Success Advice
How Trolls Can Raise Your Self-Esteem and Business Game
Everybody knows that the virtual world is full of trolls. They’re negative, they’re angry and they’re probably a bit smelly too. Like sketchy neighbourhoods and dodgy-looking characters on the street, we take great steps to avoid potentially negative interactions in our everyday life online. But, what if I told you, that there is a different path open to you, when it comes to dealing with trolling? That trolls, nay-sayers, angry folks that want to insult you, and all-round impolite and insulting creatures online, are actually a force that you can leverage, for your own self-esteem, and for your business? Would you tell me that I’m crazy?
Why We Are Affected By Trolls
Most of us are lucky enough to live in a world, where our safety and self-esteem is not immediately threatened every day. There are no tigers waiting to eat us, no armed gangs gathering outside our homes, and we can safely call a taxi to get home on a night out. While this is ideal from the point of view of safety, it means that our deep reflexes – our natural instincts in the face of danger, don’t get a look in. In fact, those deep-rooted survival instincts are positively flabby. We don’t get enough practise dealing with conflict, so when it does happen, we go all wibbly-wobbly about it.
This is why, when we write a kick-ass article, post a picture or share an achievement online, we forget all about the uplifting comments from people that enjoyed it, in order to mentally and often physically, over-react to negative comments.
Even though we’re not in any physical danger, and we’re probably not in any other type of danger either, such as having our livelihood stripped away from us, or losing money. We react as though we are. Negative comments naturally dominate our thoughts, as the brain and body are attuned to threats and danger. That’s how we’ve survived for many thousands of years.
Being rejected by your tribe is an ancient danger. Shame has been used by humans to control other humans since forever, and this primitive reaction is what trolls are tapping in to. When your social standing and reputation are threatened, the primitive part of your brain doesn’t understand that it’s probably some dude covered in Pringle crumbs, sitting in his mother’s basement ten thousand miles away.
When the brain perceives danger, or a threat to your plans or social standing, a chemical called cortisol is released by the HPA axis in the brain. This heightens your awareness (which is partly why some people obsess over certain comments online). It raises your heartbeat, your breathing gets shallower, and you might even start to tremble. You can have trouble focusing on anything other than the perceived threat, and even experience distortion of reality – such as thinking that your article is terrible and everyone hates it.
I don’t need to tell you, that this feels HORRIBLE! This is how trolls operate, and they get a kick out of causing a physical and mental reaction to somebody, just by using words.
How Trolls Can Be Good For You
First of all, if you can be at peace with the fact that trolling exists, and some of it is going to land at your feet, no matter how wonderful you are, then you have a huge advantage over lots of other people that want to get their work out there.
Being aware of the entire process of trolling, from what causes it in the first place to how it makes you react, helps to hand the power over the whole process back to you. People feeling powerless and trying to dominate and control others over the Internet because they’re feeling sad and inadequate in themselves – that’s the reason trolls say awful stuff. Your natural response – to over-react and feel like crap about it, is perfectly healthy.
This stuff is as natural as anything you’d see on a David Attenborough show. That doesn’t mean it’s OK, but if you can change your outlook on trolling, you can retain your power and actually use their negativity as motivation to hit your next level, where their comments can not harm you.
Being Trolled Is An Opportunity To Become More Of Who You Are
If you can concentrate on your own feelings and reactions to trolling and begin to control them, instead of letting them control you, then YOU get to use it as an opportunity for growth. You get to be the badass. You get to build the courage to post the stuff you might otherwise delete. You get to go deeper, be more experimental, and dare to connect more deeply with your audience. You get to be more authentic, more real, and come across in 3D, which puts you at an advantage, compared to everyone else that’s still getting hung up on rude people who get off on upsetting strangers.
Trolls Can Help You to Build Deeper Connections With the RIGHT People
Going even deeper – if you can control your own reactions to trolls, you can step in and uplift others. What better way to connect with other writers, entrepreneurs, or the artists and people you admire, than to counter their negativity THEY are receiving from trolls, with your admiration and acclaim?
This is going to bring you far more happiness and make you more positive connections, than thinking “I’d better tone myself down a bit in case I get a load of crap from trolls over this.” Standing up for yourself can repair the cracks that trolls may have caused in your self-esteem, but standing up for others gives you battle-armour.
You can’t wave a magic wand and banish all the trolls back to their bridges, but you can use their negativity to push yourself further, be more daring, and make all kinds of connections online. I’m sure many of you will agree, that is truly a win against the online forces of darkness.
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Success Advice
How to Alter Your Business Approach With Technological Advancements
Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner.
Technology’s evolution has impacted everything, and business is no exception. Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner. Entrepreneurs unable to do so are being wiped out of the market.
There is no doubt that AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) have taken over the business world. These technological advancements are impacting decision-making, success percentages, and other entrepreneurial aspects.
Adapting to these developments is integral to business success. Let’s explore how you can accomplish these milestones.
Embed the strength of AI and ML.
AI has modified business operations in major ways. For instance, companies have employed bots for customer support. These bots go through an effective learning process via Machine Learning before being able to answer like humans.
According to CyberGhost (CG) bots can also perform detailed data analytics and make business moves with high success percentages.
ML is used more for the analysis of data chunks and generating successful predictions. This simply means that business owners do not have to worry about large-scale financial losses.
In terms of deployment and usage, a reputed company like Netflix employs machine learning for decision-making.
Blockchain is increasing the count of business opportunities
Tampering of financial transactions is quite common and causes severe monetary damage to customers. With the rise of digital payments, this risk has increased.
Blockchain is used to elevate your experience for monetary transfers. It combats penetrating events to extract confidential customer information.
Most business sectors are using block chain but finance and supply chain management sections have a higher count. These two corporate sections have several monetary deposits and withdrawals taking place.
In terms of percentage, approximately 72% and 5% of finance and supply chain firms have implemented block chain successfully.
Dedicate Yourself to Continuous Learning and Individual Development
You invest in learning some of the very important skills, including digital marketing, financial management, and how to gain customers as an entrepreneur.
You need to set up your knowledge base about doing business on Coursera and Udemy with the basics that are necessary for the business, building further by networking with experts through webinars.
Besides, Agile methodology will introduce elasticity to your company: this review and feedback system with further correction regularly will allow for enhancing efficiency and promptly reacting to the market.
Developing key skills to achieve goals
Running a business successfully is not only about having niche/domain knowledge. Business owners need to have communication / soft skills as well in addition to niche information.
Here are some key technical/domain-related areas that business owners should have a strong grip on.
Data Storage on Cloud: These days, companies do not store their data on physical servers. Therefore business owners should know how data is stored/edited/removed/updated via AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and other platforms.
Data Analysis/Interpretation Qualities: These days, data is as precious as gold. Business owners with data analysis abilities make correct predictions. As a result, their ventures grow in volume.
Development/Coding Knowledge
Programming knowledge gives business owners an edge whether the application is developed in-house or outsourced. It assists in getting updates deployed and handling application underperformance without getting professional support every time.
Hacking proof framework
There is no benefit of having an advanced automated system if can be penetrated. Successful business owners have above-average knowledge of cyber security and hacking attempts. They are able to choose top-notch anti-hacking software without much of an ambiguity.
Communication Abilities/Soft Skills
Here are some key communication qualities that business owners should have:
Communication/Conversation: Business owners should use to-the-point sentences in both written and oral communication.
Issue Resolution Abilities: Business owners should be able to drill down to problems and solve them. This is done successfully only if an entrepreneur has in-depth business domain knowledge.
Agile Implementations
It is mandatory for business owners to have knowledge of iterative/agile models. With such a competitive environment, it is impossible for business owners to succeed without adopting an agile framework.
Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy
A productive business venture starts with a clear vision. The first factor making a business successful is the idea behind it. It helps with endless growth and combating competition successfully. Katherine Philips once mentioned that business goals are inevitable if goals are set concretely.
- Goals should be based on smart achievements instead of complexity. Focus on the value that each one of them adds.
- Business objectives should not be vague. Key indicators should be constructed to measure the success/failure of each milestone.
- Be realistic when setting goals. Do not aim at impossible milestones since they can be demotivating.
- Milestones/goals need to be time-bound. Set a completion deadline for each one of them.
- Business goals should not be alien. Owners can think out of the box but not be obsolete / unrelated.
Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy
Business owners cannot succeed without having a network. Some tips help in this case. Attend conferences and professional gatherings to connect with other entrepreneurs.
Here are some other related points business owners should pay attention to.
- Attend meetings and conferences to stay updated with trends and meet business owners who already have well-set ventures. This helps in enhancing the learning curve of new / growing entrepreneurs.
- Being a part of business communities/groups is very productive. When one shares opinions and discusses decision-making tactics, it helps in preventing errors and enhancing success rate.
- Even the most experienced business owners have mentors as learning never stops. Take part in mentorship programs so there is an assurance that you are following the correct roadmap.
Conclusion
There is absolutely no doubt that business dimensions have evolved with technological advancements. Successful entrepreneurs have grabbed these changes in due course of time and continue to evolve. On the other hand, people following old paths and conventional steps fade out of competition. In a nutshell, keep an eye on the processes and practices you follow as these factors decide success rate.
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