8 ways humor can boost your career and make you more successful

During the boss’s last weekly staff meeting, everyone was texting just below the conference table.

He thought the sudden cheer by two employees meant he’d said something clever (when it was really a score in a Brazilian soccer game).

There’s a reason why motivational speakers start with a joke or a humorous anecdote — it captures the audience’s attention, lightens the mood, sets positive expectations and motivates everyone to be more productive.

In a study from the Journal of Applied Psychology, just one use of humor among work teams resulted in improved performance not just immediately, but up to two years later. Levity also improves recall. It is often the shortest pipeline to the memory banks.

How much bantering you should try depends on your corporate culture. But even in the stuffiest boardroom, there is an appreciation of well-timed lightheartedness.  An upbeat atmosphere encourages innovation and smart risks, which lead to greater productivity.

Here are some tips on applying “intelligent humor” to your job:

1. Test the waters. 

Try a lighthearted comment or your own brand of wit at your next appropriate opportunity. It may go completely over someone’s head—but it may also elicit an equally funny response or facilitate creativity, as you create a fertile, safe ground for thinking out of the proverbial box.

2. Build trust, camaraderie, and honesty. 

When you use humor effectively, you project that there is a real person behind the routine, professional business façade. A manager who infuses laughter among the team engenders an open and honest work environment.

3. Share the spotlight. 

You don’t want to be known as the only employee with the “witty gene,” so let others shine, too. The goal is to be more productive, not engage in one-upmanship joke-a-thon.

4. Put others at ease. 

An occasional self-deprecating joke or amusing anecdote can shift a dicey dynamic in most any meeting. There are few better ways to break the tension barrier. Knowing that a coworker has the ability to be lighthearted establishes a fertile ground for better problem solving.

5. Manage your manager. 

Perhaps you have a tough boss, where you feel you can’t be yourself. Many employees are surprised to see that they can break through the façade of their most difficult managers by adding levity to the equation. In fact, I have seen entire dynamics change between boss and employee. Granted, it is hard to bravely take the first step, but it's well worth it.

6. Don’t make a joke at another’s expense. 

It’s sometimes easy to take a potshot at a co-worker, but a good rule of thumb is that if you think your joke might be at someone else’s expense, then it probably is. A clever, lighthearted comment will often boost morale. Just be sure that in your zeal to entertain others, your humor doesn’t alienate.

7. Lessen the stress. 

If you can see the lighter side of situations at the office, you will make the workplace more relaxing and create a better sense of calm around you. We all want to be around upbeat colleagues.

8. Increase your odds at the interview. 

Job interviews require you to be professional, but that shouldn’t exclude the use of some clever levity. Most hiring managers are drawn to job candidates who know how to put others at ease with a knack of humor; it’s usually associated with a high degree of emotional intelligence.

It may take awhile to develop a comfortable way to use levity in your job, but it’s a worthy pursuit. The goal isn’t to be voted funniest employee, or force yourself to be someone you're not. By being aware of the benefits of adding some wittiness to your “brand,” you’ll likely accelerate your success at your job and in your career.

Lynn Taylor

8 Ways To Succeed With Your First Business After College

After reading the article, “10 Reasons To Start A Business After College Instead Of Finding A Job,” I thought back to the first business venture I founded at the end of college.

It was the second semester of my senior year, and my baseball career had just ended because I blew my knee out in spring training.

It crushed me because I had finally gotten healthy after two and a half injury-plagued years, finished my junior year strong and was primed to have a monster senior year in the middle of the lineup.

But, it was not meant to be, and a new opportunity presented itself.

I could have been like everyone else in my class who got a 9 to 5 job. That would have been the easy thing to do. Instead, I partnered up with some people I met through a college internship to create a startup.

Founding your own venture will teach you a lot about business, life and even yourself. Here are a few things I learned from my post-college venture:

1. How to deal with rejection

Let’s face it: Rejection is not fun. It is, however, something everyone has to experience in business as well as life.

At first, this is hard to deal with. When I was recruiting athletes, we got rejected and hung up on daily.

But, learning how to deal with rejection is one of the most important skills you can learn as an entrepreneur.

Each time you face rejection, you learn things about yourself and your business. You also wander a bit further out of your comfort zone each time.

---

2. Sales skills

Whether you have a corporate job or you’re an entrepreneur, sales are the lifeblood of business.

Nothing truly happens until a sale is made. Payroll cannot be met unless sales are made, and equipment cannot be purchased unless sales are made.

There is no way to learn sales faster than by having to do it. For me, I was thrown into the fire right away. If you’re selling a physical product or trying to get people to invest their life savings with you, you need to be selling at all times.

When you’re not selling, you’re not making money.

---

3. Your best customers are already your customers

Have you ever wondered why cable or cell phone providers will give you such “great” deals when you threaten to leave for their competition?

This is because they know how difficult and costly it will be to replace you. Typically, it costs between six to 10 times as much to attract a new customer as it is to keep a current customer.

For us, getting another client likely meant a significant monetary investment (flights, car rentals, gas, food, etc.) and a significant time commitment.

It was easier to keep our current clients happy and sell them on other things (such as training sessions) than it was to try and secure new ones.

---

4. When to outsource

Your time is valuable. You need to focus on income-producing activities. Getting bogged down by the $10 per hour tasks will slow down your growth.

When we first started out, we had to do everything, and it was a drag. There were many late nights and early mornings doing things like data entry and basic research for player packages.

Eventually, we realized having people who could do the basic research and data entry functions allowed us to focus on the more important tasks: scouting, setting up meetings with families and attending meetings with families.

Do not get stuck with busy work when you can easily delegate tasks.

---

5. Surround yourself with successful people

Most of us have heard the saying, you are the sum of the five people you hang out with most. But many people seem to forget we spend a lot of time with the people we work with.

One of the biggest drawbacks of a corporate job is you do not get to decide who you work with. You are just thrown together with other people. You have no idea who they are, how they think or what their general attitudes are.

And that is risky.

But when you work for yourself, you can hire the people you want and choose your own mentors.

Surrounding yourself with the right people is crucial because they can provide support and guidance. They can even improve your network by making introductions to key content or joint venture partners to increase your business’s growth.

---

6. Don’t guess; interview your customers

In this day and age, there is no need to guess about what your clients want.

There are many ways to conduct outreach, and it sometimes requires being on the phone for hours and doing interviews. Other times, you can get information from online forums.

The reality is, you can only guess what your prospects want. By actually asking them, you will find out how to position your offering to get the sale.

And that is what customers care about: themselves. They could care less about you or your offer. They only care about how you can fix their problems or provide relief in their lives.

By asking them the right questions, they will give you the road map.

---

7. Copy other successful models

If another company is doing something similar to what you’re doing, and is successful, you should analyze it, study it and implement it into your own business.

This can be sales funnels, sales copy, blog posts, videos or any other style of marketing. If it’s generating leads and sales, the company must be doing something right.

You should take the key elements of the business model and use it as a framework for your voice, style and words.

When you combine a successful model with your well-researched message, you will create an incredible offering your prospects will have a difficult time saying no to.

---

8. Don’t let fear keep you from going for it

I know starting a business can be intimidating. Many businesses fail, things go wrong and there will be days when you wonder if you should just take the steady paycheck and easy hours that come with a 9 to 5 job.

But, you have to keep going.

You’re probably wondering when you will stop feeling this fear. The truth is, you will likely always feel this fear. It’s normal to feel this fear.

The most successful entrepreneurs are able to work past their fears, take action and get results, good or bad.

They take those lessons and do it again the next day, the day after that and the day after that. They keep working past their fears because they know what they can achieve.

Once you decide to take action in the face of your fears, you will forge your own path to a successful venture.

B. J. Pivonka

To Grow Your Business, Start Creating Solutions Instead of Just Managing Problems

As humans, we often get distracted with supervising and conserving the extent and intricacies of what we have, but at some point management only gets us so far. Nature, at its core, creates. It creates and does it well and if it were sentient, it'd probably encourage you to do it too.

Whether it is time, money or clients, too many entrepreneurs focus their efforts on protecting and managing what they have rather than creating even more. At one point I have been guilty of this myself. However, over time I realized that this mindset only keeps entrepreneurs and their businesses back from reaching their true potential. In order to grow, one must create.

The act of creation does exactly what it says it will do: create. Before anything can be managed, it has to be created. For example, in the initial years of starting my business, like many entrepreneurs, I was often forced to significantly reduce my prices to secure a sale. I would sacrifice my profits, sometimes just barely break even, just to get a deal done. Other times, I would resist upselling my current customers because I was afraid of scaring them away to my competitors. My mistake was trying to protect my small customer base instead of finding ways to build it. I’ve learned that the only way around such a dilemma is to prospect so much that one, two or even ten lost sales wouldn’t even matter.

Related: Sales Prospecting Isn't an Event. It's a Campaign.

Although some may see the importance of creating solutions rather than managing problems, the fear of meeting the risks attached to such an act can keep them back. Thinking about birds migrating because of a shortage of food may help – they run the risk of losing their home while they find a temporary new one. It's a big risk traveling all that distance. They may starve on the way or lose some helpful bird friends in the flock that could have made spotting places to nest a bit easier. Maybe mates even fall victim to natural causes. Either way, migration is a hazardous act and puts a lot on the table. However, similar problems would have arose sooner or later as a result of managing their shortage of food instead of exploring ways to have more.

It's the same view I have on money. I once viewed money as something finite. As soon as my business brought in sales, I would push that revenue aside and watch it with eagle vision. I did not dare touch it. Reinvesting wasn’t my priority. The reason for this was, like many entrepreneurs, I wasn’t confident that I could make another lump sum of money. Grant Cardone said it best, "The only reason to hold on to something is if there is a shortage." I would very much prefer to be in a situation where my business had too much money that I didn’t know where to put it all than to be in a situation where my days were spent figuring out how to cover expenses and invest in expansion with too little money.

Related: Escalate Revenue and Growth With These 5 Strategies

In the business world a situation of too many pencils, not enough paperwould prove disastrous or even fatal. Think of wolves: out of a pack of about fifteen wolves there's usually only one or two alphas. The role of the alpha is to lead the packs into hunts and ensure that hunts don't fail while the rest of the pack executes the hunting strategy. The majority of the pack is focused on bringing in food - creating. If every wolf in the pack was an alpha, and focused on protecting the pack they would all die in starvation. This is the mindset entrepreneurs need to have. Manage, protect and conserve, yes. But most importantly create or your business will starve.

Another thing we humans tend to put our energy towards is managing time. I have found that the most successful entrepreneurs focus their efforts on maximizing time by finding ways to turn an hour into two or three extra hours. It's just like a tree that may be taking its time segregating cells and photosynthesizing. While doing that it may be creating new seeds and moving water up its roots. Maximizing time is a way of ensuring continued existence and success in the great game of business. Some ways to do this are by delegating projects that could have been handled by someone else, ceasing activities that don't help your overall goals and even cutting down on sleep time.

This even applies to natural selection: instead of managing a poor evolution, natural selection weeds out the organisms that don't work and creates newer, more efficient ones suitable for the environment and habitat.

Right now, you couldn't be reading this article if you didn't exist; an egg being fertilized is the reason you're here on the web, enjoying this article. Without creation, you couldn't be here wondering what nature has to offer over certain problems and what solutions it can provide with simple creation. If anything, it's like a massive canvas everything is connected to each other by brush stroke after brush stroke. Take a moment to apply the concept of natural selection to whatever it is in life you're struggling with. Even better, take the idea of creating a solution rather than managing a problem.

Warren Cassel , Jr

Vision Boards

When you find yourself struggling to stay focused on your "big picture", there are a few techniques to help keep you motivated. Long term goals can be achieved if you keep moving towards them and visit your goals daily.

Vision boards are a wonderful tool that actually allow you to display direct clear images of what you want to be, do or have in your life. Keep your attention on your intentions and create your daily affirmations with a vision board today to get yourself moving in the right direction.




Here's a great "how to" and step by step link on how to make your display:

 The Reason Vision Boards Work and How to Make One

7 Challenges Successful People Overcome

It’s truly fascinating how successful people approach problems. Where others see impenetrable barriers, they see challenges to embrace and obstacles to overcome.

Their confidence in the face of hardship is driven by the ability to let go of the negativity that holds so many otherwise sensible people back.

Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania has studied this phenomenon more than anyone else has, and he’s found that success in life is driven by one critical distinction—whether you believe that your failures are produced by personal deficits beyond your control or that they are mistakes you can fix with effort.

Success isn’t the only thing determined by your mindset. Seligman has found much higher rates of depression in people who attribute their failures to personal deficits. Optimists fare better; they treat failure as learning experiences and believe they can do better in the future.

This success mindset requires emotional intelligence (EQ), and it’s no wonder that, among the million-plus people that TalentSmart has tested, 90% of top performers have high EQs.

Related: Misused Words That Make Smart People Look Dumb

Maintaining the success mindset isn’t easy. There are seven things, in particular, that tend to shatter it. These challenges drag people down because they appear to be barriers that cannot be overcome. Not so for successful people, as these seven challenges never hold them back.

1. Age

Age really is just a number. Successful people don’t let their age define who they are and what they are capable of. Just ask Betty White or any young, thriving entrepreneur.

I remember a professor in graduate school who told our class that we were all too young and inexperienced to do consulting work. He said we had to go work for another company for several years before we could hope to succeed as independent consultants. I was the youngest person in the class, and I sat there doing work for my consulting clients while he droned on.

Without fail, people feel compelled to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do because of your age. Don’t listen to them. Successful people certainly don’t. They follow their heart and allow their passion—not the body they’re living in—to be their guide.

“They follow their heart and allow their passion—not the body they’re living in—to be their guide.”

2. What Other People Think

When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from comparing yourself to others, you are no longer the master of your own destiny. While it’s impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think of you, you don’t have to hold up your accomplishments to anyone else’s, and you can always take people’s opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what other people are thinking or doing, your self-worth comes from within.

Successful people know that caring about what other people think is a waste of time and energy. When successful people feel good about something that they’ve done, they don’t let anyone’s opinions take that away from them.

“No matter what other people think of you at any particular moment, one thing is certain—you’re never as good or bad as they say you are.”

3. Toxic People

Successful people believe in a simple notion: you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

Just think about it—some of the most successful companies in recent history were founded by brilliant pairs. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple lived in the same neighborhood, Bill Gates and Paul Allen of Microsoft met in prep school, and Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google met at Stanford.

Just as great people help you to reach your full potential, toxic people drag you right down with them. Whether it's negativity, cruelty, the victim syndrome, or just plain craziness, toxic people create stress and strife that should be avoided at all costs.

If you’re unhappy with where you are in your life, just take a look around. More often than not, the people you’ve surrounded yourself with are the root of your problems.

“You’ll never reach your peak until you surround yourself with the right people.”

4. Fear

Fear is nothing more than a lingering emotion that’s fueled by your imagination. Danger is real. It’s the uncomfortable rush of adrenaline you get when you almost step in front of a bus. Fear is a choice. Successful people know this better than anyone does, so they flip fear on its head. They are addicted to the euphoric feeling they get from conquering their fears.

Don’t ever hold back in life just because you feel scared. I often hear people say, “What’s the worst thing that can happen to you? Will it kill you?” Yet, death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you...

“The worst thing that can happen to you is allowing yourself to die inside while you’re still alive.”

Related: 50 Inspirational Quotes to Motivate You

5. Negativity

Life won’t always go the way you want it to, but when it comes down to it, you have the same 24 hours in the day as everyone else does. Successful people make their time count. Instead of complaining about how things could have been or should have been, they reflect on everything they have to be grateful for. Then they find the best solution available, tackle the problem, and move on.

When the negativity comes from someone else, successful people avoid it by setting limits and distancing themselves from it. Think of it this way:

“If the complainer were smoking, would you sit there all afternoon inhaling the second-hand smoke?”

Of course not. You’d distance yourself, and you should do the same with all negative people.

A great way to stop complainers in their tracks is to ask them how they intend to fix the problem they’re complaining about. They will either quiet down or redirect the conversation in a productive direction.

6. The Past or the Future

Like fear, the past and the future are products of your mind. No amount of guilt can change the past, and no amount of anxiety can change the future. Successful people know this, and they focus on living in the present moment. It’s impossible to reach your full potential if you’re constantly somewhere else, unable to fully embrace the reality (good or bad) of this very moment.

To live in the moment, you must do two things:

1) Accept your past. If you don’t make peace with your past, it will never leave you and it will create your future. Successful people know the only good time to look at the past is to see how far you’ve come.

2) Accept the uncertainty of the future, and don’t place unnecessary expectations upon yourself. Worry has no place in the here and now. As Mark Twain once said,

“Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.”

7. The State of the World

Keep your eyes on the news for any length of time and you’ll see it’s just one endless cycle of war, violent attacks, fragile economies, failing companies, and environmental disasters. It’s easy to think the world is headed downhill fast.

And who knows? Maybe it is. But successful people don’t worry about that because they don’t get caught up in things they can’t control. Instead, they focus their energy on directing the two things that are completely within their power—their attention and their effort. They focus their attention on all the things they’re grateful for, and they look for the good that’s happening in the world. They focus their effort on doing what they can every single day to improve their own lives and the world around them, because these small steps are all it takes to make the world a better place.

“They focus their effort on doing what they can every single day to improve their own lives and the world around them...”

Bringing It All Together

Your success is driven by your mindset. With discipline and focus, you can ensure that these seven obstacles never hold you back from reaching your full potential.

Travis Bradberry

The Profound Quotes From Robin Williams That Helped Shape Our Generation

As we just reported, the iconic and lovable Robin Williams was found dead in his California home at the age of 63.

The actor was struggling with drugs and depression and was no stranger to the darker parts of life; these things all perfectly articulated through the variety of roles he undertook in his career that inspired and changed us all.

While he was made famous for his roles in “Patch Adams,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Jack” and “Aladdin,” he had a surprisingly deep, dark and profound side… as most great comedians do.

Starring in roles, such as “The Dead Poets Society,” “Good Will Hunting” and “What Dreams May Come,” he not only alluded to the idea that he was a master philosopher, but changed all of our former conceptions of him as just America’s favorite funny man.

Because only a true philosopher can pull off both slapstick humor and profound depth.

He will be sorely missed for the light humor and deep philosophical lessons he imparted on Millennials and the rest of the world alike.

Here’s a list of the most insightful and beautiful quotes from the late actor who so tragically left this earth far too young. You will be missed Robin Williams.

There’s nothing wrong with being alone

I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone, it’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel alone.

---

Learn to forgive yourself, not just others

Good people end up in Hell because they can’t forgive themselves.

---

It’s OK to be crazy

You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.

---

The modern man has real struggles

See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.

---

Pick your battles wisely

Never fight with an ugly person, they’ve got nothing to lose.

---

The gun debate is not a debate

The Second Amendment says we have the right to bear arms, not to bear artillery.

---

Even God supports weed legalization

Do you think God gets stoned? I think so… look at the platypus.

---

The hook-up culture is very real

Ah, yes, divorce… from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.

---

Never stop reaching for greatness

No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.

---

 Surround yourself with the right people

When you have a great audience, you can just keep going and finding new things.

---

All marriage, gay or straight, is the same

You could talk about same-sex marriage, but people who have been married say ‘It’s the same sex all the time.

---

You can’t appreciate the good until you’ve felt the bad

You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to.

---

Women deserve to rule the world

A nuclear bomb is a man’s way of saying, ‘I’m gonna fuck up the earth.’ A woman would never make a nuclear bomb. They would never make a weapon that kills. They’d make a weapon that makes you feel bad for a while… That’s why there should be a woman president, there would never be any wars. You know this, it’s the truth. There would never be a war; just every twenty-eight days: some severe negotiations.

---

When you think about death and the after-life

Death is nature’s way of saying, ‘your table is ready.’

---

Music, like food, is necessary for survival

You know what music is? God’s little reminder that there’s something else besides us in this universe; harmonic connection between all living beings, every where, even the stars.

---

There’s no such thing as a perfect person

She is not perfect. You are not perfect. The question is whether or not you are perfect for each other.

---

Selfies are pretty narcissistic

Nobody takes a picture of something they want to forget.

---

Everyone has a purpose, every action has a meaning

I believe in destiny. There must be a reason that I am as I am. There must be.

  Lauren Martin
 Photo Courtesy: Buena Vista Pictures/Dead Poets Society