What is your relation with your money? Money is a necessary thing, and to have and to win money is not a sin (rhyme intended 🙂 ). On the other hand, to live for money is not only a sin but a stupidity. We, as integral human beings, are of much more value than any material concept. This is something I insist a lot in my business seminars: look for money, but never lend your heart to money. In other words, win money, but don’t let money to win you.
Who are the Winners?
Winners are fortunate people, indeed. But except for rare cases, most of their fortune stems from hard work, and more importantly, from a sound and clear mindset. Winners have no time (nor wish) to be moaning about the “harshness of life.” Winners don’t complain about such things, because they understand that life, like a river, exhibits turbulent episodes in some parts, but caress and nourish the surrounding nature, all the way.
Positive Attitude in The Winners’ Mind
Nevertheless, all these years I’ve known a lot of people who are frequently bitching about their lack of money or general misfortune, but what they are indeed lacking is a positive attitude toward their money. Now, what does this “positive attitude” notion mean? Let’s start by answering a few questions:
What really are the kind of thoughts that flood our minds when we think of our money?
Which are the words we utter when speaking about our money and related things (such as mortgage, bank, expenses, etc.)?
In the past, how much success have we attained by spending and investing our money?
Here are some ideas for a motivational speech for a small group of people:
Start with an inspirational story: Begin your speech with a personal or someone else’s story that inspires and motivates your audience. The story should be relevant to the topic you are addressing.
Be authentic: Speak from the heart and be authentic in your speech. Convey your enthusiasm and passion for your topic.
Set goals: Help your audience set achievable and realistic goals. Encourage them to take concrete steps to achieve their goals and not give up in the face of difficulties.
Encourage collaboration: Encourage your audience to work together and support each other. Emphasize the importance of collaboration and building positive relationships.
End on a positive note: End your speech on a positive note, focusing on the accomplishments they can achieve if they work together and stay motivated.
Remember that your speech should be personalized and tailored to the group you are addressing. Talk about your specific challenges and goals, and provide concrete examples to help your audience visualize your success.
You may also want to take a look at my post The 7 Attributes of Leadership, to delve into the characteristics of a true leader, and get a powerful insight about leadership and some cool ideas for a motivational speech.
More tips to cope with stress, a topic we previously addressed in this post.
Manage your time: Feeling overwhelmed by tasks and responsibilities can contribute to stress. Make a to-do list and prioritize tasks based on importance and urgency. Break large tasks into smaller, more manageable ones.
Avoid unhealthy coping mechanisms: While it may be tempting to turn to alcohol, drugs, or junk food to cope with stress, these habits can actually make the situation worse. Instead, try healthier coping mechanisms such as exercise or talking to a friend.
Practice mindfulness: Mindfulness is the practice of being present in the moment and focusing on your thoughts and feelings without judgment. This can help reduce stress and promote relaxation.
Take breaks: It’s important to take breaks throughout the day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Take a walk, stretch, or do something enjoyable to help reduce stress.
Address underlying issues: Sometimes, stress can be a symptom of an underlying issue such as anxiety or depression. If you find that you are struggling to cope with stress, it may be helpful to seek professional help to address these underlying issues.
Remember that coping with stress is a process, and it may take time to find what works best for you. Be patient with yourself and don’t be afraid to seek help if you need it.
Stress is a common experience for many people, and it can have negative effects on your physical and mental health if it is not managed effectively. Here are some ways to cope with stress:
Identify the source of your stress: Try to identify the source of your stress and think about how you can address it. Sometimes, simply acknowledging the source of your stress can help you feel more in control.
Practice relaxation techniques: Relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, meditation, yoga, or progressive muscle relaxation can help reduce stress and promote relaxation.
Exercise regularly: Physical activity and exercise can help reduce stress by releasing endorphins, which are natural mood boosters.
Stay connected with others: Social support can help reduce stress, so try to stay connected with family and friends.
Get enough sleep: Lack of sleep can make stress worse, so try to get enough sleep each night.
Prioritize self-care: Make time for activities that you enjoy and that help you relax, such as reading, taking a bath, or listening to music.
Seek professional help: If you are still struggling to cope with stress, consider seeking professional help from a therapist or counselor.
Remember that everyone experiences stress at some point in their lives, and it is important to seek help if you need it.
Acquiring the habits of highly successful students… that’s a truly important topic! We humans are innate learners, as learning is the cornerstone for survival. We must remember, abstract and apply knowledge in diverse (and often harsh) environments in order to develop into and behave as truly intelligent beings. In short, the adaptability and resilience we exhibit stems from learning. Now, a key issue to learning is the driving force behind it, i.e., the motivation or stimuli to learn. We can learn because of fear (we want to learn how to protect ourselves from danger.) We can learn just out of curiosity (our natural inquisitive behavior.) We can learn because we want to reach some social status (approval of others is a potent stimuli to learn.) We can learn simply because we love to learn new things everyday. There are plenty of reasons to learn and yours may easily be a mixture of these. Health and money are important things in life, but learning is the base for using them wisely 🙂 If we are to succeed in life, we must hone our learning skills.
Simply put, your mind needs some exercise in order to stay young and healthy. The basis for brain’s life is processing of new data and stimuli. Our minds should be regularly exposed to updated information and new experiences, in order to reach higher levels of creativity, openness, speed, and adaptation. Looking for new ways of thinking is an excellent exercise for being smarter and more sociable. Nevertheless, in the following I detail a neat list of simple exercises for keeping a young mind and improving our minds’ state:
In the digital age it is essential to know and apply some tips to reduce eye strain or visual fatigue, and take care of our eyes as much as possible. The ubiquitous presence of screens of all sizes causes fatigue in our eyes, which results in dry eyes, painful sensation when moving our eyes, difficulty to focus, headaches, and evident decrease in productivity. Read on and find out some tips to reduce eyestrain.
In the following, I’ll briefly expand on the key points for achieving success when working in groups. As a result of the complex and dynamic nature of human interactions, you may find working in groups a challenging issue. In fact, the coordination and agreement required by groups is a research topic by itself (see, for instance, this research about the effectiveness of work groups in mathematics.) But the powerful rationale behind groups is the divide-and-conquer approach: a bigger workforce may lead to bigger results (but not always, and in some fields, such as software engineering, it may easily be the opposite.) In this respect, I’ll propose 10 aspects we should strive for when working with other people. You may find this discussion useful for the college, the office or life in general.
How to choose a topic for a thesis or dissertation is an important issue. This post answers a question from a student (you know who you are!). It’s mostly a compilation of experience about visualization, proposal and creation of your thesis or dissertation. Some students fear (or panic) when the time of thesis arrives. I’ve even met people with the EBT (Everything But the Thesis) syndrome, but that is a very complex problem and I’m no psychologist. Please, keep reading if you are not afraid of the document we refer to as “thesis”, and you are determined to succeed. Effectively, the thesis or dissertation represents a written expression of your specialized knowledge, with an scope scarcely above that of the toughest work you fulfilled during your studies (sometimes not even that). Nothing out of the ordinary. It is a document in which you express, typically as the last requirement for the degree, your command over a concrete subject. Often, the thesis is a document of regular transcendence.
How to choose a topic for a thesis or dissertation?
The problem lies in the huge load of stress students have to endure, stemming from the academic and social environments: you have to deliver a work with superlative quality (and has to distinguish you from your peers), the haste to innovation, the won (or lost) prestige, the opportunities, the castles in the air, the afterward, failure poking its head out of the window, the defense, among other factors. But sometimes, to tell the truth, it’s simply that the student has acquired no significant skill in the career’s subjects (not so unlikely as it may seem), or suffers from a traditional chronic laziness. Nevertheless, for the time being we will focus on the essence of the document. Upcoming posts (perhaps) will touch on those surrounding topics.
1. How to choose a topic for a thesis?
Let’s try to unravel the document’s mistery. Best dissertations are done by those researchers very knowledgeable about their topic and about research techniques and methodologies. They know that every study should start by investigating the studied object. In our case, we must first establish whata thesis is, and what its purpose is. Here the average student answers, with praiseworthy self-confidence, that a thesis is a document whose exclusive purpose is to achieve, finally, the degree. Bravo, it’s impossible to be clearer, but we must never forget that, in life, milestones or stages are not as important as the paths and transits between such stages. Yet, something stands out in such answer:
You have to realize that your goal is to fulfill an academic requirement
However, this by no means allows you to take a lot of liberties, or to face up to your research half-heartedly. It’s but a reason to act with humility. There are three key words for thesis’ success:
Humility, Communication and Balance
Irrespective of the importance that you confer to your investigation, at no time you should work thinking of drawing international attention to you, or dreaming of that incredibly remunerated job you will obtain, or about the avalanche of trophies and medals. If you distract your mind with this, at some time you are going to lose your concentration, and the project will just slip out of your hands. Please, remember that the thesis represents, simultaneously, discipline and learning exercises, and you must assume it like so. The composure and integrity you show while walking your paths is more important than the path itself, and than the destination. Finally, realize that a thesis is an exercise of communication. And, never give too much, never ask for too much.
Hello, this is the first content post in You can’t stop the journey. Here, we’ll speak about achieving personal goals. First, do you know what a goal is? According to Wikipedia’s entry:
An objective or goal is a personal or organizational desired end point in development. It is usually endeavored to be reached in finite time by setting deadlines.
And that’s it. A personal goal is that thing you really want to achieve. Normally, achieving personal goals is not an isolated thing. On the contrary, they imply several subgoals you have to reach first. In this sense, we have to define how we are going to conduct ourselves in order to reach the subgoals. Remember, it’s not only the arriving point what matters… the integrity you show while following your path is the most important fact.
Now, what are your life’s goals? Or better stated, what do you want? Money? Family? Health? Education? Fame? A superb job? Please, answer this first honestly. Reaching goals that hold personal meaning to you increases the feeling of happiness. Oh, and… where do you belong? To the material or to the spiritual type?
Now, before continuing, do you have the bases to achieve your general goals? Let’s assume you want that very-well-paid-job. Do you have the required education? No? Then you have to introduce a subgoal related to academic formation. Yes? Then, have you researched the job’s field thoroughly? Do you know the current information trends related to that job? Do you know what is the state-of-the-art in such knowledge area? Do you know who are the best representants of that job? What are the biggest companies? Now, do you have a solid contacts network? Please, start thinking, and start answering.
My own goal with this post is to flame your awareness, cognition and self-view on yourself. That’s the starting point of the journey we will be revisiting in upcoming posts.
