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Category: Personal Development and Productivity

  • Learning Comes From Doing

    The majority of people have a faulty perception of when they have truly learned something.

    Reading and listening aren’t the only ways to learn. Reading generates new thoughts and possibilities. You only learn something when you act on it.

    Books about personal development

    Reading books and articles on personal growth is incredibly beneficial. The only issue arises when this is confused with true learning.

    Reading an exercise book will not make you fit. Reading a time management article will not make you more productive.

    Putting Thoughts into Practice

    When we grasp that reading is like a seed, the ideas we read can develop tremendous learning and comprehension, but only if we act on them, we can improve our learning.

    Choose a few ideas that you believe have the most potential to improve your life. Then set aside time, energy, and resources to put those ideas into practice.

    Look for inspiration.

    If you don’t have enough ideas to make a difference in your life, invest in some personal development books and audio recordings, and browse the internet for information. You’ll get a lot of ideas in a short period.

    Most of the time, we have broad ideas but don’t know how to put them into action. This is because knowledge will be gained through action. Start putting the principles into practice.

    Pick and choose carefully.

    It takes a lot more time, energy, and money to act on ideas than it does to read about them. That is why you must be selective in what you apply the ideas to and how you use them.

    Make a list of all the ways you can improve your life. Choose one idea from this list and begin working on it right away.

    Obtain Education

    Don’t just buy a book if you want to improve your talents in any subject. Place yourself in situations that require you to learn by doing.

    Join groups like Toastmasters and take advantage of any opportunity to speak if you want to improve your communication skills.

  • Secret Tips To Experience Deep Meditation

    Are you stressed? Is the mundane lifestyle getting to you? If your answer is yes, and has been yes for a while, you would likely have been asked to meditate. But meditation sounds complex and boring, right? Then why do so many people recommend you do it?

    This is why – meditation is not an exercise, task, or activity where you apply your mind. It is a state of rest. So deep that it can be deeper than the deepest sleep you can ever have. In this state, your mind is still and at peace – free from worry and agitation, and this is when meditation happens.

    You may have been practicing meditation regularly but have you noticed that at times, when you sit to meditate, your mind seems to take get tangled in your world of thoughts? Learning how to meditate is the first step, however, to have deeper experiences in meditation, you need to learn more ways.

    Following these tips can help you make your meditation deeper.

    • Calm Your Body And Breath

    Our mind, body and breath are interconnected. So relaxing the body and calming the breath will naturally calm the mind as well. The parasympathetic nervous system gets activated, and as a result, the stress response will be down-regulated. That is why, in the system of Yoga practice, one works with postures (asanas) and breathing regulation (pranayama).

    • Find Contentment

    The brain is designed to seek pleasure and reject pain. Before you start practicing deep breathing meditation, try finding a place of contentment and joy within yourself. Once your brain has picked up the message that you are safe and all is well, restlessness and anxiety naturally decrease.

    • Find A System That Works For YOU…

    There will never in the annals of time be two people who have the same human experience from birth to death. Not ever. In that, I recognize how unique I am, and that not every system – no matter how effective it might be for millions upon millions of other people – will necessarily work for me. The combination of experiences through which I have lived will never be repeated or experienced by another. This is true for each of us. And as unique and varied are those experiences, so are we as individuals. I wrote in conjunction with my meditations early on, documenting the thoughts and feelings that constantly flowed to and through me as I struggled to remain focused on what I was doing. It turned out that most of those things just wanted to be noticed so that I could understand them. My thoughts and feelings wanted to help me in my journey, but I had never given them the appropriate amount nor type of attention that would allow for a true understanding of what they were trying to tell me for so many years. Without this key element, I don’t know if I would have been able to find any success. I probably would have quit long ago. I believe that if one really sets one’s mind to it and just starts walking the path, the tools we need will make themselves known to us through the energy we omit.

    Peace and love, and Happy Meditating!

  • Looking At The Streaming Service Business And It’s Major Players

    A streaming service is a subscription-based service offering online streaming of films and television programs. Most of these services are owned by a major film studio.
    Today, one can watch their favourite shows/videos streamed on-demand straight to their Smart TVs, tablets, laptops, or smartphones in full HD quality. Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Twitch, AT&T TV Now, HBO Now, etc are the many video streaming app competitors and each one of them has their unique speciality.

    The growing adoption of cloud-based solutions to increase the reach of video content is influencing the market growth positively. This trend is majorly observed in the countries of North America and Europe. Furthermore, ongoing innovations and technological advancements are expected to meet the growing expectations for exceptional video quality, performance, and security. For instance, in April 2019, Akamai Technologies spotlighted its initiatives and innovations in delivering digital experiences of high-quality at the 2019 NAB Show (U.S.). The company showcased its advancement in live and on-demand media service, including cloud wrapper, direct connect, cloud interconnects, VPN & DNS proxy detection, and token authentication. Also, the high adoption of digital media across various industry verticals has led to the population’s inclination towards different streaming solutions and services. For instance, in November 2019, Apple Inc. entered the online video cascading industry by launching its TV+ service. In June 2019, Wowza Media Systems, LLC announced the complete range of professional services for video-related solutions. In March 2019, Google, the subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., unveiled its cloud-based gaming console, ‘Yeti,’ which features a game streaming service along with gaming hardware.

    Looking At The Top 7 Players In The Industry

    1 – Netflix

    Netflix, Inc. is an American over-the-top content platform and production company headquartered in Los Gatos, California. Netflix was founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California. The company’s primary business is a subscription-based streaming service offering online streaming from a library of films and television series, including those produced in-house. As of October 2020, Netflix had over 195 million paid subscriptions worldwide, including 73 million in the United States. It is available worldwide except in the following: mainland China (due to local restrictions), Syria, North Korea, and Crimea (due to US sanctions). It was reported in 2020 that Netflix’s operating income is $1.2 billion. The company has offices in France, the United Kingdom, Brazil, the Netherlands, India, Japan, and South Korea. Netflix is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), producing and distributing content from countries all over the globe.

    2 – Hulu

    Hulu is an American subscription video-on-demand service fully controlled and majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with NBCUniversal (owned by Comcast) as an equity stakeholder.

    The service was initially established as a joint venture between News Corporation and NBC Universal, Providence Equity Partners, and later The Walt Disney Company, serving as an aggregation of recent episodes of television series from their respective television networks. In 2010, Hulu launched a subscription service, initially branded as Hulu Plus, which featured full seasons of programs from the companies and other partners, and undelayed access to new episodes. In 2017, the company launched Hulu with Live TV—an over-the-top IPTV service featuring linear television channels. Time Warner (now WarnerMedia) later held a stake in the service. As of the third quarter of 2020, Hulu had 36.6 million subscribers.

    3 – YouTube TV

    YouTube TV is an American streaming television service that offers live TV, on-demand video and cloud-based DVR from more than 85 television networks. It is owned by YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, itself a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. YouTube TV’s line-up includes major U.S. networks such as ABC, CBS, IFC, NBC, PBS, Fox, FX, AMC, CNN, Fox News, TBS, Discovery, Comedy Central and ESPN.

    YouTube TV launched on February 28, 2017, and is the presenting partner of the World Series and the NBA Finals.

    4 – Amazon Prime

    Amazon Prime Video, or simply Prime Video, is an American subscription video-on-demand over-the-top streaming and rental service of Amazon.com, Inc., offered as a standalone service or as part of Amazon’s Prime subscription. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced by Amazon Studios or licensed to Amazon, as Prime Originals (or Amazon Originals) or Exclusives, with the service also hosting content from other providers, content add-ons, live sporting events, and video rental and purchasing services.

    5 – Twitch

    Twitch is an American video live streaming service operated by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. Introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform Justin.tv, the site primarily focuses on video game live streaming, including broadcasts of esports competitions, in addition to music broadcasts, creative content, and more recently, “in real life” streams. Content on the site can be viewed either live or via video on demand.

    6 – AT&T TV

    AT&T TV is a family of streaming multichannel television services offered in the United States by AT&T.

    The brand encompasses three separate services sharing similar infrastructure and software. AT&T TV, launched nationally in March 2020, is the company’s main national pay television service, positioned to succeed U-verse TV. It is sold on-contract and optionally bundled in the same manner as traditional television providers, but utilizes Android TV-based set-top boxes rented to subscribers. AT&T TV Now (formerly DirecTV Now) is a direct-to-consumer service launched on November 30, 2016, designed to compete with other over-the-top television services, and sold without a contract. AT&T WatchTV, first offered in June 2018, is a skinny bundle service aimed at cord-cutters, featuring no local or sports channels.

    7 – HBO Max

    HBO Max is an American subscription video-on-demand streaming service owned by AT&T through the WarnerMedia Direct subsidiary of its WarnerMedia unit and was launched on May 27, 2020. While built around content from namesake premium television service HBO, it principally serves as a content hub for WarnerMedia’s various film and television properties, offering a range of original programming and library content from the company as well as additional content licensed through third-party distributors.

    According to AT&T, HBO Max had 12.6 million activated subscribers as of early December 2020. As of September 30, the service had a nominal total of 28.7 million paying subscribers, including HBO pay-television customers whose subscriptions make them eligible for free access to HBO Max, but who have not yet activated.

  • Facebook And Twitter: The Reluctant (And Active) Gatekeepers

    On January 8th, Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trump’s account from the platform after a mob of protesters ransacked the legislator’s offices in the Capitol. Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram also booted the president off their apps and many other companies followed suit soon after. And while this move was unprecedented for the most part, it wasn’t exactly unexpected.

    The big picture: Balancing concerns over misinformation, hacking and foreign meddling against free-speech principles is already hard enough. Tackling it in real-time in the middle of a political knife fight is almost certainly going to go awry.

    More often than not, there is very little communication from these agencies on how they enforce their policies. On other occasions, they offer a vague explanation citing policy violation without describing the actual reasons in full detail. And while it’s no easy task to moderate millions of accounts, the collective consensus is that uniform enforcement is still a distant dream.

    These companies didn’t set out to be the gatekeepers of political news. They’d rather write code, make money, and feel good about “connecting the world.”

    But their success made them ubiquitous and they came to dominate the distribution of news and information. Now they can’t duck making tough calls.

    But let’s suppose platforms do start consistently moderating content.  Is it an effective strategy to curb hate and misinformation? Well, we don’t know yet. But what we do know is that on some occasions, the very act of de-platforming can have the opposite effect as originally intended. When Twitter blocked a story from the “New York Post” about President-Elect Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, the suppression only drew more attention to the article. It was almost as if the very act of censoring information aided in its discovery. So one could argue that de-platforming Trump only furthers his cause. Maybe a new echo-chamber will emerge somewhere else. Maybe Trump and his followers will create a new platform.

  • 4 Saving Hacks That’ll Enable You To Recover From Your Holiday Spending

    For most of us, this past holiday season was unusual, to put it mildly.

    But even though a lot of things were different, one holiday tradition likely didn’t change: The annual hit to your pocketbook.

    Not only did we have to shell out money for gifts, but thanks to social distancing we also had to pay to ship them all over the country — or in some cases, the world.

    If your bank balance is tapped out from the holidays, here are a few easy ways to save some extra money and start the new year off on the right financial foot.

    1. Give your budget a tune-up

    The start of a new year is a perfect time to take a look at your budget and see if there are any areas where you can cut down your spending.

    For example, if you subscribe to multiple streaming services, cancelling a few of them for a month or two could give your bank account a nice boost.

    You might be able to save some money off your grocery bills by trying out different stores in your neighbourhood since prices can vary a lot between grocery chains.

    And make sure to always use a cash-back credit card or rewards app when you shop, so you’ll get a bit of money back on every purchase.

    2. Price-check when you shop online

    2020 was a big year for online shopping, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon.

    It can be tempting to do most of your online shopping on a site like Amazon that carries pretty much everything, but the convenience of sticking to a giant retailer will cost you.

    Unless you comparison shop for every item in your cart, you could end up overspending by a lot.

    If you want to save yourself the trouble of checking prices on multiple online storefronts, try using a free service called Capital One Shopping.

    While you’re browsing on Amazon, Target and other big sites, Capital One Shopping will instantly search other online retailers to see whether a better price is out there somewhere else.

    Once you’re ready to check out, Capital One Shopping will automatically try to apply coupon codes gathered from its database of millions of users.

    Capital One Shopping takes only a few seconds to set up. It helped people save over $160 million in the last year, and it won’t cost you a cent.

    3. Offset your costs with some side gigs

    If you’ve got a special talent like drawing, writing or voice acting, you may be able to earn some extra cash by picking up a few side gigs.

    Several online marketplaces will help you advertise your services and connect with customers who are looking for exactly what you’re selling.

    Once you start completing gigs and accumulating positive reviews, you can increase your rates and bring in even more money.

    You’ll be getting paid to do what you love, and who knows? It could be the start of a full-blown career.

    4. Pay off your credit cards ASAP

    Once the dust has settled on your holiday spending, your credit card bill will probably be higher than usual. It’s essential to pay off as much of your balance as you can, as soon as you can.

    Credit cards are notorious for their sky-high interest rates, and since credit card interest compounds, a high balance can wind up costing you a ton. You’ll end up paying interest on the interest you already owe.

    The easiest way to avoid getting bogged down with credit card interest is to pay your bill on time and in full each month.

    If that’s not an option, try to at least pay more than your monthly minimum. Squeezing in a few extra dollars now will save you more down the line.

    Depending on your credit score, you may also be able to consolidate your debt with a personal loan at a lower interest rate. When you consolidate, you pay off your troublesome debts with a new loan that’s less painful to carry — saving you a bundle and helping you become debt-free sooner.

    Originally Published By MoneyWise