Jumpstart Your Dream Life

5 Ways Travel Changes You As a Person

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When you’ve been away for a while, everything feels so different after you return home again.

As you step out the front door and embark on your journey, you don’t know what to expect. Sure, you might have watched some videos and read about your chosen destination. You probably have an itinerary planned out. Maybe you joined a tour.

But until you’ve lived, breathed, and seen somewhere with your own eyes, nothing compares to experiencing it in person. Books may be useful for gaining insight and knowledge, but they don’t quite capture the vividness and emotions associated with a place.

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Focuster: Get Work Done Using To-Do Lists, Automated Scheduling, and Reminders

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At any given moment, you have over a thousand choices at your fingertips.

You’re sitting at your desk. You can fire up your computer and browse websites endlessly. You can go outside and grab coffee along the way. Or, you can finally buckle down and finish the work that’s been sitting on your desk for a week.

We assume that having more choices is better. Yes, more choices mean you can decide the best option for yourself. It means greater control over your circumstances. But there comes a point when we suffer from too many choices. When it comes to productivity, too many choices becomes debilitating to getting our work done.

That’s why accomplishing more is about paring down choices. It means minimizing distractions so you can deep dive into your most important goals. When you focus on one task at a time, you make greater progress.

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You Only See the Tip of the Iceberg: Lessons on the Invisibility of Success

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It’s believed that any dispute, big or small, can be settled through a game of rock-paper-scissors.

It’s simple, really. Like flipping a coin or drawing straws, rock-paper-scissors (otherwise known as RPS) is a fair decision-making method between various parties. There’s equal footing since everyone has the same, equally random chance of winning.

Or is it?

The $20 Million Auction Dilemma

In 2005, Takashi Hashiyama was in a bind. As CEO of the Japanese television manufacturer Maspro Denkoh, he decided to auction off the corporation’s collection of Impressionist paintings, including works by Cézanne, Picasso, and van Gogh.

Hashiyama contacted the two premier auction houses, Christie’s and Sotheby’s, for proposals. Although both auction houses provided extensive plans on how they would market the collection and maximize profits, Hashiyama still couldn’t pick. Finally, he asked the two houses to make a decision using rock-paper-scissors.

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6 Questions to Figure Out If You’re Living Up to Your Potential

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The older we get, the more our dreams fade away.

It’s a sad fact of life, if not a very real one. Early on, you have an entire slew of things you want to accomplish. Enthusiasm, energy and excitement pump through your veins as you picture yourself reaching those achievements.

Yet those feelings gradually die down with time. For some aspirations, you might have set the benchmark incredibly high and then failed to get where you thought you’d be. Maybe you talked yourself out of even trying.

And when you did accomplish something, it didn’t live up to your expectations. Reaching a goal wasn’t the be-all-end-all you anticipated. Afterward, there was a void as you thought, “What next?”

Eventually, it becomes exhausting to keep trying (and often failing). You stop resisting to the pressures of everyday life and succumb to the routine. It’s comfortable. It’s safe.

But it’s also dangerous.

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Why Likability Matters More Than Competence

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Malpractice lawsuits are every doctor’s nightmare.

Once a doctor gets sued for malpractice, the implications reach far and wide. Patients distrust their doctor. Self-doubt creeps in. Some doctors even take it as a sign to leave the medical profession altogether. Even though many cases are dismissed or settled outside court, the effects of receiving that dreaded notice letter can last a lifetime.

A study using a malpractice database in Florida found that 6 percent of obstetricians accounted for over 70 percent of all malpractice-related expenses over a 5-year period. Further research showed that claims at all levels, from unpaid claims to large paid claims, played a predictor in whether a doctor was sued in the past.

Basically, some doctors get sued repeatedly, while others hardly ever get sued. There’s clearly a difference between the two. But what is it? Why do malpractice lawsuits happen in the first place?

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10 Signs You Need to Let Go of Someone

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A strong social network is important to our well-being.

But what if components of that network fail us? What if instead of uplifting us, supporting us, and making us better, they make us feel worse and drag us down?

The obvious answer would be to cut those people out. Stop talking to them altogether. But sometimes the answer isn’t so obvious. There are gray areas.

Maybe a friend pushes you into doing things you’re uncomfortable with, but has a great sense of humor and is fun to be around. Or a partner is thoughtful and means well, but simply isn’t relatable. It’s hard to cut the cord for a number of reasons.

So when is it time to say goodbye?

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Why We Suffer From Losses More Than We Gain From Wins

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Imagine two scenarios:

In the first one, you make a $10 bet with a friend. You lose. The next day, fortune smiles on you as you walk down the street. You see a $10 bill lying on the sidewalk.

In the second scenario, nothing happens. You neither enter into any bet with anyone, nor do you find any money lying on the street.

In both scenarios, your net gain is $0.

Would both of these scenarios affect you the same psychologically? Or would one have a greater emotional impact than the other? Which scenario would you choose?

If you picked the second scenario, you made the right choice.

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How to Make New Year’s Resolutions That Stick

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It’s around this time New Year’s Resolutions start to slip.

Remember counting down to when the clock struck midnight? The second it happened, a burst of fireworks shot into the sky. They exploded into an array of colors, signaling the promises, hopes, and dreams of a new year to come.

But as January slowly crawls towards February, our enthusiasm from that moment wanes. The New Year, with its new hopes, turns into “maybe later”. We begin to back out of our aspirations.

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Why Are YouTubers So Rich?

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Making YouTube videos for a living is nice, isn’t it?

You hear about it all the time. Ads showing YouTube stars’ multi-million dollar mansions. Viral videos exploding with millions of views. People making full-time incomes from the comforts of their home.

Top YouTubers can make upwards of $10 million in a year. When you add up the advertising revenue, sponsorships, and endorsement deals, those figures go up even higher. Being a professional YouTuber sounds lucrative, doesn’t it?

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