30 Books I’m Glad I Read Before 30 In various ways, these 30 books convey some of the philosophy of how Angel and I live our lives. I honestly credit a fraction of who I am today to each title. Thus, they have indirectly influenced much of what I write about on this site. A medley of both fiction and nonfiction, these great reads challenged my internal status quo, opening my mind to new ideas and opportunities, and together they gave me a basic framework for living, loving, learning and working successfully. If you haven’t read these books yet, I highly recommend doing so. Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert – Gilbert, a Harvard professor of psychology has studied happiness for decades, and he shares scientific findings that just might change the way you look at the world. What are your favorite books? Photo by: Katie Harris
How Not to Be Offended Editor’s note: This post was written by Shemsi Prinzivalli. There is an ancient and well-kept secret to happiness which the Great Ones have known for centuries. They rarely talk about it, but they use it all the time, and it is fundamental to good mental health. This secret is called The Fine Art of Not Being Offended. In order to truly be a master of this art, one must be able to see that every statement, action and reaction of another human being is the sum result of their total life experience to date. Yes, this is psychodynamic. All of that said, almost nothing is personal. This frees us to be a little more detached from the reactions of people around us. This is also not to be confused with allowing ourselves to be hurt, neglected or taken advantage of. The great challenge of our world is to live a life of contentment, regardless of what other people do, say, think or believe. Source: “The Art of Not Being Offended,” from shemsi-prinzivalli.blogspot.gr
Start a Company - F the Rules I am a 28 year old start-up CEO. Last week I read an article titled “the 57 things I learned starting 3 tech companies.” While the list was brilliant, the human brain can only simultaneously hold seven independent thoughts. Lesson #1 – Do something you are passionate about. Really. Lesson #2 – Recruit your friends and colleagues. My company started with two founders. Lesson #3 – Get up Sunday Morning. If your idea is not exciting enough to get you out of bed on Sunday morning, you did not pay attention to lesson #1. Lesson #4 – Put your Money where your mouth is. When we started Ethical Ocean, I had $40k in student debt. Lesson #5 – F the Rules. Ethical Ocean is doing it. All this said, you would not believe how many people discouraged us from starting this company. Working on Ethical Ocean has been one of the most rewarding and enjoyable experiences of my life – and it is only just beginning. Chad Hamre is the CEO of EthicalOcean.com and is based in Toronto, Canada.
25 Great Quotes to Inspire and Brighten Your Day Here’s a collection of great quotes by some of the most inspirational men and women that ever walked this earth. Hopefully you’ll find them inspirational in some way. If you do like them and find them helpful, check out our similar posts by visiting the links listed below. More popular quotations: – 25 Inspirational Quotes – Great quotes to ponder upon Check out all of our galleries with nice quotes here: More great quotes: 100 Tough Things Every Man Must Do AskMen Editors Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Page 1 of 5 Learning to drive stick. Big choices steer the paths of our lives, but it's the little choices that determine if they'll be lives that we can be proud of. If you do these 100 things when confronted with them, you'll be able to walk tall into your old age, your self-respect forever secured. Here are the 100 tough things all men must do. 1. 2. 3. -Matthew Plunkett (AskMen Reader) 4. 5. 6. Learn how to ask for a haircut — or anything, for that matter. 7. Force yourself to talk to new people. 8. When discussing said venture with friends, consensus towards the act’s necessity was split. Eventually noting my suddenly ashen pallor, he said. 9. 10. You hear that a friend has a serious illness. But you have to call, or at least email. If he doesn't want a heavy conversation, then don’t start to emote; let him emote if he wants to but don’t make him deal with your feelings. 11. Of course you have a sh*t voice — isn't that the point? 12. 13.
The Benefits of Top-Down Thinking & Why it is Critical to Entrepreneurs For the first 5 years of my career I was a “bottom up” thinker and worker. I assembled tons of data, grouped things, found results and drew conclusions. It was difficult to make the transition to a “top down” thinker but as a senior executive – and as an entrepreneur – you’re far less effective without this skill in your arsenal. The difference is in formulating hypothesis then testing conclusions / data vs. assembling data and finding patterns. I started my career as a programmer. In billing we literally started thinking about all of the types of bills that would be generated for customers: full payment, partial payment, split payment, senior discount, student discount, level pay plan, etc. I next moved into system design where I designed computer systems to deal with large industrial natural gas customers and telecommunication companies. I spent the first 5 years of my career as a “bottom up thinker.” The wisest mentor I ever had was Ameet Shah, my partner on several projects.
Books.Blog – Skip Graduate School, Save $32,000, Do This Instead Three years ago, I invested $32,000 and the better part of two years at the University of Washington for a master's degree in International Studies. The verdict? It wasn't a complete waste of time and money. Once I accepted that 80% of the course requirements were designed to keep people busy, I enjoyed the other 20% of the work. If you're strictly interested in learning, however, you may want to get a better return-on-investment than I did. The One-Year, Self-Directed, Alternative Graduate School Experience • Subscribe to The Economist and read every issue religiously. • Memorize the names of every country, world capital, and current president or prime minister in the world. • Buy a Round-the-World plane ticket or use Frequent Flyer Miles to travel to several major world regions, including somewhere in Africa and somewhere in Asia. • Read the basic texts of the major world religions: the Torah, the New Testament, the Koran, and the teachings of Buddha. TOTAL COST: $10,000 or less
Why I travel, rather than tour In the artificial silence of transoceanic flights I often look at those around me and wonder: Who are the tourists and who are the travelers? There is a difference. Skip to next paragraph Subscribe Today to the Monitor Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS ofThe Christian Science MonitorWeekly Digital Edition Tourists go to seek a respite. Travel is not just being someplace. I have an ongoing dialogue with an old friend from America's Pacific Northwest who wanders there extensively but refuses to roam the world, as I do. Prejudice grows out of ignorance. It is easy to judge others living on the opposite side of the world based on dispatches from reporters who are trying to compress thousands of years of history and culture into a two-minute story. In a world that seems to be too dangerous to travel around, it is the very act of traveling that is needed to end the violence. In my travels, I relish differences.
How To Become a Millionaire In Three Years /* This was originally a comment made in response to a hacker news thread titled: Ask HN: How to become a millionaire in 3 years? . The comment has over 200 upvotes, which means people found it useful. I decided to add more thoughts, refine existing ones, and put it in a permanent place. This is just my own humble advice and I hope it’s useful for entrepreneurs. I move forward the only direction Cant be scared to fail in Search of perfection -Jay-Z, On To The Next One I’m going to go and replace 3 years with a “short time frame”. Market opportunity- A million dollars is not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly is a lot if the market opportunity is not large enough. Inequality of information- Find a place where you know something that many undervalue. Leverage skills you know- You can go into new fields such as say Finance, but make sure you’re leveraging something you already know such as technology and/or product. Stick with it- Don’t give up too fast.
The Top 10 Relationship Words That Aren't Translatable Into English | Marriage 3.0 Here are my top ten words, compiled from online collections, to describe love, desire and relationships that have no real English translation, but that capture subtle realities that even we English speakers have felt once or twice. As I came across these words I’d have the occasional epiphany: “Oh yeah! That’s what I was feeling...” Mamihlapinatapei (Yagan, an indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego): The wordless yet meaningful look shared by two people who desire to initiate something, but are both reluctant to start. Oh yes, this is an exquisite word, compressing a thrilling and scary relationship moment. Yuanfen (Chinese): A relationship by fate or destiny. From what I glean, in common usage yuanfen means the "binding force" that links two people together in any relationship. But interestingly, “fate” isn’t the same thing as “destiny.” Cafuné (Brazilian Portuguese): The act of tenderly running your fingers through someone's hair. Ya’aburnee (Arabic): “You bury me.”
12 Enjoyable Names for Relatively Common Things Fancy yourself a logophile ... and didn't have to look up "logophile"? See if you know these 12 words for common things. 1. The plastic table-like item found in pizza boxes is called a box tent and was patented in 1983. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Getty Images 9. 10. 11. 12. What are some of your favorite extra ordinary/extraordinary words? For 12-12-12, we’ll be posting twenty-four '12 lists' throughout the day.