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Category: Personal (Page 35 of 63)

30 Websites That Will Make You Unbelievably Smarter

15/09/2016 /

Lolly Daskal, President and CEO of Lead From Within, provides a list of the best websites that can be used for professional and personal development. Instead of chasing after provocative headlines and weird old tricks, why not spend time on sites that will make you smarter in life, shrewder in business, and wiser in leadership?

1. TED Talks 
TED’s tagline is “ideas worth spreading.” TED Talks is a video collection in the form of short, powerful speeches on every subject imaginable (18 minutes or less).

2. Brain Pickings
Brain Pickings has interesting posts drawn from art, science, design, history, and philosophy.

3. 99U
99U’s actionable insights on productivity, organization, and leadership help creative people push ideas forward.

4. Lynda
Lynda has thousands of video tutorials covering technical, creative, and business skills, all taught by industry experts.

5. University of the People 
University of the People is a nonprofit, tuition-free online university based in California and committed to educational access and inclusion.

6. Learnist 
Learnist is a collaborative knowledge-sharing site where users create and curate “learning boards” composed of text, images, video, and audio.

7. Alison
Alison offers free online courses with certification and diploma options.

8. Mental Floss 
Mental Floss tests your knowledge through quizzes, brainteasers, and games.

9. Brain Pump 
Brain Pump lets you learn something new and feeds your curiosity, through a vast library of entertaining videos on topics ranging from chemistry to physics to history.

10. Peer 2 Peer University
Peer 2 Peer University is an open education project in which learners gather in lightly organized circles that meet at public libraries and other accessible sites.

11. Platzi
Platzi offers live-streamed courses–many free–on topics including web and app development, online marketing, interface design, and server administration.

12. edX
EdX, a collaborative project of Harvard University and MIT, provides free online courses and classes from the world’s best universities and other institutions.

13. OpenSesame
OpenSesame is a marketplace for business-oriented online training.

14. Udacity
At Udacity, find free online courses, self-paced with code reviews, when you want to make a career change or get a new job.

15. Coursmos
Coursmos is a micro-course platform with short video lessons on topics ranging from business to lifestyle.

16. Highbrow
Highbrow lets you choose one course and receive new knowledge every morning. Super-brief lessons are delivered to your inbox. Learn, grow, repeat … in all subjects: art, health, history, literature, logic, nature, philosophy, productivity.

17. Coursera
Coursera is a platform where anyone can take free online classes from 120-plus top universities and educational organizations.

18.  University Webinars
On University Webinars and Videos for Blended Learning, top college faculty, staff, and experts in their field share knowledge from their courses and programs, targeted for higher education professionals.

19.DataCamp
DataCamp is the most engaging way to learn R and data science. Learn in the comfort of your own browser via tutorials and coding challenges. A monthly or annual fee provides access to all courses.

20. CreativeLive 
At CreativeLive, take free live online classes taught by the world’s most inspiring instructors. Choose from video workshops in photography, video, design, business, audio, music, crafting, and software training.

21. Investopedia 
Investopedia is a premiere resource for investing and personal finance education, market analysis, and trading simulators. Access free educational content and tools.

22. Gibbon
Gibbon is a peer-to-peer learning network that connects users who want to teach one another and learn about anything. An enterprise knowledge portal for employee development and learning, individually accessible courses are also available.

23. BBC Languages
BBC Languages provides free online language Learning that includes the alphabet, phrases, vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, activities, and tests. Free interactive tutorials come in 40 languages.

24. Future Learn
Future Learn has free courses in subjects including law, psychology, and teaching, offered in partnership with top universities and specialist organizations in the U.K. and around the world.

25. MIT OpenCourseWare
MIT OpenCourseWare is a web-based publication, open and accessible, of virtually all MIT course content.

26. Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a digital library of more than 50,000 free e-books to read online or download. Included are book listings, a search engine, a newsletter, articles, and information on how users can help create more free e-books.

27. Quora
Quora: the best answer to any question. On Quora, ask a question on any topic or subject and receive an answer from an expert.

28. Udemy
Udemy is an online education marketplace with limitless variety: more than 30,000 courses, developed by subject-matter experts.

29. Skillshare 
Skillshare is a learning community for creators. Anyone can take an online class, watch video lessons, create projects, and even teach a class.

30. Inc.com
Inc.com is all about advice, news, tools, and services to help small businesses grow. Everything you read on Inc.com will make you a smarter leader and entrepreneur.

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Image source: Flickr – medithIT  (CC BY 2.0)

Introverts and diplomacy: a possible marriage?

13/09/2016 /

The principle behind the art of public diplomacy is not new: in order to advance your goals you need to engage, listen, discuss, persuade and ultimately influence others.
Now, if all this is true, is there a chance for introverts to be good diplomats?

In this TED Susan Cain suggests a very interesting answer.

First of all, she explains what introversion is. She argues that Western culture misunderstands and undervalues the traits and capabilities of introverted people although some of our leaders in history have been introverts: Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, and Gandhi.

Nowadays, according to Cain, we entered a new culture that historians call the culture of personality and introverts are pressured to act like extroverts instead of embracing their serious, often quiet and reflective style.

In our workplace when we think to leadership, introverts are routinely passed over for leadership positions, even though introverts tend to be very careful, much less likely to take outsize risks and introverted leaders often deliver better outcomes than extroverts do. Introverts tend to be more empathetic, modest, deep-thinking and innovative.

Cain is not seeking introvert domination but a better balance and inclusion of different work styles, acknowledging that big ideas and great leadership can come from either personality type.

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Image source: Flickr – Bill Strain (CC BY 2.0)

 

 

Keep Your ‘Good demons’ Awake

08/09/2016 /

How to make your life ‘flourish’, living up to your potential? Here are three good tips in Aristotelian thought, developed 2.300 years ago:

1. Having to do with our conduct, this is a matter of ethics and you have to cultivate Eudaimonia, which may be translated as ‘having good demons’. This indicates the capacity to raise all the functional, concrete aspects of life of humans as rational creatures who live in societies.

2. What enables you to flourish is also virtue: this essentially means knowing to what extent traits of human personality should be used and exploited on each occasion to achieve an optimal result.

3. You can become more virtuous through education, looking at accomplished, flourished people and through good habits you may develop, which help you flourish.

For more details have a look at this article: The 3 Key Ideas from Aristotle That Will Help You Flourish by Charlie Gilkey

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Image source: Flickr – Jon Wallach  (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Problem solving: analytical and creative thinking

06/09/2016 /

We usually have to face obstacles in our daily life and we must be ready to deal with such challenges in the best and the most effective way.

But which skills are required to be a good and effective problem solver?
According to the article “The skills of problem solving”, both analytical and creative mental skills are required.
 The analytical approach provides a logical framework that allows you to identify the most appropriate solution from those available.
On the contrary, the creative approach  is related to feelings and is more about intuition, invention and innovation. Creativity helps you develop new and uncommon ideas, which probably do not have a logical connection with the problem but are likely to lead you to a solution.
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Image source:  Flickr– Duncan C (CC BY-NC 2.0)

What you can promise

01/09/2016 /

The Diplo calendar 2016 realized by Stefano Baldi and Ed Gelbstein presents a selection of quotes from the Classical World for living and working better.

For the month of September the selected quotation is by Publilius Syrus, Latin writer of sententiae. He was a Syrian who was brought as a slave to Italy, but by his wit and talent he won the favour of his master, who freed and educated him.

Never promise more than you can perform

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Photo credit: Jalan’s Place (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Upgrading your reading skills

25/08/2016 /

Time constraints are constantly limiting our ability and efficiency in reading books and, above all, retaining what we have read in the long run.

Upgrading our reading skills would certainly help us in optimizing the time and effort we put into it, bringing positive benefits in our daily life and work.

In this article from blinkist.com, Caitlin Schiller lists 6 science based tips aimed at improving our reading method:

  1. Find a personal angle
  2. Get a bird’s eye view
  3. Drum up curiosity
  4. Create your own structure
  5. Record key insights
  6. Review your notes

Click here to read the full article.

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Image source: Pixabay – CC0 Public Domain

A Sound Mind in a Sound Body

09/08/2016 /

Dr. Mike Evans, is a doctor/professor/person working to bring the best
evidence-based health information out of the clinic to wherever people are. In one of his videos he answers the old question “What is the single best thing we can do for our health” in a completely new way.

Life and juggling balls in the air

04/08/2016 /

On September 6, 1996, Bryan G. Dyson, then Vice Chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola, delivered a commencement speech at Georgia Tech’s 172nd where he made an extraordinary and wise set of remarks.

“Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them Work – Family – Health – Friends – Spirit, and you’re keeping all of these in the air.

You will soon understand that WORK is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls FAMILY, HEALTH, FRIENDS and SPIRIT are of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life. How?

1. Don’t undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others. It is because we are different that each of us is special.
2. Don’t set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is best for you.
3. Don’t take for granted the things closest to your heart. Cling to them as you would your life, or without them, life is meaningless.
4. Don’t let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or for the future. By living your life one day at a time, you live ALL the days of your life.
5. Don’t give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.
6. Don’t be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect. IT is this fragile thread that binds us together.
7. Don’t be afraid to encounter risks. It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.
8. Don’t shut love out of your life by saying its impossible find. The quickest way to receive love is to give; the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly; and the best way to keep love is to give it wings.
9. Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only where you’ve been, but also where you are going.
10. Don’t forget that a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.
11. Don’t be afraid to learn. Knowledge is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily.
12. Don’t use time or words carelessly. Neither can be retrieved.

You are what you believe. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!”

Brian G. Dyson

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Image source: Flickr – Mads Johansen – (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

 

Can you please everybody?

02/08/2016 /

A Man and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: “You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?”
So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: “See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides.”
So the Man ordered his Boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn’t gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other: “Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along.”
Well, the Man didn’t know what to do, but at last he took his Boy up before him on the Donkey. By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them. The Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor Donkey of yours—you and your hulking son?”
The Man and Boy got off and tried to think what to do. They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the Donkey’s feet to it, and raised the pole and the Donkey to their shoulders. They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the Boy to drop his end of the pole. In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned.
“That will teach you,” said an old man who had followed them:
“PLEASE ALL, AND YOU WILL PLEASE NONE.”

Æsop. (Sixth century B.C.) Fables.
The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey1
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

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Image source: Flickr –Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library  – (CC BY-NC 2.0)

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