FORTUNE FAIR: January 2013

Thursday 31 January 2013

10 Motivational Quotes and Tips for Hard Times

post written by: Marc

Just a few motivational quotes and tips for those hard times when you need a quick dose of inspiration.

1. Accepting Life’s Challenges

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
–Randy Pausch

In every life there are great challenges, and in every challenge there are great doses of life to be lived.
Whether you judge a challenge to be a problem or an opportunity says more about you than about the challenge itself. The way you choose to see the world is the way your world will be. This is what gives life its magic; it’s a continuous, dynamic phenomenon that becomes exactly what you choose to make it.
Do something extraordinary. Accept life’s opportunities. Realize that if you never step up to a challenge that’s a bit over your head, you’ll never know how tall you truly are. Rise to each challenge and continue adding value to the ever-growing possibilities that await your brilliance.

2. Working Hard

“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” –Beverly Sills

When you’re young you have this fantasy that super successful adults – writers, musicians, doctors, businessmen, etc. – have some kind of magical chest of tools allowing them to build masterpieces that are larger than life. You fanaticize about a hammer of creativity, a pliers of efficiency, a saw of wisdom, and so on and so forth.
But then you grow up and you realize, for the most part, everyone is working with the same set of imperfect, rusty, old tools – desire, commitment, honesty, kindness, love, persistence, etc. And as flawed and bent as they may be, they work wonders against the odds when you truly put them to the test. Read The Success Principles.

3. Choosing Wisely

“It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” –J.K. Rowling

The universe – people, books, life experience, etc. – can only give you good advice, but you ultimately decide what to do with it.
Life is ticking away every second. The worst thing is spending your entire life drowning slowly and not being able to convince yourself that you are in full control, and that you can easily save yourself by simply standing up.
This is your life, made up entirely of your choices, your actions, your thoughts, your relationships, etc. Someday you will either decide to save yourself or remain unsaved forever.

4. Growing from Problems

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

Times of great difficulty are times of great opportunity. These times may not seem ideal at first, but they usually provide keen insight into ideas of great value. When you are surrounded by problems, you are simultaneously given an opportunity to provide valuable solutions.
When times are good and everything is comfortably in order, it’s easy to become complacent and forget how skillful and resourceful you are capable of being. Troubled times are necessary evils that push you forward, because they eventually end, and the lessons and strengths you gain from them last a lifetime.

5. Laughing it Off

“Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now.” –Veronica Roth

If you wish to measure your success in life, don’t bother analyzing your bank account, or your job description, or your relationship status, or your weight, or any other superficial badge society loves to pin on your resume. Just count the moments you spend peacefully in laughter. That’s what success is – living happily in your own way, and laughing at the highs, the lows, and all the ridiculous moments in between.
Do what you need to do, but don’t take yourself too seriously. Laugh whenever you can because you can. There’s honestly nothing like deep breaths after a good chuckle – nothing in the whole wide world like a sore tummy and cheeks for all the right reasons. Read Learned Optimism.

6. Staying True to Yourself

“I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.” –Rita Mae Brown

To make a positive difference in your life you must sometimes be different and take the road less traveled. It requires courage to go against the grain like this, especially when the people around you are confused and irritated by your choices; but such courage can bring great rewards when you stick to your guns.
Where others see only shadows of uncertainty, look for glimmers of opportunity. When you encounter rudeness and irritation, generously offer polite doses of confident patience. When you bump up against arrogance, dilute the negativity with your own sincere, self-assured humility.
Just because everyone is heading in a one direction doesn’t mean you must go that way too. On the contrary, it’s a valuable opportunity for you to step aside and figure out where you truly want to go.

7. Fighting for Your Dreams

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” –Eleanor Roosevelt

When things don’t go right, it doesn’t mean you have to go wrong along with them. Goals and dreams are kind of like breathing – once you give up, there’s no hope left. Don’t do that to yourself.
It’s always too early to quit. You must continue breathing, even if it’s just a series of short, shallow breaths. Continue putting forth even the smallest efforts to sustain your dreams. Accept the fact that if you fight through the challenges, there is always a chance you might lose, but if you do not fight at all, you have already lost. Read 1,000 Little Things.

8. Deciding to Change

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” –H. Jackson Brown Jr.

If you’re not where you want to be right now, take the time to visualize yourself in the place you want to be and take the first step in that direction. You may not be able to change your destination in a day, but you can change your direction right now.
Keep moving along this new path and it will eventually lead you to your destination.

9. Being Present

“It’s being here now that’s important. There’s no past and there’s no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can’t relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don’t know if there is one.” –George Harrison

Do not wish your moments away. Do not ruin today by focusing on another time and place. There is only now; realize how rich you are in it. It stands to reason that if you learn to live well you will eventually pass on well too, in complete peace. The skills are the same: being present in the moment, and brave, and thankful for all the opportunities you have.
Make your time count. Right now you are creating history – your legacy. Don’t let it slip by without being aware of it. Life works in a strange way: You want something and you work and wait and work and wait, and feel like it’s taking forever to come. Then it happens and it’s over and all you want to do is relive all the great memories you made along the way.
Happiness is the journey. Open your eyes. Don’t miss it. Read The Power of Now.

10. Being Thankful

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you.” –Walt Whitman

You are right here, right now, breathing. Enjoy it. You’ve got nothing to do today accept to smile.
Happiness is valuing what you have, and enjoying the people, places, objects and events in your life for what they are. It’s not about changing and achieving all the time, it’s about being and appreciating. And you can nearly always enjoy the things happening around you if you make up your mind firmly that you will.

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Wednesday 30 January 2013

8 Happy Ways to Spend 80 Years

post written by: Angel

In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
-Abraham Lincoln

Eighty years is currently the average life span in the West. Here’s how to make them happy and fulfilling:

1. Travel often.

Do yourself this favor before it’s too late. Without thinking too much about it, pack a pillow and a blanket at least once a year and go see a part of the world you’ve never seen before. You will not regret it.
Traveling has less to do with seeing things, as it does with experiencing them. It has less to do with discovering something, as it does with discovering yourself. In your travels you won’t find all the answers, you will find lots of questions you would otherwise have never thought to ask.
The thing about traveling to new places is that you run into your insecurities and fears around every twist and turn. You run into all the good things and bad things about yourself on a daily basis, and are provided the opportunity to grow far beyond your years.

2. Work on something every day that moves you.

When you strike that fine balance between the challenge of an activity and your skill at performing it, when the rhythm of your work feels in sync with your purpose, when you know that what you’re doing makes a difference, you become absorbed in the task at hand to the point where time ceases to exist. This is what true passion and happiness feels like.
So is there anything you do on a regular basis that makes you forget what time it is?
That forgetting, or optimal experience of pure absorption, is what the psychologist Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi calls “flow.” He describes the phenomenon as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”
On your average day, flow experiences are those flashes of intense living when you’re engrossed in a meaningful task that makes you feel more alive. These optimal experiences can happen when you’re engaged in work, paid or unpaid, that move you. Work like this is something you should be pursuing on a daily basis. Read Flow.

3. Spend time with friends who improve you.

You can go through life and make new friends every year – every month practically – but there is no substitute for the few who truly improve you.
These aren’t the people who are simply nice to you; they’re the ones who help you uncover the things that are holding you back. In subtle ways, they bring ideas to your attention that change your life. These friends don’t just sit beside you unknowingly; they shake your world up, reveal your obstacles and weaknesses, and remain beside you because they care.
Friends like this are the most important people you will ever meet because they tear down the invisible walls you have built in your mind. In other words, they come into your life and reveal new, valuable layers of yourself that you would never have discovered without them.

4. Accept the risks that feel right.

Security is mostly an illusion. There are no sure things in this world. The nature of the world is constantly evolving. Reserving yourself with numerous safety measures is usually no safer in the long-run than indulging in constant exposure.
It is far more fulfilling to dare yourself to the mighty experiences life has to offer – enjoying great successes and enduring occasional failures – than to hide forever in safety, only to leave the majority of your life unlived.

5. Work hard and conquer great challenges.

The road to greatness is far from smooth. You can be absolutely certain that when you feel you are growing weak from struggle, you are in fact growing stronger than you ever have been before.
The more difficulties you encounter and overcome on your lifelong journey, internal or peripheral, the more significant and inspiring your life story will be. Read The Front Nine.

6. Make the very best of every situation.

One of the great secrets of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom is doing the best you can with what is done to you. It’s all about how you choose to respond to the sometimes unpredictable deliveries life ships. This simple choice makes a world of difference.
You are honestly free now and always, no matter what circumstances surround you. If you find your circumstances tolerable, by all means tolerate them; if you find them too confining, break through them – stretch yourself. Ultimately you are free because you alone are responsible for your thoughts and how you use them to empower your growth.

7. Provide great value to the world.

The best way to get ahead in this world is not to compete with others, but to serve them. If you want to score a raise at work, be of service to your boss. If you want to build a profitable business, be of service to your potential customers. Provide unmistakable value.
Value is what makes relationships, businesses, and personal endeavors thrive. When your strategy is to grab all you can as quickly as you can, you will grab far less than you are capable of holding. It is foolish to think that you can fool the world in any way. Success and happiness come when you choose to work for the world diligently.
At any age, in any situation, for every possible life path, there is value you can provide. Look closely and you will see opportunities everywhere. Read The $100 Startup.

8. Spread your light.

As the Buddha once said, “Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” Spread your light through love and kindness to the people around you, and let the ‘giving spirit’ you initiate spread like a virus, infinitely touching the lives of people you may never meet, across boundaries you may never cross, in ways you may never have thought possible.
That is the power of your love and kindness, and it’s your ticket to making the world a happier place.

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Tuesday 29 January 2013

30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself

post written by: Marc

When you stop chasing the wrong things you give
the right things a chance to catch you.

As Maria Robinson once said, “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” Nothing could be closer to the truth. But before you can begin this process of transformation you have to stop doing the things that have been holding you back.
Here are some ideas to get you started:

Stop spending time with the wrong people. – Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you. If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot. Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth. And remember, it’s not the people that stand by your side when you’re at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you’re at your worst that are your true friends.
Stop running from your problems. – Face them head on. No, it won’t be easy. There is no person in the world capable of flawlessly handling every punch thrown at them. We aren’t supposed to be able to instantly solve problems. That’s not how we’re made. In fact, we’re made to get upset, sad, hurt, stumble and fall. Because that’s the whole purpose of living – to face problems, learn, adapt, and solve them over the course of time. This is what ultimately molds us into the person we become.
Stop lying to yourself. – You can lie to anyone else in the world, but you can’t lie to yourself. Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult chance we can take is to be honest with ourselves. Read The Road Less Traveled.
Stop putting your own needs on the back burner. – The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. Yes, help others; but help yourself too. If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that matters to you, that moment is now.
Stop trying to be someone you’re not. – One of the greatest challenges in life is being yourself in a world that’s trying to make you like everyone else. Someone will always be prettier, someone will always be smarter, someone will always be younger, but they will never be you. Don’t change so people will like you. Be yourself and the right people will love the real you.
Stop trying to hold onto the past. – You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.
Stop being scared to make a mistake. – Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing. Every success has a trail of failures behind it, and every failure is leading towards success. You end up regretting the things you did NOT do far more than the things you did.
Stop berating yourself for old mistakes. – We may love the wrong person and cry about the wrong things, but no matter how things go wrong, one thing is for sure, mistakes help us find the person and things that are right for us. We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future. Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.
Stop trying to buy happiness. – Many of the things we desire are expensive. But the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free – love, laughter and working on our passions.
Stop exclusively looking to others for happiness. – If you’re not happy with who you are on the inside, you won’t be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either. You have to create stability in your own life first before you can share it with someone else. Read Stumbling on Happiness.
Stop being idle. – Don’t think too much or you’ll create a problem that wasn’t even there in the first place. Evaluate situations and take decisive action. You cannot change what you refuse to confront. Making progress involves risk. Period! You can’t make it to second base with your foot on first.
Stop thinking you’re not ready. – Nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises. Because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means we won’t feel totally comfortable at first.
Stop getting involved in relationships for the wrong reasons. – Relationships must be chosen wisely. It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company. There’s no need to rush. If something is meant to be, it will happen – in the right time, with the right person, and for the best reason. Fall in love when you’re ready, not when you’re lonely.
Stop rejecting new relationships just because old ones didn’t work. – In life you’ll realize that there is a purpose for everyone you meet. Some will test you, some will use you and some will teach you. But most importantly, some will bring out the best in you.
Stop trying to compete against everyone else. – Don’t worry about what others are doing better than you. Concentrate on beating your own records every day. Success is a battle between YOU and YOURSELF only.
Stop being jealous of others. – Jealousy is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own. Ask yourself this: “What’s something I have that everyone wants?”
Stop complaining and feeling sorry for yourself. – Life’s curveballs are thrown for a reason – to shift your path in a direction that is meant for you. You may not see or understand everything the moment it happens, and it may be tough. But reflect back on those negative curveballs thrown at you in the past. You’ll often see that eventually they led you to a better place, person, state of mind, or situation. So smile! Let everyone know that today you are a lot stronger than you were yesterday, and you will be.
Stop holding grudges. – Don’t live your life with hate in your heart. You will end up hurting yourself more than the people you hate. Forgiveness is not saying, “What you did to me is okay.” It is saying, “I’m not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever.” Forgiveness is the answer… let go, find peace, liberate yourself! And remember, forgiveness is not just for other people, it’s for you too. If you must, forgive yourself, move on and try to do better next time.
Stop letting others bring you down to their level. – Refuse to lower your standards to accommodate those who refuse to raise theirs.
Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others. – Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it anyway. Just do what you know in your heart is right.
Stop doing the same things over and over without taking a break. – The time to take a deep breath is when you don’t have time for it. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
Stop overlooking the beauty of small moments. – Enjoy the little things, because one day you may look back and discover they were the big things. The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you.
Stop trying to make things perfect. – The real world doesn’t reward perfectionists, it rewards people who get things done. Read Getting Things Done.
Stop following the path of least resistance. – Life is not easy, especially when you plan on achieving something worthwhile. Don’t take the easy way out. Do something extraordinary.
Stop acting like everything is fine if it isn’t. – It’s okay to fall apart for a little while. You don’t always have to pretend to be strong, and there is no need to constantly prove that everything is going well. You shouldn’t be concerned with what other people are thinking either – cry if you need to – it’s healthy to shed your tears. The sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to smile again.
Stop blaming others for your troubles. – The extent to which you can achieve your dreams depends on the extent to which you take responsibility for your life. When you blame others for what you’re going through, you deny responsibility – you give others power over that part of your life.
Stop trying to be everything to everyone. – Doing so is impossible, and trying will only burn you out. But making one person smile CAN change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but their world. So narrow your focus.
Stop worrying so much. – Worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens, it will strip today of its joy. One way to check if something is worth mulling over is to ask yourself this question: “Will this matter in one year’s time? Three years? Five years?” If not, then it’s not worth worrying about.
Stop focusing on what you don’t want to happen. – Focus on what you do want to happen. Positive thinking is at the forefront of every great success story. If you awake every morning with the thought that something wonderful will happen in your life today, and you pay close attention, you’ll often find that you’re right.
Stop being ungrateful. – No matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life. Someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs. Instead of thinking about what you’re missing, try thinking about what you have that everyone else is missing.

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