Amir's Lifestream - tagged with luck-advice

Give Someone a Compliment when you Stub your Toe

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 10:10:00 -0400

What’s your first reaction when you stub your toe? Do you yell? Do you scream? Do you blame someone?

Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioural economics at Duke University wrote a whole chapter on “long term effects of short term emotions in his latest book The Upside of Irrationality (affiliate link). The gist of it is that when we make decisions while in an emotional state, the emotions will pass but the decisions we make can stay with us and set our behavioural patterns for a long time. Had a Bad Day at Work? Imagine that you have a really bad day at work. Your boss dumps all of his problems on you, your co-workers leaves on vacation and you are responsible for picking up his mess and you spilled your coffee all over your desk. After your long commute home, you are greeted by your kids fighting with each other, as kids do. Your reaction is to yell at them and unintentionally, take out some of your frustrations. Although this is a common reaction, what you are doing is setting a behavioural pattern to scream at your kids if they are not behaving. Had a Good Day at Work? On the other hand, you may have a great day at work, you get that promotion that you’ve been working toward and to top it off, your favourite sports team just clinched a playoff spot. When you get home to find your kids fighting, you deal with them calmly and set the behavioural pattern of not yelling when your kids are misbehaving. Blame Someone, Anyone! When I was a kid and would fall down, people told me to “make bad” to the floor, which would cheer me up. As I grew up, whenever I got hurt, my immediate reaction was to blame someone, usually the closest person to me. I eventually caught my behaviour and worked hard to change the pattern but it wasn’t easy. Rewards don’t Work Like That! I had a similar experience with my study habits. I would reward myself for certain amounts of studying for school. Sometimes, I would reward myself a little early because I deserved it, which led to me expecting the reward earlier the next time and not being able to study properly without it. Predictably Irrational It’s irrational but it’s how we work. The upside is that if we are conscious about this and work at it, we can condition ourselves to be better people. So the next time you stub your toe, give someone a compliment. You never know what it will do to your character down the line. Pic Credit: Katerha Similar Posts:

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Get Lucky By Flying Out Of Bed

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They’re All Going to Laugh at You!

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:42:00 -0400

They say that the world can be broken up into two types of people, “talkers” and “doers”. In the online world, there are the talkers and the people who are too afraid to talk. Everyone has something to say. I’m almost positive that not a day goes by that you don’t have something to say at all. You comment on the news, the weather, business, travel, friendships, advice and almost anything else under the sun. When it comes to the online world, too many people are afraid to talk. It’s as if there is a barrier that won’t let people talk online. In the real world it is the difference between speaking with a few people versus public speaking or presenting to a few people. As part of the transition from the 1900’s to the 2000’s and more specifically the last few years, we all have to get over a major obstacle in order to move forward. The major obstacle as made famous by Adam Sandler is the fear that “they’re all going to laugh at you!“. As individuals, many have been held back because they were afraid of consequences, they were afraid of what people would think and they were afraid that people would laugh at them. It may not be those specific fears but pretty much, they were afraid that what they produce would not be accepted as well as they would hope. Growing up, we have all heard the saying “better to remain quite and looked a fool than opening your mouth and removing all doubt”. We are trained to keep quite until we are certain that everyone else will agree with us. Continue reading “they’re all going to laugh at you!”Similar Posts:

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Never Turn on your Computer Again Without an Agenda

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:54:00 -0400

When you sit down and turn on your computer, do you know exactly what you are about to do or are you just turning on your computer because it is something to do? I constantly find myself sitting down at my computer without a clear agenda and goal in mind only to end up checking everything online that can possibly be checked. My email, my website analytics, my stock portfolio, my social networks, and anything else that may pop into my head at the time. What I find is that I end up using wasting a ton of time because I don’t have any agenda or plan to follow. I could probably get away with checking my email three times per day and checking my analytics and portfolios once or twice per month. I use social networks for a few reasons so the frequency of my using them would depend on the situation. I use them to stay in touch with people, to network, to promote myself and to learn about new features and applications. The point is that myself, along with much of the rest of the world gets lazy when we are in front of a computer.

Productivity is not Measured by Hours Some people feel productive if they sit in front of a computer all day long and answer a few emails. A great day would be when you participated in a long chain of emails that came to a conclusion. In reality, that “productive” day could have been accomplished in a fraction of the time it took but so much time was wasted between each check of the email that it seems like you never stopped working.

Productivity is measured by accomplishments For me, a productive day is a day where I waste as little time as possible and accomplish something that will bring me closer to a goal. Sometimes that goal is finishing a project or a major piece of a project for a client or securing a new client altogether. Sometimes it’s doing something to promote myself or my business. No matter what it is, it is measured in accomplishments, not time spent on my computer or number of emails answered. The same can be applied to your personal time. When you come home from work, do you turn on the TV? Do you go online to surf the net? I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with doing either of these activities but I am saying that you should know what you are getting into. For example, instead of just turning on the TV, consciously decide “I need to relax so I’ll watch 2 shows”. Instead of just going online, decide “I’ll check the news and then see who’s online to talk to for the next 30 minutes”.

Unless….. Unless… you just want to “waste time”. But, if you’re reading this blog, you probably don’t want to waste time. This blog is about getting lucky and finding opportunity in everything that we do. You can’t find opportunity when you keep doing the same thing over and over. As the Albert Einstein so eloquently put it, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. When we turn on the TV, we end up watching the same types of shows, often while zoning out. When we spend time on social networks, we end up spending time with the same friends and sharing the same type of content with each other. If you want to get lucky online, participate in new conversations on open networks like Twitter or finding new types of content through sites like StumbleUpon. Just make sure that before you log on, that you decide what you will be doing and for how long you will be doing it. Otherwise you just get sucked in. If you have an agenda before starting something, even as simple as checking your email, you will end up saving yourself a lot of time that otherwise would have been wasted. Then you can squeeze more activities into your day, be more productive, accomplish much more and get really lucky. Pic: Grahambones Similar Posts:

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Get Lucky Because You Have Nothing Better to Do!

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:28:00 -0400

Doing something because you “have nothing better to do” always seems to have a negative connotation. You are bored and someone asks you if you want to go to the mall and your response is “okay, i’ve got nothing better to do”. I personally think that doing something because you have “nothing better to do” is the absolute best thing you can possibly do with your time. If you think about it, having “nothing better to do” means that the particular activity that you are thinking about doing is the absolute best thing you can possibly be doing with your time at that given moment. Obviously if you are bored and have nothing to do and going to the mall becomes an option, it is the best thing you can do at the moment. I love going to the mall because it is full of lucky opportunities. Something is always happening at the mall. You can people watch, notice trends, see the newest products, get a feel for what is going on in your community and so much more, but that’s just the mall. I work because I have nothing better to do. I love the work that I do, I love being creative and helping people and I love making a living to support my family. I can’t think of anything better to do with my time during the day when my kids are at school. I spend time with my family because I have nothing better to do. My family is the most important thing in my life and I can’t think of anything in the world that I would rather do than spend time with my family. I blog because I have nothing better to do. I love to blog and share my thoughts with anyone who is willing to listen. I enjoy getting my ideas down on paper (or an electronic document). Most of all, I enjoy reading through my archives and impress myself with articles I’ve written in the past. As you can see, doing something because you “have nothing better to do” is a really good thing and you should be doing everything in life because it is the best thing you can be doing at any given moment. What are you doing because you have “nothing better to do”?

Picture Credit: SAMAEL TRIP Similar Posts:

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