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How I Built a Startup While Traveling to 20 Countries. One year ago, I left San Francisco, sold and gave away everything I owned, and moved into a 40-liter backpack. I traveled to 45 cities in 20 countries, three Disneylands, and one bunny island. I also worked 50 hours a week building and launching a startup. And my total costs were less than just the rent in San Francisco. Traveling is not the same as vacation There’s a growing community of “digital nomads” who live a location-independent lifestyle. We’re software developers, designers, writers, journalists, engineers and all sorts of people who share a passion for the work we do and experiencing the world. I propose that a nomadic lifestyle is a productive way to build a real company. Related: A Frequent Business Traveler's Rewarding Trip to 'Nowhere' I became a nomad by accident Three years ago I was preparing to leave my job at Microsoft to move to San Francisco to build a startup.

I reject the idea of a 9–5 job. I reject the idea of settling down. I reject the idea of stuff. Conclusion. The Morning Rituals of 10 of the World's Most Inspirational Entrepreneurs (Infographic) While mere mortals stumble groggily out of the bed in the morning -- or, worse, lay prostrate before the irresistible lure of the snooze button -- the world’s most successful business leaders have mastered routines to kick off their days with productive vigor. All in all, entrepreneurs tend to be early risers, according to the below infographic, courtesy of British bed maker Dreams. Jack Dorsey, Lord Alan Sugar, Tory Burch, Tim Armstrong and Indra Nooyi, for instance, all typically wake up before 6 a.m. And exercise seems to be another morning staple. Richard Branson likes to start off his day with a quick swim, kite surfing session or tennis game, while Sugar prefers a 50-mile bike ride through the English countryside.

Related: Why That Midnight Snack Might Be Messing With Your Memory A healthy meal is also key to keeping up energy levels throughout the day -- though the menu at Simon Cowell’s house sounds downright bizarre. Click to Enlarge. What It Takes To Change Your Brain's Patterns After Age 25. "In most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

" That quote was made famous by Harvard psychologist William James in his 1890 book The Principles of Psychology, and is believed to be the first time modern psychology introduced the idea that one’s personality becomes fixed after a certain age. More than a century since James’s influential text, we know that, unfortunately, our brains start to solidify by the age of 25, but that, fortunately, change is still possible after.

The key is continuously creating new pathways and connections to break apart stuck neural patterns in the brain. Simply put, when the brain is young and not yet fully formed, there’s a lot of flexibility and plasticity, which explains why kids learn so quickly, says Deborah Ancona, a professor of management and organizational studies at MIT. Focused Attention For those who want to stimulate their brain, Swart recommends learning a new language or musical instrument. The complete guide to having a productive weekend. Some weeks, the thought of the weekend is all that keeps us going. Then we finally get there, and the two days seem to fly by. Sunday evening comes around and often we’re struck by Sunday sadness, soon followed by Monday misery.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Here are some tips for spending those precious 48 hours in a way that boosts energy, helps you tap into your creative synapses, and prepare for a productive week ahead. Wake up early You might not have to work on a Saturday; that doesn’t necessarily mean you should sleep half the day away either. Sometimes excessive sleep causes a hangover-like feeling. Plus, with the extra time, you can exercise, buy groceries, or socialize with friends before hitting the noon-to-4pm window, which is when people most easily get distracted and productivity can decline.

Nap if you need to If you do wake up early and find yourself tired out later on, just take a few minutes to snooze. Break the cycle of scheduled monotony Exercise (at any intensity) Harvard Unveils MRI Study Proving Meditation Literally Rebuilds The Brain’s Gray Matter In 8 Weeks. Test subjects taking part in an 8-week program of mindfulness meditation showed results that astonished even the most experienced neuroscientists at Harvard University. The study was led by a Harvard-affiliated team of researchers based at Massachusetts General Hospital, and the team’s MRI scans documented for the very first time in medical history how meditation produced massive changes inside the brain’s gray matter.

“Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” says study senior author Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology. “This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing.”

The Ultimate Movie Guide for Entrepreneurs - Pioneers Blog. 15 TED Talks That Will Change Your Life. 2015 Will Bring “Sweeping Changes” to Capital Markets - Thought Leaders. NBS Thought Leaders offer guidance on sustainable business models for the 21st century. Thought Leaders are leading academics and practitioners: world experts on sustainability issues. Here, Bob Willard describes three initiatives that will make sustainability a core consideration for the capital markets.

Dr. Willard is a Canadian author and speaker on the business case for sustainability strategies. If the bottom-line business case for sustainability is so compelling, why aren’t more companies aggressively taking environmental, social, and governance (ESG) action? I get that question a lot. Some companies are waiting for stronger signals from investors that ESG efforts matter to them. Investor disinterest dampens company action. Expect the Unexpected But that lack of interest from capital markets is changing. The future will be different. Once these megaforces were seen as irrelevant externalities ― someone else’s problem. New Guidance for Capital Markets — and Society 1. 2. 3. 10 Reasons Why You Fail. Think of something in your life that you’ve wanted to accomplish but haven’t.

Something deep down. Whether it’s because you haven’t gotten around to it, are too timid to go for it, or you took a shot and failed spectacularly. Conjure up in your mind that big failure of your life. Perhaps you’re in the middle of it now. It goes without saying, we all fuck up big time. Back in my dating coach days, when I regularly helped men with their deepest and hardest problems (no pun intended), people would often ask me what was the biggest cause of failure that I came across. The question was in the context of women and dating — the 30-year-old virgins, the cheesy guy in the club that sends women stampeding to hide in the ladies’ room, the hopeless nerd whose deepest relationship was his free 30-day trial at Brazzers.com (NSFW) — what were the keys to their failures?

But the biggest problems I saw in these men were not specific to dating. 1. I talked to a fellow internet entrepreneur last night. 2. How to Create a $4,000 Per Month Muse in 5 Days (Plus: How to Get Me As Your Mentor) Photo: Stuck in Customs Preface by Tim This post is a follow-up to “How to Create a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend (Examples: AppSumo, Mint, Chihuahuas).” The purpose of this guest post — written by Noah Kagan — is to show you exactly how a postal worker created a $4,000 per month muse. Included are all the tests, e-mail templates, and details you’d need to replicate his success. Noah was employee #30 at Facebook, #4 at Mint, had previously worked for Intel (where he frequently took naps under his desk), and had turned down a six-figure offer from Yahoo.

For those interested in mentorship, don’t miss the end of this post. There’s a time-sensitive chance to visit San Francisco for a week… to be mentored in-person by Noah and yours truly. Enter Noah The journey of Daniel Bliss is a telling one. Our goal was to take his hobby — he was a full-time postal worker — and turn it into a real business making $4,000 a month so he could quit his day job. He was solving his own problem. 1. 2. 3. 1. Just Knowing These 8 Facts Will Make You Way More Productive. Whether trying to conquer Mount Everest or just pick up your laundry, learning these quick facts will make it easier to be super productive -- or at least understand why you're not. And if you're the type of person who is likely procrastinate instead of reading the rest of this article, then you should at least read the first point. 1.

Simply starting a task will make it much easier to finish. According to the Zeigarnik Effect, your brain will send signals that effectively nag your conscious mind when you've started, but not finished, an objective. Bluma Zeigarnik was a Soviet psychologist who first developed the theory that humans are naturally driven to finish what they've started, due to a dissonance they feel when tasks are begun and then left incomplete. In 1992, a pair of psychologists proved this theory in a study on task interruption. 2. 3. 4.

John Bargh, a social psychologist currently working at Yale, released a study in 2001 that got to the heart of procrastination. 5. 6. 7. 8. Interview with Jared Kleinert, 17-year-old Founder of Synergist and Co-author of "2 billion under 20" Jared Kleinert is a 17 year old tech entrepreneur who has worked for two start-ups in San Francisco: Grockit and 15Five. At Grockit, he helped develop a product called Learni.st that raised $20 million shortly after he left, and he still works at 15Five, a hot B2B start-up that raised $1 million in January. Jared been an entrepreneur since 15, and now has a start-up called Synergist, which is a crowdsourcing site for social entrepreneurs to create, collaborate on, and share their movements and enterprises. They are currently in a industry first campaign at the intersection of crowdsourcing and social good to raise money ourselves using our own platform.

Forbes recently named Jared as “The Definition of a Social Entrepreneur”, and has also been featured in Fast Company, TechCrunch, the Shark Tank blog, and a few small web shows. In a page or two, who are you exactly? I am a 17 year old tech and social entrepreneur in Boca Raton, FL. Time and Money! Business – Too many to list. Just jump.