Listening to music makes us feel good, and has myriads of benefits.

One of the easiest ways to improve your life is to add more music to it. When you listen to music, your brain releases the “pleasure chemical” dopamine. This is one of the reasons why music has played such an important role in societies throughout history. It’s also why people often list music as one of the top five things that is most pleasurable to them.

Music has many benefits in addition to releasing feel-good hormones. Here are some of them:

• It reduces stress and lowers anxiety.
• It can bring us back to the present moment. That is, it makes us mindful which is one of the keys to happiness.
• It increases motivation.
• Listening to music can help reduce pain.
• Research shows that people who combine music with a healthy diet and exercise get better results in achieving wellness.

However, with our busy lives, listening to music is often something that gets pushed to the side. The good news is, there are ways we can incorporate more music into our lives.

Below you’ll find 12 easy ways to bring more music into your life.

1. Wake Up to Music.

One of the keys to becoming an early riser is to make waking up in the morning as painless as possible. And one way to achieve this is to wake up to music. Luckily, there are apps for that.

Some apps, such as the Alarm Clock Xtreme app, let you choose any music as your alarm tone. The volume slowly increases until you have no option but to get up (or wake up your entire household). If you’re not sure what song to choose for your morning alarm, here are three options:

• Grieg’s “Morning” from Peer Gynt
• “Morning Has Broken” by Cat Stevens
• “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong

2. Integrate Music Into Your Morning Routine.

Evan Carmichael—founder of Evan Carmichael Communications Group–explains that turning on music is part of his morning routine. The music gives him energy which he’s going to need to fulfill his mission of making the world a better place. Carmichael has a playlist consisting of about 20 songs which he calls “The Believe Playlist” which he plays in the mornings.

In addition, as I write in my “30 Time Saving Hacks, Strategies, and Techniques” post, time yourself as you get ready in the morning by making a playlist of songs that you like and using the songs as a timer. Here are two examples:

• Give yourself one song to brush your teeth and scrape your tongue.
• Give yourself one song to make coffee and prepare breakfast.

3. Play Music During Your Commute.

For a lot of people, their daily commute is one of the biggest energy and happiness drains of their day. In fact, studies show that cutting out an hour-long commute each way gives people the happiness equivalent of making an extra $40,000 a year. It would stand to reason that making your commute more pleasant will go a long way toward making you happier.

Although you may feel that you have to be productive during your commute and get some work done, given how destructive your commute can be to your well-being, it’s probably a better strategy to do something you enjoy during that time.

A great idea is to use your commute to listen to music that you love. After all, there’s research that shows that listening to music increases happiness. Having a more positive commute will help you to be more productive, and put you in a better mood, for the rest of the day.

4. Make Routine Chores Fun With Music.

Most people hate routine household chores, such as cleaning, folding laundry, and putting away the groceries. Therefore, they tend to procrastinate on doing these things. In my post, “Stop Procrastinating By Making It Fun”, I explain that when a task bores you to tears, one way to get yourself to carry out the task is to ask yourself how you can make it more fun.

One way to make routine chores fun–or at least more fun– is to turn on some music. In fact, you can select a few songs that you love and tell yourself that you can only listen to them as you clean the kitchen. You’ll probably end up having a kitchen that’s so clean, you could eat off the floor.

5. Play Music As You Exercise.

Studies have shown that listening to music while you exercise does all of the following:

• It distracts you from the physical discomfort of exercising.
• It makes you less aware of your exertion.
• Songs between 120 and 140 beats per minute (bpm) make you work out harder.

If you don’t know the BPM of a song, look it up online. You can use the site Song BPM.

6. Play Music at Work.

Listening to music at work increases accuracy and speed. However, the kind of music that should listen to depends on the type of work that you’re doing.

• If your work involves numbers or attention to detail, listen to classical music.
• Listen to pop music if your work involves data entry.
• If your work involves solving equations, listen to ambient music.
• If you need to problem-solve at work, listen to dance music.

7. Take Music Breaks

As I explain in my post, “25 Ways to Have Fun at Work”, most people need an energy boost in the afternoon. Why not do as Microsoft does? They blast music at three o’clock when everyone’s energy is starting to slump. Some people get up and dance, and everyone claps when the song is over.

Convince your boss that this is a good way to raise morale and foster camaraderie in the office.

If you work at home, give yourself music breaks. For every 50 minutes of work, get up, turn on some music, and dance around for ten minutes. You’ll be getting a mini-workout and you’ll be giving yourself an energy and mood boost.

8. Listen to Music Before Bed.

Studies show that songs with a slow tempo can help you to fall asleep. Lyz Cooper of the British Academy of Sound Therapy explains that you should look for songs that have 60 beats per minute (BPM) or less if you want to relax. She adds that you should ideally choose songs that remind you of a happy time.

9. Use Music Strategically to Control Your Moods and Emotions.

In the book Your Playlist Can Change Your Life: 10 Proven Ways Your Favorite Music Can Revolutionize Your Health, Memory, Organization, Alertness and More, the authors recommend that you use music strategically throughout the day to control your moods and emotions.

They suggest using a five star system to rate the songs that you listen to, based on different emotional states, such as the following:

• How relaxed does this song make me feel?
• How happy does this song make me feel’
• How energized does this song make me feel?
• How motivated and inspired does this song make me feel?
• How focused do I feel when I listen to this song?

You’ll be creating awareness of how different songs influence your feelings. Then, create a playlist for the different feelings and emotions that you want to feel. For example, a “Pumped Up Playlist”; a “Relaxation Playlist”; a “Get In the Flow Playlist”; and so on.

Match your playlists to specific daily tasks so that you can use music to function at your best throughout the day.

10. Play a Musical Instrument.

As I explain in my post, “How to Make Yourself Smarter In One-Hour-A-Day”, what’s even better than listening to music is learning to play a musical instrument. Playing an instrument does all sorts of good things to your brain, and multiple brain areas are enhanced. Plus, who doesn’t want to be able to call themselves a musician?

11. Choose Music Venues on Your Nights Out.

When you go out on the town with your friends or your significant other on the weekends, do something music-related. You can go dancing, go to a jazz club, go to a concert, or even go to the symphony. Bond with the people you care about over music.

12. Create a Music Bucket List.

Create a bucket list—or a list of life goals– just about music. You can include things such as the following:

• Build a classical music library.
• Become an expert on your favorite music genre.
• Form a band.
• Go to a Celine Dion concert.
• Learn to dance salsa.

The possibilities are endless.

Conclusion

Use the 12 tips above to add more music to your life. And, since my last post was on “17 Must Read Books By the Ancient Greeks”, I’m going to finish this post with a quote about music by Plato:

“Music is moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”

Live your best life by adding more music to your life.

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• 16 Hobbies That Will Improve Your Quality of Life
• 8 Ways Lifting Weights Will Transform Your Life
• The One-Hour-A-Day Fast Track to Goal Achievement
• 10 Practical Tips for Creating a Meditation Habit That Sticks

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We should all learn from the ancient Greeks.

I’m creating a reading list for myself for my “becoming well-read” project, and I’ve started by identifying the books by the ancient Greeks that I want to read. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they all sound incredibly interesting (as you can see for yourself by reading the descriptions below).

Why study the Greek classics? Because studying the Classics–including the Roman classics— is fundamental to understanding western civilization. We got all of the following from them:

• Democracy
• Philosophy
• The concept of the Republic.
• The concept of history,
• The West’s first literature.
• Medical and legal terms.

In addition, reading the Classics helps you to develop intellectual rigor and analytical skills, as well as a better understanding of the world you live in. Here, then, are 17 must-read books by the ancient Greeks:

1. The Iliad by Homer (mid-8th century BC). Poetry – Greece

The “Iliad” is an ancient Greek poem in dactylic hexameter widely attributed to Homer, author of the first known literature of Europe. It was first committed to paper in the 8th century B.C.

While most people think that the “Iliad” chronicles the ten years of the Trojan War, the poem only covers a few weeks during the ninth year of the siege of Troy by the Greeks. The main theme of the poem is the wrath of Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior.

2. The Odyssey by Homer (end of the 8th century BC). Poetry – Greece

Homer’s “The Odyssey” is roughly the second part of “The Iliad”. It’s an epic poem about Odysseus–King of Ithaca–and his ten year struggle to return home after the Trojan War. While sailing home, Odysseus faces numerous obstacles, including monsters and temptations.

Once home, Odysseus has to win a contest to prove his identity and fight off the suitors vying for the hand of his wife, Penelope. In the end, he regains his throne.

3. Poems and Fragments by Sappho (610 – 580 BC). Poetry – Greece

Sappho was a Greek lyric poet from the island of Lesbos. She was known in Antiquity as a great poet. Plato referred to her as “the tenth Muse”. Although it is said that her work filled nine papyrus rolls in the great library of Alexandria 500 years after her death, only a small and fragmented body of her lyric poetry survived to the present day.

Aeschylus

4. The Orestia by Aeschylus (458 BC). Drama – Greece

There are only three Greek tragedians whose work has survived to this day: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Aeschylus was a prolific playwright who is often referred to as the father of tragedy. However, only 7 of the perhaps 90 plays that Aeschylus wrote are preserved.

The Orestia is a trilogy which was originally performed at the Dionysia festival in Athens in 458 BC. It’s considered to be Aeschylus’ best work. Here are the plays that comprise the trilogy:

• The first play of the trilogy is Agamemnon, which details the homecoming of Agamemnon, King of Argos, from the Trojan War. Waiting for him is his wife Clytaemestra, who had begun an affair with Agamemnon’s cousin, Aegisthus. Clytaemestra kills Agamemnon and she and Aegisthus proclaim themselves the rulers of Argos.
• The Libation Bearers is the second play of The Orestia. It takes place a few years later. Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytaemestra, kills Clytaemestra and Aegisthus to avenge his father. He’s immediately pursued by the Furies, spirits that avenge injustice.
• Eumenides is the third and final play of The Orestia. Orestes, tormented by the Furies, flees to the temple of Apollo at Delphi. There, the Furies surround him but Athena intervenes. She calls on twelve Athenians to join her in forming a jury that will judge Orestes.

The Orestia deals with the concept of vengeance vs. justice, and breaking the cycle of violence.

5. Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus (450–425 BC). Drama – Greece

This play is based on the myth of Prometheus, a Titan with the gift of prophecy who defies the gods and gives fire to humanity, an act for which he is condemned by Zeus to perpetual punishment.

The play begins as Prometheus is being reluctantly chained to a boulder by the god of fire, Hephaestus. There, vultures will peck out his innards every day, only to have them grow back at night. Given that the protagonist is chained throughout the play, the play contains little action and is made up mostly of speeches.

Sophocles

6. The Oedipus Cycle by Sophocles (about 420 BC). Drama – Greece

Sophocles is the second of the three Greek tragedians whose work has survived to this day. He wrote 123 plays during the course of his life, but only seven have survived in their entirety (Ajax, The Women of Trachis, Electra, Philoctetes, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone).

His most famous work is the Oedipus Cycle (also known as the Three Theban Plays), which tells the story of the life of Oedipus and what happens to his children soon after his death.

Oedipus arrives at Thebes a stranger and finds the town under the curse of the Sphinx, a monster who had been sent by the gods. The Sphinx will not free the city unless her riddle is answered. Oedipus solves the riddle and, since the king had recently been killed, becomes the king and marries the queen.

Here are the three plays of the Oedipus Cycle:

• Oedipus Rex: At the beginning of the play, Oedipus is the King of Thebes. However, he discovers that–just as the oracle had foretold–he killed his father and married his mother. The grief of this discovery leads him to take his own sight, and he’s later exiled from Thebes.
• Oedipus at Colonus: After many years of wandering, Oedipus arrives at Colonus, where he dies.
• Antigone: Antigone is Oedipus’ daughter. Her two brothers killed each other in battle, and one of them was given a hero’s burial. However, the other brother was  labelled a traitor, and the king denies him burial. Antigone ignores the king’s order and buries her brother.

Euripides

7. Medea by Euripides (431 BC). Drama – Greece

Euripides is the third of the three Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. Medea is his most famous play. It’s based on the myth of Jason, leader of the Argonauts.

Jason marries Medea, a barbarian, and fathers her two children. However, he leaves her for a more favorable match. Medea takes vengeance by killing her children, as well as Jason’s new wife. She then escapes to Athens to start a new life.

8. Electra by Euripides (around 410 BC). Drama – Greece

The plot of Electra is roughly equivalent to the plot of The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus, which has already been discussed. In Euripedes’ Electra, Electra has been cast out of the royal house and married to a peasant. Although she comes to care for her peasant husband, she deeply resents that her mother sent her away.

When she’s reunited with her brother, Orestes, the two avenge the death of their father, Agamemnon. They kill the two people who murdered him: Aegisthus and their mother, Clytaemestra.

It’s interesting to note that Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides each wrote a play about the story of Electra, and all three plays survive to this day.

9. Hippolytus by Euripides (428 BC). Drama – Greece

This Greek tragedy is based on the myth of Hippolytus, an illegitimate son of King Theseus of Athens. The play is set in the coastal town of Troezen. Theseus is living there while serving a year’s voluntary exile after having murdered a local king and his sons.

Hippolytus has lived in Troezen since childhood. He takes a vow of chastity and snubs the goddess Aphrodite. Aphrodite takes revenge by causing Phaedra, Theseus’ wife, to fall madly in love with Hippolytus.

Aristophanes

10. The Clouds by Aristophanes (423 BC). Old Comedy – Greece

Aristophanes was an acclaimed comic playwright of Ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete. His work defines the genre of Old Comedy. In The Clouds, Strepsiades, an elderly Athenian mired in debt, enrolls his son–Pheidippides–in Socrates’ philosophy school. He hopes his son will learn the rhetorical skills necessary to evade their creditors.

However, when Pheidippides returns home he uses what he’s learned to outwit his father and kick him out of house. This leads Strepsiades to burn down the philosophy school in disgust.

Herodotus

11. The Histories by Herodotus (440 BC). History – Greece

Herodotus is known as the “Father of History”. Before him, no one had made a systematic, thorough study of the past or tried to explain the cause-and-effect of its events. In The Histories, Herodotus gives an account of the Greco-Persian Wars, a conflict between the Greeks and Persians which took place between 499 and 479 B.C. Here’s how he begins his work:

“Here is the account, of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus in order that the deeds of men not be erased by time, and that the great and miraculous works–both of the Greeks and the barbarians–not go unrecorded.”

Plato

12. Plato: Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo by Plato (roughly 380 – 360 BC). Dialogue – Greece

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were the most influential of the ancient Greek philosophers. Plato was Socrates’ student, and Aristotle was a student of Plato. Although both Plato and Aristotle wrote extensively, Socrates didn’t write anything himself.  All we know about Socrates comes from two sources: Plato’s writing and Xenophon’s memoirs of Socrates (Xenophon was another of Socrates’ students).

Plato was born in Athens in 428 or 427 B.C. to an aristocratic family. Most of his writings survived. His works are in the form of dialogues, where several characters argue about a topic by asking questions of each other. Socrates appears as a character in many of the dialogues. It is widely accepted that Plato wrote 26 dialogues, and most scholars classify them as early, middle or late.

Plato’s dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, religion and mathematics. Here are five of his most famous dialogues:

• Euthrypto: This dialogue takes place during the weeks leading to Socrates’ trial. The dialogue features Socrates and Euthyphro, a religious expert. They discuss the meaning of piety, or the virtue of living in a manner that fulfills one’s duty to the gods and to mankind. This is of particular interest since Socrates has been charged with impiety.
• Apology: This is an account of the speech Socrates makes at the trial in which he is charged with not recognizing the gods recognized by the state, inventing new deities, and corrupting the youth of Athens. Socrates is not apologizing,  but defending himself.
• Crito: This dialogue takes place in Socrates’ cell, where he awaits execution.
• Meno: The dialogue begins when Meno asking Socrates whether virtue can be taught, and this question occupies the two men for the entirety of the text.
• Phaedo: The dialogue is told from the perspective of one of Socrates’ students, Phaedo of Elis, who was present at Socrates’ deathbed. Socrates explores various arguments for the soul’s immortality.

13. The Symposium by Plato ( 385–370 BC). Dialogue – Greece

In this dialogue, the nature of love is examined in a sequence of speeches given by men attending a symposium, or drinking party. The conversation revolves around questions such as the following: What is love? From where does it arise? What is the purpose of love? In this dialogue, Socrates advocates transcendence through spiritual love.

14. The Republic by Plato (380 BC). Dialogue – Greece

In this dialogue, Socrates and a a group of friends discuss the nature of justice. They also consider whether the just man is happier than the unjust man. They create different imaginary cities “in speech”, culminating in a city called Kallipolis–the ideal state– which is ruled by philosopher kings.

The participants also discuss other matters, such as the theory of forms, education, and the roles of the philosopher in society.

Aristotle

15. Metaphysics by Aristotle (350 BC). Philosophy – Greece

As a young man, Aristotle studied in Plato’s academy in Athens. He later went on to tutor Alexander the Great of Macedonia.

Metaphysics is the first major work of the branch of philosophy  known by the same name, which studies existence. This branch of philosophy answers the question, “What is?” Metaphysics holds that reality is absolute and has a specific nature independent of our thoughts or feelings. Every entity has a specific nature and acts in accordance with that nature.

16. The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle (350 BC). Philosophy – Greece

This is Aristotle’s best known work on ethics. He argues that the highest good and the end toward which all human activity is directed is happiness. In addition, happiness is attained by leading a virtuous life and through the development of reason. He adds that, in general, the moral life is one of moderation in all things except virtue.

17. Politics by Aristotle (350 BC). Political Philosophy – Greece

Aristotle believed that politics is the science of creating a society in which men can live the good life and develop their full potential. Politics is one of the most influential texts in the history of political thought. It presents issues which  confront anyone who wants to think seriously about the ways in which human societies are organized and governed.

Conclusion

I’ve already read the Oedipus Cycle–which I had read in school but didn’t remember well–and I loved it. I’m looking forward to reading the other books on this list. I hope I’ve inspired you to create your own list of Greek classics you want to read. Live your best life by reading the books of the ancient Greeks.

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Robert F. Kennedy once said that “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”

When any of us fail at something, it’s hard to keep things in perspective. On the other hand, it’s easy to fall prey to catastrophic thinking along the following lines:

• That’s it; I’ll never get another chance again.
• Everyone will know that I’ve failed and no one will ever want to work with me again.
• I guess I just don’t have what it takes.

That’s where stories about other people who have failed, and then went on to win big-time, come in. They help us to think the following:

• If they could get through that, I can get through this.
• They got a second chance, and I deserve one, too.
• Maybe if I persevere, like they did, I’ll also achieve my goals and dreams.
• I will take this risk. If I fail, I’ll use that failure to do better the next time.

In the spirit of looking for ways to turn failure into a springboard to success, below you’ll find 16 wildly successful people who failed before becoming superstars.

1. Fred Astaire. The man who evaluated Fred Astaire’s first screen test wrote, “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Balding. Can dance a little.” Thank goodness that didn’t get Astaire to stop dancing.

Astaire went on to star in several successful musical comedy films with Ginger Rogers from 1933 to 1949, and he continued to do well even after the duo split up. “Top Hat”, along with “Swing Time”, are his most famous films. They’re still being watched today.

2. Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley, one of the most iconic entertainers of the 20^th century, drove a truck after graduating from high school. At the same time, he auditioned whenever he could. After auditioning as a vocalist for a popular Memphis band, he was told: “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”

3. Katherine Hepburn. Katherine Hepburn—who went on to win four Oscars–was once on a list of actors considered to be “box office poison” due to a series of film flops.

Always an aggressive, go-getting type, she acquired the film rights to “The Philadelphia Story”, gave herself the lead female role, and staged her comeback. The film was a big hit. Hepburn had taken control of her career and it paid off big. She went from failure to success.

4. Gabriel Garcìa Màrquez. Gabriel Garcìa Màrquez won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. There are few people who have not heard of his seminal work, “One Hundred Years of Solitude”. However, he had difficulty getting his first novella, “La Hojarasca” (Leaf Storm), published.

In the early 1950s, García Márquez sent his novella to the most important publishing house in Latin America at the time: Editorial Losada in Argentina. The editor, Guillermo de Torre, rejected it and sent it back with a note informing the young García Márquez that he didn’t have a future as a writer, and he should look for a different profession.

5. Dr. Seuss. Theodor Geisel—known as Dr. Seuss—had his first book, “And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street,” initially rejected by over 20 publishers. Finally, Vanguard Press agreed to publish the book. Today, Dr. Seuss’ children’s books are classics – most of us will remember having read “The Hat in the Hat” and “Green Eggs and Ham” when we were kids.

6. Walt Disney. When Walt Disney was a young man, he was fired by a newspaper editor because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”

Disney’s next failure came in 1922 when he started his first film company. Along with a partner, he bought a used camera and made short advertising films and cartoons under the studio name Laugh-O-Gram. The company went bankrupt in 1923.

Later, Disney was told that Mickey Mouse—who has become one of the world’s most beloved animated characters–was a bad idea because women were afraid of mice. When visiting one of the many Disney amusement parks that exist today around the world, or watching the Disney movies, it’s hard to believe how many times Walt Disney failed before succeeding.

7. Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill was Britain’s lord of admiralty (secretary of the navy) during World War I. He made the decision to attack Turkey at Gallipoli on the Dardanelles coast, despite  being advised by people more knowledgeable than he was in warfare that it was a bad idea.

The battle lasted eight-and-a-half-months; it resulted in 250,000 casualties for the Allies; and the Allies withdrew in disgrace. Britain was humiliated.

Churchill was dismissed from his cabinet position. In an interview given many years later, his wife explained that after the Gallipoli debacle, Churchill had almost died of grief.

Then, during World War II, Churchill saved Britain from the Nazis. However, in another surprising failure for Churchill, British voters ousted him from office just two months after Germany’s surrender in 1945.

Nonetheless, in 1951, 77-year-old Churchill became prime minister for the second time. He stayed in the position until he retired in 1955. The “British Bulldog” who had so many ups and downs in his life, ended up on top.

8. Larry King. For twenty-five years, from 1985 to 2010, Larry King hosted the nightly interview television program Larry King Live on CNN, a show that had over one million nightly viewers. However, in 1971 he was arrested for grand larceny.

King didn’t go to jail because the statute of limitations had run out. The man who accused him, Louis E. Wolfson, succeeded in getting King fired from his job at the Miami TV station WTVY, by claiming that he was a ‘menace to the public’.

The scandal almost destroyed King’s career. It took him four years to get his life back on track.

9. Colonel Sanders. Harland Sanders—who went on to become known as Colonel Sanders—was in his sixties when, due to unforeseen circumstances, he found himself penniless. He hopped into his car and started driving around the US, visiting restaurants and trying to franchise his chicken business.

In exchange for his “secret” chicken recipe—with eleven herbs and spices—he wanted a nickel for every chicken sold. He was rejected over 1000 times until, finally, he sold his first franchise to Pete Harman of Salt Lake City. Things picked up from there.

In 1964, Sanders sold the franchising operation for $2 million. Today, that operation is KFC—a multibillion-dollar international company.

10. Sidney Poitier. Sidney Poitier grew up in poverty in the Bahamas. When he first auditioned for the American Negro Theatre, he spoke in a heavy Caribbean accent and botched his lines. Poitier was told by the casting director:

“Why don’t you stop wasting people’s time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?”

Poitier worked on his craft and went on to win an Academy Award for best actor.

11. Bill Gates. In 1975 Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. He started a business with Paul Allen called Traf-O-Data. It flopped. Undeterred by their failure, Gates and Allen tried their hand at business again and created Microsoft.

12. Milton Snavely Hershey. Miltson S. Hershey–founder of Hershey’s chocolate–started four candy companies that failed, and he filed for bankruptcy, before starting what is now Hershey’s Foods Corporation. His fifth attempt was clearly successful – Hershey’s Kisses are known the world over.

13. William McKinley. McKinley—the 25^th President of the United States–went bankrupt while serving as Ohio’s governor in 1893. He was $130,000 in the red before eventually straightening out with the help of friends. He won the White House after having gone through this experience.

14. H.J. Heinz. H.J. Heinz started the partnership of Heinz and Noble with his friend, Clarence Noble, when he was twenty-five years old. They produced horseradish and other bottled products. However, the market was soon flooded with horseradish, and the company went bankrupt.

Heinz plunged back into the bottled food business a year later. Of course, we’re all familiar with the Heinz Company, which today manufactures thousands of food products in plants on six continents.

15. J.K. Rowling. J.K. Rowling is the first billionaire author, thanks to the Harry Potter books and franchise. It’s hard to believe she once lived on welfare and was so miserable she contemplated suicide. Here’s a quote from her 2008 commencement speech at Harvard:

“An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless … By every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.”

16. Rowland Hussey Macy. Rowland Hussey Macy was the founder of the world famous Macy’s department store chain. Between 1843 and 1855, Macy opened four dry goods stores, including the original Macy’s store in downtown Haverhill, Massachusetts. They all failed.

It was not until he opened his Macy’s in New York City that he succeeded. Today, Macy’s covers an entire city block and is a must-see NYC landmark.

 Conclusion

Aren’t you feeling better about your failures now? I know I am. Live your best life by recognizing that failure is just a stepping stone to success.

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• 8 Ways Lifting Weights Will Transform Your Life
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Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to “Daring to Live Fully” by RSS or by email, and get free updates.

MOOCs–Massive Open Online Courses–allow anyone to become an independent learner.

A little while ago I started a “Become Well-Read” project. I read quite a lot in high school–as well as at Georgetown–, but I decided I wanted to read certain books that were left out of my education, as well as re-read others which I read at some point but are now just vague memories.

In addition, I decided to supplement my reading by taking MOOCs on literature. That’s how I came across a MOOC taught by La Universidad de Los Andes (Los Andes University) in Bogota, Colombia. It’s called “Reading Macondo”, and it’s about five of the books written by Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez.  I’m currently taking the course, and I’m loving it. In addition, taking this MOOC has inspired me to write a post on how MOOCs can improve your life.

Below you’ll find 10 ways taking MOOCs can improve your life.

1. Fill the Gaps In Your Education.  Let’s face it, we all have a list of things we wish we had learned in school, but didn’t. This can include things such as the following:

• How to Network
• Study Skills — Learning How to Learn
• How to Negotiate
• How to Make Decisions

Whatever gap you feel there is in your education, chances are high that there’s a MOOC you can take on that topic. Find it, take it, and fill in the gaps.

2. Improve Your Resume. Add a “Professional Development” section or a “Skills” section to your resume and include any job-related MOOCs that you’ve taken.

• First, this tells employers that you’re intellectually curious, as well as proactive–both of which are highly valued skills.
• In addition, you can add a short explanation on how the skills that you acquired by taking the MOOCs relate to the job that you’re applying for.

If you really want to knock the socks off of prospective employers, do the following:

• Complete a project by using the skills that you learned through the MOOC.
• Create a portfolio showcasing your newly acquired skills.

Both a project that showcases your skills, and a portfolio of your work, speak much louder than a certificate of completion. Another thing to consider is that there are web sites that allow you to upload your MOOC certificates, as well as sites that allow you to create online portfolios.

Here are some of them:

• LinkedIn – this popular social media site allows users to add MOOC certificates to their profile.
• Degreed – a site that allows you to create a portfolio of your life’s learning experiences.
• About.me – a visual resume platform.
• Pathbrite – a portfolio creation platform.

3. Decide Whether To Pursue a Particular Career. Suppose that you decide that you want to change careers. After conducting some research you decide that computer science sounds interesting, and that computer scientists are in high demand, so you start looking for a program you can enroll in.

Once you find a good program you quit your job, you ask your relatives for a loan, and you enroll. Then, a semester into the program, you realize that you absolutely hate computer science. But now you’re stuck. This scenario doesn’t sound too good, does it?

A much better approach is to enroll in a few MOOCs on computer science. By doing this you’ll get a good feel for the area and be able to make an educated decision on whether or not it’s an area that you really want to pursue.

4. Dabble in Different Fields. This point is related to the point above. If you know that you want to move in a new career direction, but you’re not sure which field to pick, take MOOCs in several different fields and see which one you like best. You may be surprised to discover that you hate the law, but love engineering, or vice versa.

5. Become an Expert. It’s often said that if you want to become an expert in a subject, relative to the general population, you need to read five books on the subject. Obviously, it takes more than that, but it’s a good start. Gain more knowledge in an area in which you’re interested in becoming an expert by taking MOOCs.

What do you want to be an expert in? Do the following:

• Read the top five books in the field or area.
• Identify the top five MOOCs in that area and take them, from start to finish.
• Read the top five articles you find online in that area.
• Watch the top five YouTube videos in that area.

Then, you can go on to prove your expertise by helping someone else with your knowledge. Finally, share your expertise with the world by creating a blog, an eBook, a product, or a service.

6. Learn Business Skills. You hear it all the time: someone wants to start a side business or turn their hobby into a start-up. However, they complain that they can’t do it because they didn’t go to business school, and, therefore, they don’t have any business skills. Well, now all those people who use the “but I didn’t go to business school” excuse can stop whining.

They can acquire any business skills that they need by taking MOOCs (on refining your idea, on marketing, on finance, on accounting, and so on), and launch their business. It’s even possible to get a No-Pay MBA by taking MOOCs.

7. Be a Lifelong Learner. I’m a lifelong learner. I love learning new things. Right now I’m reading “La Hojarasca” for the “Reading Macondo” MOOC that I mentioned in the introduction above. Is that going to help me make more money or look great on my resume? Probably not.

But I’m doing it because it makes me happy to learn, and doing something just because it makes you happy is a good enough reason to do it.

8. Get An Ivy League Quality Education. Many people dream of going to an Ivy League school. Nonetheless, for most people, that’s not going to happen.

The good news it that many Ivy League schools are putting several of their courses online. This means that you may not be able to say that you went to Harvard or Yale, but now you can say that you’ve taken Harvard and Yale courses by taking the MOOCs that they offer.

9. Achieve Your Goals. One reason you may not be achieving your goals is because there’s a skill –or more than one–that you need to have in order to achieve your goals, which you lack. For example, one of your goals may be to be financially free.

However, you lack the financial knowledge that you need to manage and invest your money wisely. In that case, find a MOOC on money management, as well as a MOOC on stock and bond investing, and take them. Doing this will allow you to acquire the skills that you need to achieve your goal of financial freedom.

Do the following:

• Ask yourself what your three most important goals are.
• Identify the skills that you need in order to achieve those goals which you don’t currently have.
• Take MOOCs that will allow you to acquire those skills.

10. Keep Your Brain Sharp. Challenging the brain can keep the mind and memory sharp. And one way to challenge the brain is by learning new things. Keep learning through MOOCs and keep your brain strong by being mentally active.

Conclusion

If you haven’t taken any MOOCs yet, I hope this post has convinced you to do so. And if you have, I hope it convinces you to take more. I know that I have three more MOOCs that I want to take lined up for when I’m done taking “Reading Macondo”. Live your best life by taking MOOCs.

Related Posts:

• 16 Hobbies That Will Improve Your Quality of Life
• 8 Ways Lifting Weights Will Transform Your Life
• The One-Hour-A-Day Fast Track to Goal Achievement
• 10 Practical Tips for Creating a Meditation Habit That Sticks

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Developing the habit of meditating is potentially life-changing.

Andy Puddicombe is a former Buddhist monk; he’s been acknowledged as the UK’s foremost mindfulness meditation expert. In his book, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day, Puddicombe explains that meditation can be used for all of the following:

• To treat a wide range of stress-related symptoms including anxiety, depression, anger, and insomnia.
• To improve your focus and concentration.
• To improve your emotional stability and your relationships with others.
• To be happier. Unhappiness has been linked to a mind that’s constantly wandering. Meditation helps to cure you of wandering mind syndrome by increasing your mindfulness.

In my post, “How to Make Yourself Smarter In One-Hour-A-Day“, I explain that meditation can increase your brain’s gray matter and thicken your pre-frontal cortex, both of which give you more brain power. Here are more ways in which your brain benefits from meditation:

• Meditation can increase the volume and density of the hippocampus, an area of the brain in the middle of the skull that is crucial for memory.
• Meditation improves your working memory, which is the ability to hold and manipulate information in your head.
• Meditation shrinks the size of your amygdala–the brain’s fight or flight center, which makes people feel less stressed and makes them better able to handle life’s challenges.

Doesn’t all of that sound fantastic? Do you meditate? If you’ve toyed with the idea of starting a meditation practice, or if you’ve tried meditating in the past, but failed, this post is for you. Below you’ll find 10 practical tips for creating a meditation habit that sticks.

1. Know Why You Want to Take Up Meditation. In order to give yourself the necessary push to get started with your meditation practice, you need to be clear on the reasons why you want to take up meditation. The stronger your reasons “why”, the more likely it is that you’ll take the plunge and give meditation a try.

As an example, the following are bad reasons to start meditating:

• “Well, everyone else is doing it, so I thought I might as well do it to.”
• “My spouse wants me to.”
• “I love Marelisa’s blog, and she says I should meditate, so I’m going to.” 🙂

These, on the other hand are fantastic reasons to start meditating:

• “I’m unfocused at work and my productivity is suffering as a result. I’m going to start meditating so I can improve my ability to focus and concentrate.”
• “I don’t sleep well at night. I’m going to try meditation to see if it helps with my insomnia.”
• “My mind is always going at a million miles per hour. I’m going to take up meditation to try to calm my mind chatter.”

Knowing “why” you want to start meditating will give you the motivation that you need in order to get started.

2. Start Small. Try Mini-Meditations. I meditated daily for a long time. Then, I stopped. Things got hectic at work and I made the wrong decision and stopped meditating. For the longest time I wanted to take up meditation again, but I just couldn’t get myself to do it.

Then, at the very start of 2015, I made it one of my New Year’s resolutions to start meditating again. However, the first week of January went by, then the second, and then the third, and I wasn’t meditating. Then, one day during the fourth week of January I got fed up with myself and my inability to create a meditating habit. I was having breakfast and I told myself:

“That’s it. As soon as I’m done eating breakfast I’m going to close my eyes right here where I’m sitting and I’m going to meditate for 30 seconds.”

And I did. So I told myself that’s what I would start doing from that day on. That same day I mentioned to my sister that I had started meditating for 30 seconds a day, and she looked at me like I was nuts. But, guess what? It worked. It got me to start meditating again.

After meditating for 30 seconds for a few days, I increased my meditation time to one minute. Then, I increased it to two minutes, and then to three minutes. I kept increasing my meditation time, one minute at a time, until I got to ten minutes.

3. Tie Your Meditation to a Trigger. You can’t just say, “I’m going to start meditating” and leave it at that, because then you won’t do it. In order to create a meditation habit, you have to schedule it. Better yet, tie it to something that you’re already doing.

As you can see from the point above, finishing breakfast became my meditation trigger. Eating breakfast is something that I do every day. And as soon as I finish breakfast, I know that it’s meditation time, and I do it.

4. Set Up Your Environment To Help You. Although initially I was meditating at the table where I eat my meals, I decided to stretch out a yoga mat on the living room rug and start meditating there. Every night I set out the yoga mat for the next day. This does two things for me:

• I walk past the yoga mat in the morning as I head for the table to have my breakfast. This re-enforces that I’m going to meditate right after I eat.
• Once I’m done eating breakfast I don’t have to get up and search for my yoga mat, since it’s already laid out where it should be.

This means that I know when I’m going to meditate, I know where, and everything is set up so I just have to get up from the table, walk a couple of feet to the yoga mat, and sit down. My environment is set up to help me.

5. Choose a Meditation Method. Suppose that you, too, decide to meditate on a yoga mat, in your living room, right after breakfast. As soon as you’re done with breakfast you sit on the yoga mat and are ready to get started. Now what?  Well, you have to have decided ahead of time how you’re going to meditate.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of meditation methods you can try. Here are just a few you can choose from:

• Take 100 breaths and count them. Try not to think of anything else.
• Follow along with a guided meditation. Choose one from Amazon or search for a free guided meditation on YouTube.
• Try visualization. Close your eyes and imagine that there’s a door in front of you. You open the door and it leads to a beautiful garden. What do you see? Is it filled with fruit trees? Is there a pond in the garden? What do you hear? Are there birds chirping? Can you hear the breeze ruffling the leaves? Create the most beautiful and peaceful garden that you can, in your mind, and stay there throughout your meditation.
• Try a meditation app such as Headspace–which was created by Puddicombe, the former Buddhist monk I referred to in this post’s introduction. Another app you can try is Calm.
• Chant a mantra, such as the popular “Om Mani Padma Hum“, the mantra of Chenrezi, the Buddha of compassion.

As you can see, there are many meditations methods you can choose from. Try as many as you like until you find one you feel you can stick to.

6. Make Meditation Fun. Let’s face it, if something bores you it’s just a matter of time before you’ll stop doing it. Therefore, try to make your meditation time as much fun as possible. Here are some things you can try to make your meditation sessions more fun and ceremonial:

• Light a candle that gives off a scent that you love. Old Factory Candles are a popular choice.
• Get some incense.
• Turn on some meditation music or nature sounds.
• In some Buddhist practices, singing bowls are used as a signal to begin and end periods of silent meditation. Get yourself a Tibetan Singing Bowl and strike it to signal the beginning and the end of each of your meditation sessions.

The truth is, you don’t need any props to meditate. However, if candles, music, and so on will help to make your meditation experience something that you look forward to, then, by all means, use them.

7. Find a Way to Hold Yourself Accountable. One of the secrets to habit success is being held accountable. If you want to succeed in creating a meditation habit, find a way to create a negative consequence if you don’t follow through.

A common form of accountability is to start a habit with someone else. Then, if you fail to follow through, you lose face with that person. Do you know someone who also wants to start meditating? If so, agree to send each other an email every day right after meditating. That way, you’ll hold each other accountable.

8. Do It Every Day. In order to make your meditation habit stick, do it every day. Andy Warhol once said the following:

“Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it’s exciting, and if you do it every day it’s exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it’s not good any more.”

By meditating daily you can avoid having the following debate in your head every day:

• “Should I meditate today? I’m not sure . . . I have a lot to do today. I won’t meditate today. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
• “I meditated three days in a row, so I’ll just take the day off today.”
• “I’m not really in the mood to meditate today. I’m just not feeling it.”

Skip the mental debate by making meditation a daily habit.

9. Track Your Progress. In order to stick to your newly formed meditation habit, track your progress. Do the following:

• Put an Om sticker on your wall calendar every day that you meditate.
• Keep a meditation log.
• Use an app that helps you track your progress toward the completion of your goals. For example, you can try Coach.me.

10. Give Yourself a Reward. In my post, “Eight Ways to Build New Habits and Make Them Stick“, I explain that every habit can be broken down into three components:

• The cue: For our purposes the cue is the trigger to start meditating (in my case, it’s finishing breakfast).
• A routine: Here the routine is your meditation ritual.
• A reward: Once you’re done meditating, reward yourself.

For me, meditation is its own reward. I feel calm and at peace while I’m meditating, and meditating gives me a mood boost which I can then carry with me throughout the day. However, I realize that this is because I’ve already been meditating for a few months.

When you’re first starting out you’ll probably want to give yourself a reward each time that you meditate in order to turn meditating into a habit that you’ll stick to. Here are three ideas on how to reward yourself:

• After each meditation session, have a piece of dark chocolate (with sea salt, if you can get it).
• When you’re done meditating switch from the nature sounds to your favorite song and dance along with it.
• Have a cup of flavored coffee.

There’s an infinite number of ways you can reward yourself for meditating. Get creative.

Conclusion

I can tell you from personal experience that meditating is one of the best habits that you can adopt. Make the meditation habit stick by applying the tips I share above. Live your best life by creating the meditation habit.

Related Posts:

• Dealing With Life’s Challenges – Life Is Like a Game of Chutes and Ladders
• 16 Ways to Become a Better Person
• 10 Ways to Tame Your Monkey Mind and Stop Mental Chatter
• 21 Ways to Create and Maintain a Positive Attitude

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Sooner or later, life will throw you a curveball. And it will suck.

“While I was in Double-A with the Cubs, my roommate got called into the office and was demoted to a Single-A club. He was leading our team in home runs and runs batted in and was the best offensive player we had, but he had to go down a level. The powers that be had ordained someone else ‘the best offensive player we have’, so our actual batting leader’s success was somehow unacceptable . . .

The curveball becomes that rude awakening that often derails us from our tried and true plan to go from A to B . . . [T]he curveball is often just a test — most times thrown to see if you will chase something out of your zone.”

– Doug Glanville, Major League Baseball Player (Source)

The question isn’t whether or not life will throw you a curveball; it’s just a matter of when. Look at the following:

• Your boss announces his retirement and you’re the most qualified person to replace him. You’ve been a loyal employee for five years and you’ve gotten nothing but outstanding evaluations. Then, out of nowhere, the powers-that-be decide to bring in someone from outside the company to fill your boss’s shoes.
• You and your boyfriend have been dating for two years, when he calls to say that he has something important to tell you. You’re sure he’s going to propose. Instead, he breaks up with you.

Once life throws you a curveball the question then becomes: How are you going to deal with it? Below you’ll find 10 things to do when life throws you a curveball.

1. Don’t Overgeneralize. Just because something unexpected has temporarily knocked the wind out of you it doesn’t mean that your life is over, that you’ll never achieve the things that you want, or that you’re doomed to fail and struggle for the rest of your days.

Kimberley Cohen, Founder, Facilitator and Personal Insight Coach of The Insight Technique, explains that the fact that you’ve struck out doesn’t mean that you’re out of the game. You’re simply out until the next time you’re up to bat. She adds the following:

“There will be another inning, another game, another chance, and ‘how’ you handle the curve balls is really up to you. You can lose your confidence, your spirit, your love of the game or, you can take your stance at home plate, swing like you have never swung before and know you have a chance at hitting that ball far out into the outfield or the stands.”

2. Get Some Perspective. Right now you may be telling yourself that losing your job, getting dumped by your girlfriend, or being passed over for the promotion is the worst thing that could have happened to you. However, you don’t know that for sure. Think of the story of the farmer and the horse.

In case you’ve never heard the story, it goes something like this:

• A farmer lost his horse. All his neighbors said: “How awful!” But the farmer simply replied: “Could be bad, could be good, don’t know yet.”
• Then the horse returned with a stallion. Now the neighbors said: “How wonderful for you!” But the farmer replied: “Could be bad, could be good, don’t know yet.”
• A few days later the farmer’s son was the riding the stallion. He fell off and broke his leg. Once again the neighbors chimed in: “That’s terrible news!” But the farmer just told them: “Could be bad, could be good, don’t know yet.”
• That weekend the country went to war and the generals went from village to village taking young men to fight in the war. They didn’t take the farmer’s son since his leg was broken. The neighbors all expressed how lucky the farmer was that his son had broken his leg, since now he didn’t have to go to war and risk being killed. But the farmer simply said: “Could be bad, could be good, don’t know yet.”

The truth is, you can’t see the future. Would your life have been perfect if you had gotten the raise you were gunning for, or if you had married that girl who dumped you? Maybe; but maybe not. What looks like a huge loss at the present could be a blessing in disguise. You don’t know yet.

3. Practice Acceptance. In his book The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Deepak Chopra explains “The Law of Least Effort”, which is basically the principle of no resistance. One component of this principle is acceptance.

Chopra explains that when you struggle against the moment you’re struggling against the entire universe. And that’s not a smart move. You can wish for things to be different in the future, but at this moment in time you have to accept things as they are. He advises that you say the following to yourself:

“This moment is as it should be, because the whole universe is as it should be.”

4. Decrease Your Ego’s Involvement. Chance are, the curveball you were thrown was unfair. You were treated unjustly. However,  even if you feel that you’ve been wronged, you need to stop thinking along the following lines:

• How dare they do this to me?

• Don’t they know who I am?

• They’ll be sorry they did this.

This kind of thinking consumes an enormous amount of energy and doesn’t help you in any way. In “The Art of Dreaming” Don Juan tells Carlos Castaneda the following:

“[M]ost of our energy goes into upholding our importance . . . If we were capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would happen to us. One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur; and two, we would provide ourselves with enough energy to . . . catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe.”

By refusing to identify with your ego and its penchant for taking things personally, as well as its need for self-aggrandizement, you’ll be better able to take things at face value. This will allow you to stop linking your sense of self to what happened.

In addition, it will free up energy that you can then use to create better circumstances for yourself.

5. Meditate. When you’re stressed, fearful, angry, or anxious—which are feelings that often accompany an event that has a negative impact on your life–, your brain’s rhythm increases and brain activity rises. The more stressed you become, the more rapidly your brain waves vibrate.

Meditating slows down your brain’s rhythm, which is conducive to a relaxed state of mind which allows you to generate alternatives, see opportunities, and come up with creative solutions. That is, meditating will help put you in a more resourceful state of mind.

So turn on some music that you find soothing, light a candle, sit cross-legged on the floor, and start saying your “Oms”.

6. Ask the Right Questions. In “Living Your Best Life”, Laura Berman Fortgang explains that we need to stop asking ourselves questions hoping to come up with information in order to understand a situation or circumstance. Information questions keep you stuck in the past. Here are some examples:

• “Why did this happen to me?”
• “Why would they do that?”
• “Why didn’t I get it?”

Questions such as the three above make you rehash the negative scene over and over again in your mind as you struggle to make sense of what happened.

What you need to do, instead, is ask yourself questions that will help you to move forward. This includes questions such as the following:

• What do I need to get through this?
• What will get me what I want?
• What is the solution?
• What can I learn from this?

The basic premise is that you need to move away from trying to understand a problem. Instead, look for ways to solve it. Laura adds that the most powerful question you can ask yourself is: “What do I want?”

7. Shift Your Focus To the Positive. Instead of dwelling on your loss, shift your focus to the good things that are still in your life.

• Did you lose your job? If you have your health and a good head on your shoulders you have a lot to be grateful for. Focus on that.
• Did your love interest leave you for someone else? If you have family and friends who love you, you’re blessed. Focus on that.

8. Mourn Your Loss and Get On With Your Life. Sometimes a failure or a loss feels almost like someone has died. And, in a way, someone has. The person you would have been—if you had gotten that promotion, if you had married that person, if your business had succeeded—will no longer come into being. Take a few days to mourn for the loss of that person.

Do the following:

• Decide on a mourning period: maybe two, three, or four days.
• Spend that time eating Häagen-Dazs—straight out of the container—and indulging in comfort food.
• Binge watch “Homeland”, “Justified”, and “Revenge”.
• Play sad songs on your iPod. Be sure to sing along in a loud, pitiful voice.

Then, be grateful that you’re not really dead, get up, and get on with your life.

9. Anchor Yourself to the Future. The curveball you were thrown probably set your goals off track. So, set new goals for yourself and get to work on achieving them. That is, anchor yourself to the future.

For example, just because that promotion didn’t pan out doesn’t mean that you’ll be stuck in a dead-end job forever. Instead, set new career goals for yourself. Then, start moving toward the new destination that you’ve set for yourself.

10. Focus On What You Can Control. One of the reasons why being thrown a curveball is so incredibly painful is because it makes you feel like you have no control over what happens to you. After all, you did everything right. But the “right” results didn’t materialize, in spite of your efforts.

In addition, there’s little that you can do about it. Look at the following:

• You can’t force your company to give you a promotion.
• You can’t force your boyfriend to marry you.

Therefore, you need to turn your focus to things you can control. You can do things such as the following:

• Learn a new skill that will look great on your resume.
• Join a gym so that you can meet new people.
• Ask for some vacation time so that you can get some distance from the situation.

Whenever you feel helpless or victimized because of something that has happened to you, turn your attention to the things that you can change, or the things that you can do. By doing what you can, with what you have, where you are, you’ll gradually begin to feel like you’re back in control of your life.

Conclusion

I know how difficult it is to have curveballs thrown at you, because I’ve had more than a few thrown at me. The ten things above have helped me to deal with life’s curveballs. I hope that they help you, as well. Live your best life by learning how to deal effectively with curveballs.

Related Posts:

• Dealing With Life’s Challenges – Life Is Like a Game of Chutes and Ladders
• 16 Ways to Become a Better Person
• 10 Ways to Tame Your Monkey Mind and Stop Mental Chatter
• 21 Ways to Create and Maintain a Positive Attitude

Smart people do better in life.

Recently, there’s been a slew of books arguing that success in life isn’t really about how smart you are and how much talent you have. These books advance the theory that what really matters are things such as the following:

• Emotional intelligence;
• How hard you work; and
• Perseverance — sticking to your goal until you achieve it.

While it’s true that being able to regulate your emotions, being industrious, and having lots of grit are vitally  important components of success, being smart does matter. Here’s why:

• Smart people learn faster. This one is obvious: we all knew that one kid in school who barely studied but did well on exams, as well as that other kid who got consistently mediocre grades no matter how hard they tried.
• Smart people are better at high-level thinking skills such as planning, reasoning, and solving problems. After all, your capacity to carry out these activities stem from the brainpower of your frontal lobe.
• Being smart has been linked to longevity. Studies show that smart people live longer.

The reason why intelligence has been dismissed as being “not that important” is because the prevailing dogma for the past 100 years has been that intelligence is hardwired. That is, it was thought that there’s nothing that you can do to make yourself smarter. And if there’s nothing you can do about it, you might as well undermine its importance.

However, this is beginning to change. There are new studies that show that there are ways to make yourself smarter.

Regular readers of this blog know that I’m constantly encouraging people to achieve their dreams and go after what they want in life by carving out an hour of their day and using it to pursue their dreams, goals, and ambitions.

In this blog post I’m going to show you how to achieve the goal of making yourself smarter in one-hour-a-day. You’re going to do this by spending one-hour-a-day performing three tasks. The three tasks you’ll be performing are explained below.

The Dual N-Back Task

Fluid intelligence is critical for a wide variety of cognitive tasks, and it is considered one of the most important factors in learning. It’s closely related to education and professional success. Psychologists have long believed that fluid intelligence is essentially immutable.

However, in 2008, Swiss psychologists Susanne M. Jaeggi and Martin Buschkuehl set forth that they could improve fluid intelligence with a simple working memory task. That is, they could make people smarter. The task is known as the dual n-back task.

I first heard of the dual n-back task in a video in which award-winning science journalist Dan Hurley, author of Smarter: The New Science of Building Brain Power, explains that it’s one of the seven things he tried during his foray into making himself smarter.

Basically, dual n-back games ask you the following: “What was that item that I mentioned ‘n’ times ago?”, where ‘n’ is 1, 2, 3 and so on. Here’s an example on the children’s version of the task:

• There’s a haunted house with five windows and every few seconds a cat appears in one of the windows and vanishes.
• On Level 1, the child has to remember which window the cat was just in.
• On Level 2, they have to remember where the cat was two windows ago. The time before last.
• For Level 3, they have to remember where it was three times ago.
• Level 4 is four times ago, and so on.

Experts have long regarded intelligence as being composed of two different things:

• Crystallized intelligence, which is all of your stored-up information and how-to knowledge; and
• Fluid intelligence, which–as stated before–is the capacity to learn, to solve novel problems, to reason, to see connections and to get to the bottom of things.

Long-term memory is related to crystallized intelligence. At the same time, working memory is related to fluid intelligence. Because the dual n-task has been shown to improve working memory, it also improves fluid intelligence.

Keep in mind that working memory doesn’t just help you to hold information in your head, but also to manipulate that information. Therefore, as Jaeggi explains, if you train working memory you increase the basic cognitive skills that help you to complete different complex tasks.

The dual n-back task requires only 15 to 25 minutes of work per day, five days a week. The training has been found to improve scores on tests of fluid intelligence in as little as four weeks.

If you want to make yourself smarter in one-hour-a-day, devote 20 minutes of that hour to playing the dual-n back game.  You can play the dual n-back game, for free, by visiting the web site, Soak Your Head.

Learn to Play a Musical Instrument

A recent TED.com talk titled “How Playing a Musical Instrument Benefits Your Brain” explains that neuroscientists have monitored what goes on in the brain when people learn to play a musical instrument by using MRI’s and PET scanners.

When people are hooked up to these machines while performing different tasks–such as reading a book, listening to music, and so on–different areas of the brain light up depending on the activity. It turns out that when people are playing a musical instrument, multiple areas of the brain light up, processing information in amazingly intricate and fast sequences.

Playing a musical instrument engages practically every area of the brain at once. This is specially true of the visual, auditory, and motor cortices. Disciplined practice in playing a musical instrument strengthens our visual, auditory, and motor skills, and we can then apply those strengths to other activities.

In addition, since fine motor skills are controlled by both hemispheres of the brain, playing music has been found to engage the activity in the brain’s corpus callosum, the bridge between the two hemispheres. This allows messages to get through the brain faster and through more diverse routes.

What does this mean? It means that musicians have a leg up when it comes to solving problems more efficiently and creatively.

People who play a musical instrument also have higher executive functions, which involve planning, strategizing, and attention to detail. It also impacts how our memory systems work. Musicians exhibit enhanced memory functions; they can create, store, and retrieve memories more quickly and efficiently.

In several studies, participants with the same levels of cognitive function and neural processing at the start were divided into two groups:

• One group learned to play a musical instrument.
• The other group did not.

The studies found that the groups that were exposed to a period of music learning showed enhancement in multiple brain areas compared to those that did not take music lessons.

Therefore, in order to make yourself smarter in one-hour-a-day, spend 25 minutes of that hour learning to play a musical instrument.

Meditate

Meditation doesn’t just help you release stress and give your mood a boost. It also makes you smarter. In a UCLA study, researchers used MRI’s to scan the brains of a group of subjects who were long-time meditators. Here’s what they found:

• Their brains were larger than the brains of people who don’t meditate.
• Meditators’ brains have noticeably thicker tissue in the pre-frontal cortex, which is the region of the brain responsible for attention and concentration. In addition, the pre-frontal cortex manages higher cognitive “executive” functions like planning, decision making, and judgment.

Neuroscientists have also found that meditators have more gray matter in various regions of the brain. Gray matter is the part of the brain that holds most of the actual brain cells. In turn, increased density may reflect an increase in connectivity between the cells.

To top it all off, recent research suggests that a regular meditation practice can cause beneficial structural changes in the brain in as little as eight weeks.

So, if you want to make yourself smarter in one-hour-a-day, spend 15 minutes of that hour meditating.

Conclusion

To summarize, you can make yourself smarter in just one-hour-a-day by doing the following:

• Spend 20 minutes of the hour playing dual n-back games.
• Spend 25 minutes of the hour learning to play a musical instrument.
• Spend 15 minutes of the hour meditating.

Live your best life by making yourself smarter.

Related Posts:

• 20 Brain Hacks To Keep Your Noggin In Tip-Top Shape
• 50 Characteristics of An Educated Person
• 14 Ways to Increase Your IQ
• Three Effective Ways to Improve Your Memory

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Set the goal of being a little bit better today than you were yesterday.

Make the commitment to be better each day by having better thoughts, making better choices, and taking better actions. The better person you are, the better people, life situations, and opportunities you will attract into your life. Below you’ll find 16 ways to become a better person.

1. Pick Yourself. Whatever it is that you want to accomplish or achieve, stop waiting for somebody else to pick you. Instead, pick yourself. Here are four examples:

• If you want to be a writer, stop waiting for a publishing house to accept your manuscript. Instead, publish it yourself.
• If you want to make more money, stop waiting for your company to raise your salary. Instead, create an additional source of income in your spare time.
• If you want a better education, stop waiting for people working in a college admissions office to accept you. Instead, create your own curriculum and learn what you need from books, seminars, and online courses.
• If you want to be an actor but you’re not being cast in any movies, write your own script and give yourself the starring role (think Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in “Goodwill Hunting”)

2. Start a Business. Starting a business will do all of the following for you:

• It will teach you to generate ideas, test those ideas, and execute them.
• It will give you problem-solving skills.
• It will teach you marketing and selling skills.

3. Travel the World. When you travel you gain new experiences, you learn about different cultures, and you get to sample different lifestyles. In addition, you get to taste exotic food, listen to different music genres, and see different art forms. At the very least, you’ll be more interesting and have better stories to tell.

4. Do Something Artistic. Take an art class, learn to make pottery, or learn to make jewelry. Making art is a form of self-expression, and it can even be healing. There are few things as rewarding and life affirming as creating something new with your own two hands.

5. Volunteer. True happiness comes from giving and doing for others. Volunteer organizations always need more help. Find a cause that’s close to your heart–child hunger, domestic violence, animal cruelty, and so on–, and volunteer your time and/or your expertise.

6. Develop Your Character. Benjamin Franklin–one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America–came up with a list of 13 virtues that he wanted to develop. He also devised a method for acquiring these virtues. Here’s what he would do:

• He would devote a week to each virtue, and observe and monitor his behavior to make sure that it was aligned with that week’s virtue.
• If he felt that he had committed any faults related to the week’s virtue, he would make a little black mark in a book that he kept with him at all times.
• His objective was to go through the week without having to make any black marks in his book.

You can follow a similar method to develop your own character. What virtues would you like to develop? How can you observe and monitor your behavior to make sure that you’re adhering to those virtues?

7. Take An Improv Class. Taking an improv class will teach you to think faster and better on your feet. Knowing how to push a conversation forward can help you to score a date, land a job, or close the deal.

In the book “Yes, And: How Improvisation Reverses “No, But” Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration“, the authors–executives from the world’s premier comedy theater and school of improvisation–argue that business is an act of improvisation. They add that the world is a gray place, and having an improv toolkit is important.

The authors also say the following;

• Improvisation is yoga for your social skills.
• It teaches you to create something out of nothing.
• You learn to respond to the unexpected.

8. Master a Game. Mastering a game–such as chess or Go–teaches you strategy, it teaches you to compete, and it teaches you flexibility and adaptability. In addition, you learn to master your emotions–playing chess against a worthy opponent can be mental torture. Also, it teaches you to lose — which is something that you need to know how to do, if you want to win.

 9. Master a Sport. Mastering a sport teaches you everything that you learn by mastering a game, but you’re also getting a physical workout. Plus, there’s no shortage of sports you can try.

10. Become More Lovable. The other day I saw the following quote go by on my Twitter stream: “If you want to be loved, be lovable.” The quote was credited to the Roman poet, Ovid. We all want to be loved, so, how do become more lovable? Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Give others genuine praise.
• Encourage others to go after their dreams.
• If you must criticize, do so gently and compassionately.
• Be kind.

 11. Learn a Foreign Language. As I wrote in my post “21 Fantastic Tips and Hacks For Learning a Foreign Language“, I speak three languages and am currently learning a fourth. Why would I go through the trouble of learning another language? Because learning languages has many benefits.

Here are some of them:

• Learning a new language will make you more cultured;
• It will make you a global citizen;
• It gives your brain a good workout; and
• It will give you a sense of accomplishment.

12. Solve a Problem. Once in awhile I’ll watch a show called “Modern Family”. Claire Dunphy–a character in the show–is a soccer mom.  In one episode she’s angry because there’s a sports car that keeps speeding through the suburban streets of her neighborhood.

Instead of just complaining about the speeding car, she takes action to solve the problem.  In a later episode, she succeeds in getting the local council to install a “Stop Sign” on her street. Is there a problem that you’re constantly complaining about? Stop complaining and start taking steps to solve it.

13. Become a Better Communicator. While everyone knows how to talk, few people have mastered the skill of communicating. In turn, much conflict is caused by miscommunication. Learn to speak clearly and concisely. In addition, learn to become a better listener.

14. Learn How to Learn. Learning how to learn is a meta-skill. It’s about acquiring an approach to learning that will allow to learn any skill that you’re trying to master better and faster. And the more skills you know, the better person you can be.

15. Start a Blog. You can become a better person by starting a blog on a topic that interests you. Why? At the very least, it will encourage you to research and learn more about your topic. In addition, you can create a community of like-minded people who share your interests. You could even get to the point in which you’re recognized as an expert on your topic.

16. Always Be Polite. Yesterday someone contacted me asking if they could publish one of my blog posts on their site. It turns out that they were asking for permission after the fact (they had already published my post). In addition, although they gave me credit for having written the article, they didn’t even link to my site.

I was tempted to send a scathing email demanding that they take my post down, immediately. However, I sent a polite email asking that they “kindly take my post down”. They did take it down, and I felt much better about myself than if I had sent a meanly-worded email.

Be a better person by always being polite.

Conclusion

Every day you have a brand new opportunity to be a better person. Take it. You can get started with the 16 ways to be a better person outlined above. Live your best life by being a better person.

Related Posts:

• How to Sharpen the Saw – Adopting Habits of Renewal (Part 1)
• How to Start Your Day The Right Way
• Eight Ways to Build to New Habits and Make Them Stick
• Seven Things To Stop Doing To Become An Early Riser

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Sharpening the saw is about self-renewal and self-care.

Stephen Covey’s magnum opus, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, was first published over 25 years ago. However, its teachings remain as important today as they were then. This post deals with the seventh of these habits, which is sharpening the saw, or setting aside some time each day to renew yourself. Unfortunately, most people have trouble adopting this habit.

After all, there’s always something else that needs to be done. How can you even think about sharpening the saw, when you’re always busy sawing? To use the seven-habits lingo, sharpening the saw is a Quadrant II activity. That is, it’s important, but it’s not urgent. Therefore, most people put it off, to their own detriment. Failing to devote some time daily for self-renewal will have a negative impact on your productivity and effectiveness, as well as on your levels of performance, in both the short and the long-term.

Covey explains the seventh habit by using the analogy of a woodcutter. A woodcutter had been sawing out in the woods for several days straight. As the days went by he noticed that his productivity was dropping. It was getting harder and harder to saw with each successive day.

After all, the process of cutting dulls the blade. And, the duller the blade, the greater the effort that is required to keep sawing. The solution, of course, was for the woodcutter to stop periodically to sharpen the saw.

In much the same way, you can take steps to prevent burnout and to maintain peak performance by sharpening the saw. Sharpening the saw is about renewing the four dimensions of your nature:

• The Physical Dimension;
• The Mental Dimension;
• The Social/Emotional Dimension; and
• The Spiritual Dimension.

In this post you’ll discover ten ways to sharpen the saw for your physical dimension, and ten ways to sharpen the saw for your mental dimension. That is, you’ll find 20 habits of self-renewal. Choose the ones that appeal to you the most, and begin integrating them into your life, today.

Sharpen the Saw – Physical Dimension

1. Eat Healthy Meals. Eating a healthy diet is one of the best ways to keep your saw sharp. Healthy eating begins with the following:

• Cooking meals at home.
• Reducing your fat, sugar, and salt intake.
• Eating three servings of fruit and five servings of vegetables daily.

Improving your eating habits is good for your waistline, your physical health, your longevity, and even your mental health.

2. Drink Lots of Water. It’s vital to drink lots of water throughout the day. I know that when I’m really busy working on a blog post or on one of my eBooks, I’m tempted to ignore signs of thirst. However, when I’m not sufficiently hydrated I get tired and sleepy. Therefore, I now keep a water bottle with me at all times and take frequent drinks from it all day long.

3. Do Cardio. Cardiovascular activity is any activity that gets your heart rate to about 50 – 75% of your maximum heart rate. This includes walking, jogging, bike riding, taking an aerobics class, and so on. Doing cardio will do all of the following for you:

• Help you lose weight;
• Make your heart stronger;
• Increase your lung capacity;
• Reduce the risk of several diseases, including diabetes; and
• Allow you to release stress.

4. Lift Weights. I wrote about the benefits of lifting weights in my post, 8 Ways Lifting Weights Will Transform Your Life. Weight lifting will improve your health, your brain function, and your mood. It will even help you live longer.

5. Stretch. Stretching helps improve flexibility and increases your range of motion. It also helps you to prevent injury. Find a flexibility class–such as yoga or pilates–near your home, or do your own flexibility work for 45-60 minutes, at least once a week.

6. Get Enough Sleep. Most adults need about 7 hours of sleep to function optimally. You may be tempted to scrimp on sleep to get more work done, but don’t. Numerous studies have a found a link between insufficient sleep and serious health problems, such as hearth disease, diabetes, and obesity.

Making yourself sick for the sake of increased output–whether it’s business reports, blog posts, legal briefs, and so on–is not a smart strategy.

7. Take Breaks. You need to stop thinking that you’re too busy to take breaks. After all, the brain wasn’t made for extended focus. If you try to focus past your productivity zone you’re likely to start feeling anxious, unfocused, and even irritable.

Taking a break at the point in which your concentration begins to wane will allow you to return to your task, after the break, with renewed focus.

8. Breathe Deeply. Yoga philosophy claims that we are each allotted a certain number of breaths in our lifetime. Therefore, the deeper you breathe, the longer each breath will last, and the longer you’ll live. At the very least, deep breathing relieves stress, thereby reducing the negative effects of stress on your body.

9. Take a Nap. Dr. Sara Mednick, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside and author of Take a Nap! Change Your Life, explains that a 20-minute nap can improve brain functions ranging from memory to focus and creativity. Here are three more benefits of napping:

• Napping reduces stress.
• Napping increases willpower.
• Napping has been linked to lower rates of cardiovascular disease and inflammation.

10. Go To a Spa. Every once in a while give yourself–and your body–a treat by spending the day at a spa. Nothing says pampering like getting a facial and an hour-long massage. If going to a spa sounds too self-indulgent, at the very least fill the tub at home with warm water, add scented bath salts, light a candle, and turn on some slow-tempo music.

Sharpen the Saw – Mental Dimension

 11. Read. If you’re a knowledge worker–and I assume most people who read this blog are–your brain is your saw. And one of the best ways to keep your brain sharp is by reading. Specifically, by reading books that are challenging.

Reading books that are slightly above your current level of comprehension will force your brain to engage, which means that you’ll be giving your brain a good workout. Each time that you grasp a new concept, you’ll be pushing your brain up to a new level. An A+ brain will do wonders for your productivity.

12. Solve Puzzles. A study of American nuns and retired priests found that those who pursued various kinds of cognitive activity–including doing puzzles–were 47% less likely to develop Alzheimers than those who undertook such activities infrequently.

If you want to keep your brain sharp, take out your sudokus, crossword puzzles, and jigsaw puzzles, and start solving them.

13. Take Up a Hobby. As I wrote in my blog post, 16 Hobbies that Will Improve the Quality of Your Life, having a hobby has myriads of benefits, including keeping your mind sharp, increasing feelings of self-efficacy, and releasing stress.

There’s literally hundreds of hobbies you can choose from, so everyone will be able to find an activity that they’ll enjoy doing.

14. Observe the Secular Sabbath. Take off one day in seven. The busier you are, the more you need a day of rest. Unplug from work, the internet, your cellphone, and other everyday demands. So, what on earth are you going to do all day? Read, solve puzzles, and work on a hobby. 🙂

15. Take a Vacation. Modern life is stressful. And this stress is likely to take a toll on both your physical and mental health. Every once in a while we all need to hit the pause button for a week or two. That’s where vacations come in.

You can hit the beach, visit a foreign country, or just explore parts of your town you’ve never been to before. The idea is to break the stress cycle. After your vacation you’ll be ready to face your work with renewed gusto.

16. Update Your Skills. In order to do your best work you need to keep your skills and knowledge up-to-date. Although this is particularly important in rapidly-changing areas, such as technology, updating your skills is important in almost any field.

Here are some ideas on how to identify the skills or knowledge that you need to stay sharp:

• Recommendations from your boss.
• Recommendations from your mentor.
• Skills or knowledge that you need in order to be able to step up the ladder (hint: What does your boss know how to do, that you don’t?)
• Skills or knowledge that your co-workers possess, but you don’t.
• Skills or knowledge that you need to be able to complete your projects well and effectively.
• Skills or knowledge that you need in order to get additional certifications which would make you more valuable to your company.
• Skills or knowledge that would allow you to provide a better service to your clients or customers.
• Skills or knowledge that would allow you to apply for a job in another company that you have your eye on.

17. Take Time to Think. Every once in a while you need to stop and take time to think. Specifically, you need to think about the following:

• Setting goals and planning how to achieve them.
• Measuring your progress on the achievement of your goals.
• Evaluating each area of your life, including health, relationships, finances, and so on.

In addition, in Covey terms, ask yourself the following: Is my ladder leaning against the right building?

18. Have a Morning Routine. Start each morning by performing a group of habits which will allow you to greet the day at the top of your game. This can include having a green smoothie, letting natural light shine on your face, and writing down affirmations.

Create a morning routine that’s the equivalent of starting each day with a saw-sharpening session.

19. Have a Night Routine. Just as it’s important to sharpen your saw in the morning, it’s also important to sharpen it at night. Create and follow a night routine that will help you end the day right, while simultaneously setting you up for success the next day.

20. Exercise Your Creativity. Even if your job–or the service that you provide–requires mostly logic and analytical thought, you need to keep your right-brain hemisphere sharp. After all, you never know when you’ll need to devise a creative solution for a problem or come up with a great idea.

Fortunately, there are many ways to reawaken your right brain. Working on creative projects won’t just give your right-brain a work-out; it will also give your left-brain some rest.

Conclusion

As you can see from the 20 habits outline above, there are plenty of ways to sharpen the saw in both your physical dimension, and in your mental dimension. In another post I’ll share with you 20 habits to sharpen the saw in your emotional/social and spiritual dimensions.

Live your best life by sharpening the saw.

Related Posts:

• Nine Morning Habits to Start the Day Right
• How to Start Your Day The Right Way
• Eight Ways to Build to New Habits and Make Them Stick
• Seven Things To Stop Doing To Become An Early Riser