First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy | Derek Sivers

This is a fun and instructional 3 minute video demonstrating how leadership really works!

What do you think about it?

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6 Habits Of Highly Successful People Before Bedtime | Tony Robinson

We’ve all heard the stories about the mega-successful who wake up early every day and conquer the world before most people put the coffee on. But what about the other time of day that plays an equally important role? What are successful people doing right before bed? Do you want to know the secret? They set themselves up to have an even more productive day tomorrow.
Here are six bedtime habits of highly successful people.

1. Read for an hour

Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates is an avid reader. Each night before bed, he spends an hour reading a book, ranging on topics from politics to current events.
Aside from the obvious benefits of gaining new knowledge, reading daily has also been shown to reduce stress and improve memory. A 2009 study from the University of Essex revealed that reading for as little as six minutes a day can reduce stress levels by up to 68%.
Another big benefit from cracking open a good book on a nightly basis is that it can improve the long term health of your brain. Every time you read, it’s like a mental workout for your mind. This study performed in Britain showed that people who stimulated their minds through activities like reading, reduced cognitive decline by an average of 32% as they got older in age.

2. Unplug

After passing out from exhaustion and injuring her head to the tune of five stitches, Arianna Huffington has been an evangelist for “unplugging”. Every night before bed, she puts her phone in another room so she’s not distracted by it before bed. And science proves that she might be onto something.
According to Dr Charles Czeisler, a professor of sleep medicine at Harvard University, the bright lights produced by our cell phone screens disrupt our bodies natural sleep rhythm and actually “trick” our bodies into thinking it’s daytime. Those bright lights send a message to our brains that prevents certain chemicals from being released, causing us to have a much harder time going to sleep. So, if you want a good night’s rest, stash your phone in another room.

3. Take a walk

The busy CEO of Buffer likes to unwind with a brisk walk right before bed. He uses his walks to turn off his thoughts about work, and slowly work his self into a “state of tiredness”.
For a busy person always on the go, Joel’s late night walk routine could be perfect way to unwind after a stressful day. And aside from the obvious health benefits of daily walk, there a couple of surprising bonuses that come along as well.
One study revealed that walking can increase creativity. When you’re walking, your mind isn’t working as vigorously, which “opens up the free flow of ideas.” So if you’ve got a tough problem you haven’t been able to solve, maybe a nice, night time stroll is all you need to find the perfect, creative solution.

4. Meditate

The media maven has long supported the idea of regular meditation. No doubt, Ms. Winfrey has a schedule that keeps her mighty busy, and what better way to unwind at the end of a stressful day, than with a focused meditation session.
There’s often times a stigma surrounding meditation, and there has always been a debate as to whether mediation is actually helpful. But when a 2014 study took a look at over 19,000 cases involving mediation, the results were clear. Meditation was found to help reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and pain. So regardless of one’s view of mediation, you can’t argue with the results.

5. Get creative

In 2006, Vera Wang stated to Fortune that her nightly routine includes, “a fair amount of designing — at least conceptually if not literally.” Sometimes, the quiet of the night can be the perfect remedy for a creative block.
What’s even more surprising is that there’s a study that actually shows night time can be the perfect time for creativity, even if you’re tired from a long day. A study from Albion College revealed that, “tasks requiring creative insight was consistently better during their nonoptimal times of day.”. 
So if you’re a morning person (raises hand), then your most creative ideas will come right before bed. Researchers believe this is true because your mind is less restrained at night. Your ability to make logical connections worsens, but it works in your favor because you’re able to make connections you wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.

6. Plan the next day

The American Express CEO likes to manage his time, and he does so by ending his nights in a very simple way. He plans out three things he wants to accomplish for the following day. That way, he can wake up in the morning, and get to work on his most important tasks, right away.
This study from the early 90’s supports Chenault’s strange addiction with planning. Researchers followed a group of students from their high school years, until four years later at the end of their college careers. The researchers tested these students on their time management skills in high school, and when they caught up with those students four years later, they made a shocking discovery.
The students with better time management skills, had higher college GPA’s then their peers who had higher SAT scores. Basically, time management played a bigger role in their academic success than actual scholastic aptitude.

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How Incredibly Successful People THINK | Brendon Burchard

Successful people think differently.  They are not stopped by their limitations.  They consciously design their lives.  

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Planning Your Day | Jack Canfield

This is a very useful video outlining a simple way to plan your day for powerful results.

Give it a go and let me know below how it went!

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Appreciation Quotes Help Forge Friendship - Make Your Gratitude Count | Simran Khurana

Appreciating someone is not that difficult. You just need to remember to express your appreciation when the opportunity arises. But how many of us remember to do so?

Voltaire rightly pointed out the merits of appreciation, "Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well." When you appreciate your loved ones, you build a bond of trust and love.  Appreciation builds bridges and fosters healthy relationships. 

Appreciate Those Who Are Closest to You

Appreciation can start at home. When your mother packs you a nutritious lunch, or your dad helps you with homework, show your appreciation with a hug or a smile. When your husband helps you with household chores, or your mother-in-law offers to babysit when you had to go out, express gratitude and love.

Appreciate Others Around You

Appreciate people outside your family too. Give your neighbors credit when their dogs did not create a nuisance. Thank the local police for their effort in controlling the crime rate in the neighborhood. 

You can find many opportunities to express your appreciation.

Appreciating someone does not make you less important. This is not a war of ego. Your words of appreciation reveal your humble and generous nature. By appreciating others, your value does not depreciate! On the contrary, you look good in the eyes of others.

Is Appreciation the Same Thing as Flattery?

Renowned motivational speaker Dale Carnegie beautifully expressed the difference between appreciation and flattery.  He said, "The difference between appreciation and flattery? That is simple. One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the heart out; the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other selfish. One is universally admired; the other universally condemned."

Sugarcoated words of flattery appear fake while discerning words of appreciation sound genuine. Appreciation makes specific mention of praise-worthy qualities. Flattery is wishy-washy, smothering the truth behind a veil of false words. You can instinctively tell if a person is expressing true appreciation or false flattery. 

How to Appreciate Someone?

Appreciation should be sincere. When you praise your mother for her cooking, talk about what you specifically liked about the food. Share your thoughts about what else you would like. And thank her profusely for making your meal so good.

Say "thanks" to your friend who threw you a surprise birthday party. If your friend has spent money for the party, offer to share the expense. Also, tell your friend what you enjoyed most about the birthday celebration.

Use these appreciation quotes to make beautiful thank you cards and messages. Your friends and family will remember you for the kind words of appreciation.

Walt Disney
Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive. This facility makes it the most versatile and explicit means of communication yet devised for quick mass appreciation.

Booker T. Washington
Any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca
We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.

Sam Walton
Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free and worth a fortune.

Voltaire
Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

John F. Kennedy
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

Oprah Winfrey
Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.

Albert Schweitzer
At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

Dalai Lama
The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Correction does much, but encouragement does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.

Leo Buscaglia
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Michael Jordan
When I was playing before I retired, I never really understood the appreciation and the respect that people gave me. People had treated me like a god or something, and that was very embarrassing.

Henry Clay
Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the gratefully and appreciating heart.

Mark Twain
To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.

Friedrich Nietzsche
There are slavish souls who carry their appreciation for favors done them so far that they strangle themselves with the rope of gratitude.

Mae West
Too much of a good thing can be wonderful!

Steve Maraboli
Forget yesterday -- it has already forgotten you. Don't sweat tomorrow -- you haven't even met. Instead, open your eyes and your heart to a truly precious gift -- today.

William Arthur
Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I may not forget you.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

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How to make stress your friend | Kelly McGonigal

Stress. It makes your heart pound, your breathing quicken and your forehead sweat.  But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case. 

Psychologist Kelly McGonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, and introduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction: reaching out to others.  4.2 million views on youtube and counting...

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How to motivate yourself - Self motivation | Eric Falconer

Staying motivated is a struggle — our drive is constantly assaulted by negative thoughts and anxiety about the future. Everyone faces doubt and depression. What separates the highly successful is the ability to keep moving forward.

There is no simple solution for a lack of motivation. Even after beating it, the problem reappears at the first sign of failure. The key is understanding your thoughts and how they drive your emotions. By learning how to nurture motivating thoughts, neutralize negative ones, and focus on the task at hand, you can pull yourself out of a slump before it gains momentum.

Reasons We Lose Motivation

There are 3 primary reasons we lose motivation.

1. Lack of confidence – If you don’t believe you can succeed, what’s the point in trying?
2. Lack of focus – If you don’t know what you want, do you really want anything?
3. Lack of direction – If you don’t know what to do, how can you be motivated to do it?

How to Boost Confidence

The first motivation killer is a lack of confidence. When this happens to me, it’s usually because I’m focusing entirely on what I want and neglecting what I already have. When you only think about what you want, your mind creates explanations for why you aren’t getting it. This creates negative thoughts. Past failures, bad breaks, and personal weaknesses dominate your mind. You become jealous of your competitors and start making excuses for why you can’t succeed. In this state, you tend to make a bad impression, assume the worst about others, and lose self confidence.

The way to get out of this thought pattern is to focus on gratitude. Set aside time to focus on everything positive in your life. Make a mental list of your strengths, past successes, and current advantages. We tend to take our strengths for granted and dwell on our failures. By making an effort to feel grateful, you’ll realize how competent and successful you already are. This will rejuvenate your confidence and get you motivated to build on your current success.

It might sound strange that repeating things you already know can improve your mindset, but it’s amazingly effective. The mind distorts reality to confirm what it wants to believe. The more negatively you think, the more examples your mind will discover to confirm that belief. When you truly believe that you deserve success, your mind will generate ways to achieve it. The best way to bring success to yourself is to genuinely desire to create value for the rest of the world.

Developing Tangible Focus

The second motivation killer is a lack of focus. How often do you focus on what you don’t want, rather than on a concrete goal? We normally think in terms of fear. I’m afraid of being poor. I’m afraid no one will respect me. I’m afraid of being alone. The problem with this type of thinking is that fear alone isn’t actionable. Instead of doing something about our fear, it feeds on itself and drains our motivation.

If you’re caught up in fear based thinking, the first step is focusing that energy on a well defined goal. By defining a goal, you automatically define a set of actions. If you have a fear of poverty, create a plan to increase your income. It could be going back to school, obtaining a higher paying job, or developing a profitable website. The key is moving from an intangible desire to concrete, measurable steps.

By focusing your mind on a positive goal instead of an ambiguous fear, you put your brain to work. It instantly begins devising a plan for success. Instead of worrying about the future you start to do something about it. This is the first step in motivating yourself to take action. When know what you want, you become motivated to take action.

Developing Direction

The final piece in the motivational puzzle is direction. If focus means having an ultimate goal, direction is having a day-to-day strategy to achieve it. A lack of direction kills motivation because without an obvious next action we succumb to procrastination. An example of this is a person who wants to have a popular blog, but who spends more time reading posts about blogging than actually writing articles.

The key to finding direction is identifying the activities that lead to success. For every goal, there are activities that pay off and those that don’t. Make a list of all your activities and arrange them based on results. Then make a make an action plan that focuses on the activities that lead to big returns. To continue the example from above, a blogger’s list would look something like this:

1. Write content
2. Research relevant topics
3. Network with other bloggers
4. Optimize design and ad placements
5. Answer comments and email
6. Read other blogs

Keeping track of your most important tasks will direct your energy towards success. Without a constant reminder, it’s easy to waste entire days on filler activities like reading RSS feeds, email, and random web surfing.

When my motivation starts to wane, I regain direction by creating a plan that contains two positive actions. The first one should be a small task you’ve been meaning to do, while the second should be a long-term goal. I immediately do the smaller task. This creates positive momentum. After that I take the first step towards achieving the long-term goal. Doing this periodically is great for getting out of a slump, creating positive reinforcement, and getting long-term plans moving.

It’s inevitable that you’ll encounter periods of low energy, bad luck, and even the occasional failure. If you don’t discipline your mind, these minor speed bumps can turn into mental monsters. By being on guard against the top 3 motivation killers you can preserve your motivation and propel yourself to success. 

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