10 Reasons To Love An Empowered Woman

If you are looking for someone you can pour out your love to, let me suggest the empowered woman. The empowered woman knows what she wants, knows how to get it, knows how to live fully, and she knows how to love you back without needing anyone’s approval or recognition.  An empowered woman is unarguably one of the most magnificent beings you will ever come in contact with.  Read on and find 10 reason why you should absolutely love and embrace the empowered women in your life! .

1. She knows how to love you in return

It is difficult to give what you don’t have. It is impossible to love someone and feel fulfilled when they can’t love you in return because they don’t love themselves.  This will never happen to you when you love an empowered woman.  She loves herself (not in a narcissistic manner). In turn, she appreciates who you are and loves you in return. She will love you just like you deserve to be loved.

2. She will inspire you

When life puts you down and you are at the end of your rope, the empowered woman will be there to see you through.  Her drive, enthusiasm and (at times) hopeless optimism will inspire you to carry on despite the obstacles you face.

3. She is not afraid of failure

While many out there are thoroughly terrified of failure, the empowered woman understands that failures are simply stepping stones in life.  How can you not love someone that is thoroughly unafraid to try, fail, and give it a shot all over again?!

4. She is all about the legacy

While most people are focused on the car, the house, the job, and corner office; the empowered woman is focused on leaving a legacy that will inspire others and change the world.  The empowered woman is focused on empowering others to maximize their potential and fulfill their purpose. She is all about inspiring others to look beyond themselves and live a life of service to others.

5. She can laugh at her mistakes…

…and learn from them as well! She understands mistakes are part of the journey. The empowered woman can laugh and learn from her mistakes to ensure they never happen again.

6. She can be vulnerable

The empowered woman understands there is no debt in relationships without vulnerability. Although she is emotionally strong, she is willing to laugh and cry with you because all of these emotions are an essential part of life.

7. She can speak her mind

While everyone else is too concerned with what others may think or say, the empowered woman is not afraid to speak her mind.  She understands that her value comes from within, not from what others say or think about her.

8. She knows when to remain quiet

She lives by Abe Lincoln’s words, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

9. She knows how to have fun

Whether it is at the symphony or at a ball game, the empowered woman understands life is made up of experiences with people – not the places you go. She is able to live in the moment and enjoy it fully without being concerned for the future. After all, who’s got a guaranteed future?

10. She is not afraid of change

While most people rather continue on living unfulfilled lives as long as their comfort zone remains intact, the empowered woman is all about embracing change.  She understands growth cannot happen without change. She understands that change is the gift life offers you to choose your destiny. Therefore, she is not afraid of change because it is her stepping stone towards success.

Featured photo credit: skeeze via pixabay.com

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Stop Wasting Time on the Details and Commit to the Fundamentals

I was in the gym one day, training like usual, when my coach made an important observation. It didn’t take me long to see how this discovery applied to other areas of my life as well.

Here’s what happened.

We looked across the gym and saw someone performing lateral raises with dumbbells while standing on a Bosu ball. (This is an exercise that focuses on smaller muscles in the shoulder and doesn’t do much for the rest of the body.)

My coach watched for a moment and then said, “Imagine how good you have to be for that exercise to be the thing that gets you to the next level.”

His point was that this person was focusing on an exercise that improved a few, tiny muscles in their body while ignoring the more important foundational movements. Even an Olympic athlete who had mastered the basic movements (squats, bench press, etc.) could not honestly look in the mirror and say, “You know what’s holding me back? I’m not doing enough lateral raises.”

In other words, the problem is that too many people waste time on the details before mastering the fundamentals. And I’d say the same is true outside of the gym as well.

The Courage to Master the Fundamentals

Everybody has the same basic body and needs, and we have to have the courage to train the fundamentals, the basics, at least 80% of the time. Sure, add some spice in there now and again, but focus on the basics.
—Dan John

Committing to the basics and mastering the fundamentals can be hard. And I get it. I’ve struggled to fall in love with boredom and focus on the basics many times.

For example, as an entrepreneur it is very easy for me to spend my days working on the details. Should I make a small tweak to my website design? Should I answer these 50 emails? Should I switch my payment processor so that I can save an extra 2 percent on fees?

All of these things have a place, but that place should not be at the top of my to-do list. Instead, my time would be better spent focusing on the fundamentals. For example, writing two really good articles each week.

Avoid the “Edge Cases”

In the words of my friend, Corbett Barr, people waste too much time debating edge cases. Edge cases are the what-ifs, the could-bes, the minor details — the things that might make a 2 percent difference, but mostly distract you from the real work that would make 80 percent of the difference.

• If you’re considering a new diet, but you’re worried that you might not be able to stick with it when you go out with your friends on Thursday nights, then you’re worrying about an edge case. Thursday night isn’t going to make or break you. It’s the work you put in during the other 20 meals of the week that matters.
• If you’re starting a business and you’re debating over business cards or shipping methods or a thousand other things that could delay you from finding your first paying customer, then you’re stuck on the edge cases. You can optimize later. Meanwhile, delaying this decision is bringing in exactly zero dollars.
• If you’re trying to “get all of your ducks in a row” or figure out “the right way to do this” then you’re probably giving yourself an excuse to avoid the hard decisions. Research is only useful until it becomes a form of procrastination. In most cases, you’ll discover better answers by doing than by researching.

The greatest skill in any endeavor is doing the work. And for that reason, most people don’t need more time, more money, or better strategies. They just need to do the real work and master the basics.

Don’t Fear the Fundamentals

Most people avoid the fundamentals because they don’t have the guts to become great at them. When you eliminate everything that is unnecessary, there are no details to hide behind. You’re left with just the basics and whether or not you have mastered them.

It’s easier to tell people that you’re “working on a new strategy” or you’re “doing more research.” It’s hard to say, “I’m focusing on the basics, but I haven’t made much progress yet.”

Do you have the courage to simplify and become the best at the basics? Stop wasting time on the details that make the last 10% of difference.

What good is a lateral raise if you can’t do a proper press? What good is a fancy business logo if you haven’t found your first paying customer? What good is a better guitar if you haven’t built the habit of practicing each day?

Without the fundamentals, the details are useless.

Featured photo credit: Brenderous via flickr.com

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If You’re Looking For An Honest Review of Android 5.0 Lollipop, You Can’t Miss This

Nexus smartphones should receive the new Google update any day now. And this update is more than just a little streamlining and some minor design changes.

Android represents a major shift in how Google and Android want to see themselves. Android’s website on the update notes how Android “powers your watch, your TV, and even your car.” Android wants to be a new OS like Microsoft Windows – but even bigger.

The first thing to note is the interface and user design. As great as smartphone and tablet interfaces have been in the past, they still frequently feel like a computer interface with touch options enabled rather than a true touchscreen.

The Lollipop aims to change that. No longer do you have to collapse one window to open another one, which you then have to scrabble about with your finger to reopen at a later time. Google’s new “Material Design” philosophy uses layers and animations to bring a new, interactive feel to this medium.

User interface and the design of Android phones after the Lollipop update are important, but what matters is how well the features work now. Lollipop has improved several of its features, including Ring Boost, in order to make its phones more accessible.

Gmail and Google Calendar are much easier to use from a design perspective and from additions made to those apps. You can also now see notifications on your phone when your screen is locked, which means that you do not need to unlock your phone every time your phone makes a noise. A white card will appear with the notification, which makes it more legible.

These new features and the design upgrades are fantastic, but the simplest and best upgrade that the Lollipop gives is how it affects your battery life. Something that comes with Lollipop is Project Volta, which shows how much battery your apps are using, how much longer your battery has left, and enables a power-saving mode which Android has not had before now.

So, what do all of these improvements mean? It represents how Google and Android are looking to become more than just a smartphone. They want your phone to be connected to your car, which is connected to your Google desktop, which is connected to all of your other devices.

Featured photo credit: Android Police via androidpolice.com

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The Secret Way To Apply For A Thousand Jobs In Twenty Minutes

The pain of applying for jobs over and again can be unbearable.

How many of us scour LinkedIn, Craigslist, Indeed, and AngelList applying for countless positions? It’s time-consuming, takes a relentless drive, and the uncertainty of hearing anything back puts us under constant stress.

What if all this pain could disappear in just twenty minutes?

I was working and miserable. The worst part: I didn’t have time to apply for jobs. I only sent out a resume or two a week. I was stuck.

I needed a better way. But how can you submit a cover letter and resume to companies without actually doing the work?

Then it hit me: I should let someone else do it for me. Instead of countless hours applying for jobs, I could spend twenty minutes and $100 to submit my resume to a thousand positions. And here’s how you can do it too:

Outsource a huge list of emails for companies in your niche – I suggest the freelancing sites Elance and Upwork. It’s crucial that you send a clear message to freelancers for what you require of them.

Creating a list of relevant companies is rather easy. For instance, it can be as simple as Googling “top digital marketing companies in the U.S.” On the first page, I found a list of hundreds of digital marketing companies in the U.S. right here.

Now when you post your job request on a freelancing site, make sure to include the link to your list of companies. When you do this, the freelancer will realize that collecting the leads will be easy, so they will charge you less.

When you post the job description, this is the template you should use:

“Hey,

I want to source a list of a thousand leads for [certain type] companies. You will have to use either an Excel file or a Google Spreadsheet. The columns need to be separated by company name, address, email, name and email of the hiring manager, and a recent blog post title. If you can’t find the email or name of the hiring manager, that’s fine. To give you a head-start, I found a list of the companies to collect data from: (list URL) and (list URL #2).”

Once you receive your list of leads, now the fun begins. If you pick a niche for your job search, you don’t need to change-up your cover letter too much – just company name, company address, and the hiring manager name. Also, the resume you’re sending out doesn’t have to change if you’re applying to a niche.

The first step is to set up a Gmail account that’s separate from your personal one. This will be the account the freelancer uses to send out emails. Make sure the email looks professional and includes your name. So if the normal one you use is johnsmith@gmail.com, your new one might be john_smith@gmail.com.

Now create another job posting on a freelancing site with this template:

“Hey,

I have a list of companies I want to send my resume and cover letter out to. I attached an Excel file (or Google Spreadsheet) with company names, company emails, and hiring manager names and emails, and recent blog post titles. I also attached my resume and cover letter, too. I need you to send out an email using my Gmail account to these companies with my cover letter and resume attached to each one.

Before you send out each email, I need you to change the company name, address, and hiring manager name on the cover letter to match the recipient. If there’s a hiring manager email for the company, then send the message to only that email.

For the email, you will use this template.

Hi [Hiring manager name, if no name, then change intro to ” To whom this concerns,”],

I’m deeply interested in your company, and I love your recent blog post, [blog post name]. I’m a [your profession], and I’m currently looking to make a career change. Your company is one of my top choices, and I think I can add immediate value.

I have attached my resume and cover letter for your consideration.

Looking forward to speaking with you,

[Name]

For subject lines, you should use this one: [Position name] – requested job application

Even though the job application was not requested, it’s critical to have the email opened, otherwise you won’t even get a chance.

Once the freelancer accepts the job, send them the login info for your newly created Gmail account so they can start sending out your applications. Also, make sure to check the first ten emails they send out, so you know they’re following the template.

There you have it: a Google search, several templates, and two freelance job postings, and now your resume will go out to a thousand companies.

A little warning: When I used this tactic, I received multiple phone calls every day for two months. On the plus side, I’m employed!

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How to Maintain a Healthy Work-Life Balance in the Age of Technology

We are living in a digital age and are always connected to our computers, tablets and smartphones. Just a few decades ago, when the workday ended at 5:00PM, workers packed up and turned their minds off for the evening. However, because of our constant connection through technology, client emails, proposals and projects have become a part of time spent outside of the office. These extra hours and inability to step away from work have caused many individuals to call for a work-life balance, which places an emphasis on juggling work and maintaining a personal life with family and friends outside of the office.

Here are some suggestions for succeeding with work and your personal life both inside and outside of the office:

Incorporate Physical Activity Into Your Routine

Incorporating physical activity into your routine is an important part of maintaining a work-life balance. Physical activity not only helps to refresh both your mind and body, but also provides mental clarity during a time of stress at work. In addition to this, it keeps your body in optimal physical shape, which makes you feel more productive and healthy. Summer is the perfect time to place an emphasis on physical activity. If your schedule does not allow for going to the gym before or after work consider making this a part of your workday. Step away from your desk and take a walk with a co-worker to gain a new perspective and exercise your muscles.

Separating from Electronic Devices

Another important aspect of maintaining a work-life balance is separating from electronic devices during evenings and weekends. If you feel the need to complete extra work or respond to emails outside of the office designate a specific time for these responses. For example, allow yourself to complete work in the evenings from 6-8 and then close your laptop. Or, respond to emails Saturday morning and then take Sunday off. Find what works best for you and your schedule and make a point to separate from electronic devices and clear your mind. While spending time working outside of the typical 9-5 has become normal in our current workforce, working all day every day is not efficient and will eventually cause you to burn out.

Make Work Productive

The Internet and social media have made our lives faster and easier. Workplace communication that previously took place in the form of long meetings and phone calls has been replaced by quick email and instant message exchanges. While the use of technology for communication has saved us time, it can often serve as a distraction as well. This is important to keep in mind at the office. When you are at work make it productive and spend your hours completing projects and assignments instead of surfing the web or checking Facebook. Consider keeping a time-sheet to monitor your hours and stay on task.

Incorporate Downtime Into Your Routine

Take some time to do what you love whether that means spending time with friends and family or investing in a hobby. Having an active social life often correlates with having a positive work life so make sure to invest in what makes you happy outside of the office. This will provide you a sense of meaning and allow you to define yourself outside of a work role. Feeling overwhelmed by a situation or project at work? Sometimes the best ideas come when your mind is refreshed and focused. Grabbing dinner with a friend and discussing your situation may provide new light and a solution to your problem.

Take some time to see how others in your office maintain a work-life balance and follow their lead. They may have tips to help you achieve the work-life balance you have been looking for.

Featured photo credit: Credit: Stokpic, Ed Gregory via stokpic.com

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Happiness is an inside job. Don’t assign anyone else that…

Happiness is an inside job. Don’t assign anyone else that much power over your life.

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5 Strategies for Making Your Fiction Writing Feel More Immersive

Fiction writers face the challenge of getting a reader interested in their story and willing to invest a significant amount of time to reading the story from beginning to end. If you want people to come along for the ride of your story, you have to give them an experience. You want them to be so immersed in your story that they don’t want to leave until the experience is complete. Below are five strategies fiction writers can use to make their stories feel more immersive.

1. Build an Imaginative Story World

People remember the stories that took them on a journey to another world. People don’t forget the story worlds of Star Wars, The Hunger Games, or Harry Potter because those worlds are unique and vital to the stories that take place in them. Star Wars wouldn’t be the same story if it took place in modern-day Houston. What would Harry Potter be without Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?   Story worlds don’t have to be as elaborately different from our own as the examples above. They just need to be vital to the story that’s being told. The Help by Kathryn Stockett wouldn’t be the same story if it took place in modern-day London.   A well-crafted story world will bring the reader close to the story because they’re experiencing a world that is different than the world they inhabit.   Crafting an imaginative story world involves creating the world’s history, including major events that have impacted the way the world works. For example, the original Star Wars has as a part of its world history the overthrow of the Galactic Republic by Emperor Palpatine. This historical event in the story world impacts what happens in the story that George Lucas told in the original trilogy. Other considerations include:

• Government
• Education
• Culture
• Class Divisions
• Values
• Beliefs

One last consideration would be the laws of nature in your story’s world. Can people fly? Is death unalterable? Does magic exist? Are humans the only rational creatures?   An imaginative story world takes the reader on a journey into a new world.

2. Write in First Person Point-of-View

One of the best ways to make a story more immersive is by taking the reader so far into the narrator’s head that they essentially experience what the narrator experiences. This is the beauty of the first-person narrative. In first-person point-of-view, the narrator tells his or her story instead of telling someone else’s story. Using first-person pronouns such as I, me, my, and even we and us, the narrator lets us see the story play out through his or her eyes. Suzanne Collins used first-person narrative effectively in The Hunger Games as Katniss Everdeen relates what is occurring in the story from her perspective. Notice the difference between the two sentences below.   Third-person: Claire picked up the necklace and placed it around her neck. First-person: I picked up the necklace and placed it around my neck. First-person narrative takes us as close to the action of the story we can get and allows us to experience the story as if we were happening to us.

3. Write in Present Tense

Stories are often written with past-tense verbs, which means the narrator is relating events that occurred sometime in the past. Read the example from above again with the past-tense verbs highlighted. Claire picked up the necklace and placed it around her neck. Present tense verbs bring us to what’s occurring in the moment. In present-tense narration, the narrator is relating the story as it’s happening. Claire picks up the necklace and places it around her neck. Writing in present tense serves to make the readers feel like they’re eyewitnesses to the action of the story as it’s occurring. Veronica Roth used this well in the Divergent series as Tris conveys to us every moment of what she’s experiencing as it happens, bringing the reader as chronologically close to the story as possible.

4. Create an Emotional Journey

When we look back on their lives, the memories that had the most emotional impact on us are the ones that stick with us the most. It’s the same with stories. The stories that engage our emotions stick with us because emotions are the strongest and most prevalent experience we have. If a story can make us experience emotion, the deepest part of us is brought close to the story, and we’re not likely to forget it. When it comes to tapping into emotions, the stories that impact us the most tend to include moments of two people falling in love or someone losing someone they love to death. But these aren’t the only way to appeal to emotions. You can appeal to events that bring joy, anger, despair, or fear. Nobody forgets the emotions they felt when Harry Potter watched his godfather Sirius Black die in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Tapping into emotions causes people to experience something as a result of your story.

5. Write Visually

Nothing will bring a reader closer to a story than causing them to use their imagination as they’re reading. You want the reader to see in their mind the action that you’re describing. You do this by using sensory language. Sensory language is simply writing in a way that appeals to the five senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell), and the best way to communicate how to do it is to give an example. Mark notices the chatter of people as he steps inside the restaurant. The aroma of fresh-baked bread hits him, reminding him of the way his house used to smell when Taylor would cook for him. He steps to the counter and is surprised by how much the woman behind the counter looks like Taylor with her blond curls and wide smile. He gathers himself and orders a coffee. Minutes later, Mark sits down at a table, a warm cup in his hand. He brings the cup to his mouth and takes a moment to savor the taste of mocha. Notice the sensory details in the example above. By appealing to the five senses, you cause the reader to imagine the details you’re describing, which brings them closer to the story as an experience.

The Key to Immersive Storytelling

If you want to create a more immersive story experience for your reader, the more of these strategies you apply, the closer you bring the reader into your story. And the closer a reader is to a story, the less likely they’ll be willing to leave.

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10 Reasons Why Instagram Is The New High School

And here we had thought that high school was over; that we could make or break our lives without worrying about what others thought o us. Hardly had we anticipated the meteoric rise of Instagram, the new (and improved) high school. Undeniably, it looks good from the outside. The filter and angles make you see different perspectives but soon one realises that the quagmire of crab-like vindictiveness is onto you. And back to school you go. This is how it unfolds.

1. Your Popularity is Based on Likes

You thinks that you are educated, aware and that human nature cannot get the better of you? You will be not-so-pleasantly surprised to see you craving for likes. You realise that these ‘likes’ up your popularity meter. It is no more a question of mere acceptance but that of getting fame and recognition on the basis of these clicks.

2. There are Cliques

Once you enter into the world of Instagram deeply, you realise that there are age-specific, region-specific and interest-specific groups. These groups are close-knit and they stick together. Reposting and shouting-out to each other, they help in creating an elitist system where some members are more revered than others.

3. They are Hard to be Accepted into

Going on from the idea that the number of likes and followers are important and being part of a group is even more so to be ‘suggested’ as a user of Instagram, it is mighty difficult to become accepted into these virtual groups. This is especially true when you are doing something different and no to the taste of others.

4. Instagram is Only Partially True

While we use the app to showcase our lives and express happiness, we are also aware that we only show what we want people to know. This is in fact true of all social media. It demonstrates the parties, food and all the places we visit but it also has silences with regard to fights, troubles, heartbreaks and despair.

5. Posts are Filtered

With the reality being only half-baked, the perception of reality also becomes heavily skewed and more aesthetic. Life in general is normal and ordinary but Instagram has the ability of making them unreal and too beautiful to be true. Sounds like high school? We think so too. You go deeper and you understand the partial treatment you find.

6. It is a Cauldron of Jealousy and Self-Esteem Issues

Similar to high school, the social structure makes it a tough place to battle with acceptance by oneself and by others. Looking at the likes and followers of others makes it a very commonplace affair to be envious by the popularity of others. Thousands and thousands of likes can cripple creativity when ones own post rack up mere numbers.

7. lt is a Most Superficial App

It does not add to productivity or create any kind of revenue but all it does it attract attention. This is particularly true of how high school functions. While it provides you with a lot of practise to deal with real life, it is not real life. One can use this app to reach out to an audience, but it can equally open you up to new people if and only if you have the right connections. One would think that Instagram has democratised art or photography but it is not so because of my following point.

8. You Have to Have a Theme

Much like everything that a structured society follows, Instagram pretends to be a creative space that allows freedom. One realises that this is not true when one looks at accounts that do really well on the popularity charts. It is expected that your account must have a single-minded focus and a quirky enough theme that you have to mindlessly keep on posting about even if you are bored to death of it. This surely kills motivation when anything out of your chosen theme crops up on the feeds and racks up single digits.

9. It Encourages Aloofness

With such hoards of problems that dog an ordinary or lay user on this ‘social’ app, one finds no other way but to absolutely stop caring about likes, followers and shout outs. Which is defeating the purpose of it being a social networking site. Remind anyone of school times? When tired of all the drama, people just chose to reach back into their shells and do their own thing? The Instagram version of that is the lack of use of hashtags and just putting up things for the love of photography and not to seek inspiration.

10. The Grapevine

Lastly, High School had a perfect way of communicating gossip and rumours. This is the modern version of the ‘Burn Book’. Instagram is the best way of keeping tabs on the lives of others. Noticing comments and likes would reveal a lot about our near ones and lots of people use it to their benefit, continuing the plague of bitchiness and overall voyeurism. Not to say that Instagram is not open to everyone. It is. But one cannot deny that if you can crack the code, you can pass the test.

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