinus (<a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/octavian/">Octavian </a>) and Caesar's friend, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, to defeat the forces of Brutus and Cassius at the Battle of Phillippi in 42 BCE.

Octavian, <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/antony/">Antony </a>, and Lepidus formed the <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Second_Triumvirate/">Second Triumvirate </a>of Rome but, as with the first, these men were also equally ambitious. Lepidus was effectively neutralized when Antony and Octavian agreed that he should have Hispania and <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/africa/">Africa </a>to rule over and thereby kept him from any power play in Rome. It was agreed that Octavian would rule Roman lands in the west and Antony in the east.

Antony's involvement with the <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Egyptian/">Egyptian </a>queen <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Cleopatra_VII/">Cleopatra VII </a>, however, upset the balance Octavian had hoped to maintain and the two went to war. Antony and <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/cleopatra/">Cleopatra </a>'s combined forces were defeated at the <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Battle_of_Actium/">Battle of Actium </a>in 31 BCE and both later took their own lives. Octavian emerged as the sole power in Rome. In 27 BCE he was granted extraordinary powers by the Senate and took the name of <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/augustus/">Augustus </a>, the first Emperor of Rome. Historians are in agreement that this is the point at which the history of Rome ends and the history of the <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Roman_Empire/">Roman Empire </a>begins.

Ancient Rome

<ul><li>They don't hold on to grudges. Forgiving and forgetting is absolutely necessary.</li><li>They don't make excuses. They use failure as an opportunity to change for the better.</li></ul>

Happy people are responsible

<ul><li>They savor the moment. They "stop to smell the roses".</li><li>They're busy, but not rushed. A healthy work-life balance is key.</li><li>&nbsp;They don't sweat the small stuff. They focus only of what is important and within their control.</li></ul>

Happy people are well rounded people

<ul><li>They spend money on others. One reason is that it creates social connections.</li><li>They celebrate other people's success through "active and constructive" responding.</li><li>They treat everyone with respect and kindness. Kindness, like happiness, is contagious.</li><li>They're proactive about relationships. They work on maintaining their relationships.</li><li>They express gratitude. It improves mood and energy and decreases anxiety.</li><li>They engage in deep, meaningful conversations.</li></ul>

Happy people invest in their relationships

<ul><li>They're optimistic. Bad things happen to all of us. Happy people don't complain, whine or let pessimism become a self-fulling prophecy.</li><li>They view problems as challenges. They focus on solutions to the problem and reflect on what they're grateful for.</li></ul>

The attitude of happy people

<ul><li>They meditate daily. It gives your mind a much-needed break and only takes a couple of minutes each day.</li><li>They get enough sleep.</li><li>They spend time in nature. We are physically and mentally more healthy when we are interacting with nature.</li><li>They reward themselves.&nbsp;</li><li>They spend time alone to reflect on their dreams, desires, worries, anxieties and what to be grateful for.</li><li>They have a morning ritual. It sets the stage for how the day is going to play out.&nbsp;</li><li>They take care of themselves.</li></ul>

Personal activities of happy people

Happiness is contagious.&nbsp;When you surround yourself with other people who are happy and supportive, you'll be able to build self-confidence, boost your creativity and just have more fun in general.

Choosing the right company

<ul><li>They dream big and work hard to turn those dreams into achievable goals.</li><li>They have a growth mindset. They want to improve and are willing to overcome challenges.</li></ul>

Happy people consider the future

11 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. What's the secret to happiness? That can differ according to the person involved. But we do know that happy people have different habits and think differently than those who are miserable.

11 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. What's the secret to happiness? That can differ according to the person involved. But we do know that happy people have different habits and think differently than those who are miserable. So, the good news is, if you're trying to be one of those happy people, recognize that that desired emotion comes from within and that you have the power to literally turn that frown upside down by mastering some simple habits.

Related: <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/289124">5 Actions You Can Take to Increase Your Happiness Quotient </a> Here's what happy people do and don't do . . . Do old cliches like "stopping to smell the roses" and "it's the little things in life" really lead to happiness? Yep. <a href="http://time.com/59684/the-simple-thing-that-makes-the-happiest-people-in-the-world-so-happy/">Researchers </a>call this "savoring," which is all about paying attention to the moment. Instead of multitasking and being focused on the past and future and on the present negativity all around, those of us who are most satisfied with our lives stop to enjoy the beauty and the small, amazing things in life.

Meditation is one of the most effective ways to embark on a path of stillness and mindfulness, which, in turn, gives your mind a much needed break from all those worries and anxieties occupying it. Best of all? It takes only a couple of minutes each day. To start out, you can download an app like <a href="https://www.calm.com/meditate?source=homepage">Calm </a>, <a href="http://www.stopbreathethink.org/">Stop, Breathe &amp; Think </a>, or <a href="https://insighttimer.com/">Insight Timer </a>.

Forgiving and forgetting is absolutely necessary when it comes to happiness. The reason? Holding a grudge means that you're hanging on to anger, resentment, pain and other negative emotions that are roadblocks to happiness. By letting go of these emotions, you free yourself from negativity so there's more space for positive emotions to get in.

Related: <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/252404">3 Strategies for Hacking Happiness </a> "We've shown in our research that giving money to others actually does make people happier," <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2013/08/21/to-buy-happiness-spend-money-on-others/#3301bf7c7664">said </a>Michael Norton, an associate professor of marketing at Harvard Business School and author of Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending . "One of the reasons is that it creates social connections. If you have a nice car and a big house on an island by yourself, you're not going to be happy, because we need people to be happy. But by giving to another person, you're . . . creating a connection and a conversation with that person, and those things are really good for happiness."

I've learned myself that true friendships require investment. This doesn't always mean money, but it does require a lot of your time. Truly happy people spend time (and money) on their relationships: <a href="http://giftologybook.com/">Giftology book </a>and gifting expert John Ruhlin has written about this topic. <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11205-012-0133-6">Research </a>shows that feeling "rushed" can lead to stress and unhappiness. At the same time, people struggle with finding that happy medium of being just busy enough. After all, other <a href="http://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/springer+select?SGWID=0-11001-6-1280921-0">studies </a>suggest that a healthy work-life balance is key, since boredom can be burdensome. If you're over-committed or too scattered, follow this rule entrepreneur <a href="https://sivers.org/hellyeah">Derek Sivers </a>included on his site: "When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than 'Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!' -- then say 'no.'"

6. They surround themselves with the right people.

<a href="https://hms.harvard.edu/news/harvard-medicine/contagion-happiness">Happiness is contagious </a>. This means that when you surround yourself with other people who are happy and supportive, you'll be able to build self-confidence, boost your creativity and just have more fun in general. On the other end of the spectrum, hanging out with negative people means you're just another member of their pity party -- and that's exhausting and not much fun.

People who are happy focus their energy and efforts only on things that are truly important and within their control. Remember, getting consumed by the things that you have absolutely no control over is a waste of time that will end up making you lean more toward the miserable side. In other words, master the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-twardowski/how-to-let-go_b_7219078.html">art of letting it go </a>.

8. They celebrate other people's success.

It's no secret that that having both a rich social life and healthy relationships is an important component to happiness. But, happy people nurture and improve their relationships through "active and constructive" responding, which includes celebrating the success of those around them.

As Martin Seligman explained in his book <a href="http://www.developgoodhabits.com/Flourish-Understanding-Happiness">Flourish </a>: "People we care about often tell us about a victory, a triumph, and less momentous good things that happen to them. How we respond can either build the relationship or undermine it. There are four basic ways of responding, only one of which builds relationships."

9. They treat everyone with respect and kindness.

Kindness, like happiness, is contagious. There's even a name for it: "moral elevation." A <a href="https://helix.northwestern.edu/article/kindness-contagious-new-study-finds">study </a>conducted by researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles, and the universities of Cambridge and Plymouth in the United Kingdom found that witnessing acts of kindness makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside.

"When you feel this sense of moral 'elevation,' not only do you say you want to be a better person and help others," said Simone Schnall, of Cambridge, the lead researcher. "But you actually do, when the opportunity presents itself." Let's be honest: Bad things happen to all of us -- even the happiest and most upbeat people on the planet. The thing is, they don't complain, whine or let pessimism become a self-fulling prophecy. They remain optimistic by focusing on solutions to the problem and reflecting on what they're grateful for.

11. They're proactive about relationships.

<a href="http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2010/02/sci-brief.aspx">Evidence </a>suggests that most relationships (especially marriages) decline over time. But, happy people actually work on maintaining these relationships by checking in on loved ones, being active and constructive listeners and not being conversational narcissists. You've probably heard this a zillion times. But getting quality sleep is absolutely necessary. If you need a refresher, sleep deprivation can negatively impact your health, productivity and ability to cope with stressful situations.<a href="https://due.com/blog/5-tips-for-sleeping-better-at-night/">If you have trouble getting a good night's rest </a>, start by sticking to a sleep schedule, taking advantage of natural light, avoiding bright lights before bed, exercising and not eating or drinking alcohol close to bedtime.

Nature has a calming effect and reminds us to slow down, take deep breaths and soak up the present. "People have been discussing their profound experiences in nature for the last several 100 years -- from Thoreau to John Muir to many other writers," <a href="https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_nature_makes_you_kinder_happier_more_creative">said </a>researcher David Strayer, of the University of Utah. "Now, we are seeing changes in the brain and changes in the body that suggest we are physically and mentally more healthy when we are interacting with nature."

Simply put, take the time stroll through a park, visit the beach or hike a trail. Happy people have changed their internal dialogue so that when there's a problem, they view it as a challenge and new opportunity to enhance their lives. In fact, you should just go ahead and eliminate the word "problem" from your mind altogether "'Treats' may sound like a self-indulgent, frivolous strategy, but it's not. Because, forming good habits can be draining, treats can play an important role," <a href="https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/12/13/psychology-rewarding-yourself-with-treats/">wrote </a>Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project .

"When we give ourselves treats, we feel energized, cared for and contented, which boosts our self-command -- and self-command helps us maintain our healthy habits," Rubin wrote. She continued: "Studies show that people who got a little treat, in the form of receiving a surprise gift or watching a funny video, gained in self-control. It's a Secret of Adulthood: If I give more to myself, I can ask more from myself. Self-regard isn't selfish." <a href="http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/pdfs/GratitudePDFs/6Emmons-BlessingsBurdens.pdf">Research </a>conducted at the University of California-Davis shows that those studied who worked daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude improved their mood and energy, and experienced substantially less anxiety. This is most likely due to lower cortisol levels. So express gratitude every morning, writing in a journal about what you're thankful for, and occasionally saying "thank you" to your loved ones and colleagues.

The happiest individuals dream big and work hard to turn those dreams into achievable goals. They're committed and disciplined, and they know their iorities: They allow themselves to say "no," take care of their health, break out of their comfort zones and accept the fact that they may have to start over.

While relationships are important to one's happiness, we all need some alone time in order to catch up with, well, ourselves. Spending time alone gives you the chance to unpack your worries and anxieties, reflect on what you're grateful for and get back on track with your dreams and desires. I try to schedule weekly solo dates, usually first thing in the morning before everyone else is awake, to check in with myself.

It's incredibly easy to blame someone for your failures. The problem is that this doesn't allow you to let go and move past those failures. Happy people take responsibility for their mistakes and use that failure as an opportunity to change their lives for the better. When it comes to personality, individuals fall into one of two camps: those with a fixed mindset or those with a growth mindset. People with a fixed mindset believe you are who you are, and there's nothing you can do about it. That's a problem because it prevents them from growing or changing.

21. They spend money on experiences, not material things.

People with a growth mindset, however, believe that with a little effort, they can improve, which in turn makes them happy because they're better suited to cope with and overcome challenges. A variety of <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&amp;uid=2009-24670-006">research </a>sources show that people are happier when buying experiences instead of material items. This is because experiences tend to improve over time; people revisit those experiences more often; experiences can be unique; and they involve social interaction. Furthermore, materialism can have negative effects. In her book <a href="http://www.developgoodhabits.com/Myths-of-Happiness">The Myths of Happiness </a>, Sonja Lyubomirsky explained: "A mountain of research has shown that materialism depletes happiness; threatens satisfaction with our relationships; harms the environment; renders us less friendly, likable and empathetic; and makes us less likely to help others and contribute to our communities."

Morning rituals are soothing and set the stage for how your day is going to play out. Whether you're meditating, going for a walk, reading an inspirational book, writing a gratitude journal, cooking a healthy breakfast or catching-up on emails, it's important that you create and stick to a morning ritual.

Since the body and mind are connected, it makes sense that you if aren't taking care of yourself physically, you're going to suffer mentally and emotionally. Start by getting quality sleep every night, eating a well-balanced diet, exercising regularly and finding healthy ways to decompress and alleviate stress.

Research has shown that using our "signature strengths" makes us feel happier and more fulfilled. As Shawn Achor explained in his book <a href="http://www.developgoodhabits.com/Happiness-Advantage-Principles-Psychology-Performance">The Happiness Advantage </a>: "When 577 volunteers were encouraged to pick one of their signature strengths and use it in a new way each day for a week, they became significantly happier and less depressed than control groups.

25. They engage in deep, meaningful conversations.

"And these benefits lasted: Even after the experiment was over, their levels of happiness remained heightened a full six months later. Studies have shown that the more you use your signature strengths in daily life, the happier you become." Happy people skip the small talk and engage in deep conversations. In fact, this has been backed by research. In <a href="http://www.developgoodhabits.com/Pursuing-Good-Life-Psychology">Pursuing The Good Life </a>, Christopher Peterson wrote: "First, happier participants spent more time talking to others, an unsurprising finding given the social basis of happiness. Second, the extent of small talk was negatively associated with happiness.

25 Habits of Successful and Extremely Happy People

If you&#39;re overly stressed out and just unhappy with your work situation then you need to face your fear of failure head on and just walk away.
Sometimes a bad situation is just a bad situation and no amount of resiliency or strength is going to change the fact that you have to remove yourself from that situation. There is no shame in quitting.

It's OK to walk away

<ol>
<li>Everyone is just winging it. Even the people you see in social media don&#39;t have it altogether and are just building their narratives as they go on.</li>
<li>Be wary of analysis paralysis. There will always be books, podcasts, and articles that will change your perspective but keep in mind to only choose the ones that have the most impact.</li>
<li>Focus on one step at a time. It&#39;s overwhelming when we think about the enormity of a new challenge, so it&#39;s okay to take things slow until you get the hang of it.</li>
</ol>

Managing Feelings f=For the Growth Zone

<ul>
<li>The Comfort Zone - this is where you do things where you feel 100% confident in yourself.</li>
<li>The Growth Zone - you will be challenged in this area, attain new skills, or use the current skills you have in new contexts. It&#39;s easier to face the risk of failure in this zone especially if you have a strong support system.</li>
<li>The Panic Zone - in this zone your body&#39;s fight or flight response becomes triggered and this zone may cause chronic stress, paralysis, and burnout.</li>
</ul>

The 3-Zone Diagram

A junior marketer asks a question about growth and how to make the most of a work situation she never asked for.

A junior marketer asks a question about growth and how to make the most of a work situation she never asked for

I’m a junior marketer working at a small company, and I’ve recently become a team of one after my manager moved on to another opportunity. My main concern is that I won’t grow without having a more experienced marketer/team to collaborate with and learn from. However, another challenge that has surfaced (that I didn’t expect) is explaining something from a marketing perspective without being brushed off or questioned entirely. Overall it makes me feel lost in my role at the company. Is it still possible to grow my marketing knowledge in this environment? How would you make the most of the situation?

Your question reminded me of a diagram a friend drew for me on a scrap of paper many years ago. I think back to this diagram when I’m in a new situation that makes me uncomfortable. Am I just scared of failing and looking stupid? Or is it really a situation that’s beyond what I can handle? The diagram looked something like this:

In the middle is your Comfort Zone . These are the things you feel 100% confident doing. When you’re first starting out, this is a relatively small zone.

The next circle out is the Growth Zone . These are things that are adjacent to your Comfort Zone. They will challenge you to learn new skills or apply current skills to new contexts. By definition, there is a real risk of failure in the Growth Zone (if you’re sure you won’t fail, you’re still in your Comfort Zone). But the consequences of failing are manageable. Being in the Growth Zone can be stressful, but it’s generally “good stress”. There’s a sense of excitement and exhilaration in testing your limits. A life without any stress ever is a pretty boring life, after all.

Outside the Growth Zone is what I think of as the Panic Zone . These are things way outside your Comfort Zone. I associate the Panic Zone with overwhelm and paralysis. The situation triggers your body’s fight or flight response, “bad stress”. You’re not going to be doing your best learning in the Panic Zone and staying there too long will lead to chronic stress and burnout.

Which zone are you in right now? Which zone do you want to be in? Only you can answer those questions. Everyone’s tolerance for stress and risk is different and will change depending on your life circumstances. However, testing the boundaries of your Growth Zone is easier when you have a strong support system around you, something that seems to be lacking at your current company.

Do you have 1:1s with a direct manager at all right now? If not, can you ask for them so you have a direct channel to someone who can help you troubleshoot these issues?

Are they planning on hiring a new marketing lead? If so, advocate for being a part of the hiring decision. As their one direct report, you should have a say in who your boss will be.

If they aren’t hiring a new marketing lead, what’s their long-term vision for marketing at the company?

You’re already learning valuable lessons in advocating for solutions and navigating tough work situations, soft skills that will serve you well no matter where your career takes you. But learning concrete marketing skills will be easier at a company that already understands the importance of good marketing so you can focus on strategy and execution, not begging for resources and support.

Continue to learn as much as you can in your current role, but start looking out for new opportunities. Connect with people at companies you’re curious about or people with job titles and roles you find interesting. (I just wrote a guide on <a dir="ltr" href="https://blog.doist.com/virtual-networking/" rel="noopener">how to make networking online less awkward </a>that you may find helpful.)

Use those conversations to get clear on what you want in your career right now and to find the right fit. You may find some great mentors along the way who can give you better career and marketing advice than I can!

As for making the most out of your current situation, in addition to asking for regular 1:1s with a direct manager, here are some things that help me when I’m feeling out of my depth in my Growth Zone:

<ul><li>Remember that there are no adults. <a dir="ltr" href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/oliver-burkeman-s-blog/2014/may/21/everyone-is-totally-just-winging-it" rel="noopener">Everyone’s just winging it pretty much all the time </a>. Even (especially) the marketing gurus on Twitter who seem to have all their shit together. It’s easy to build a narrative after the fact about why something did or didn’t work, but in the moment 95% of the time they were making it up as they went. </li><li>Beware of <a dir="ltr" href="https://blog.doist.com/analysis-paralysis-productivity/" rel="noopener">analysis paralysis </a>. The number of things you could (and probably should) be doing as a marketer will always vastly outnumber the things you can actually do. There will always be another article or book to read, podcast to listen to, case study with advice that you think will change everything. Speaking from experience, it’s easy to get stuck in learning mode and never actually do anything. At some point, you have to pick the one or two things you think will have the most impact and put your energy into getting them out into the world. </li><li>Break things down to the next concrete step. It’s also easy to get overwhelmed and paralyzed by the enormity of a new challenge. Don’t think about the end result or all the steps it will take to get there. Just focus on the one next thing that has to happen, then do it. Rinse and repeat. I often revisit this quote from Ann Lammott’s <a dir="ltr" href="https://bookshop.org/books/bird-by-bird-some-instructions-on-writing-and-life/9780385480017" rel="noopener">Bird By Bird, </a>a book about life disguised as a book about writing: </li> </ul>

“E.L. Doctorow once said that ‘Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.”

One final thing: Something I wish I had learned earlier in life is that it’s ok to quit.

There’s a lot of advice out there about how to cultivate resiliency and push through hard situations. That’s all well and good, but it places an awful lot of pressure on the individual. When I was stressed out and unhappy, I would feel like it was my fault I couldn’t handle the pressure when others could. I felt like I just needed to be tougher and <a dir="ltr" href="https://blog.doist.com/how-to-build-resilience/" rel="noopener">more resilient </a>. That the problem was me, not the situation.

Sometimes, that is the case and I do need to face my fear of failure head on. But sometimes a shitty situation is just a shitty situation and no amount of resiliency is going to make it ok. There’s no shame in walking away.

My Boss Quit & I Feel Completely Lost in My Role

Personality tests have been formulated to find the real you, but many of these tests are not tested scientifically and are more a pseudoscience.
One famous example of a commercial personality test is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator that divides people into 16 different &quot;types&quot;. The assessment will suggest certain career or romantic pairings. Psychologists say the questionnaire is one of the worst personality tests because a person&#39;s type may change from day-to-day.

Most personality tests are invalid

Psychology

Personality questionnaires started about a century ago.
<ul>
<li>The questions during WWI were geared to study personality and mental health problems to weed out soldiers who weren&#39;t fit to fly military aircraft.</li>
<li>Academics created different personality scales on what personality is like. The problem with the majority of the assessments at the time was they were built on the creator&#39;s subjective feelings about personality.</li>
</ul>

Early 20th century personality tests

One personality model survived the 20th century. It&#39;s called the Big 5 Personality Traits (5-Factor Model). It was developed in 1961 and since have been developed into its modern form.
The Big 5 model takes a holistic approach by compiling every word that could be considered a personality trait and creating simple questions about them. Based on how people answered initial surveys, researchers used statistical methods to group traits that seemed to go together.

The Big 5 model

The Big 5 model group characteristics into five basic categories. Extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism and openness to experience.
<ul>
<li>It doesn&#39;t sort anybody into a &quot;type,&quot; just informs where a person will fall on a continuum. </li>
<li>You won&#39;t uncover anything surprising about yourself.</li>
<li>At best, you could use it as a comparative tool to tell you how your rank on extroversion compared with others who have taken the test.</li>
</ul>

The simplicity of the Big 5 model

Personality assessments targeted toward hiring recruiters and managers assume there is a hidden truth about you that can match you up to a job. But there isn&#39;t any hidden truth that a personality test can uncover.
Personality is not that mysterious. If the assessment process seems confusing or if questions deviate into the abstract, that&#39;s a red flag.

Problematic personality assessments

Scientific American is the essential guide to the most awe-inspiring advances in science and technology, explaining how they change our understanding of the world and shape our lives.

Precious few personality assessments are known to be reliable, and researchers say their use outside academia is debatable

If you’re looking for insight into the true you, there’s a buffet of personality questionnaires available. Some are silly—like the internet quiz that tells everyone who takes it that they are procrastinators at the core. Other questionnaires, developed and sold as tools to help people hire the right candidate or find love, take themselves more seriously.

The trouble is, if you ask the experts, most of these might not be worth the money. “You should be skeptical,” says Simine Vazire, a personality researcher at the University of California, Davis. “Until we test them scientifically we can’t tell the difference between that and pseudoscience like astrology.”

One famous example of a popular but dubious commercial personality test is the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator. This questionnaire divides people into 16 different “types” and, often, the assessment will suggest certain career or romantic pairings. It costs $15 to $40 for an individual, but psychologists say the questionnaire is one of the worst personality tests in existence for a wide range of reasons. It is unreliable because a person’s type may change from day to day. It gives false information (“bogus stuff,” one researcher puts it). The questions are confusing and poorly worded. Vazire sums it up as “shockingly bad.”

Personality questionnaires began evolving about a century ago, says Jim Butcher, an emeritus psychologist at the University of Minnesota. “They started asking questions about an individual’s thinking and behavior during World War I,” he says. “These were to study personality problems and mental health problems.” And importantly, he adds, the U.S. military wanted the questionnaires to help weed out soldiers who weren’t fit to fly military aircraft.

According to Butcher, during the first half of the 20th century many academics started creating different personality scales. “Not just on mental health diagnoses, but what personality is like,” he says. The problem with practically all of the assessments at the time was they were a built on the creators’ subjective feelings about personality, he notes. “Then people started to raise questions about do they really measure what they think they’re measuring? How reliable are those conclusions, and are they valid?”

Butcher describes what followed as a mass culling of personality systems and questionnaires by the scientific method. There is one personality model that did survive the 20th century, though. It is popular among academics today, and is what Vazire uses in her research. It’s called the Big 5 Personality Traits (aka 5-Factor Model), and it was developed over three decades beginning in 1961 at Brooks Air Force Base. From then to the 1990s, several psychologists including Lewis Goldberg, Warren Norman, Paul Costa and Robert McCrae helped develop the model into its modern form.

Vazire says in developing the Big 5 Personality model, psychologists tried to avoid pitfalls that plagued early personality researchers—like selecting criteria based primarily on intuition. Instead, the Big 5 model took a holistic tack by compiling every word that could be considered a personality trait and creating simple, straightforward questions about them. For example, on a scale of 1 to 5, are you outgoing, sociable? Have a forgiving nature? Based on how people answered initial surveys, researchers used statistical methods to group traits that seemed to cluster together (like  “talkative” and “sociable”) into five basic categories: extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism and openness to experience. The other model, the HEXACO model of personality structure created in 2000 by psychologists Kibeom Lee at the University of Calgary and Michael Ashton at Brock University in Ontario, is similar but adds an extra category: honesty–humility.

The key to the Big 5 model is its simplicity. It doesn’t sort anybody into a “type,” just informs them where they fall on a continuum of personality traits. There are no tricks and no surprises to be revealed, Vazire says. “In a way, it’s disappointing. It just means that personality tests can only tell you what you tell it.” You won’t learn anything that you didn’t already know about yourself, she adds, and its accuracy comes entirely from how honest and self-reflective you were with your answers.

At best, Vazire says you could use it as a comparative tool that can tell you how you rank on extroversion compared with others who have taken the same test. There have been studies that show certain Big 5 factor scores correlate with certain outcomes—conscientiousness correlates with longer life, for instance, and extroversion correlates with higher sales for sales reps. “But that doesn’t mean someone with high extroversion will be a better salesperson,” Vazire says. Correlations are just that; they could be incidental. But commercial personality assessments seem to depend heavily on such correlations. For example, one assessment from The Predictive Index, a company that measures behavioral characteristics and matches personality profiles to jobs, views such correlations in their own studies as a measure of success. “[We showed] in one client, a retail jeweler, that increases in dominance or aggression was responsible for $125,000 in revenue,” says Thad Peterson, one of the company’s executives. The idea behind The Index, Peterson says, is to use those measures to help “marry people to [job] positions.”

Such personality assessments—particularly those targeted toward hiring recruiters and managers—aim to uncover a kind of “hidden truth about the person,” says Randy Stein, a psychologist at California Polytechnic State University, Pomona. “They assume that there is an essence of you and an essence of the job, and you should be matching up those two things in hiring,” he says. “But I don’t think there is a hidden truth—and even if there is, a personality test doesn’t do it.”

Like the Big 5 model, any personality or behavior assessment can’t know things you haven’t explicitly answered in the questionnaire, Stein says. Sometimes commercial personality tests ask odd questions—like, Do you identify with snakes? or How do you react to a certain color?—and try to draw inferences from your answers. Those kinds of conclusions venture into the pseudoscientific, Stein says.

There are other reasons why Stein thinks some personality assessments may be pseudoscientific. “What those tests will tell people is true or false is determined by what people are willing to pay for,” he says. “Their process as a company is to tell people whatever will sell the product.” By contrast, the Big 5 and HEXACO models were shaped by an empirical process and independent peer review that showed people’s scores tended to be consistent, and predictions made using the models are reproducible. Without that, Stein says personality tests should be treated with extreme suspicion.

Some companies like The Predictive Index say their product meets such standards. The company invested in an audit, paying over $20,000 dollars to Norwegian classification firm DNV GL to review their product and certify that it complies with a standard set by the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations. Two Index representatives, Greg Barnett and Austin Fossey, also say predictions based on their methods are accurate.

Perhaps. U.C. Davis’s Vazire says it is fairly easy to reach some level of validity. “If I just asked you to make a questionnaire on extroversion, you would probably do a pretty good job,” she says. It is because we are all judges of character, and we often do well at intuiting whom to date or hire and who we are, Vazire says. If the process seems confusing or if questions veer off into the abstract, that’s a red flag. Personality, she says, is just not that mysterious.

How Accurate Are Personality Tests?

You have one life. We tend to define people by a few narrow identities, but humans are broader then that.&nbsp;We are creators, parents, partners etc. Putting people in boxes goes against human nature.

Specialization is for Insects

Books read is a vanity metric, a signal for intellect, but a weak one.&nbsp;You should read books for understanding. If a book looses your interest, drop it.&nbsp;

Read for Understanding

Social media made us into individual celebrities. But being famous is a bad objective. You want to be rich and anonymous, not poor and famous. Fame has a price, and it's not worth it.

Fame is a Liability

All people want to be rich, healthy (which in modern times means being fit) and happy. Most people focus on being rich alone. But you don't want to be rich and live a life that is high-strung high-stress where you leave emotional wreckage behind you and your family.You can learn all 3. It’s a matter of choice. Health can be a choice.&nbsp;<ul><li>Nutrition can be a choice.&nbsp;</li><li>Hard work can be a choice.&nbsp;</li><li>Making money can be a choice.</li></ul>

The Trifecta of Life

Naval Ravikant is an entrepreneur and angel investor, a co-author of Venture Hacks, and a co-maintainer of AngelList.

.css-d7z4j9{font-family:'Source Sans Pro',sans-serif;font-size:2rem;line-height:2.5rem;letter-spacing:-0.125%;font-weight:700;}Self-defence encompasses many schools of thought