Tema: Deus
Se estamos no alto, Deus é tudo. Se estamos em baixo, Deus é uma compensação para a nossa miséria
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terça-feira, novembro 03, 2015
Huxley, Aldous
Tema: Constância
A constância é contrária à natureza, contrária à vida. As únicas pessoas completamente constantes são os mortos
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A constância é contrária à natureza, contrária à vida. As únicas pessoas completamente constantes são os mortos
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Michelet, Jules
O amor não mata a morte, a morte não mata o amor. No fundo, entendem-se muito bem. Cada um deles explica o outro
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Chamfort, Sébastien-Roch
O amor agrada mais que o casamento, pelo mesmo motivo que os romances divertem mais que a História
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5 Things You Must Know To Negotiate An Auto Insurance Settlement
Two years ago when snow squall hit a highway in Ontario, Canada I was one of the unfortunate people driving. Fifteen vehicles piled up. I was in the middle. A snow squall, by the way, is a snow storm which causes a whiteout, but lasts only few minutes. But in those few minutes I ended up on the wrong side of the auto insurance claim process. I will save the rest of the story for later and get straight to the point. I will assume you have comprehensive coverage, the accident is serious, the car is totaled but there is no injury.
1. Do not admit fault when you start a claim
Before you call the insurance company think about the events and present a clear story. But do NOT admit fault. If you admit fault and the other person does not, you are at 100% fault. The fault is something the insurer determines and we agree, disagree or negotiate because faults are not always clear. There are provincial/state fault determination rules which you and your insurer can use to determine fault.
Always remember to present your story in the best way possible and negotiate for less or no fault. If you don’t, no one will and you will be at fault! No one will tell you this: there is nothing like 50% fault from the premium payment point of view. A fault is a fault and your premiums will hit the roof if you do not negotiate properly. A basic rule of thumb is to save all your negotiations energy for claim settlement and then negotiate fault to the point of being totally absurd.
2. Do not let the insurance adjuster call you
It is important to recover from the shock and take your time before you can negotiate. If you get a call from insurance adjuster, offer to call back at a time that is convenient to you. Give yourself about 2 hours to call back after you have done your research. Research is mostly about finding the right value to claim. Give yourself at least a week to recover before you call the adjuster. To achieve the best results, it is very important to be fully composed and relaxed when you negotiate. Finding a new, good value car takes at least 20 days. Start looking immediately.
3. Pick an adjuster that is sympathetic to your case
When you call the adjuster, remember you can pick an adjuster if you know how to do it. If the adjuster sounds unsympathetic/unreasonable/hostile, request to talk to another adjuster. Adjusters will refuse. You have to stick to your request and decline to discuss it further. You can tell the adjuster that they are being unreasonable or hostile so you can talk to another adjuster. This is very important. Without the right person all your negotiations will be futile.
4. Calculate the true value of your claim using this method
Always remember that the value of your claim is what it costs you to buy a vehicle similar to the one that was in the accident. Always remember that the value of your claim is what it costs you to buy a vehicle a) similar to the one that was in the accident, b) available in the current market near you. That is not something your insurance company can randomly come up with. You have to show your costs based on what you are able to find in the market. Left to them, they usually come up with much less than what is due to you (potentially leaving you with an option 20% lower than what you deserve).
Search car sales websites for vehicles on sale within 15 or 20 kms from your city, focusing on finding the same model that has similar kilometers. You should leave the very low priced ones out and pick 3 or 4 higher priced vehicles and average them. Your adjuster may ask you to drop the high priced ones. But never let the adjuster not consider the market price.
Do this search and averaging before negotiating so you know what to expect. Your claim settlement will be an average value plus HST, plus some risk amount for the purpose of negotiation. Never ask the actual value you expect (that is the baseline you are willing to settle for); always ask about 5–10% more and back this up with the average price of vehicles for sale.
Remember to keep a bank fund ready that will allow you to efficiently buy a vehicle when you find it. Do NOT wait for claim money to reach you. Get the best value vehicle you can from money borrowed from the bank and return it once you receive your claim.
Drive safe. There is almost always something we could have done to avert that accident or escape from it. That something may not be just ‘hitting the break early’, it may be your choice to drive at that time and place. Precaution, at the end of the day, is the best insurance.
So, you may be wondering where is the 5th thing!
5. Do not negotiate with your inner voice when it comes to road safety.
Take that turn, drive slow, or make the call not to drive. Avoid accidents.
Featured photo credit: Citroen via albumarium.com
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Creating An Effective Blog
You’ve most likely toyed with the idea of creating a blog before, but may have been hesitant for a variety of reasons. Maybe you weren’t sure what to write about, or if what you had to say would be worth reading. Maybe you had some amazing ideas but weren’t sure how to get noticed.
Whatever the case may be, let’s get one thing straight: with literally millions of blogs out there on the Internet, it definitely isn’t easy to stand out. But it’s not impossible.
When creating a blog, keep the following tips in mind if you want to maximize your potential for success:
1. Be presentable
I know that content is king, but be serious: you’re not going to get noticed if your blog isn’t designed in a welcoming and user-friendly way. Pick the right web host for your blog, especially if your aim is to grow your business through your online writing. You could create the most incredible content known to man, but if your site design doesn’t live up to your audience’s standards, they’ll pass right by you and move on to the next best thing.
2. Be unique
Every single person on this planet has at least one unique quality that deserves to be shared with the world. Your blog is your opportunity to showcase your individuality. It’s your place to share your own opinion using your own voice. Don’t fall into the trap of discussing topics that don’t interest you just because they’re trending; not only will you come off as phony, but the people who read your blog won’t be the people you want reading it. Stay true to yourself, and like-minded people will follow.
3. Be consistent
If you’re not consistent with your blog, you’re going to end up lost in a sea of RSS feeds and bookmarks, even if the content you do post is incredible. Your content should focus on one specific topic, or at least stay under the same umbrella. If you write about fashion one week and computer hardware the next, you’re only going to confuse your audience. Similarly, you want to post consistently as well. If you post great material three times in one week, and then disappear for a month, you’re going to lose all the followers you gained throughout your initial venture. Be consistent, and you’ll create a consistent audience base.
4. Link to others
There is absolutely no reason to pretend you’re the only one out there talking about the specific topic your post is about. If you saw a post on another blog that was the basis for your post, link to it. If you know your audience will benefit from another source, link to it. By showing that you’re knowledgeable about other sites and sources within your industry, you’ll become more trusted by your audience and customer base.
5. Invite comments and critiques
Your blog could potentially be seen by thousands, if not millions, of individuals, each with their own ideas and perspectives. Make your content open-ended so as to invite conversation and dialogue, even with those who disagree with you (and believe me, they’ll make themselves known). Not only will doing so create a strong bond between you and your readership, but you could also learn as much from your audience as they learn from you.
Like I said, you’ll also face your fair share of criticism, and that’s okay. Rather than taking negative comments personally, use them as a springboard to improve your writing and knowledge in order to create even better content in your next post. However, you do want to make sure you filter out the spam and trollish comments; they take away from the integrity of your entire blogspace.
Featured photo credit: ~C4Chaos ~C4無秩序 / blogging station @ Ireland via farm1.staticflickr.com
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Tips For Running An Online Business
I’m pretty sure we’ve all dreamt of quitting our 9-5 desk job, telling our supervisor where to stick it, and starting our own online business. While being your own boss and creating your own income certainly could change your entire life around, it isn’t as easy as it might seem. It takes a vast array of knowledge and skills, coupled with dedication and perseverance. However, creating a successful online business can be done, as long as you’re willing to put the effort into it. Start by:
1. Learning new skills
Even if you’re simply going to hire specialists to do your programming, web design, and marketing, you still need to know at least a decent amount about each area of your business. For example, nothing aggravates a graphic designer more than having spent hours and hours working on a project only for a rather ignorant client to reject it while saying “It’d be better if…” However, if you have a general idea of what makes a good design, you’ll be able to discuss with your designer the most effective way to get what you want.
2. Dedicate the necessary time
You probably get the same emails everyone else gets promising thousands of dollars in income within thirty days. And, even though some of them might seem a bit tempting, you most likely know that these are absolute lies intended to scam honest (yet gullible) people out of their money. Unless you’ve discovered the fountain of youth, your business is not going to make a killing right away. Accept that there’s no “secret formula” to success, and that you have to put in some good, old-fashioned hard work if you want your business to grow.
3. Stay organized
There is going to be a lot to keep track of when starting your own online business. Between tracking income and expenditures and scheduling meetings and appointments, there’s absolutely no way you can keep it all in your head. Create a system that works for you so you are prepared for all the tasks that lay ahead of you each and every day. It will save you the time, energy, and frustration involved with going about things “on the fly.”
4. Spend wisely
There’s no question about it: you have to spend money to make money. But this doesn’t mean you should take out thousands of dollars in loans only to watch it evaporate into thin air. Do your research when making business purchases. This goes along with learning new skills and being knowledgeable in a variety of fields. Avoid bad web hosting services, unreliable employees, and faulty equipment, and you’ll end up saving a ton of money in the long run.
5. Know the etiquette
I mentioned how annoying it is to get daily spam in your inbox. Don’t be that person that inundates your customers’ Facebook and Twitter feeds with posts advertising your product. One quality post will gain much more attention than ten subpar or duplicate links. Don’t just plug your own company, either. When your clients see your business is not just a fan of itself, but of the industry as a whole, they’ll end up trusting you to provide quality products, and you’ll be sure to expand your customer base.
6. Stay focused and optimistic
It bears repeating one more time: you are not going to be an overnight success. Even people like Mark Cuban and Jeff Bezos who seem to have made it big out of nowhere spent years creating their respective empires. And every single one of them has experienced failure at some point in their lives, too. Failure is only the end of a journey if you make it so. If you persevere and learn from your mistakes, failure will only be a bump in the road on the path to success.
Featured photo credit: Getting Business Online Launch / Michele Neylon via farm3.staticflickr.com
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7 Struggles Only People With Concealed Depression Can Understand
It is a hard thing to hide depression. Why would someone do this? Well, for a number of reasons: to make themselves seem normal and strong as opposed to weak and fragile. People that conceal their depression deal with many struggles that many of us can’t understand. Let us look at the struggles these individuals have to go through. My heart goes to each and every one of them.
1. They make efforts to appear normal.
It is fairly normal for people who conceal their depression to appear as happy as everyone else that is around them. I personally feel this to be the hardest and most difficult of the struggles that are listed. When you feel down in the dumps, and you have to show or represent yourself as being “happy,” it takes a lot away from you.
This is a truly sad situation. Having been through all this myself, I can assure you — it isn’t easy at all.
2. Being alone is terrifying.
People with hidden depression know that they like to be alone sometimes. But at other times, it is useful to be with someone. When the depressed become alienated, it is also extremely nerve-wracking because it is so difficult to adjust from being alone to being with someone (and vice versa).
It is complicated, but I have gone through it and I know that this truly does happen.
3. They have the worst types of eating/sleeping habits.
People who conceal depression are either sleeping way too much or sleeping too little. It is a nuisance that they have to deal with. Sometimes, they don’t get any sleep at all. It is a whole roller coaster ride having to deal with the depths of depression.
When I went through depression, I sometimes found it very difficult to get sleep and other days I would just sleep the entire day.
4. They know about life and death very well and closely.
People who hide their depression know that they go through death each single day. They deal with it on a daily basis and so they have a nice view of what life is all about. They know that things should never be taken for granted.
5. They look for a purpose in life.
People who conceal their depression yet again look for a purpose to life. They search for something that fuels their passion to an extent. Searching for their calling is something that comes naturally to them. They love to look at the depth in life…and everything in it.
6. They also try to discover love in small ways.
Just because someone tries to hide their depression doesn’t mean that they aren’t looking for love. As a matter of fact, because they aren’t feeling up to the mark, they find love in small places and small ways. They may feel away from love so they try to grasp it when possible. So, if you love someone who tries to hide their depression, know that they may be some of the most beautiful and strongest people out there.
7. They have outbursts of crying at times when things get too much.
When they can’t handle the pressure, these people like to cry it out. Many times it is hard to understand why they are feeling a certain way, so the best thing to do is just let it all out. Know that it is all right if they do so. In the end, crying helps them feel better. It helps achieve a state of accepting their emotions on a human level, and that is okay to not try and be perfect all the time.
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Techniques for Choosing anh Effective Hosting Service to Maximize Sales
Your online sales primarily depend on your search engine rankings. Website downtime is one of the drawbacks of an ineffective or bad web hosting service. If website downtime continues for weeks or months, Google removes the website from the index.
In marketing terms, there are two ways to improve your online sales: improve the number of visitors coming to your website and secondly choose effective ways to improve conversion. An ideal web hosting service helps you in achieving both goals.
An effective web hosting service provides:
- excellent customer service
- round-the-clock secure, fast, reliable, unlimited bandwidth
- cost-effective options
- ensures ultimate control panel management
- and provides maximum server space.
Industrial Categorization of Web Hosts
Web hosting services can be categorized as follows.
On Purchase/Cheap Web Hosts
These web hosts focus more on quantitative services than qualitative services. Three key web hosting services include shared hosting, VPS and dedicated server hosting.
Shared hosting is the cheapest of these three services, but it comes with many drawbacks including likelihood of experiencing website downtime, a broken server, unavailability of technical support and lesser security. Therefore, cheap web hosts are not highly reliable.
Free Web Hosts
Since 1999, there has been a flood of free web hosting service providers. Every month, new free web hosts with new services and more attractive packages are introduced. However, these are unreliable for long term business purposes. Free web hosts are also unreliable for secure processing.
Defining Features of an Effective Web Hosting Service
Google keeps a check on the speed of your website and if it finds the website frequently down, it removes the website from the index. It also ranks the websites according to data security.
Here are the factors which affect your online sales, improve conversions and boost your online reputation and search engine ranking to maximize sales.
1. Web Server Uptime
In shared hosting, all the websites are located in a complex of CPUs which work as a unit. If traffic flow increases or many websites are active at a time, the server goes down along with driving your search engine ranking pages down. When a server is down, it shows Internal Server Error or Error 500 to the visitors. Dedicated servers never go down as one website runs on one server only, but these are extremely expensive.
For long term business purposes, web developers prefer VPS hosting for better performance as VPS allows limited server memory and allocated limited resources on a server in one package. For more space or memory, choose other packages.
2. Website Speed and Page Loading
The Page loading speed of your website depends on your server speed. A server should be able to handle any load of traffic 24×7 so that whenever a visitor lands on your web pages, the pages load within standard time i.e. 20 to 30 milliseconds.
Free resource allocation provided by web hosting services like shared hosting increase website downtime and decrease page loading speed. In the Linux VPS web hosting, 1GB RAM is a standard package to maintain traffic load of 2000 visitors a day. If your website receives more visitors a day, then you may choose advanced and premium packages.
The advantage of choosing VPS over shared server is that a VPS is cost-effective and it never reduces the speed of your web pages.
3. Security
As explained earlier, Google ranks websites according to the security they provide to the visitors. A website can individually be secured, but hackers may attack it if your server is not secure. Linux VPS secures its server with Internet Security Protocol. On shared hosting, there is a free resource allocation which makes other websites vulnerable to hackers’ attacks if one website is spammed. Linux does not provide ‘Administrator’ authority like Windows, which make it safer. It also provides you C-Panel security.
VPS hosting is better than shared hosting in the sense that VPS gives more managerial control and administrative authority to website owners. In shared hosting, more control and authority are given to the visitors. If a visitor makes unfavorable changes in the system, you can simply reboot the administrative control in VPS web hosting.
The secure server helps you improve your online reputation. Not only does this mean that Google increases your search engine rank, but customers also trust you more.
Also, make sure that the server has certified protection for MySQL. Ensuring that the service provides 100% data backup and data recovery is also important.
4. Customer Service
24×7 technical support is a promise made by free web hosting services as well, but it is a claim fulfilled by only a few. Due to free resource allocation in shared hosting, the server and website are often down. A common complaint about shared hosting is of inefficient and often unavailable technical support and customer service.
If you want to choose the best VPS hosting then make sure that the service fulfills the promise of 24×7 technical support so that your visitors never leave your web pages due to technical errors.
5. Framework Control and Easy Installation
Web developers prefer to operate e-stores from a Linux operating system. It is not only lighter in weight, but it also allows easy installation of applications and software. But a poor web hosting service may interfere with software installation. For example, shared hosting restricts software and app download and installation because the server may go down due to loading content.
Linux VPS, on the other hand allows free and easy software and app downloading and installation without interfering with the speed or performance of your website. If you need to install more software or apps and your website resources are exceeding than the resources provided by the server then you may choose a premium package for more resources.
It also allows you to use multimedia techniques for content optimization, i.e. text content, photos, videos and audio files, which helps in optimizing social engagement across social media.
Top Indicators You Should Change Your Web Hosting Service
2014 was the year of hackers, but 2015 started with improved strategies against hackers. In January 2015, cybercrime rate dropped from 72.6% to 67.4%. Out of all the attacks made by hacktivists, 33.7% attacks were made in MySQL. August 2015 trends show that MySQL is still the most vulnerable entity against foreign invaders.
Here are the top indicators that it is time to change your web hosting service.
- Frequent website downtime – Check website downtime and uptime with the help of free software like Site Uptime, Internet Seer, HyperSpin, HostTracker, SiteProbe, Uptrends, and Website Pulse or with the help of Google Webmaster tools. When the website is down, it shows Error 404 to the visitors.
- Failure in Database Connection – Technical web hosting service support is required to establish the data connection. If the data connection fails to establish often there is a need to move your web hosting service.
- Internal Server Error – When your web hosting server is down, it shows Error 500 on the screen to the visitors of your website.
- Poor Customer Service – Webhosting service should be available 24×7 for your technical support, if it is promised in the package.
- Slow Page Speed – When the server gets overloaded with traffic, it reduces the speed of web pages. There are many website speed tests to check the speed of your web pages. You may also use Google Webmaster tools or free speed test tools like GTMetrix, Pingdom, YSlow, WebpageTest, Web Page Analyzer, Load Impact, OctaGate Site Timer and Google Page Speed.
- Outgrown Website – If you have chosen a limited service web host then you may need to change it if your website outgrows its services. If your web hosting service is satisfactory, then you may purchase a higher or premium package.
Choosing an efficient web hosting service not only increases your online sales by optimizing your SERP, but it also grows customer trust in your brand. Word-of-mouth marketing, lead generation and adding value and quality to your business are more potential benefits of choosing an efficient web hosting service. Web hosting services like VPS and dedicated server hosting help you improve your return on investment, but VPS is a more affordable option especially for small and medium sized businesses.
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23 Proven Strategies to Get Through Any Hardship – and Thrive
Nobody sets out in their life to fail, get hurt by others or get ill, go bankrupt, take on massive debt, take punches from the world until they die.
But when these things inevitably happen – sometimes in a row – it can completely take the wind out of your sails. We have the choice to see the tests as something necessary to improve our lives or otherwise as needless misery.
Most of us grow up setting long-term goals and hearing that quite anything is possible. Then, we encounter more and more resistance as we age – from competition at an ever higher level – and from “circumstances.”
At every level, starting with your college, you are striving for the top 10% (or better). For grad school, then top jobs, it’s always the top 10% of that old 10%. That’s how survival of the fittest works, we’re told.
Except that fitness is but one small factor in the battle to swim through the darkness to the mythical and distant island of “success.” Intelligence and pure hard work are critical, but over-rated. So is luck. That’s why A students end up working for C students often.
Grit is the key ingredient for those that “make” it to the top of any field. Work long enough on any problem and you’ll make some headway, often quite a lot. Even if not the smartest, wisest or the fastest worker, you’ll outlast, outwork and ultimately outperform the smarter, wiser, faster folks.
A Russian saying puts it best. “The slower you go, the farther you’ll get.”
Those with true grit have generally overcome some combination of big childhood traumas, failures in their business and in family and personal setbacks. Yet they have persevered because they felt that life was worth continuing, that all the challenges were there for some big purpose well beyond themselves.
—
In my own life, I grew up in a single-parent home, then emigrated here from Soviet Russia, put myself through college and then law school, managed to survive New York despite Recession, unemployment, massive debt and setbacks in my business and a lot of mini-traumas on the way. Yet, here I am, much stronger than before, more focused, healthier and wiser than before – and more accomplished.
What’s worked for me? An over-riding sense that difficulties come and go, always for good, for growth. A discipline to get through certain problems to the end and also knowing when just to let go. A wealth of patience and a boundless curiosity. Knowing my place and mission in this world and always seeking to improve and change for better – for my own sake and my family’s.
These are the detailed strategies I’ve used to weather through great challenges and come out ahead:
1. Get a grip on life. Stop just surviving and learn to thrive.
First, break the vicious cycle that keeps you miserable and frustrated, poor and running in place. If I can do it, you most certainly can, as well.
2. Value your time above everything else and others will learn to value your time above all.
It’s your most precious resource and is always diminishing.
Until I learned to value my time above all, friends, family and everyone I met could easily manipulate me (on purpose or not, doesn’t matter) into spending my precious time on useless conversations, behaviors, habits, etc. In the end, learn to recognize patterns in your own behavior and the behavior of others to avoid wasting time on conversations that bring no useful, constructive effect to your life or the life of the other person/people.
Once I set limits and acknowledged the obvious bad habits in myself and others to engage in useless conversations – where I wasn’t improving someone else’s life or my own or was otherwise learning and taking something useful away from the experience, suddenly, I saw my time in a completely different light. Others started valuing my time much more and productivity went up a great deal.
3. Create good habits and get rid of bad ones. Keep a consistent (and consistently healthy) daily regimen.
This is a really basic, but under-appreciated point, especially for young invincibles. A solid and consistent daily regimen will keep you in one piece through the lowest of the lows and the highest of the highs.
Here are 12 easy life-changing habits you can start today. Sleep 7-8 hours a night, EVERY NIGHT (and here are 9 ways to improve the quality of your sleep). Wake up early to take advantage of the most productive (morning) time. Get up and stretch from your chair every hour. Pack a healthy lunch and healthy snacks (almonds and other nuts, PopChips, fruits, etc.); eat out sparingly. Take good care of your digestion, because if you don’t, you’ll be miserable too often to function well and die too soon from chronic disease. Walk around quickly as often as you can to get exercise. If you hate the gym like me, do push-ups every morning. Take the stairs, not the elevator, as much as you can. Take good care of your hygiene (don’t be lazy at night), especially your teeth and skin.
Learn how to relieve your stress in safe and reliable ways. Have close friends and family around. Minimize (ideally, eliminate) the time you spend with people that add negativity (jealousy, envy, wasting of time, perpetuation of bad habits) and stress to your life. Exercise regularly. Eat well, consistently. Sleep well. Have a glass of red wine once in a while. Reinforce good habits with others who have them.
Learn to control your impulses. Outrun, out-walk, out-crawl, make a detour around temptation. Acknowledge your limitations and outsmart yourself. Simply stay out of the context where you can’t control your impulses. Simply keep away from unhealthy food, activities, relationships, spending, people, language, influences, etc. Be smart and cautious enough to nip trouble in the bud.
Learn to say no to people. This is by far one of the most important skills and habits of all. Practice makes perfect.
4. Take good care of your mind.
Find a highly recommended therapist with a sliding scale to help you dig through and unpack and throw away all the awful baggage from childhood that’s holding you back from seeing yourself in a healthy way and moving forward with life and succeeding. Drop the stigma. Create good habits around positive thinking, stress relief (see above).
Make no mistake – your mental health (or lack thereof) will make you or break you.
5. Eliminate negativity from your life as much as you can, day in and day out.
Be relentlessly positive, even while remaining a realist pragmatist. This means removing people that put you down or shower you with jealousy, envy and unproductive and unhealthy ways to spend time. Minimize listening to depressing music and watching depressing movies. Manipulate your mood for the better with music that lifts you up and keeps you moving forward.
Value your time above all (see #2).
6. Develop a negotiation mindset in all your dealings with people.
Practice negotiating for cheaper coffee or fruits at the farmer’s market, where you have nothing to lose. Research, understand and internalize your true value to employers, business partners, landlords and all others you deal with. Be confident about your capabilities and set your limits when you go in to negotiate. Come in with concrete and measurable facts about what you’ve done, on what budget and time frame, how much money and time you’ve saved the team and company. Practice with a coach or a no-holds-barred friend beforehand.
Before I ever negotiated for anything, I was hampered by all sorts of insecurities and hidden scripts in my head that were passed down from parents, siblings, friends and cultural vectors. When I met my wife, who grew up in Morocco and negotiates for a living, the paradigm was turned upside down. In Morocco, NOT to negotiate is insulting and looked down upon. Locals always know the true price and the “acceptable” margin. EVERYTHING is negotiable. I slowly untangled my own hangups about negotiation, learned to understand my own true value to an employer or business partner or vendor in each case and started practicing with negotiation in a Moroccan bazaar, where there was absolutely nothing to lose.
With time, I successfully negotiated a full-time offer with benefits after being offered a contract. At that job, I ended up negotiating a 23% discount ($45K off) on financial management software – far better than expected for a company of our size. I then negotiated a cap of 1% on rent over 5 years (saving the company $17K). At another job, I negotiated $10K and better benefits/perks higher before starting. Since then, I’ve negotiated big discounts (20% or more) on everything from moving company expenses to rent, consulting rates, car rental fees, credit card fees, hotel chain points, coffee and all sorts of other large and smaller purchases.
After a while, developing a negotiation mindset has not only saved (and made) me tens of thousands of dollars, but also given me confidence and competence that are priceless. It’s a snowball effect that consistently opens up big savings, perks, freebies, extra points and other “hidden” benefits.
The rule with negotiation is simple: If you don’t ask, the answer is always no!
7. Connect to something higher than yourself through meditation and finding your roots (culture, religion, nationality, etc).
Put yourself in a context where you feel connected to where you came from and who you are, so you will have the bedrock for growth in your personal life.
My own experience with becoming an observant Jew has been a very long and winding road full of potholes and false turns. I’ve also learned to balance the various parts of my identity in my own way – Russian-American, Kentucky boy, New Yorker, writer, lawyer, financier, entrepreneur, etc. Every person’s path is quite unique and frankly, it should be. Cookie-cutter transformations are often false and rarely last.
8. Practice gratitude daily, right after you wake up and before you go to sleep.
Literally count your blessings each day. Say thanks as much as possible to others, especially your family and close friends (where would you be without them and their support?). Write thank you notes by hand to others to set yourself apart in their mind.
9. Live frugally, within your means. Organize, understand and regularly manage your finances. Find ways to make more money, not just to save and scrimp.
Not knowing the full picture of your finances will be a constant source of stress and family argument. It’s actually critical to your health and well-being. Take it seriously and get your act together ASAP.
Put away at least 6-12 months of earnings as a cushion in case of unemployment or unexpected expenses. Carefully monitor your credit through carefully (Credit Karma, for example). Automate monthly bill payments, monthly savings and investments. Use budgeting tools to control your spending. Understand your cash flows and their timing clearly. Pay off your debts ASAP, starting off with the highest-interest loans first. Find ways to make more money by using your existing (or adding new) skills by freelancing, consulting, coaching or otherwise creating an online business. Learn to live frugally without completely forsaking a lifestyle you actually enjoy.
Living frugally is a virtue, but of course never quite easy, especially if you’re used to a certain level of lifestyle. However, it often means the difference between “a little more fun now/misery later” and “a little less fun now/happiness a little later.”
On a practical note, when you “deprive” yourself of material things you’re used to, you find out that you truly need very little except basic necessities to get by. You will learn to be incredibly resourceful with food, entertainment, budgeting, hosting, dating, finding freebies and discounts and planning ahead. Even though it may seem like an awful chore for the first some time, living frugally actually forces you to become more independent and self-confident in your life choices, focusing you on what’s truly important – experiences above material things.
When I was 9, I helped Mom buy a car for us, so she just had to give a check and we owned the car. At 15, I convinced her to buy a house, despite a shaky job and finances. My approach to money became to spend ahead of making money, which led to awful credit card debt that took years to repay. It caused me to move out of New York for a few months when I couldn’t afford rent after law school. A lack of foresight, research and planning (aspiration without the perspiration) led to a quarter million in student loans from law school right when the Recession hit.
Only when I got married and saw down with my wife (who has always had a much healthier relationship with money) to review our finances, did it hit me just how much my ostrich-in-the-sand attitude had cost me in dollars, sense, time, late payments and opportunities in life. Before this, I had no idea how to budget or understand cash flows, or visualize the full extent and terms of my student loans.
Once I bit the bullet and learned how these things actually work, I felt greatly empowered to get rid of my student debt, optimize credit card spending to maximize points, to negotiate for discounts and otherwise take control of saving and spending. Now, it’s hard to imagine my head was in the sand all this time.
10. Look internally for meaning, not to material wealth, circumstances or to other people.
Stop comparing yourself to others. Liberate yourself from the chains of jealousy and envy. Your only relevant measure of success is against your own potential, which is always much greater than you can imagine at your lowest. Seek experiences, not material goods. Stick to your ethics and morals and never stray from them for anyone or anything.
My mother’s a neuroscience professor and two grandparents were doctors, so I grew up really wanting to be an MD/Ph.D. After my grades tanked in college, it became just Ph.D. After a year in my Ph.D. program, I left with the heavy weight of parental disappointment. I worked for a year and went to law school, realizing mid-way that law was not for me. In the depths of the Great Recession, I went into finance to make a living and realized after 3 years in that I was not doing anything enjoyable or working to my potential. That’s when I left to start my own company in health tech and ended up working for two other startups in the space, doing finance/operations, then product management.
Despite burnout, soul-searching, lots of criticism from family and friends, I persevered to find my sweet spot in helping health tech companies launch and scale quickly. All these experiences – both good and bad – have given me a thick skin and discipline, a better understanding of my virtues and faults, a great set of skills I use in all areas of life and a much clearer sense of what gives me meaning and happiness professionally and personally – and what doesn’t. All of this is well earned and priceless as life experience.
In short, every person’s path is different. Some find their way quickly and others take their time. Neither guarantees success or failure. The journey is just as important as the destination. Keep plowing – and constantly sowing new seeds – through the hard times. Work hard (and smart). Learn as much as you can along the way and you will certainly find your meaning and purpose in the process.
11. Always plan ahead and prepare with as many specifics as possible.
Break down goals into specific tasks. Set deadlines for each task. Track your progress. Celebrate small wins. Use project management tools to help you optimize the process. Set unrealistic, crazy goals – then research how successful people have achieved such goals. Follow their model. No need to reinvent the wheel.
Creative, artistic types have the hardest of times doing this. Having been born this way, I’ve nevertheless forced myself to break down lofty goals like publishing a novel, getting into a new industry, making a certain salary by a certain age, paying off student debt, understanding and managing my finances, etc. The first novel took 7 years. The second took 7 months.
Careful, realistic planning that involves small tasks, specific timelines and budgets brings the lofty into the realm of the possible and doable.
Minimize the number of daily decisions you have to make. Prepare your lunch the night before. Choose what you’re going to wear tomorrow before sleeping. Think Zuckerberg and his famous hoodie and Steve Jobs with his turtlenecks.
12. Research every person you deal with in business and personal life and have a clear picture of what you’re getting into ahead of time.
A couple hours spent on due diligence now can often save you months and months of untangling yourself from frauds, fake friends, failed joint ventures, lawsuits and other nightmares. Caveat emptor.
Before I learned to take myself seriously and set boundaries and rules, I used to fall for all sorts of schemes, one-sided friendships, bad deals, gigs that went unpaid, etc. Once I learned to dig deeper beforehand, this dramatically changed my preparation for dealing with every person I met by choice. Now, before I meet someone, I know exactly where they are coming from, what are their motivations, how I can help them and how they can help me. This makes all interactions instantly more useful and valuable for both parties and cuts out the BS to get right to the point of how we can work together to help each other.
13. Keep a journal and write down your experiences, both good and bad.
This is one of the best ways to give yourself therapy and perspective on what you’ve been through and how you’ve persevered. It is also critical to collecting new ideas and sowing new seeds daily.
In my case, keeping a notebook and pen always handy to take down observations, ideas, new concepts, things I overheard on the subway, lines of poetry, beautiful pieces of art or music I saw or heard, my craziest and most desperate thoughts at my lowest and amazingly inspired reflections at the highest – are all chronicles I can look to anytime to see my own development as a son, husband, father, writer, lawyer, financier, traveler, negotiator, etc. It’s always invaluable to remember who you really are and what you’re capable of when circumstances make you forget.
14. Always take the long view, but show up for the small things every day.
Don’t get too high with the highs in life and don’t get too low with the lows. Always find a way to press ahead. If you take good care of yourself, you will have a long time to work on important problems with your full energy. 5 years is a good reference point for how long it takes to become a top expert in your field and generate solid revenue in the process.
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Don’t waste your time planning to be the first to build Rome overnight. I’ve failed many times trying to build castles from cards overnight. The big successes all took a really long time, lots of hard work and evolution and constant improvement to materialize.
Keep your eyes on the prize. Find ways to stay focused. Constantly prioritize things in the order of what gets you to your goals fastest and most effectively.
Shoot for 1% improvement each day in whatever you’re working on (a trait, a project, a relationship, etc.). Otherwise, you’ll burn out and give up too fast.
15. Use the 80/20 Principle in your interactions with people and in the work you do.
Don’t kill yourself softly with perfectionism. In the end, Getting Sh*t Done always beats Perfect, but Unfinished. Think Most.
Use the concept of MVP (Minimum Viable Product) as a guiding principle when building something.
16. Don’t do it alone.
Cultivate mentors and advisers (in real life AND online, in the knowledge of others who write about overcoming the same problems). Learn from every person – both what to do and what NOT to do. Read widely and voraciously on the experiences of others with the issues you’re having. Nothing that you’re going through, no matter how difficult or painful, has not been faced by someone, somewhere in the world, who’s lived to tell about it.
Enlist help from friends and family to keep you on track and accountable, as well as motivated and encouraged. However, don’t rely on everyone being on board with what you’re doing. It often takes at least a partial success to make even the closest people to you to see the value in what you’re doing.
17. Keep challenging yourself in small ways daily. Don’t just react, be proactive.
Take the stairs. Get up an extra 15 minutes early even though you fell asleep late. Take a walk even if you’re tired. Do an extra lap around the park. Hold yourself off from buying that nice-looking danish. Out-walk, outrun temptation just this once.
This way, you’ll show yourself you’re capable of greater things than you imagine. You’ll slowly push your limits out a little, then a little more. Eventually, this builds into a competition with yourself. This grows into a discipline and habits that are good for health and wealth and productivity, etc. It’s always working on the little things that are attainable from day to day that yields the greatest of results.
Maybe it’s just a personality type, but I’ve always felt driven to push myself beyond laziness (despite being lazy), to remind myself that I’m capable of small physical and intellectual feats that I managed when younger. This means taking a cold shower (15-20 second) every single morning, signing up for a half-marathon one day and jogging 4 miles in the park after not running at all for 6 years, taking the stairs with 40 pounds of groceries, waking up early to go to synagogue despite sleeping far too little, speaking French even when I can use English, writing essays in Russian after emigrating at 9, and many other small and big challenges I set for myself on a daily basis over the years. Maybe it’s a way to stay young at heart.
The point is, it works quite well to keep me physically and mentally nimble despite all the setbacks and hardships in life, the bad logistics and circumstances and other things I can blame when I don’t feel up for doing something. Oh, did I mention having a kid? Nope, no excuses.
18. When you fail, fail quickly and cheaply.
Learn from your mistakes and never make them again. Going forward, avoid jumping blindly into any new venture, relationship, debt, career, trip, religion or scheme. Always do your research ahead of time on the people involved, cost, previous successes and failures for others who’ve been through it. Always get a second, third and fourth opinion. Always look for a cheaper, better, faster option of whatever you’re considering. Don’t trust “gut feelings” until you’ve analyzed in depth all the relevant data to understand the likelihood of success (and failure).
Take calculated risks. See how others who have done the same thing have fared over the short and long term. Read and ask questions on Quora, Reddit, in related forums and in person. Crowd-source solutions from your networks. You’ll be shocked how much useful and highly relevant information you’ll find out there to solve just about any problem you can ever face.
19. Get fired at least once.
Make no excuses when it happens. Take a short time to let the strong emotions pass. Understand without resentment and emotional attachment what went wrong, how to fix it and what you need to learn from the experience.
When you get fired, figure out what you need to do differently to improve your performance. Don’t just blame the boss for being an a-hole and unreasonable. Are you in the right industry and role? Are you more of a start-up person than corporate or are you too risk-averse?
When I was fired once, it was incredibly painful, since it stopped income flow, disappointed my loved ones, shook my confidence and burned bridges. But I got up, rebuilt myself, understood what went wrong after the emotions died down and moved on with the difficult, but necessary lessons.
The key is not to dwell on the disappointment, but instead to see it as something you can (and must) fix. Understand the root causes (you may just suck at the job or care little for what you were doing; it was a bad cultural fit, the wrong role, wrong industry, company size, etc.; likely, it’s some combination of all of these). Now, look inward to understand better who you are, what role you’re happiest in and then find the company that will nurture and push you in that role, then the appropriate industry and title.
20. Live in New York City or London or Paris or other large metropolis for at least a year or two – ideally more.
You will go through many difficult, but amazingly fruitful growth experiences, which will sharpen your mind and craft and earning power and knowledge of human psychology far beyond anything you could imagine if you stayed back home.
Yes, you will fall for many schemes at first and make many blunders and likely fail in a few relationships and business ventures. But you will also build a thick skin, an appreciation for finishing what you start, a taste for competition with the very best and for always doing things at a high level and quality, for good food and drink, for great company, for what exactly it takes to be successful anywhere (you make it here, you’ll make it anywhere).
You’ll often be at the edge of the cliff and at the bleeding edge of everything cool and interesting and important – often at the same time. You will have the best time of your life even while totally miserable – if you survive long enough. You’ll make your best friends – and a few enemies, if you’re really good at something.
21. Dig deep to understand what ROLE you want to play in an organization. Forget industry and title. Figure out what you really want to do in life.
Are you happiest as the caretaker who makes sure everyone else around is healthy and has everything they need to do well in their roles? Are you most comfortable as the subject matter expert everyone goes to? Does it make you feel good to delegate to others and keep hammering the company mission and vision? Do you love selling others on the company’s mission and product?
I’ve had the fortune to work in many different roles, industries and companies over my career. I’ve built my own business, advised and consulted countless others, worked with the CEO and janitor and everyone in between. I’ve done finance and operations, product and project management, strategy, marketing, writing and everything in between. I’ve worked with every personality type from the relentless micro-manager to hands-off delegator to perfectionist and introvert subject matter expert.
Each person I’ve worked with has taught me a great deal about what kind of person I am and want to be, about what role makes me happiest and most comfortable (as well as what roles I hate), about the type of people I want to work with (and will categorically, never work with again). Industry and title are important only after you know that you’re a good and natural fit for the role you’ll be doing and the company where you’ll be doing it, working with the right type of people that will bring the best out of you on a consistent basis.
This way, you will do the best work of your life.
22. Sow new seeds every day.
Listen much more than you talk and absorb others’ knowledge and understanding of the world! Get out of your comfort zone to meet new people (at meetups, museums, markets, interesting events, not bars). Write down 10 new ideas a day on a notepad (and be religious about it). Read new books. Take courses. Learn new languages, skills and facts. Take on new projects and internships. Find new ways to make a name for yourself (and generate revenue in the process). Write thank you notes to people who’ve helped you to stay in touch. Visit new places. Take a new way home. Experiment with new foods and ways of seeing the world. Most importantly, always keep moving forward and have no fear! Never stay still.
You simply never know when a random bit of knowledge will help you get ahead in life, when knowing another language or culture or having a certain skill or worldview will get you in the door of your dream job, when the simple (but rare) ability to listen and empathize with another human being may find you a spouse or new best friend.
My own experience has seen me starting to write a handful of books (novels, self-help and others), tens of articles, meeting tens of thousands of interesting people, changing careers, hearing and telling hundreds of stories, speaking in 4 languages at one dinner table, traveling to 4 continents, taking on far too many projects at once, starting several businesses, learning about my capabilities and limits and countless other amazing experiences I wouldn’t trade for anything, despite the many false leads and dead ends.
23. Just show up (and be on time).
As the cliche goes, this is indeed half of what makes someone successful. Just showing up consistently puts you ahead of the great majority of people in just about anything you do, especially things you do well. Do it long enough and you’ll accomplish great things by persistence alone, even if others have more intelligence, speed or savvy than you.
If there is a “secret” to how I’ve gone through all the hardships in my life, it’s definitely this last point. I’ve been lucky to know people that are more intelligent, faster and more savvy than myself. But the biggest successes generally come from those that have worked a long time at something, regardless of what others think or say.
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As you inevitably go through life and fail sometimes and get frustrated, take more punches, know that it’s all for something, never just to make you suffer.
Grit and determination will get you through whatever hell you’re going through. Don’t give up and don’t listen to naysayers. Everything that comes your way, you can ultimately handle (trust me). Just keep going!
Later in life, you’ll come to see what blessing all the hardship really is. All the same, may your journey be easy and fruitful! I’ll be rooting for you.
Are there other proven strategies you’ve used to get through difficult times? Please share them with the Community in Comments below. We’d love to hear from you!
Featured photo credit: Christian Baron via unsplash.us2.list-manage2.com
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