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Exercise your gratitude muscle
The trick to attaining a life of success is not really a trick at all. In an article for Inc.com, Geoffrey James writes, "the key to lifelong success is the regular exercise of a single emotional muscle: gratitude."
If gratitude is not something you naturally emote, fear not. There are ways to practice gratitude and eventually make it a part of your daily routine:
1. Work on it at night: jot down the events of the day that created positive emotions and program your brain to view your day in a positive light;
2. Reprogram your brain: over time, your 'gratitude muscle' will become so strong that it will attract more success into your life
Why this small business owner is dreading the Olympics
The fanfare, the athletes and the record-breaking rain. Hype leading up to the London 2012 Games, as always, is thick enough to move even the sourest Olympic skeptic.
But for Gene Marks, who will be in London with his family, the Olympics represent an unwanted distraction from his business. In his column for the Huffington Post, the owner of the Marks Group PC jokingly says it's not staying in a tiny flat with his wife, three teenage boys and their friends that he's dreading most, or the fact that he has to drive drive three hours to Manchester to was the soccer games. No, it's the fact that he will be away for 10 days from his business that is making him uneasy; something that most entrepreneurs, unless they subscribe to the philosophy of Michael Gerber's The E-Myth (which argues that a business, to succeed and create value, should be able to operate without the owner), would find difficult.
"If I were to get run over by a bus of Japanese tourists in Trafalgar Square, my business would fall apart days later. I have no procedures, rules or policies. I'm a micromanager and get too obsessed with irrelevant details. I sign all my checks and scrupulously review my payroll runs. Instead of reading great business books like The E-Myth, I read my general ledger," writes Mr. Marks.
Life, disrupted
From how we raise money, to what we learn to the way we eat, these companies are changing the way we think about everyday aspects of life. Forbes contributor Ilya Pozin offers up what he believes are the 10 most significant industry-disrupting startups of 2012.
EVENTS AND KEY DATES
Dragons Den - a look inside
On July 31, 2012, at 6 p.m. at Denman Cinema, 1779 Comox St., Vancouver, hear four local entrepreneurs' Dragons' Den stories and learn what happened when two million Canadians saw their pitches
EDITOR'S PICKS FROM REPORT ON SMALL BUSINESS
New version of Microsoft Office could cause headaches
Touch interfaces and collaborative features might be too much, too soon for some users
FROM THE ROSB ARCHIVES
How to keep staff absences from being unexpected
In an ideal world, everyone would always show up for work. We don't live in an ideal world, and the smaller the business, the bigger the effect that unmanaged absenteeism has on it
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Katherine Scarrow