To celebrate the launch of Thursday Bram’s new ebook, Discover Your New Job Online, we are launching a contest! The grand prize is your choice of Veronica London bag from CareerBags. About the prize Veronica London bags come in 3 different styles, each in two colors, all of them classically elegant. With several compartments for all your necessities plus a removable laptop sleeve to hold laptops up to 15”, these are perfect for just about any office environment – or for the worker on the move....

But sometimes empathy is what slowly and silently kills us. Being a people-pleaser takes its toll. It is tiring to be polite to people who take your love for granted and treat you like a doormat. It is painful to care for someone unconditionally and feel the thorn of betrayal or insensitivity. It kills when your empathy, instead of being reciprocated, is repaid with negative energy. Letting other people take advantage of our kindness is a trap we empaths often fall into....

1. Get A Copy of Your Credit Report Although you can’t get your exact credit score for free, you can get a free copy of your credit report from each of the three credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) once each year. To do so, visit AnnualCreditReport.com and request a report. AnnualCreditReport.com, by the way, is actually the only way to get your reports for free — the site was created in response to federal legislation requiring that the three national credit reporting companies inform consumers about their status....

Read through the list and think how each may not necessarily be true and how they might be costing you money. Then check out Ririan’s responses to each. Myth #1: “Money is the root of all evil.” Myth #2: “If my parents were rich, I would have made it.” Myth #3: “Rich people are greedy.” Myth #4: “Money isn’t important.” Myth #5: “If only government, my employers, family, or spouse helped me, I would have made loads of money....

I realized then, that the only sure fire way of resolving an issue, is to resolve or eliminate the root cause of the issue. Much like when you are weeding your garden, unless you remove the roots of the weeds, the weeds will just continue to re-grow. Essentially, when a regularly occurring problem arises, you have to go through a causal analysis of the issue,[1] to identify the causes of the problem and treat that, not just the symptoms....

It’s a truism to point out that no one can avoid change. It’s part of the reality in which we live. Nothing ever stays the same for more than a short period. It’s equally obvious that very many people dislike, even fear, change and do their very best to keep everything around them the same. That’s sad in personal life, because it makes frustration and unhappiness certain. In business life, it’s a complete disaster....

In some of my workshops, I run a short activity which provides the audience members with an immediate and practical example of how and where we focus our attention and energy – and the potential consequences. It’s a pretty simple process used by plenty of facilitators. How it works: I ask my audience to spend sixty seconds looking around the room and to take note of everything that’s red. Any shade of red will do....

Despite relations or how the family is formed, the one thing we can guarantee is that beneath all of the differences we may have, family constitutes the people we can count on. For this reason, families often make the commitment to reunite at least once a year in a nice or central location for bonding time. You may have never considered it before, but Canada offers a variety of scenic and interesting locations to create memories....

It turns out he may have some of the same tools we’re using today in order to get more done. Let’s break down what Santa Claus of the 21st century could (and should) be using this holiday season. The Naughty/Nice List Traditionally, this has been written down by Santa on what appears to be a never-ending scroll of paper. This is a problem for the following reasons: So what Santa needs in this day and age is some sort of application htat can be easily modified, doesn’t take up a ton of space and is portable....

Organization isn’t enough, though. An electronic Rolodex isn’t really enough, though that’s pretty much what most of us rely on these days. Instead, we need to be able to tell when we last talked to a given contact, if we promised to handle any tasks or any other details that our address books don’t track. That means we need some sort of contact relations management. CRM isn’t just for the folks with big fancy corner offices anymore....

It’s a great tutorial from MacApper for Quicksilver users to get started controlling iTunes without having to open iTunes. Have some requests for app control through Quicksilver? Let us know. How-To: Control iTunes With QuickSilver – [MacApper]

Let’s start the countdown: #10 Golf Ball Diver Golf ball divers have to search for the lost golf balls in the waters of golf courses. Around 2,000-5,000 balls can be collected by a golf ball diver every day. #9 Dice Quality Inspector A dice with a tiny imbalance of centre can affect the outcome of any dice-involved games. Therefore, every dice has to go through a series of quality control tests conducted by a professional tester....

Dogs never bite me. Just humans. – Marilyn Monroe How To Handle Personality Conflicts At Work

One day when Gina was in third grade at her Catholic grammar school, some children were pulled out of the classroom and taken to a much nicer room with beautiful windows and potted flowers. This new and improved room had been designed for the gifted students in the class, and Gina waited for her name to be called. It never was. One of the nuns explained to Gina’s hardworking single mother that although she was a sweet child, academically she was just average....

There’s our Uncle Joe, who unknowingly spits when he talks, over-imbibes, and used his experience in the war as a launching pad for uncomfortable political debates. There’s our Aunt Gini, who, make no mistake about it, will find a way to bring up someone’s latest scandal just as the turkey is being served. There’s the Mother Hen, who’s a Nazi in the kitchen; the sullen nephew; the angry cousin; the philandering new husband....

The first, and most essential, part of this whole system is Dropbox. If you’re not using Dropbox, now is the time to sign up and set up. Without Dropbox’s easy and fast file syncing—syncing that works on pretty much any device you throw at it—this system wouldn’t work at all. Next thing is the file format. Writing for the web—and blogs specifically—is a no Word zone (or Pages either for that matter), basic, boring text files are the files of choice here....

Determine The Root Cause: 5 Whys – [iSixSigma] In this case only four Whys were required to find out that a non-value added signature authority is helping to cause a process breakdown.

Chapters: Chapter 1. Analyzing Cases and Real Situations – SCAN Chapter 2. Influencing / Persuading Chapter 3. Negotiating / Conflict Resolution Chapter 4. Networking / Self Marketing Chapter 5. Entrepreneuring / Venturing Chapter 6. Business Plan Outline Chapter 7. HBS Case Method Deprives Students of An Authentic Learning Experience MBA Toolbox – [Dr. Leon Winer]

Self-development book you would recommend – [Lifehack.Community]

My Productivity Experiment I did an experiment in which I calculated all of the hours I was actually working (i.e. writing, attending phone meetings, pursuing leads, responding to business-related e-mails) versus doing personal tasks or surfing the Internet. It turns out that I do indeed work 40 or more hours a week, but those hours aren’t organized in 5, 8-hour chunks like the hours of traditional employees. Rather, I am able to complete several administrative and business development tasks for my business in the morning and do heavy lifting writing in the late afternoon, when my energy level is highest....