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Personal Growth

Rearrange in Your Fashion the Person You Love. Mistake That Costs You Your Happiness

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The valuable wisdom of the Tao Te Ching teaches how to avoid a common blunder of many otherwise happy couples

Olya Aman

Phantasmagoric guarantors of family happiness are care above any considerations and love beyond any measure. – Olya Aman

43rd Verse. The softest of all things overrides the hardest of all things. That without substance enters where there is no space. Hence I know the value of nonaction. Teaching without words, performing without actions - few in the world can grasp it - that is the master’s way.Rare indeed are those who obtain the beauty of this world. – Lao-Tzu 2nd Verse of “Tao Te Ching.

The Tao Te Ching, a book of wisdom, is considered by many scholars as teaching that guarantees a balanced, peaceful, and happy life. Eighty-one verses and about 100 short passages in this book of Chinese keeper of the imperial archives Lao-Tzu, can be applied to building a family.

When I read those verses, in an instant, like a shock from the blue, they spoke to me. Shaking authority, they told me,“Just see how you can understand what I say, will you?” And hunting through the years of my married life, I’ve found proof of every word, explicit confirmation of every thesis.

I’ve chosen only one verse that can give you insight into the art of creating a happy relationship. Imagine how valuable is the thoughtful reading and contemplation of all eighty-one of them.

Our first year of married life was absurd and entirely enlightening in such a manner as to be almost legendary. My husband’s political speeches on the place of man and woman in the family union were anecdotal and gave rise to loud protests and clarion laughter from me. My spy games and intellectual schemes aimed to enliven his daily schedule and make planning a permanent habit, tired him out.

“Your day is a brainless harlequinade. You sleep till 3 p.m. and stay awake till 3 a.m. Your absence in the morning irritates me like a gap, faded spot, on the wall where a painting used to hang.” I couldn’t quite decide whether I wanted to cry in pity for myself or to shout in an angry fit just for the same reason. “You are a master of radiant rationality. To compare your husband with a piece of drawing,” his eyes under the darkly drawn brows were bright with amusement, “that is certainly one to you.”

Our life arrangement left me in pure puzzledom. We barely spent any time together. Being a morning person, I felt my energy fading away with the sun leaving the horizon. My husband, on the contrary, was at the pick of his activity just at the time when my eyes were closing fast asleep.

Make it fair between us was my primary aim. We discussed what men could do, and women could not, and my stock of evil imagination was used up to give my husband the creeps. My handsome man employed his sense of the absurd to make me change my mind. I heard him say that a man works hard and can sometimes relax in his male friends’ company staying late at night. And he heard me say that, oddly enough, I work just as hard and deserve an overnight hangover. All these tunes were totally without words; we never attempted to tax in such a way our trust in each other.

There still was a heavy, oppressive sense of thunder in the air each time we started this ancient debate. My husband wanted his strength to be prodigious. “We’ll crack our old misunderstanding when you admit that there cannot be all equal between a wife and a husband in a family.” I motioned him in with my left hand, gave one of my characteristic ‘h’ms’, and pulled his ear with my right in a particular, sensual way — the way that always showed the real power of the ‘weak’ sex.

The softest of all things overrides the hardest of all things.

That without substance enters where there is no space. Hence I know the value of nonaction.

Our hearts were not attuned to change when it was forced with evident mental pressure. We suffered at the thought of our mutual noncompliance. Yet this was the very way to gain by losing. Being worthless, not good enough for each other was high on our list. It made us come very close to the climax of our relationship. We were on the verge of separation when ‘alas’ realized that achieving harmony and happiness involves acceptance and nonaction. This tiny alteration tipped our entire life over. It was a perfect mental summersault because the long-awaited change shambled into our relationship unawares.

Putting this verse in action

To force a change is violence. It conflicts with the harmony of life, and consequently — family.

  • Find value in the nonaction. Any activity can be truth or trash. Lack of it, on the contrary, has a sort of splendid neutrality. It brings natural hope for change.
  • Strength is not about doing a difficult task with muscle involvement. Often by not interfering, you show the power that lacks noisy vulgarity. You simply trust your instincts and love the other person, allowing your heart to be devoted without your mind telling you how to love.
  • There is wisdom in peaceful harmony. Being soft, you override others’ hardness, and the person previously unwilling to change, to get better, will crave for your approval.

Teaching without words, performing without actions — few in the world can grasp it — that is the master’s way.

Rare indeed are those who obtain the beauty of this world.

By being more tolerant, ironically, my husband and I feel happier than when we tried so hard to better our life. There is none of that sense of competition between us that can only be present between ‘dilettante’ couples. We smelled out all the misperceptions and confusions in and out the first year of our married life. We still have things to discuss now and then, mind you. Without being didactic and exaggerated, we out-distance any conflicts. That foxy old scheme of love and care always works. We hug the axiom that it is vital to underrate the troubles and overrate the affections in all disputes. Today we live softly and without effort. Accept each other quietly, without force. Enjoy being together easily, without a struggle. We allow the change without pushing it.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

4 Ways to Make Your Relationship Strong

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There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose. – Charles Dickens (“David Copperfield”)

1) Start Every Encounter With 100% Effort 

There is no such thing as “give-me-and-I-give-you” relationships. Start every encounter with 100% effort to do the best you can for the other party and that will transform your life. That desire to own someone completely settled in every heart. And from there this unruly longing puts together selfish schemes. It puts ‘must-s’, ‘has to-s’, ‘should –s’ in your way, so that you only give if you know that you will get something back. Stop thinking that the other person must, has to and should do this and that for you, because You did a good deed. Let your left hand create unconditional kindness and do not let the right one know about it. 

2) Do Not Expect Any Payback 

Either from that person or in any other form you will get twice as much. The universal law of boomerang doesn’t make mistakes. It regains more speed and comes back with much more force, good or bad – you decide. The same law governs the “country of two people”. If both of you give 100% of your love, care, attention, understanding, respect – you can get a hold of happiness.

3) When You Put Into Force the Power of Devotion and Unconditional Love

When you take the person beside you as a gift to you and you relish this gift with care and admiration; when you consider that person your soulmate, the one that is going to be always with you no matter what, in good or bad – then you will get what you expect. But if you ponder your relationships as something “not-for-ever”, “today-here-tomorrow-not”, and take it for granted – you also get exactly what you expect. 

George Eliot expressed the significance of this union like no other: “What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel they are joined for life – to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories.” 

4) When an Essential Ingredient for Your Happiness Is Missing 

Some people tend to anticipate a change to the worse in their partner and prepare themselves for it. This attitude serves as a protective mechanism: “When it happens – I will be ready, and it won’t be so painful, so I better love him/her less.” In this case an essential ingredient for your happiness is missing: the ultimate trust and belief in you both. 

Conclusion

Think about it for a moment: your kids will love you – yes, but they will have their own lives with their own spouses and children. You need someone who will be with you forever. Someone who won’t care how your looks change, as you get just more beautiful with the years going by, accumulating wonders inside.

To grow together, to prosper, share ups and downs, support each other every step of the way… Don’t you want that to be your reality? Let it be. Be ready to give 100% of yourself to a loved one.

Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family. Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead out daily life too often as if we take our family for granted. – Paul Pearsall

Don’t take it for granted. Say thank you every day and not just once.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

3 Reasons to Welcome Changes and Self-Change

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Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. – George Bernard Shaw

1) People Change 

It is normal to think one way today and to have a completely different point of view the next day. You may have in your circle of friends and acquaintances some people that always keep their old beliefs strong as a brick. These people do not even question the validity of those beliefs and don’t consider any judgments, believing, that just the idea of obtaining extra information (to clarify and make sure what they think is true is still this way at present) is an offense. If you have someone like that around you, you know how hard it is to talk with that kind of person. And you most likely try to either not even talk on that matter or do your best not to be left alone with that person at all. 

2) It Is Normal to Change Your Mind 

There is a ton of new information circling around us every second. And something we believed was good yesterday is not that way anymore today. Look at the medical world: a few years ago mothers were made to believe that breastfeeding is not as beneficial for babies as the formula was. But scholars changed their minds and revealed the undisputable benefit of mother’s milk. 

3) We Should Grow and Growth Requires Change

Without growth, life is not sweet at all, and growth requires change. The same is true with the people that surround you. You may find comfort in the company of a few select friends mostly because at this very moment they think in a similar way and you share similar views. And you still can be close, although your life path leads you to a different destination. You find new people to share your thoughts and to teach you new skills. 

Conclusion

It makes life an incredible adventure when you let in new impressions that new people bring. You may not be as open to taking the first step and saying “hi.” That’s not a big deal. There are plenty of people that enjoy doing it, so you just need to welcome that approach. The more people you meet, the more you listen to them – the more receptive your brain becomes to the “people reading” skill. And to develop it is one of the main keys to success in life.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

3 Success-Defining Reasons to Listen Empathetically 

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Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know. No life is a waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone. – Mitch Albom (“The five people you meet in heaven.”)

1) The Very Success-Defining Skill 

There are many things that we learn early on but think insignificant and omit in the process of our upbringing. One of them is the very success-defining skill – empathetic listening. That skill involves all our senses: ears, eyes, posture, mimics. It is vital to learn to listen using all of them, and not just to “listen” without even capturing the meaning as we think at this very moment about what we are going to say next. Most of us do that. Pay attention next time and you’ll see the living proof.

2) We Need to Listen Twice as Much as We Talk

We have two ears and one mouth. Isn’t it a sign to be more attentive when someone is sharing information with us? But here again we need to rein in our egos. We think that no one can give us anything valuable, which is such a big mistake. Every person in our lives comes with a definite purpose and you just miss it when you do not pin your ears back and give yourself in full to this moment of shared wisdom.

3) The Art of Asking Questions 

Imagine a foreign language course in your curriculum. And you decided to skip a lesson or two. How hard is it to stay at the same level of knowledge as your more responsible classmates? You feel you need to put so much extra work in now to acquire the same speed they learn with. Of course, in a classroom environment it is easier to grasp the meaning of some rule that is difficult to understand, as there is always someone who will ask the right question that will cause you to understand the teacher’s explanation. The same thing in life: you may miss that particular opportunity to listen, think, and ask the right question and the life you want to live becomes a few steps farther from your reach. We need to master the art of asking questions. And to do that we need to listen and think. And, of course, to have the end result in mind (I mean “why I need to listen” and “what I need to learn”).

Conclusion

The vital ability to think requires some training and a lot of practice time. You go to the gym to make your body fit and strong, and in the same way you need to train your brain to think consciously on subjects of everyday life. I know it is insane to force your mind to think: “take a toothbrush in your right hand and brush the upper left side…” and so on. Our subconscious mind keeps us sane by relieving us of the necessity of tracking every routine movement. But simply by trying to use your left hand more if you are right-handed and vice-versa makes a world of a difference. Small steps like that create a habit of using our thinking muscles more frequently and making them all-weather resistant. Every achievement starts with the unremarkable little steps that we take every day in the direction of our ultimate goal.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

I’m White, He’s Black – We Are on the Right Track

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The rich human diversity is wedged in my family

When you create a family — you become one organism, breathing through one source, looking and moving in one direction. – Olya Aman

I formed the habit of sticking my attention into the venerable instrument of our diverse family. I feel the impulse to pull out our story of my head and heart because I know you can make better use of it.

My Afro-Asian husband

Everything about my husband is a bit stupefying. He has a large, square face, with a massive projecting nose and narrow greenish Asian cut eyes. Black hair brushed back from a broad but low forehead open two distinct parallel straight lines, that meet only at infinity. Grave and weighty in his manner and body, he does everything slowly and massively. Like a locomotive, he melancholy moves through life. Within his setting, I feel indolent and silenced.

Zac’s family, that is his name, is a unique example of the ‘cafeteria culture’. And the only idea of it is beautiful. His father was born and raised in Mexico in a Muslim family. While his mother is a daughter of a Methodist minister. They adopted Zac when he was 4 years old. He identifies himself closely with both cultures and religious beliefs, never feeling pressure coming from either side. The inner climate of their family is always mild and comfortable. They love each other and accentuate their family values on common grounds, minimizing the importance of the differences.

Our union

When Zac was 20, I got pregnant with our first child. We got married for love and forever, family values prevailing in Zac’s perception of the world. I am a woman of a European origin with deep cultural ties and beliefs. My cultural and religious sentiments are softly echoed by his acceptance and loving understanding.

Zac’s interracial, interreligious family experience made him flexible and adaptable to the changing world around. My family got to love this young-looking man with old wisdom lurking in his Asian eyes. Zac’s family accepted his choice with loving humor and serious understanding. The colors of our faces are diverse, the shades of our philosophies are controversial in many aspects — but we have a common universal understanding of the family values.

We have a family brunch once a month, to which all relatives bring their specialties. We celebrate our diversity and remain faithful to our histories.

What I’ve learned from my multicultural ongoing experience

Form a brilliant scheme to focus on shared pricks.

We are all enveloped in and on and under our histories. To make life easy, we slide gently through every circumstance, stressing our common patterns, and minimizing the importance of our differences. Close personal ties with each other are the sweets of life for all of us.

The focus on critical dissimilarities gives the bitter taste that disagrees with any family union. That is why we never cross the line and always stay in a circle of peaceful, polite conversation.

Rejoice at the contrasting blessings of your personalities.

Together we monopolize our differences and celebrate them with respect in our minds and love in our hearts. Because the family union is like a union between two countries — with unique histories and traditions, views and life principles. To maintain peace may be a laborious process, but it for sure is rewarding.

Respect has a lot of hand in building our family union. We learn to accept the cultural identity of each other and have judgment enough to distinguish between historical and religious differences that are important and those which are not. Any dissimilarities are not the instruments of destruction, but the triggers that move our curiosity forward.

Artlessly admit extended family connections.

We united the best blessings of existence when we decided to raise a child. We care a great deal for each other, that is why we are open to connect with members of our extended families and are eager to introduce our offspring to the variety of family relationships.

The chances are that the child will be a gainer if loved by many relatives and experienced in various cultural situations. Life with little and sometimes bigger difficulties and privations is not damaging but strengthening if you can look at your family and see the rock that will always hold you firmly on the ground.

To pursue a happy family union, everyone in it should help each other out of the deepest gulfs of human miseries. In the sequel of life, the family union is the only harbor that can give us the taste of happiness and peaceful harmony. – Olya Aman

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

10 Things That Can Ruin Your Social Media Presence

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If you are exposed to attention of millions – they are exposed to your influence. – Olya Aman

Introduction

His ability to write and voice what he thought was as well-kept as his perfect mustache. He was a true modern incarnation of my beloved Poirot and had the same initials. By the butterfly’s wing of his white necktie, P. could charm any woman and make every man jealous of his looks and manner.

I stopped talking and, putting on an observant air, pricked my ears in evident delight. The lecture began with an opening statement on our honored guest’s background: a short summary of his accomplishments and a brief enumeration of his published works.

P. lived for years in depressive intoxication: he was dismissed from work, lost his house, his wife left him, and he ended up living in the streets for three consecutive years after that. With superhuman effort he evoked himself from this slumber: found a job, a room to live, a phone to call old friends and family. P. carried the burden of his misery and cruel memories wisely. He portrayed his journey of recovery in his social media accounts and speeches that he gave throughout the country.

The support P. received gave him courage enough to write his first book: “FROM A BEGGAR TO AN INFLUENCER.” He skillfully depicted the sincerity of his renewed self-belief, -worth, and -respect.

P. pronounced the word of truth, the word of gratification and excuse in his most honored books. He had sadness and shadow in his life and managed to transform it into joy and light and, which is fascinating, to inspire others to do the same.

I turned on the recording function on my phone, entrusting to it to capture not only meaning but also the vibration of P.’s charismatic baritone and the elevating vibe of his emotions.

1) An Invocation to the Sacred Collective Intelligence

“A few years ago, I was a little worse than nobody and only the wealth of feeling and imagination kept me going. I did my best to put as many external-change-miles between myself and that past self that resembled a lizard person: fat, distressed, and overall unhappy street beggar.”

“When the visible transformation that I depicted in my social media accounts afforded a strong confirmatory evidence of my will power I noticed a considerable follower increase that continued to be so till the dark day in July of 2017.”

Social media is like an invocation to the sacred collective intelligence of the audience. The effort you are making to draw attention, to Go Viral, Create Memes (a discovery that is shared so widely that it becomes a part of internet culture) becomes a luminous point in the coming days of your life.

The magic in social media comes with excited, placid, deep, and limpid emotions shared, spread across social media realms. It is a superhuman vision that media evokes. It is heightened by valued people, trendsetters and their ability to network. They spread messages and those are never in repose after that but forever in flight and their course is insatiable.

The success in this internet universe is determined by the ability to penetrate the silence of the eyes, the voices in the heads, and the vibrations in the hearts of humanity in your niche. If you are able to see into the inside of your people: the misery they suffer, the happiness they crave, the thoughts that grow out of their experiences, the infinite emotions that lay hidden in their hearts – then the glory of having created the solution, redeeming the suffering, showing the new world of ideas and distractions will put you in a sort of ecstasy.

The feeling of affectionate attention that social media can give is the opium of modern world that can either stop the tempest of doubt and dread, of jealousy and rage that people feel or increase the intensity of those harmful feelings to the unbearable degree.

2) An Electric Current that Goes Through the Hearts and Minds of People

“The flow of traffic accompanied by the feeling of power and monetary satisfaction was an engine that propelled my activity and at the same time throttled my ability to reflect and empathize. People started to ask my expert opinion and I was delighted at the opportunity to dominate, preach and teach.”

“Those in distress found it motivating and uplifting to follow my story. I managed to create a balance and unity of thoughts and feelings through my speeches on the stage and in my videos. I painstakingly pieced my life in a few hours and elated people by my example.”

“A few followers sent me pleading for help letters. They needed more attention and encouragement. I became too arrogantly busy to spend enough time to do so. By a remarkable coincidence, those few incidents of my negligence skipped calling publicity (no one complained). So, the ruin of my social media career was not due to my silence but on the contrary – thanks to the too-loud-opinions that I’d expressed.”

Social media is an electric current that goes through the hearts and minds of people. The perfect sculpture of this system of sharing contains words, ideas, pictures, videos, and audios.

Face to face, emotion to emotion, wound to wound – this world has a childish soul and a limited mind behind the vastness of information. Without wise guidance life within it is saddened and future is black. Making first steps in social media world, make sure you have a mentor to help you navigate your way. It will save you a lot of time and energy.

Sheltered from harmful influence, protected for a time against the fearful spells of over dense information one can mature and add great knowledge and exclusiveness to his life with the help of social media. Now you can find what you need in seconds without spending hours in the library turning pages after pages. The resources available are numerous and categorized for you by reviews of many people.

It is a fine modern privilege to be able to skillfully direct the route in social media realms. And without knowing how to do it any life in there is short-lived and weak.

3) A Fearful Spell of Judgments

“The social air grew colder as my vanity expressed itself louder. And when the mist of my unfavorable twitts rolled along the world like a dense cloud of smoke, the decline of my reputation was not possible to stop.”

“I was busily engaged in judging and criticizing the ways of life that considerably differed from the one I was living at the moment. I forgot that only a few years prior I was a complete contradictory person to what I represented at the time. With much ceremony and stateliness, I voiced verdicts like: ‘I do not understand how one can live like that’, ‘I cannot respect a person acting in this way’, ‘how one can live in such a body’… and many more of a similar kind.”

“Finally, the tragedy was entered into my life with the full force and distractive power. The strength of public protest crashed the respect that I earned in the eyes of the outer world and my own self-worth suffered immensely. For the second time in my life, I was ruined mentally, morally, and physically. And if the first time circumstances and out-of-my-control factors were to blame, this time I was the only one responsible.”

Successful people, influencers, use admirable art of words and gestures, contagious images and piquant, unique ideas, ingenious salutations – and all of it to invest in their future. The more engaging content they put out to the world of social media the more they get back in terms of attention and affiliate advertising opportunities.

4) A Positive Distraction or a Depressing Factor

“I seated myself opposite the people I was trying to help. My first intention was forgotten in the confusion of attention and praise that I was luxuriously thrusting myself into. Anger and annoyance at what I expressed publicly was a just confirmation of my moral decline.”

“I used to be close to these people when I was one of them: working hard, feeling tired and depressed sometimes but with an effort lifting my head and doing what was right. I was able to break the chain of negative behavior, emotions, and feelings. I prided myself with this accomplishment. People were empowered by my example and generosity of my statements.”

At the same time, there are a lot of damaging oddities that may attract the audience and create a collective desire for negative behavior. That mostly touches kids and teenagers, but some insecure grown-up people are a target as well. To prevent it, parents need to create their own system of censorship. Guidance when making the first steps in learning how to use the world of information is required in school with books and in life with internet.

A life we live every day is diverse and enveloped in good and bad, jolly and sad, interesting and boring. Often the latter prevails, but what we see online is not the reality we usually live offline. The idealized picture may serve as a distraction that betters our life or as a depressing factor. And the feedback our emotions receive depends on the self-esteem we feel. Fear and lack of self-worth create pessimistic interaction between our life and the lives that other people expose to our attention online.

5) Unlimited and Unrestrained Debates

“When I forgot my past self, I took the transformation that I’d managed to make as purely my own doing. I easily threw away the encouragement that I’d received on the way to my new body and mind, forgetting the impact my followers made. They rightly broke off the ties and left not only reproachful comments but, what is more painful, a memory of love turned into hate, respect transformed into contempt, and admiration altered by disgust.”

Debates online are fueled by unlimited attention and participation. People engage in discussions and say a lot to the purpose and absolutely out of it, which makes it unrestrained. Some people act under a firm conviction that their opinion is always right. Criticism is uncontrolled and any tenderness to the feelings is often nonexistent. If you decide to share part of your life online, consider that and be warned and armed to address it in the right way.

6) A Way to Maintain a Stronger Connection

“To build connection is a tenacious and time-consuming work. To maintain it is just as hard. But to ruin everything you do not need to make any effort at all. One publicly shared unfavorable statement of yours can crash years of tough movement to the desired.”

“I felt support and love gushing from the hearts of people that liked what I was doing. I felt the lack of it the more painful for it. Who has lived in the light of attention cannot feel contented in the uncrowded space of lonely life without it.”

“I hastened to repair my life by self-reflecting and writing all my feelings and thoughts down. When I published my second book “BUILD CONNECTION WITH RESPECT IN SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD” I didn’t anticipate the impact that this work would do.”

“One of the main things that defer humankind from any other creature on this Earth is the ability to forgive. My book helped me to be forgiven because I was sincerely sorry for what I’ve said and the way I acted.”

With social media it is easier to be loved and courted by distant relations. But if you say and show too much, you may appear somewhat self-opinionated – people do not like it. If one touches upon the lives of others over any limit, it shows that he or she is a narrow-minded, tattling old gossip – people hate it.

The greatest installment to the debt of sincere affection is truth and genuineness. When you share your happiness, you connect with other people on a level of positive vibes, and by doing this, you multiply the bliss in your life.

The impact you have on your social network should serve to solace spirits and soothe tempers. If your company is pleasing and online conversation is genuine people come back to your platform and bring friends along.

Becoming a soul of authentic order online is very important for keeping a true and strong connection with people. Fresh news or old scandal, trivial questions or oft-repeated observations – when online it is spread across the minds with the speed that beats the light one. Be careful of what you share and remember that when you are radiant with dignity and depth of soul your charm is keenly spiritual and has an ineffable power to attract and subjugate the hearts.

7) An Advertising Dreamland

“Covering my face with my hands I sank into a new life of renewed self-awareness. I was suffused with a crimson flush. It was not from the shame but from the pleasant feeling of regained self-esteem. This mistake taught me my duty and served as an advertisement for my work. The sad remembrance of my failure helped me to be more sincere and open to the people who addressed me online and off-line.”

“This experience of sinking lower and lower cast over my writing those brilliant hints and expressions that touched the hearts of people. MY heart was set on a right track to impress and uplift, to inspire and motivate.”

Slowly, using content marketing or more quickly through influencer marketing one can achieve results with persistent and constant effort. To set up an advertising campaign nowadays you do not need to hire a whole bunch of experts. One smart person can be enough, or you can do it even by yourself.

When people grow fond of your content, you realize with some unaccountable satisfaction that they will buy what you have to offer. It does not free you of responsibility to maintain your reputation valued by always offering quality products. If your blog is loved, make your book shine with more excessive excellence of information. If you look so lovely that people cannot help admiring your charming outfits, make sure the clothing and accessories you recommend worth the price people are ready to pay for them.

8) A Limited Personality Perception

“The third book I published “THINGS YOU DO NOT KNOW” was about friends and kindred, close and distant connections, valuable and reserved network, people of the world and out of it – and how to use the things you do not know to build relationships.”

“The ‘secret’ I shared was a universal axiom, known to everybody and neglected by many – to live by ‘not-judging’ because of ‘not-knowing’. It became a sensation overnight. The quotes from it were flying through the media with the speed of light: “If you do not understand that I am a man like every other man, you take me for what you are afraid in yourself… You do not need to know me if you are not going to judge me… If you intend to rank me in your system of values, take pains to perceive me thoroughly…”

“And let me tell you that to get to ‘perceive thoroughly’ anybody is a rare skill not everybody has. We seldom know ‘good enough’ ourselves to claim to be experts in forming opinions about other people.”

In the internet society we often miss the expression of the face and the attitude of the body – an essential part of the information needed for making a clear picture of any person. Our perception is a tenuous membrane that is too rudely buffeted by the stressors from outside and emotions from inside. Everything happens too quickly, and we learn to run with time and information. Often, we mechanically put labels on things around us: ‘useful’ and ‘unimportant’, ‘true’ and ‘false’, ‘positive’ and ‘negative’. This mode of action helps us to keep our minds sane in the whirling world we live in. But no one can be justly proud of using the same method with people.

Personality is not an easy book to read overnight and write a short review in two hours in the morrow. Every person is a universe in itself, complicated, with undiscovered phenomena on every corner. Family, close relations, distant connections, society, things around, climate outside, and numerous other factors play their role in personality formation. Without a thorough knowledge of all these criteria how one can justly say ‘I know you’ or ‘if I were you I would do this or that’?

How can you solve a mathematical problem with limited information given? The answer won’t be right. And to my mind, it is better to restrain from being in the obvious wrong by judging too rashly. When it comes to people and relationships one needs to pause and contemplate before acting in any way.

When it comes to social media behavior I would say: express yourself as freely as you feel comfortable doing and detain your conclusions about other people as long as you can. The world is small when it comes to emotions. To cause pain is as easy these days as to type one or two sentences in your ‘compose new Tweet’ box.

9) A Dangerous Ground for Conflict

“In my fourth book “WHEN MY GRANDIOUR SLIPPED AWAY” I was eager and ashamed to tell the story of my failure in light of my obtained vastness of understanding myself. I slightly kicked upon the prostrated form of my past-self with responsibility in my mind and empathy in my heart.”

“People trusted me, asked questions and conferred their fears and mistakes on me. And due to my arrogance, I failed to respect their confessions. I was down on my luck, but I continued at all costs to regain respect I lost by taking responsibility for the words and behavior I expressed when self-esteem deserted me.”

If at some point any influencer adopts a manner to look down on other people, they will despise this person in return. Social media has a smell of the sensational air and it may knock some people down by way of spreading negativity. We wish it to be territorial and stay where it was born, but the reality proves it to be much speedier than any positive, harmless piece of news.

A certain instinct, not a virtuous one, makes people talk about bad things times more than about good ones. But no one stops you to have a system and an orbit of your own thinking and acting. Spreading positive, non-judgmental content is a noble life-improving mission. And I wish we had as many people following this creed as possible.

10) A Positive Channel of Valuable Information

“The direction of positive influence was swiftly borne through the damp and gloomy atmosphere of failure. We are composed of little foibles and weaknesses of our kind. And to take control over them is our obligation.”

“My experiences strengthened my ability to reflect. Now there are no troubles that can efface love and respect that I feel, vigor and positivity that I share.”

Make an effort to follow the motto of spreading love in a way that the knees of people who receive it knock in delight. Let your life take a flight and prove to the world that the indestructible leading mind can enjoy the pleasure of creating peace and abundance of beauty.

Try to be incapable of stupidity and hurtful blunders. Self-express in the most comfortable, profitable, and amenable way. The infinite good nature lives in everyone and is always of to-day.

Conclusion

To never loose actuality online is to listen to the feedback of your followers. Negative feedback requires a good deal of wisdom and patience to be responded in the right way. Do not be too involved when addressing it. When you look at the things in a detached way you see the picture more clearly and form an understanding in a much better way.

People who can fail and redeem themselves in the eyes of others, who accused them – these people have a note of rarity. Well-intentionally disguising offense means to be able to wait wisely and act rightly. Steadiness is needed to keep the temper in peace when people refuse to accept your train of thoughts. Sometimes the best way out of it is to offer some budgets of fresh news to divert the attention. Let the things cool down and then ask forgiveness if you happen to offend someone.

Remember – a spirit of candor and frankness never fails. Peoples’ hearts are sensitive plants, they open for a moment to sincere attention but curl up and shrink into themselves at the slightest touch of false feeling or rude injurious intention.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

3 Reasons to Compete Against Yourself

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Self-Competition Is a Gambit in a Self-Development Game

Introduction

Rustling, quickly-moving, clear-voiced, V. was extravagant and a little disquieting. Large, square face and little grayish eyes – there was nothing soft or gracious about her. Up to everything and down on herself, V. was a splendid actress but didn’t quite believe in it herself. She formed the habit of sticking pins into her dignity and this venerable instrument of her nature was suffering immensely. I always felt an impulse to pull out the pins, they did inflict so much damage on V’s vulnerable personality, and I believed she could make a better use of her sharpness.

Her conversation was of a sort that gave a large license to originality and wittiness. But she accused herself of not being like some other beautiful and successful actress (who AGAIN got a part in a movie she was auditioned for) – and that competition she was constantly in with others heated me so that it almost scorched.

Some Interior (self) and Exterior (with others) Competition is like a bad and a good joke – one is amusing to everybody you care about and whose opinion matters to you, and the other is funny only to outsiders, people of the world in which you have no place of your own. An infinity of malicious amusement lurks in those who compare themselves to others instead of finding enough will to meet the metrics and values that suit them. Because to win in Exterior Competition is possible but the reward, whatever it is, won’t do one any good.

Imagine fighting in a war for a foreign government – you end up on a winning side, the country is rejoicing, dividing treasures, lands, and you … you go home with empty hands in ill-fitted uniform and no one cares about your heroic deeds in your homeland. And why would they? You didn’t fight for theirs (you got it – YOURS) freedom.

The noble war against your rivals (negative behavior, harmful habits, pessimistic thinking, procrastination, etc.) is never ending and always self-satisfactory. You win one battle and right away plan another strategic military attack on your own chosen enemies, transforming them into your comrades on a way to a better-future-you. Every victory is adding more confidence and vitality, indolent grace and ease, charm and charisma, and with every year you look far more experienced and at the same time far more youthfully alive.

Turn on the Niagara of the Infinite Change. Determine ‘What’ to Confront.

Goodness only knew how far from the truth V.’s self-understanding was. She looked down at the world through sharply evaluating everything eyes. She was somehow always out of spirits and her life was punctuated by little and big disappointments. She lived in a constant state of competition-stupidity with others and the only salvation I could see was to recharge her self-esteem, and to redirect her competitive spirit on herself.

We live and learn, experience pain and pleasure, establish relationships and break up bridges – we change. Having made this pronouncement I want to emphasize that the modification ‘to the better’ or ‘to the worse’ lies entirely with us. Like a ship you can choose to move along a sleek and oily swell that leads nowhere or a bumpy troubled sea that will get you to a wonderful shore with a marvelous view.

The process is most likely arduous and exhilarating but the result is always pyrotechnical – and when one colorful transformation takes place you cannot help waiting, open-eyed and alert, for the next one. Change to the better-future-you is fascinating, and it demands to be continued once started.

1) Procrastination

The winter of 2017 was the toughest in V.’s life. She lost her father (her mom died two years prior) and being the only child, she was now left alone. My voice was hoarse and weary with preaching the weekend I spent with her. I came to console and pull her out of that misery she thrashed herself into, willingly and almost gladly, taking that as an excuse to her apathy and lack of desire to fight her way in life.

The battle with procrastination is simply a development of magic. You stop the baa-baa business of excuses and make an action. Deeds not words are the man’s first and most grandiose invention. With directed activity, you can create a whole new universe of your own. Charge yourself with envy to a Tomorrow-You, endow yourself with passions and faculties of your inner stronger personality that was waiting for the privilege to come up front and pronounce the sentence of power and will. A lizard person should rapidly shoot up into a lion person – that power resides in every one of us.

2) Negligence

I kicked all the clothes off the bed and chairs, made V. get up and look in the mirror. Her ears didn’t play her false – I was not very picky with words when like a policeman arresting the flow of traffic I held my hand to keep her silent and listen to the voice of reason. She popped back in self-care immeasurably during the weeks spent in her deserted family dwelling. And she had clapped the door shut behind self-love and respect long before that happened. Being almost oracular in painting symbolical pictures of TRUE success through TRUE completion I made the atmosphere palpitate, and at the end of my tirade her smile was irradiation and the best reward I could ever ask for.

3) Negative Behavior

V. had a habit of talking to herself in a mocking and resentful key. And I made a goal to change it during the week we spent together in a Turkish all-inclusive hotel by the sea. This trip, that I almost forced her to agree to accompany me to, was a transformation therapy that I prescribed to my friend. My voice sounded and sounded in her ears with the insistence of mechanical noise when I went on and on in continuous expressions of love and beauty, serenity and benevolence, exquisiteness and originality of her personality.

‘How’ to Be Busily Engaged in Self-Competition and Enjoy It

I made my best to instill in V. envy to her better-future-self, substituting the raving and displeasing desire to be somebody else. Only when she took herself and the choices she made in an axiomatic loving and respecting manner was she able to call her life her own. And starting from this turning point any defects, that she had in her own eyes, became goals – a way to flawless crystal image of her future self.

1) Be Guided by Self-Love

It was worth the trouble of looking at and admiring my renewed friend. When V. stopped her bleating, bellowing, and neighing her features started to express intense intelligence which brought her self-respect back to her eyes and self-love back to her heart. Now the atmosphere about her sent a cheerful warmth and a suggestion of comfort and ease. Her loving heart spoke to her and to others. Every intercourse was amiable because positive expectation was in the air.

2) Be Led by a True Idol

V. was wrongly choosing idols from a famous Hollywood crowd, and that was a definite failure and a pointless race that painfully oppressed her heart. This false competition like an ill-made overcoat made her look ill-fitted to life. People liked her description by others better than they liked her because no one could hear her own conversation, those were only words expected, gestures already made by someone else, and expressions approved by the mirror.

When the wind of self-respect and self-love started to blow in her sails V. became a capital person to be around and to listen to. Every human being has his shell, and her shell was her vocabulary and the whole envelope of her sharp mind. Now she was brave to be different, courageous to disagree, bold to self-express, and daring to call her-future-self the best person in the world.

Do not write your life in a variety of strange hands rather than using your own. You do this when you get into external competition. It squeezes you into insignificance when you try to be someone else instead of finding your own way, style, amplua. The only hero you should be obsessed with is ‘you-tomorrow’. There is an inspiration in this strive, you grasp at pleasure and fail to get a complete hold of it as it always gets bigger and a little farther from your reach. It remains possible and impossible at the same time. And this game is never ending which makes life a fascinating experience.

3) Be Directed by Positive Criticism and Hones Praise

V. was able to unite the intrinsic (love to herself) and extrinsic (praise and criticism) advantages and became an extraordinary personality, the one that you can drink like a healthy cocktail and never have enough of the precious taste and benefits. She found the best acting teacher in a stand-up women’s comedy show. People praised her, and she rejoiced, friends criticized sometimes, and she was grateful. She started as an out-of-stage minor character and won her way to a leading actress participating in every show in her best disguise – never rudely present, always profitably clever and wisely funny. Everything she did or said was up to the most intelligent unoffensively critical and humorous way. Ingenious people loved her, and slightly shallow minds didn’t understand and avoided her – and that was just the price for being true – likable and not so much, lovable and not so much, respected and always so.

Conclusion

Woe to those who dream of what others have and fail to see the potential in themselves. Competition with others runs you into a blind alley. It takes the truth and love to present to you an internal competition anew. To be guided by things meaningful for you is like an invocation to a sacred beauty that awaits you on this way. The world is made small if you busy yourself with the faults of other people. When you overcome your fears and strive to be better than you were yesterday – the world enlarges by your presence. Living in this state you are never in repose but forever in flight. You arrest yourself for a moment when you reach one goal and continue an endless way to a better-you. Every move you make is a smile not a sigh. The vision of ‘you-tomorrow’ should be intoxicating and reviving.

Stay tuned…

Personal Growth

6 Powerful Tips to Attract Success and Happiness

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“Unique personal style, dear friend, depends on what lies between the core of your heart and the inner essence of your soul,” said G. gleefully.

When it costs a heart and a dime…

G. at her 47 seemed to have something of a girl whose life was a sponge that was thirstily absorbing every drop of friendly sentiment. She gazed about herself with a saddened eye but swelled with smiles at the first bead of love.

Her face had that unmoved serenity of Nefertiti by Thutmose when in reverie, and that was the state I most often found her in. Regular comely features, glistening chestnut eyes, strict rather big mouth, and graceful cheekbones – her face whispered about flexible elegance and luxuriant beauty. Tall, robust, well-built, but rather disproportionally big in comparison to the head, G’s body would have been regarded as fine-looking by one and quite overweight by the other.

She was one of the most conspicuous women in Paris or even in France itself, and that country supplied so many excellent ladies. One would feel almost giddy with cheerful sensations seeing the splendor of color and exquisiteness of accessories. G. was a merry person and her joy would overflow, not in facial expressions, but in fashionable ejaculations.

Her handmade garments were supplied with an invoice for a bond of friendship to the ones she loved. I was flattered to be given the most beautiful garbs by her hand. Wearing those I strolled around with a bit exaggerated swagger because I knew that I was irresistible.

1) The Timing Scent in the Air

G. always rushed to the attack of a difficulty, and when the top 7 fashionable schools said ‘No’ to her inquiry to be the chosen one to master the craft of couture dress, she didn’t repent. After studying the Design Route very closely, she saw that there was but one alternative for her – to start her own business at new luxury couture in knitted women’s wear.

She was deeply versed in learning the fashion world since she remembered herself. Her dream was fearfully big – to become a world known fashion designer, the one that might proudly take place beside Coco Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, and Jean-Paul Gaultier. That passion of hers condemned her to be the butt of all boorish jokes of her classmates, but she didn’t repent, growing astir, more from the opposition than from good encouragements.

G. hunted for related material in every French magazine, she went through all available case studies from leading fashion companies with the top-notch education. G.’s goal was to sharpen her senses, to overcharge them with delicious fashion flavor, and develop a plan of a step by step image building technique.

To thrive and prosper under this sun one needs a united care of a great idea and a suitable time for its realization. The balmy days for a particular dream make the fulfillment of it speedier. All things and people should be glad to meet this newness that one has to offer and flourish with its gradual achievement.

2) Industry Intelligence

G. had greedy teeth behind her fashion obsession. She saw her success in every direction, her imagination had a free play and she started her research full of delightful excitement. She was a whippersnapper in terms of color, having no idea about the existence of four color seasons that coincide individually with a particular facial hue, and each subdivided into four subtypes. G. found the colors that did justice to her cool complexion, emphasizing her beauty rather than concealing it by pupping up instead.

G. strove to change simple color presumptions that she had into certainties, so she could call up before her mind’s eye the right combination for any person. In a perfect frenzy of passionate interest, she tended every piece of relevant information, filling in her notebook and her memory.

When the predictions about some problem that majority of people is facing and looking for the solution is but too well verified and you have the answer, make sure that nothing is omitted, and little is undone in terms of research in the very industry you want to step into. You should not feel the task too difficult of performance, devote enough time to it so that nothing is forgotten, and not a thing is regretted.

3) Great Listening Impulses

G. got into every conversation that could take a convivial and improving turn. This way she learned about the magic of proportionately enhancing looks by knowing body expression. To craft a better-looking silhouette, she went into every free seminar that ready-to-wear groups generously provided. One of the students of Louis Vuitton luxury fashion house agreed to share her class notes for the benefit of ordering some accentual work for her collection, G. gladly exchanged her time and made a beautiful handmade lace for her friend’s dresses and got treasured information in return.

She didn’t think long and hard to determine her body outline. Five types left not much to be confused about and pretty clearly told their story. She was a piquant apple and was in love with that shape. After all, that was the easiest topic to master in fashion design. Now she had the tools to tweak an outfit to emphasize her personal style and to help others to get the understanding of their body structure.

4) Unique and Expected Over Head and Toes

Since five years old G. found herself over head and ears in a pack of yarn whenever her mom’s watchful eye was distracted. She loved that sensation of different textures on her tiny hands. The heart of a girl, whose life was circling around the lovely scenes of her mother always at work knitting all kinds of garments for local people of her little town, was forever given to this crafty art.

G. could live frugally but happy on the proceeds of her skillful hands. Her dream, though, was big and she sometimes feared the heights she wanted to reach. But her belief was strong and sturdy, and the energy with which it was expressed was impatient of delay and suspense.

Competition is healthy only to a particular extent. If the problem that people are facing is solved in too many similar ways, the chance of success is proportionally diminished. Your solution should to all appearances stand out and be unique, better in many ways than whatever others have to offer. Ease the people’s minds by your discovery, give them the most poignant bliss with the answer you provide.

5) Hunting for Branding and Presentation

The horizon was beginning to crimson when French magazine L’Etudiant featured G.’s first collection. She worked hard to turn her passion into profitable business. It was not easy to find her niche but she managed to make a successful living by doing what she loved. She found her own signature style and the patterns she designed were original and caught attention. G. was able to access key forces to assist her in achieving her dream and every succeeding collection she presented was better than the previous one.

6) Fruitful Partnership

G. collaborated with many talented fashion designers and learned a lot during their mutual eclectic teamwork. She tenderly cherished each encounter and became close friends with many interesting people in the beauty industry: photographers, makeup artists, models, and of course brilliant designers from outstanding schools.

One will well advance in life if cooperates with the right people on his way. The very intelligence, that a few brains united together under one mutual concept, can deliver will for sure shine bright enough to light up the sky. In faith, I believe one great person can substitute an excessive monetary capital. So engaging yourself busily in finding worthy business partners is a path for exultation.

Conclusion

G.’s work considered by many as the great art in haute couture designs. And being on the top of her career she continued to revert her thoughts to her old friends. I’m a proud possessor of a few signature garments that G. gifted me with. And ‘haute couture’ or not… I feel the love of her generous soul and that is the most precious and priceless.

Let your dream grasp you with an iron hand. The path to it should be remembered even in old age. A life of persistent and not fleeting pleasure is dearly paid for by tenacious movement to the desired. And fear often is a companion to the assurance on this way – fear that the dream is too big and assurance that it is for sure reachable. Your cleverness and your soul capital are on the service of it. Make it sensational so people will have a daily renewed appetite for what you have to offer.

Stay tuned…