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Success Advice

You Can Either Make Time to Read or Continue With a Poverty-Ridden Life

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Poverty comes in many forms, and neglecting to read books leads to all of them. We can certainly speak of material poverty, and it’s a demonstrable fact that people who read more books end up making more money. Not just a little bit more money either. I’m talking ‘what-are-all-these-extra-forks-even-for?’ kind of money.

But there’s also “mental poverty”, and what we can refer to as “poverty of soul,” which are both equally pernicious. So how do we avoid ending up like this? How do we avoid wasting our one and only lives in obscurity, ignorance, and pain?

Answer: We dust off our library cards (or our e-readers), we commit to the fact that reading books can literally save our own lives, and we arm ourselves with the knowledge we need to be able to read more of them, and to read more effectively.

5 Minutes Every Hour Costs You Everything

When someone else wastes your time, it doesn’t cost them anything. However, it costs you everything. Time is literally what your life is made of, and when you throw it away as though it were nothing, you’re committing an insidious form of suicide.

Thousands of years ago, the Roman statesman Seneca noted that we constantly chase money and possessions, yet we let time slip away as though we had an infinite supply. Those five minutes we waste here and there all add up over time.

So, a question: Which is more valuable, Time or Money? From mindless IG scrolling and wasteful meetings, to waiting around for others so that we can move forward with a project, we all waste so much time. That being said, the best way to save more time is to figure out how we’re spending it now.

So stay conscious! Track where your time is going, and you’ll see all these places where you’re mindlessly blowing through time that you can’t afford to waste in the first place.

“Books train your imagination to think big.” – Taylor Swift

Myself, I’ve been awake for about 8 hours today and I’ve already wasted 45 minutes. I know this because on my phone, I track how many minutes I waste each day, rounded up to the nearest five minutes. In my case, it was some IG, a pointless conversation I could have excused myself from, etc. Some days I waste 4 hours. It’s shameful.

Think about it: If you waste just five minutes out of every hour that you’re awake, and you’re awake for 16 hours each day, that’s 80 minutes you’re letting slip away into eternity, never to return. 80 minutes a day! That’s 560 minutes a week and 29,120 minutes a year, which translates to more than 485 hours a year. Every. Single. Year.

Please, take back some of that time for yourself and use it to read some of the best books ever written. When you think about it, it doesn’t take that much time to read a book. If you read 20 pages in an hour, then after 15 hours you’ve read a 300-page book. All you have to do is repurpose the time you would have wasted over the course of 1.6 weeks of running on autopilot.

In the time it takes for you to open a book and read just one sentence, your life can be completely transformed. In the time it takes to read 10, 50, 100 whole books? You’ll hardly recognize your literate, articulate mug in the mirror.

Switch Up Your Stack

There’s no need to finish one book completely before moving on to the next one. In fact, you’re killing your reading gains if you do this.

Now, I may get some pushback on this from people who say that reading more than one book at a time is too difficult for them. And hey, fair enough. We all learn differently. But I would argue that you used to switch back and forth between books all the time. In fact, you did this in school every single day!

You never just studied one subject in high school. Rather, you switched back and forth between textbooks, between subjects, period after period, day after day. Not only that, but you learned!

So give your big beautiful brain some credit! If you knew about all the complicated calculations that your brain has to make in order to even open a damn door successfully, then you might be willing to place more trust in its awesome power.

What I would suggest, in order to maximize your effectiveness as a reader, is to read in different formats, across genres. What do I mean by this?

Well, me,  I’m just such a great big nerd that I have five different reading apps on my phone, and piles of physical books everywhere. But that just allows me to read wherever I am! If I’m driving to the gym, I have an audiobook going. If I’m standing in line at the grocery store, I have iBooks open on my phone. Wherever I go, there are the books.

For example, right now I’m reading Happy by Derren Brown (iBooks), Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell (physical book), Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (physical book), and The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler (audiobook), among others. Three nonfiction books and a book of poetry. Well, guess what? I don’t always feel like reading poetry!

Sometimes I read fiction too. It’s also not always feasible to be listening to an audiobook. So I keep my options open, and in so doing, I never run into a situation where I “can’t” read. I always have some book, in some format, in some genre, that I feel like reading, and that I’m able to read, wherever I am and whatever I’m doing. You think that lets me read more books? You bet.

“A peasant that reads is a prince in waiting.” – Walter Mosley

Hit the Books

The best books are like flowers planted in the garden of the mind. I truly believe that. I first encountered that idea in James Allen’s absolute classic As a Man Thinketh. But whereas Allen was speaking about our thoughts, instead of books specifically, the greatest books are where some of our greatest thoughts come from!

Don’t worry about not remembering every single thing that you read either. It all subtly changes you over time, and every book you read becomes part of who you are. Yes, “learning how to learn” is important, but don’t stress yourself out.

The thought I want to leave you with is this: We don’t need any more information. We are simply drowning in information, but what we really need is wisdom and action. Wisdom from the best books, but also action; action that helps us to crystallize our learning and attain to the highest heights of our individual potentialities.

There’s a time for reading books, and there’s a time for action, and so I want to make sure I remind you to stop waiting for the perfect time to start, stop waiting for someone else to come save you, and stop wasting so much time! You will never, ever get any of it back.

Matt Karamazov runs the charity, Volunteer to Save, and reads 100+ books every single year. One of his obsessions, besides reading, writing, and bodybuilding, is to help other people read more books as well. If you want to read more books this year than you ever have before, click here. 

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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.

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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.  

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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Success Advice

Understanding the Power of Yes and No: How to Create Boundaries For Success

These words have a significant impact on how our success unfolds

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The two smallest yet most powerful words in life, “Yes” and “No,” have a big impact on our growth on both personal and professional levels. In addition to affecting the choices we make every day, these words have a significant impact on how our success unfolds. (more…)

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Motivation

From Couch Potato to Go-Getter: A Step-by-Step Motivation Plan for Everyone

By understanding what motivates you, you can turn your dreams into reality

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How to be motivated
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Are you tired of feeling like a couch potato? Do you want to transform your life and become a go-getter? You’re not alone! Many people struggle with motivation, but the good news is that change is possible. (more…)

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Success Advice

10 Micro Financial Habits for More Wealth and Peace of Mind

The World Economic Forum still reports that half of U.S. adults lack financial literacy

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micro financial habits
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You’ve heard about developing financial habits, but what about micro-financial habits? Micro habits are the tiny things you can do every day with minimal effort that, together, transform your future. (more…)

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