The book’s structure is lovely simple. Fifteen chapters which focus on specific management issues:

Chapter 1 – Adopt a serving attitude: Be humble, serve and love your team (but don’t let your team members to walk all over you either… balance is the key).
Chapter 2 – Teach: Management is a teaching experience. Improving your staff skills, sharing your knowledge, will yield better results. I liked the book’s suggestion about hiring people with potential, rather than focusing solely on experience.
Chapter 3 – Provide Honest and Timely Feedback: This is related to the previous chapter. You have to provide feedback to your people, both positive and negative. However, feedback is a subtle issue (you don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, or to praise them excessively)… regarding this issue, the book provides a few guidelines about how to do it right.
Chapter 4 – Share Information: What’s the point of hoarding information? You have to share information with your team in order to complete projects! This chapter points out the way.
Chapter 5 – Listen: Dedicate your attention to your people. And be an educated listener. They will trust you more easily.
Chapter 6 – Treat People Like Human Beings: They’re not machines (they’re better than machines). Put yourself in other shoes, and you’ll have a better perspective about each of the members of your team.
Chapter 7 – Set Goals, Plan and Execute: You must set the example for your group. Be logical, realistic and organized, and they will follow your approach.
Chapter 8 – Learn: Life is about learning! Don’t ever let any learning opportunity to pass you by. Take your time to read books, articles, to learn from your uppers and from your team.
Chapter 9 – Do the Right Thing: Be good. Be human. You’re not an automaton. You’re a human being. Awareness of your human condition is a key requirement for being a successful manager.
Chapter 10 – Embrace the Uncomfortable: A good manager knows how to approach those boring, complex, uncomfortable tasks. This chapter provides rationale and motivation for doing that.
Chapter 11 – Clean Up your Own House First: You set the example, and teams tend to reflect their manager’s nature. Be positive. Again, be good.
Chapter 12 – Persist: Don’t ever give up! I love a phrase from this chapter: “Don’t succumb to the pressure of those who worship the status quo. You can do better -and so can your organization“.
Chapter 13 – Do What You Say You’ll Do: Good managers complete their task. Good managers set and achieve “realistic” goals (which sometimes means saying “no” to unrealistic requests).
Chapter 14 – Always Follow Up: This chapter discusses the (oftenly overlooked) issue of following up with clients, team members, bosses, etc. Learn here how to do it right.
Chapter 15 – Plan Your Week: Planning is at the core of management. Plan for your work, and plan for yourself.

Further, the book includes 7 appendices, which summarize some ideas of the book, provide some tools for assessing your progress, and offer a few expansions to the knowledge discussed in the book. Overall, the book promotes “balance”. The language is direct. After reading this book, one acquires a lot of rich notions about “practical” (and thereby useful) aspects of management. Reading this book is a first step toward becoming a better manager.

All in all, if you wish to improve your management skills, I totally recommend this book!

You may also like…

• No Related Post

Goals and Expectations

We should not confuse goals and expectations. Goals are the concrete and positive result of a fulfilled wish, and they provide satisfaction and success. On its side, expectations are focused on the behavior that we expect from other people. Setting a goal also means directing all our efforts towards achieving the goal, combining several tasks in order to attain it. However, to have an expectation reduces to delegating our wishes to the lucky concurrence of external factors.

Therefore, setting goals helps us to empower strategies, to create effectivity and to dominate the process of achieving whatever thing we wish. Besides, our goals create new opportunities, and improve our capacity for overcoming obstacles and conquering unexpected hurdles. As we move forward and reach the little goals that we had set, we also have the feeling of walking our paths faster, with a boosted self-confidence and a diminishing desire to return to the past. By the way, when we feel little or no desire to return to the past, we can be sure that we have improved as human beings.

Goals and Dreams

As aforesaid, a difference between goals and dreams lies in the time required for reaching them. Goals are closer. Besides, motivation also establishes a notorious difference between goals and dreams. We have more immediate and realistic motivations for reaching goals. On the contrary, dreams’ motivation is typically diffuse, sometimes very unclear.

However, dreams are the ultimate fuel of life, no matter how fuzzy they may be. As life moves on, we will feel the dream, approach the dream, dream the dream… we will be continuously reshaping the dream. Dreams are, after all, made of a very malleable matter. In life, we walk towards the sun, and our sun is composed of just dreams. Every step toward such sun kills a doubt. And each of such steps is a goal.

Organizing our Goals

We have to prepare a few lists for visualizing our goals and, in general, our action and thinking paths. When we write down our goals in a list, we are defining and outlining a plan to reach the goals. We are committing ourselves to fulfilling them based on practical aspects. On the contrary, the list of dreams contains relatively remote possibilities, excepting perhaps the first or second dream. In order to reach the first dream of the list, we have to conquer a chain of goals. In short, goals are the intermediate steps required for achieving the ultimate objective of your life.

Indeed, dreams and goals are different things. Nevertheless, both are descriptions of things that we want to get. Thereby, the lists of dreams and goals are complementary, and they are intertwined for the same objectives. Remember that in order to satisfy a dream, we first have to satisfy the goals linked to such dream. These are the documents we should elaborate for visualization:

1. List of Dreams: It’s obvious. Here we include all our dreams… It doesn’t matter how absurdly improbable they seem. Include everything you want: from being immortal to buying a skyscraper.
2. List of Goals: In this list we will include, in order of preference, the different intermediate goals required to reach our desired dreams. Once we have written down our goals, we have to imagine ourselves fulfilling such goals. Use your imagination.
3. Plan of Actions: It’s the ordered and detailed description of the steps we have to follow in order to achieve the goals. We will write down the best ways for achieving them and all the guidelines that we have to follow in a progressive and adequate approach. You should think of alternative paths for the same goal… look for options… we should always have something up our sleeve.
4. Success: Do yourself a favor and define here, with simple and clear words, what success means for you. It is the ultimate achievement of desire. What do you want? Money? Family? Health? Education? Fame? Just a nice job? Tell me.

In my seminars, I often know people who think that elaborating all these documents is very easy. Indeed, they look deceptively simple. But this is the truth: they are complicated documents. Further, it’s very improbable that you can say at some point: “this document is finally done and no more modifications will be needed”. Wrong. These are very mutable documents (you may easily require years to arriving to a completely satisfactory definition of success… you will be reshaping your dreams…) Other people think that they don’t have to write anything… that all the required data is in their head. I already wrote in Choosing a Topic for your Thesis:

Don’t be like those students of Algebra who think that only reading proofs, without writing proofs, suffices to approve the final exam.

So, don’t be like the bad students. But, why these documents are not easy? It’s just because creating such documents requires a lot of introspection. They require that we know ourselves very well. If we do not know ourselves very well, the documents are a good tool for learning… but such learning is not straightforward. For the List of Dreams, you first have to sincerely recognize what your true dreams are. For the List of Goals you have to analyze your dreams, and identify the activities required for achieving them. You have to think about actors, resources and deadlines. The Plan of Actions is really hard. You have to think like a fine strategist, considering probable and improbable possibilities. You have to anticipate defeats. You have to harness victories. Regarding Success… well, you have to discover the kind of human being you are right now. However, we have to create the documents, and simply recognize that they may be imperfect… don’t worry about that. Just write.

Visualizing Goals

Here is the key: visualizing is linking ideas and facts. Once the documents are completed, we can proceed to visualization. We can also think of visualization as the process of creating a mental image of what we want to happen, as if it had already happened. How good we are on this activity depends on the level of training of our minds. Other little secret for you: as every expert in motivation knows, the previous presented documents are really so imperfect that they cannot be used as guidelines for visualization… their true purpose is untangling the mind… the questions raised by such documents are what really matter.

During visualization, we use resources stored in the brain. Our unconscious mind accumulates the experiences. Thereafter, all our systems use the unconscious data as a reference basis for conscious and unconscious behavior. There is no doubt that the speed in achieving the goals is related to the clarity and frequency of our visualizations. A clear mental image allows for our minds to detect the new opportunities and avoid dangers. This way, the unconscious’ data provide more resources and reflexes for acting.

Viewing a goal is like sending an order to the unconscious. We demmand it to release its full capacity to achieve our objectives. Unfortunately, it is not the only thing that our mind will receive. When we knock on  unconscious mind’s door, we stir it up, and it’s very probable that latent fears suddenly awake. Such negative information can seriously block the action. Although there are no scientific instruments for measuring the power of visualization, I have no doubt about the importance of mental images of success for a happy life. If our goal, for instance, is getting a promotion, and we continually think about this goal, our mind and body will act toward such wish, and we will be promoted!

We must not forget that the practice of visualization is of great help to achieve our objectives. Once you grasp the habit of constantly visualizing the goals you want to fulfill, you’ll notice that your enthusiasm and self-confidence improve. Thus, the mind remains alert and awake, to detect all possible options, and fully complete the goal. The practice of visualization is recommended for those who intend to achieve success and personal satisfaction.

Goals, as Life, are a Cycle

Finally, please notice a simple yet vital fact: a goal implies a change of state. A goal never dies, it just transforms into another goal. As life itself, a goal is not an end point… it’s a cycle, in which we are continually revisiting the extreme points and the intermediate steps.

Thanks for reading. Please, let me know your thoughts on this. Take care!

You may also like…

• A Reader’s Happiness (6)
• The Art of Saving (9)
• Exercises for Keeping a Young Mind (17)
• 10 Recommendations for Fighting Panic and Stress (6)
• Goals (4)

you have to research your potential employer beforehand

…that will give you a very important lead. Get as much information as you can about the business, and also about the potential interviewers (you should research their style and attitude… that’s very important). If you know someone who has previously taken an interview in that company, talk with them about their experiences in the interview. Try to extract pure information, i.e., don’t let them to influence you (specially about the job being impossible or, on the contrary, being too easy).

1. First Approach

Remember that you have to dress with a professional look, according to the nature of the job. You are a professional… thereby each and every aspect of you must communicate that fact. Now, during the interview, take into account that Interviewers will ask questions related to their company, for example, why would you like to work for us? They may ask you about your opinion on the company’s products or history. Typically, this information is available on the company’s website, and by knowing it you demonstrate a genuine interest for the job.

2. Virtues and Limitations

Talk about your virtues, but not excessively. In this regards apply balance and good sense. Answer this question presenting your virtues in the context of the requirements of the job you’re applying to, with a clear and concise language. However, other almost granted question they will do is about your defects, thereby you must also be prepared to answer that. Furthermore, the interviewer may ask about your abilities and limitations: prepare an answer beforehand in order to allow you to present your defects as a new opportunity for keep improving.

3. Expect the Unexpected

You have to be ready for anything… a group interview, a forum about some specific problem of the company, a written exam, and so on. Carry any material you think you may need: think of the interview as your first day of work.

When entering to the interview, greet to your interviewer with a smile. Visual contact must also be direct and firm (but not exceedingly). Remember that, no matter the circumstances, you have to act formally instead of dared or zany (refer to your interviewer using his title… Dr., Mr., Engineer, etc.), unless they demand you to treat them informally (but that’s relatively rare; read point 6. Be on the alert). Listen to your interviewer very carefully. Sometimes the applicants are so focused in the things they want to say that forget what they are really being asked about. No answer is good if it does not truly answer the matter asked about.

4. Language

Be careful about the expressions and style you use to communicate your ideas. Don’t use inadequate, informal or excessively colloquial phrases.

5. Gestures

Be careful with your corporal language too. A firm handshake transmit self-confidence. A good posture also reflects confidence. Don’t act disturbed or nervous. Lean sligthly towards your interviewer in order to show interest in his words.

6. Be on the alert

Expert interviewers know human nature very well. An expert interviewer will quickly create a relaxed and trusting atmosphere for you, in order to expose your real behavior and ideas. However, never forget that he is there evaluating you, so no matter the confidence and comradeship he shows, you must always act as a professional. Novice interviewers, on the contrary, often act very arrogantly… fight off their arrogance by showing yourself relaxed and breezy (never answer the interviewer’s arrogance with more arrogance!).

7. Keep your moral high

Regarding this point, I recommend reading the posts The Winner’s Mind and The 7 Attributes of Leadership.

8. Secrets of a Critical Thinking Interviewer

Finally, good interviewers know how to distinguish good prospects from bad ones. They know that two people with the same job title may differ in at least one of the following ways:

• ability to perform the work
• interest in the work
• experience with similar applications
• experience with similar tools
• experience with similar techniques
• experience with similar working environment
• training
• ability to communicate with others
• ability to share responsibility with others
• management skills

Each of these characteristics can affect an individual’s ability to perform productively. These variations help to explain why one employee can complete a particular chore in a day, whereas another requires a week. The differences can be critical, not only to schedule estimation, but also to the entire success of the company’s projects. An expert interviewer knows that.

I wish you good luck on your interview and hope that you get the job!

You may also like…

• A Shining Résumé (7)
• Building a Network of Contacts (2)
• The Winners’ Mind (11)
• The 7 Attributes of Leadership (47)
• Working in Groups: 10 Keys for Success (10)

Therefore, she has forfeited happiness, fearing “what might happen.” Albeit she knows that her disease is successfully controlled, “she does not feel the required confidence”… Confidence in who or what? Confidence in her doctors? No. I told her that she did not have confidence in herself. It had nothing to do with diabetes, specifically. She was just doubting her ability to respond to unexpected situations, related or not to her diabetes. Needless to say, very improbable situations. Fear is always the finished product of a lack of self-confidence. Besides, fear is never innocent.

I think that we should not worry about what might happen. It’s fine to review the possibilities, the things that may happen… logically, some results will be better than others. But we must not surrender to fear or worries. Rather than worrying about future possibilities, we should focus on living the present. 90% of those things that worry us do never occur. Concerning about the future is falling prey to anxiety… During such anxiety episodes, we want the future to arrive now, as soon as possible, to live it now… Sometimes living the future now is the only cure we find to our head spinning for the ocean of possibilities and those “things that might happen.” But that is totally wrong.

Time is wise, and shares its wisdom with those who are patient. Things occur, good or bad… things just happen. That should be obvious. And when they happen, we act accordingly. More often than not, we cannot anticipate how such “accordingly acting” should be. An that’s normal. However, problems raise when our minds tend to fall into the trap of believing that by “anticipating” we have a better chance of success once things have occurred. Yes, that’s true, “to anticipate” aids a lot. But… how many variables must we handle in order to our anticipation to be meaningful? Therein lies the problem: the amount of variables involved in our anticipated reasoning. To solve a concrete problem in some specific area (e.g., Physics, Economics, etc.), “to anticipate” can be crucial. In real life, anticipating would also be good… but life has an almost infinite number of variables beyond our reach, and therefore perfectly anticipating a situation makes no sense, and in fact, is unattainable beyond luck’s grounds. We have no control over the future. We must plan, in order to improve our chance of success, but we must also recognize our limits (be humble!): a perfect plan does not amount to a perfect future. Our true option is to live the present… by acting we enforce the bit of control we have over the present.

Finally, I like to think that life is multicolored. And it’s up to us which colors we do choose. Behind every joy there is always a bitterness, and each misfortune encloses some advantage. We select our colors. Again, don’t concern about the future… Let’s act right now! Future will always arrive, no matter our plans… we cannot change that fact. But once future has arrived, let’s act with self-confidence. By acting now, we show and enjoy the colors of our life.

Be happy

You may also like…

• Looking for True Happiness (8)
• 10 Recommendations for Fighting Panic and Stress (6)
• A Reader’s Happiness (6)
• Meditation Gems: Managing your Time (5)
• On Good Sense (6)

All of her daughters are married, attending their own families. Mrs. Paula sees each of these new families as the result of her self-confidence. She knew she could do it, and now she’s proud of such accomplishment. Now, she is enjoying her grandchildren and 15 bucks a day to spend on fun and relax. She loves reading good books, and every morning she surfs Internet to look for any breaking news. With her 15 bucks she enjoys Margarita’s casinos, visits malls, goes to the beach, or simply buys a few mint candies. Sometimes, she simply spend her nights weaving sweaters for her family members. She holds firmly to a simple moral: live as you want (free!) looking for your own success, but without hurting others.

Starting this week, she’s on vacation to the land of the rising sun. And she seems very excited about her plans in Japan. As in the past, her husband will be her only companion. Enjoy! You both deserve it. And good luck with your Pachinko bidding

Thank you very much, Mrs. Paula

You may also like…

• Colors of Life (5)
• Looking for True Happiness (8)
• Visualizing your Goals (5)
• Meditation Gems: Managing your Time (5)
• On Good Sense (6)

Wait up. We have known a lot of people who used appearances deliberately, in order to deceive others. Again, that ’s just our sense of appearance struggling against ourselves Those people who like to use appearance to hurt others, are really being devoured by a great void and a huge loneliness. Appearances are their bastion to run away from such pain. They think they will “conquer the world” by acting in that fashion, but they only are losing the fight. And the price to pay is solitude. What a high price. But that’s beside the point. We know that life’s treasures belong to true warriors. And no true warrior hides her shinning armor. Being a warrior means to receive injuries. No success is accomplished without receiving injuries. It’s our scars, our last and first places, our defeats, our victories, the beings we have loved, the places we have visited… the only heritage of eternal time.

Appearance is a term linked to lies. It says how we want other people to see us, covering our true colors. Do we let how other people see us have too much influence on how we see ourselves? Do we live by keeping up appearances? More important, do we think that everyone is betraying us? Remember, balance is crucial.

Manny was the general manager of Lois’ company, and as such, he enjoyed wide decision authority. He was coming along well with his work, he was a model worker… apparently. However, one day the main secretary of the company resigned. She had worked for Lois’ father, who started the company several years ago. Before leaving, she told Lois: “Appearances are often deceiving. Beware.” After that caveat, Lois started to carefully look over the company books and stats. She was shocked. She discovered that Manny was involved in dirty and treacherous agreements with rival companies. Even some books reflected mismatches between the sets of figures. That’s why although we must avoid misjudging others, we have to be equally vigilant to protect ourselves of being framed by others.

Appearance, when established in a human being, tends to grow. Appearance sprouts more appearances in order to subsist. The cost of that growth, of course, is self-confidence. And when masks fall, we discover that behind the mask only a dark void was left. We, as imperfect humans, are also leaned toward misjudging others. First, all the things we perceive about others are heavily affected by our beliefs, fears, prejudices, feelings and experiences. Thereby, we don’t analyze information in its pure form… it’s impossible. We always process information influenced by our mindset, which may easily be a door to deception. And our body’s chemicals also alter our mood and attitude. We don’t see reality as it truly is, but as we want to see it. And appearance is the perfect disguise for everyone attending the party of farce. The summarized moral of the post is this: “beating appearances is a matter of living a balanced life.” When balance crumbles, appearances breathe.

Finally, let’s remember Socrates’ wisdom: The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be.

Live happily.

You may also like…

• Colors of Life (5)
• Looking for True Happiness (8)
• Meditation Gems: Managing your Time (5)
• A Reader’s Happiness (6)
• Visualizing your Goals (5)

I do strongly believe that blogging is about living (in the net, that is), not about bragging. These undoubtedly clever guys nourish from the naivety of some people. For them, it’s a perverted kind of pleasure to read about “how to make tons of money online.” They say: “Look! This guy is making so much money with just a web page!.” Their natural reaction, of course, is “I can do better!.” Some have quit their jobs to pursue the role of “entrepreneur”. To have the motivation to improve is nice and all, but it’s even nicer to have a clear and down-to-earth mindset. We can win money. Yes. We can. We have all the required abilities. But we’d be better off if we take every net’s thing with a bit of salt. Building self-confidence demands taking risks… but illusory, unattainable goals knock-off self-confidence atrociously.

Being an entrepreneur requires a clear vision about the business we want to undertake. Being an entrepreneur needs courage and accepting risk. But above all, being an entrepreneur requires good capacities for planning and self-discipline. Entrepreneurs have the abilities for being their own bosses. And not everyone is prepared for that. And it also requires courage to be able to accept our current limitations. But if you believe in yourself, you can overcome any of these obstacles.

Trust & Betrayal

It’s indeed possible to make money with a blog. How much? I really don’t know as of the time I’m writing this. Life, Money & Development is fairly new. Some sites report a huge success, and seem credible. On the contrary, the above referred “bragging” sites are liars and it’s easily verifiable: their inbound links, relative status and rankings reveal poor traffic and linking data, which would not really allow for a sustainable income. They are clever, though, in trying to attract readers and advertisers based on the buzz about “how much money they are doing”.

As told, winning money online is viable. Take, for instance, e-commerce. Internet has turned into the ultimate platform for modern businesses, mainly because of lower costs and wider reach. In turn, some notable websites and blogs, not directly related to e-commerce, have achieved considerable popularity, and declare notorious income levels. But that’s not an easy chore. It’s true that pop culture madness reveals affection for miraculous sites and net ventures with a quick and nearly immediate cash return. Those sites, though, require considerable traffic and a broad reader-base. Gaining and maintaining readers is not easy. Then, Traffic is the first nourishment of any web venture. Conversion is the other mandatory requisite for online success.

The Visitors’ Lounge

If you own at least a website or blog, you are likely familiar with the hardships associated to growing up the site’s visits log. Friends and family are usually the first members of the reader-base. Beyond that, it’s more difficult. You have to follow several strategies, and discover the ones that work best for you. We have to submit our information to news sites and networks, to register in directories, to leave comments in other people’s blogs (a nice way to promote your site without being too intrusive; thanks to Robin for this recommendation), and so further. Hopefully, new readers will also act as promoters of your site. Search engines will drive some traffic too. And spammers will discover your site someday

The Trail of Victory

Getting visits is not enough. If you want to promote your business, to convey your ideas to the world, or to win money, it’s necessary to accomplish successful conversions. Simply put, a conversion means that a visitor performed a desired, target action (clicking a banner or reading your post, for example.) Gaining traffic requires hard work, but conversion is an art. Alas, conversion shall be forevermore linked to experimentation. Implementing a successful conversion scheme requires visualizing the flow of actions of our visitors. It means we have to anticipate (somewhat) our readers’ actions… where they will look at, where they will go after reading something, and so on. Layout of the site (including considerations about the best type of advertisement) is very important to direct the flow. Also, we have to be specially careful not to abuse our visitors’ trust.

Online Marketing & Advertisement

It’s the most common source of revenues for sites not directly related to e-commerce activities, such as this blog. Online advertising uses electronic media to deliver marketing messages and, ideally, attract customers. Online advertising has several distinct flavors, some of which are very bitter. Typical online advertisement schemes include, but are not restricted to, the following:

** Contextual ads constitute a very popular advertising variation. This type of ads display text or images that are (likely) related in semantic terms to the keywords of a search, or to the content of the page on which the ad is included. It’s believed that such ads offer a greater chance of attracting customers because their content is related to the user’s interest. Widely known programs of contextual advertisement are Google Adsense, Yahoo! Publisher Networks, and AdBrite, for instance.

** Non-contextual Banners are not intended to be related to user’s interest. They tend to be very disruptive of user experience, and adopt several forms. However, if the layout is arranged in a way allowing clear and natural distinction between the banner and the content, it could be a very effective approach to monetize a site.

** Inline Text Links are my preferred approach. As of the time I’m writing this, I’m combining the Adsense Contextual Frame with some inline text ads. This kind of advertisement is not very disruptive in visual terms. Conceptually, though, it’s not very honest… I concede that. Nevertheless, I think they integrate neatly with the current layout of the site. A future shift in the blog’s approach may require discontinuing this scheme. The advertisement networks I’m currently using are:

Kontera

LinkWorth

** Link Blurbs is other name given to a collection of advertising links. Strictly, it’s a frame filled with links. Typically correspond to direct sales, and are obviously related to banners.

** Affiliate Networks pay you for referring other publishers, or even advertisers. A few of the above links correspond to my membership in some affiliate networks.

** Email marketing is other way for delivering advertisement content. The mechanism is obvious. Legitimate email marketing is frequently referred to as opt-in email advertising in order to distinguish it from spam, grayware and general malware.

There are other popular schemes, such as Chitika eMiniMalls and other widgets, but I have yet to experience with them. I think it would be a very bad idea to burden our sites with all these advertisement schemes and companies. It would be a total mess, both visually and conceptually. Our visitors would have to dig up the actual content. And there is a golden rule for content-delivering: high hurdles to access content decrease the readers’ interest in the media (in our case, blogs).

I’m experimenting with the ads here, trying to keep the balance between visuals, concepts and marketing. Let’s practice and share our results. We cannot expect our practice to be always clear of obstacles. I’ll expand on this topic in upcoming posts.

Thank you very much for reading.

You may also like…

• The Samurai Approach to Blogging (9)
• Growing your Blog (4)
• The Blogger’s Wish List (Edition 1) (5)
• The Winners’ Mind (11)
• The 7 Attributes of Leadership (47)

Some serious studies demonstrate that people from developed countries are not necessarily the happiest ones. A lot of nationals and residents of such countries manifest to feel unhappier than those of some developing or poorer countries. In this sense, let’s recall the Easterlin paradox, based on a study by professor and economist Richard Easterlin: Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? published in 1974, while he was with the University of Pennsylvania. Basically, the paradox states that economic growth does not necessarily lead to more satisfaction. It’s obvious that people in poor countries become happier once they can afford basic necessities. But the important idea behind Easterlin paradox is that absolute income does not matter as much as relative income does. In other words, how much you make compared with others around you is what really matters. To put it in today’s terms, owning an iPod doesn’t make you happier, because you then want an iPod Touch

Nevertheless, a recent study by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers rebuffs Easterlin paradox. The study suggests that a better income contributes to a happier life. There is an obvious relation between higher incomes and happier people. Economic growth means investments in scientific research that lead to longer, healthier lives. It can also reduce your working hours, which in turn allows spending more time with family and friends, vacations, relax. Does this mean that money buys happiness after all? I doubt so.

Certainly, affluence helps to reach happiness. And we should want to be richer. But it’s your attitude what is really important. I personally know plenty of rich guys, which have enjoyed a top-notch education and access to quality healthcare systems, and which unfortunately are very sullen people. They don’t enjoy a good musical performance, they are not congenial or cheerful. Thereby, they are isolated from most of the world, and are restricted to a very limited (and sometimes envious) circle of friends, which slowly devours their self-confidence. Typically, they evidence worries about the state of their finances. They live in a hurry. Is that happiness? I doubt so.

Conversely, I also know people of regular or lower income, which are frequently smiling. They enjoy their works… they have nice families and plenty of friends. They are not that worried about money and its things. They easily chat with you. And albeit they know sadness, they are optimistic. And they have the mindset to be winners, and to fight for that dream. Are they unhappy? I doubt so.

Finally, I present three germane quotes by the Nobel laureate Albert Schweitzer:

• Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
• I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.
• Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

Bold letters are mine. Pretty clear. Let’s be happy.

You may also like…

• Colors of Life (5)
• A Reader’s Happiness (6)
• Rich and Even Richer (5)
• 10 Recommendations for Fighting Panic and Stress (6)
• Meditation Gems: Appearances (4)

Seeing the list of billonaires, people tend to ask themselves about how did the guys in the list become so wealthy? For some people, such question only triggers envy. Thereafter they release their imaginations, and more often than not, fall prey to bad sense… they initiate a harmful monologue, attributing every member of the wealth rankings with some weird, defaming twist “perhaps he achieved richness by exploiting his workers and other people”, or “perhaps evaded taxes”, and other similarly negative and envious thoughts. Every man has his own quirks and twists. Nevertheless, during the time that the envious person is wasting by unfruitfully thinking of others, the rich people is likely thinking of how to become rich or even richer. And surely even at the expense of them all, because while the losers are filling up their minds with lot of stupidities, the rich guys are thinking about how to convince us to purchase their goods or services; that way, they become even richer.

As aforesaid, to become rich is not an unattainable goal, but we have to realize that it’s not an easy goal either… it’s a difficult goal, indeed. But it frequently happens that we are mentally entrapped in a fake duality: easy vs difficult. This may lead some to sustain the following wrong thesis: “Why should I burden myself with such huge task at this time of my life… perhaps I’m just too old for this.” Conversely, youngsters would say “I have plenty of time for that, and if I’m going to be rich it simply will happen… time will say.” Unfortunately, this situates us in other popular and dangerous frame: to settle for an unambitious life…. that is, to keep a monotonous and routinary life, day by day. That’s not the mind of winners.

In order to be rich, we have to forget about all these poor thoughts, and start enriching our minds right now, no matter what our current age or financial condition is. The only prerequisite is to set the right goals and, little by little, to build the basis of what can be a golden castle. For instance, Warren Buffett, the richest man in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$ 62 billions, and 77 years old, is an American investor, expert in stock markets. I’m sure his goal was not to be the richest person in the world, but to succeed in his work with passion. He followed and improved his masters’ advices and lessons, including his father’s, persevered, and now he has the privilege of topping the list of world’s billonaries.

We also know Hiroshi Yamauchi, 80 years old and former president of Nintendo (he’s still Nintendo’s larger shareholder despite stepping down), and currently is the richest man in Japan. He holds a fortune of about 7.8 US$ billions, in a country relatively small in territorial terms, but relatively big in demographics, culture and passion for work. Perhaps we could think that becoming rich requires a lot of time, and you’d only see the fruits when reaching an advanced age, after spending all your life working. Not necessarily. Age is not a mandatory term in the wealth’s equation: Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is only 24 years old, and already has a net worth of US$ 1.5 billions.

Wealth is like love… any age is good for opening our hearts to love… and any age is good for opening our minds to richness. We could start by reading this entry on the mind of the winners. We only need motivation and perseverance. It’s nice to pursue the goal of monetary, material richness… you will be rich. But those who know how to love nature and mankind are even richer.

So long. Be happy

You may also like…

• Looking for True Happiness (8)
• A Reader’s Happiness (6)
• What I like about Credit Cards (14)
• On Good Sense (6)
• Colors of Life (5)

Previously, we presented an article about the basic elements of a successful approach to blogging (we called such approach the Samurai approach.) Nevertheless, universal strategies don’t apply to blogging. Each blogger has to discover, hone, innovate her own approach to blogging. Our Samurai approach should only be taken as a starting point. By no means it’s a general strategy, universally valid. As suggested, blogging success can only be achieved through evolution. Don’t take for granted that once you have a solid reader-base, those readers will follow you forever if your blog is a static one. People devour content, including images, layout, ideas, and above all, approaches to problems and concepts. Successful bloggers calm such hunger. Summarizing, to grow our blogs we have to discover an approach we can apply to blogging, hone and refine such approach continually, and keep adding new, interesting features to our blog (including layout and content.)

I recommend two basic activities for evolution of our blogs:

• Observation: We have to observe and critically analyze what are doing the successful bloggers (not necessarily in our niche.) Perhaps by following some of their tactics and methods we can accomplish a bigger and more satisfied reader-base.
• Experimentation: The only way to verify that some tactics and methods would work for your blog is to test them out. Fortunately, blogs are very dynamic structures, and hence it’s relatively easy to essay new things and modify the approach continually. And if something is not working for you, remove or restructure it as soon as possible. Don’t let bad strategies to kill your blog.

Now, let’s conquer the blogosphere

You may also like…

• The Samurai Approach to Blogging (9)
• The Quest for Making Money Online (11)
• Individualism, Attempts At Philosophying (1)
• Visualizing your Goals (5)
• A Shining Job Interview: How to Succeed (9)