Personal Finance: Five Steps To Making Better Financial Decisions That Will Yield Return

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Are men better wired to read maps or is it a tired cliché?

By Tom Stafford

The headlines

The Guardian: Male and female brains wired differently, scans reveal

The Atlantic: Male and female brains really are built differently

The Independent: The hardwired difference between male and female brains could explain why men are ‘better at map reading

The Story

An analysis of 949 brain scans shows significant sex differences in the connections between different brain areas.

What they actually did

Researchers from Philadelphia took data from 949 brain scans and divided them into three age groups and by gender. They then analysed the connections between 95 separate divisions of each brain using a technique called Diffusion Tensor Imaging.

With this data they constructed “connectome” maps, which show the network of the strength of connection between those brain regions.

Statistical testing of this showed significant differences between these networks according to sex – the average men’s network was more connected within each side of the brain, and the average women’s network was better connected between the two hemispheres. These differences emerged most strongly after the age of 13 (so weren’t as striking for the youngest group they tested).

How plausible is this?

Everybody knows that men are women have some biological differences – different sizes of brains and different hormones. It wouldn’t be too surprising if there were some neurological differences too. The thing is, we also know that we treat men and women differently from the moment they’re born, in almost all areas of life. Brains respond to the demands we make of them, and men and women have different demands placed on them.

Although a study of brain scans has an air of biological purity, it doesn’t escape from the reality that the people having their brains scanned are the product of social and cultural forces as well as biological ones.

The research itself is a technical tour-de-force which really needs a specialist to properly critique. I am not that specialist. But a few things seem odd about it: they report finding significant differences between the sexes, but don’t show the statistics that allow the reader to evaluate the size of any sex difference against other factors such as age or individual variability. This matters because you can have a statistically significant difference which isn’t practically meaningful. Relative size of effect might be very important.

For example, a significant sex difference could be tiny compared to the differences between people of different ages, or compared to the normal differences between individuals. The question of age differences is also relevant because we know the brain continues to develop after the oldest age tested in the study (22 years).

Any sex difference could plausibly be due to difference in the time-course of development between men and women. But, in general, it isn’t the technical details which I am equipped to critique. It’s a fair assumption to believe what the researchers have found, so let’s turn instead to how it is being interpreted.

Tom’s take

One of the authors of this research, as reported in The Guardian, said “the greatest surprise was how much the findings supported old stereotypes”. That, for me, should be a warning sign. Time and time again we find, as we see here, that highly technical and advanced neuroscience is used to support tired old generalisations.

Here, the research assumes the difference it seeks to prove. The data is analysed for sex differences with other categories receiving less or no attention (age, education, training and so on). From this biased lens on the data, a story about fundamental differences is also told. Part of our psychological make-up seems to be to want to assign essences to things – and differences between genders is a prime example of something people want to be true.

Even if we assume this research is reliable it doesn’t tell us about actual psychological differences between men and women. The brain scan doesn’t tell us about behaviour (and, indeed, most of us manage to behave in very similar ways despite large differences in brain structure and connectivity). Bizarrely, the authors seem also to want to use their analysis to support a myth about left brain vs right brain thinking. The “rational” left brain vs the intuitive’ right brain is a distinction that even Michael Gazzaniga, one of the founding fathers of “split brain” studies doesn’t believe any more.

Perhaps more importantly, analysis of how men and women are doesn’t tell you how men and women could be if brought up differently.

When the headlines talk about “hardwiring” and “proof that men and women are different” we can see the role this research is playing in cementing an assumption that people have already made. In fact, the data is silent on how men and women’s brains would be connected if society put different expectations on them.

Given the surprising ways in which brains do adapt to different experiences, it is completely plausible that even these significant “biological” differences could be due to cultural factors.

And even reliable differences between men and women can be reversed by psychological manipulations, which suggests that any underling biological differences isn’t as fundamental as researchers like to claim.

As Shakespeare has Ophelia say in Hamlet: “Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.”

Read more

The original paper: Sex differences in the structural connectome of the human brain

Sophie Scott of UCL has some technical queries about the research – one possibility is that movements made during the scanning could have been different between the sexes and generated the apparent differences in the resulting connectome networks.

Another large study, cited by this current paper, found no differences according to sex.

Cordelia Fine’s book, Delusions of gender: how our minds, society, and neuro-sexism create difference provides essential context for looking at this kind of research.

Tom Stafford does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
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How to Stack the Deck for a Better Life

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My City: Inaki Romero Larrea on building a better Madrid

Design TEDx The view from Cerro del Tío Pío, a hilly park in Vallecas, on the southeastern edge of Madrid helps people to understand the urban landscape and appreciate the city’s size. See a photoessay of Madrid photographed by Vanessa Gonzalez.

by Rebecca Smith Hurd

Spanish architecture generally conjures images of grandeur, particularly when it comes to modernist and contemporary construction. Gaudí‘s basilica. Calatrava‘s bridges, airports and centers for the arts. Bofill‘s state and corporate headquarters. Moneo‘s museums. The list of splendiferous urban structures goes on and on.

But not everything built on the Iberian Peninsula in recent memory carries such cachet.

In Madrid–Spain’s capital and Europe’s third-largest metropolis–many neighborhoods struggle to cope with aging infrastructures, a situation that’s only been complicated by the recent economic crisis. As the city and nation brace for more lean years ahead, many young architects are questioning their industry’s status quo. Rather than devote more public monies to colossal, celebrity-driven projects, they ask, why not fund small, hyperlocal ones supported by everyday citizens? The big idea: make the redevelopment process open and participatory.

One group that’s pushing such change to effect is Paisaje Transversal, an upstart collective based smack-dab in the center of Madrid. Founded in 2007 by five multidisciplinary design professionals, the group is working to cultivate–and empower–a grassroots community of people interested in urban planning in their own backyards.

“The boom years allowed for inefficient and presumptuous architecture,” says co-founder Iñaki Romero Larrea, 29, who moved to Madrid from the Basque Country in 2002. “We’re working toward a design that’s more in line with the people’s opinion and needs and that’s more respectful of what already exists.” (Hear him discuss his thinking in Spanish in this 2012 TEDxGranVía talk.)

One of the brick buildings on Calle san Dacio, part of Virgen de Begoña, known as the “neighborhood of stairs.” See a photoessay of Madrid photographed by Vanessa Gonzalez.

Two years ago, Paisaje Transversal began testing its bottom-up methodology with residents of Virgen de Begoña, one of the more than 200 working-class neighborhoods that ring the city center from the other side of the M-30 highway loop. “Virgen de Begoña has a valuable position and its residents are associated and organized,” says Romero Larrea. “A small portion of the population lives there, but their same problems plague more than a million others who live in similar places throughout the city.”

Madrileños and other locals know Virgen de Begoña by its nickname, el barrio de escaleras–the neighborhood of stairs. When the linear brick buildings were erected in the 1960s, steps were installed to deal with the steep slope of the landscape. ”To be able to cross from north to south, you have to pass through more than 10 points with various stairs,” says Romero Larrea. This is a problem for parents pushing strollers, people using wheelchairs–and particularly for the 25-40% of inhabitants who are senior citizens with mobility issues. “The stairs are killing us,” an older lady complained to a reporter for the TV news program, Madrid Directo last year. “To go to the doctor, stairs. To pass through here, stairs. To go the pharmacy, stairs. To buy bread, stairs.”

Paisaje Transversal believes that residents don’t need to meekly accept an unacceptable situation. The group helped the neighborhood association to obtain an official plan from the city so that it can receive government funding for rehabilitation projects. It also proposed a system of ramps to connect the neighborhood and a means to prioritize pedestrians over cars at intersections. For now, the thoughts remain on the drawing board, dependent on the nation’s economic situation improving. Nonetheless, Romero Larrea believes that engaging the barrio’s residents in fostering small but meaningful changes will also help to improve the city more broadly.

He still visits Virgen de Begoña to attend community meetings and events, but he currently spends most of his time at Paisaje Transversal’s studio in Huertas in the center of town (once the stomping ground of Cervantes). Since prototyping its methodology in Madrid, the collective has expanded its scope to mount participatory projects nationwide, in other Spanish cities including Bilbao and Valencia.

The studio is just a 10-minute walk from his apartment building in La Latina, one of Madrid’s oldest, most picturesque neighborhoods. “It’s a group of flats from the 1940s that was built in place of an old theater that burned down,” he says of his home. “[Ours is] very bright, on the fourth floor. I say that it looks like an Andalusian courtyard house, because it has no view but the white walls around it illuminate the interior.” He rents the 850-square-foot unit with three roommates. “It’s almost impossible to live alone on the average salary of a young Spaniard,” he explains.

His daily walk to work takes him through the zona alta of the culturally diverse Lavapiés district, which he describes as “full of stores selling Chinese goods wholesale.” After hours, he typically stops for a beer at places like La Nieta Carmela, an artsy tapas bar. “I always make plans with someone to have una caña near the studio,” Romero Larrea says. “It’s a good way to end the day.”

See La Nieta Carmela — and Romero Larrea’s other favorite spots in Madrid in this gallery »

He also enjoys taking visitors to Cerro del Tío Pío, a hilly park in Vallecas, on the southeastern edge of Madrid. The view at sunset is breathtaking and, he adds, also helps people understand the urban landscape at a glance and take in the city’s sheer size. Occasionally, he leaves the hustle and bustle behind. But when he does, he doesn’t go far–only to the Sierra de Madrid, a “natural paradise” that became a national park in June.

Romero Larrea originally hails from much farther north. He moved to Madrid from Vitoria-Gasteiz, capital of the Álava province, 11 years ago to study architecture at the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid. In 2007, he left for Germany to take additional courses at TU Dresden (Paisaje Transversal was initially a digital-only initiative). He returned to Spain the following year to settle in the capital. “Madrid is very welcoming,” he notes. “Every newcomer is treated like a local and, in a world of migrants, that is a magnificent thing.”

Nonetheless, Romero Larrea remains squarely focused on fostering change in Spain, particularly in the way that architectural and urban planning projects unfold. “I believe that transformation needs to happen with the profession, because if not, we’ll turn into bipolar beings who work for one thing in our free time and against it in our jobs.” He’s proud of the small victories Paisaje Transversal has won in involving citizens in bettering their communities, in Virgen de Begoña and beyond. And he looks forward to collaborating with the public on more initiatives that allow people to connect, share information and build networks.

“The most gratifying thing,” he says, “is to think that your effort improves the life of the people in the neighborhoods in which you work.”

To see some of Romero Larrea’s favorite places in Madrid, see this gallery of photographs shot for TED by Vanessa Gonzalez »

Or, check out this annotated map (click the pins to view details of his chosen spots):

To see other profiles in this series, including a profile of New York City’s trash anthropologist and an urban activist in Mexico City, check out TED’s Cities topic page »

Rebecca Smith Hurd is a freelance writer and editor based in central Mexico. She also runs the award-winning travel website AllAboutPuebla.com.

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Better roads for bikes and walkers: What cities inspire Janette Sadik-Khan?

Culture TEDTalks The commissioner of New York’s Department of Transportation, Janette Sadik-Khan, shares the story of transforming New York’s streets at TEDCity2.0. Photo: Ryan Lash

“It doesn’t need to be a zero-sum game between moving traffic and creating public space,” says Janette Sadik-Khan in today’s TED Talk, filmed at TEDCity2.0 earlier this month. Janette Sadik-Khan: New York's streets? Not so mean any moreSadik-Khan tells the story of how she and her team — quickly and cheaply, but not without controversy — changed New York from a city designed for car transit to a city where bikes, pedestrians and drivers all move in sync.

Since 2007, when she was named commissioner of the city’s Department of Transportation, DOT’s urban transport programs have quickly and inexpensively remade the streets around the five boroughs of New York, creating pedestrian plazas and hundreds of miles of bike lanes, jump-starting Bus Rapid Transit and midwifing a bike-share program with 6,000 strategically placed bikes.

“You have to design your streets for everyone. The cities that have safe streets, that are easy to get around, are the ones that will grow and thrive in the 21st century,” Sadik-Khan told the TED Blog.

What inspired her bold slate of urban projects? She says: “We took pieces from lots of different cities to have the gorgeous mosaic that we have in New York.” So we asked: Which ones?

Sadik-Khan found inspiration for New York’s integrated bike lanes from Copenhagen’s urban bike paths. The Danish model incorporates bikes directly into the street, but protects bikers by floating parking lanes in the middle of traffic, creating a low-cost buffer zone that made it safer for bikers to move quickly around the city.

Copenhagen also has one of the earliest bike-share programs, which helped inspire the launch of Citi Bikes in New York this past summer. Sadik-Khan also cites Paris and London as powerful sources of inspiration. From Vélib, Paris’s six-year-old bike share program, she realized that New York’s Citi Bike program needed to be interconnected — that all of the stations needed to work in sync. In New York, like in Paris, users can return bikes to any docking station, and if one station is full, users will be directed to the nearest hub with available spaces. From London’s Barclays Cycle Hire, she got the idea for a privately funded project at no cost to taxpayers — and she also learned that flexibility would be key in New York, where the new bike-share stations are solar-powered and wireless and can be moved as demand changes. The idea of bike shares has spread rapidly from city to city — as of this week, you can rent a public bike in 525 cities around the globe.

At the same time, Bogotá’s Bus Rapid Transit system got Sadik-Khan thinking hard about how to best manage New York’s bus fleet, which is both the largest and slowest in the world. Bogotá got its buses moving by getting them out of congested city traffic and into speedier dedicated bus lanes. Inspired by the Colombian program, she introduced the Select Bus Service in 2008, using paint and lane markers to reallocate space on the streets to bus-only lanes. There are six Select Bus Service routes in New York now, with more planned.

In her talk, Sadik-Khan shares a bold idea for how to launch projects quickly and inexpensively — pilot them with temporary materials to test them out. In Times Square in May 2009, for instance, her team blocked off a brand-new pedestrian zone with “paint and orange barrels,” and filled the space with cheap lawn furniture from a local hardware store. “We were able to show how it worked,” she said. “If it worked better for traffic, if it worked better for mobility, if it was safer, better for business, we would keep it. And if it didn’t work, no harm, no foul — we could put it back the way it was, because these were temporary materials. That was a big part of the buy-in. Much less anxiety when you think something can be put back.” (Spoiler: The Times Square pedestrian zone was so beloved that the traffic-free zone was made permanent in February 2010.)

Since 2007, Sadik-Khan and her team have reallocated 26 acres of urban space for pedestrian use, building 50 plazas around New York’s five boroughs. These plazas close off under-used streets and carve out space for people on foot, creating a space for public art installations, live performances and recreation. Public plazas have made the streets safer for pedestrians and have actually sped up traffic.

This transformation has, in turn, inspired other cities — including Boston, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Mexico City — to create their own pedestrian spaces. Los Angeles, a notoriously car-centric city, carved out a corner of its Silver Lake district in 2012 for the public to walk, sit and eat. It even duplicated the green dots that mark New York’s streets. Buenos Aires is expanding its pedestrian zones to create calmer spaces in the bustling city of 12.8 million.

Sadik-Khan says she’s noticed a kind of competition among the world’s global cities, which are measuring themselves against one another. This competitiveness, she notes, urges big cities to think seriously about sustainability and innovate new ways to make their cities greener. Instagram and Tumblr push this forward, by making visual design easier to share. “Ideas are spreading like wildfire,” she says.

It’s igniting a powerful conversation about the environment and space use; together, Sadik-Khan says, these competing, inspiring cities are developing a playbook for 21st-century urban design.

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10 Tips to Help You Write a Better Cover Letter

What makes a cover letter effective and what doesn’t? That’s what you have to know to compete for a dream job. But first, let’s define a cover letter. What is a cover letter, anyway?

A cover letter introduces your resume and can act as your first marketing tool. It spells out why you’re submitting your resume; and, more significantly, why you are qualified for the position.

Here’s one important matter you should not miss — your cover letter creates the first impression. Aside from your resume, the employer’s first encounter of you is embodied in this document. Everything about it represents you so by all means, and by saying this I mean, I’m dead serious — do everything in your power to stand out using this particular letter.

Additionally, this document should help to showcase your strengths and help set you apart from the crowd. It should be tailored to fit the open position. Not to forget, your covering letter should address the job’s requirements.

Likewise, and based on experience, the tricky part is getting the employer to sit and allot time to study your cover letter from among the hundreds of cover letters sent by other applicants. This is your best chance to showcase your brand; and to market yourself as a professional. Go, differentiate yourself. Do it with your cover letter.

Recently I’ve been reading through dozens of letters from people who are interested in working together, and I want to share some insights regarding what makes for an effective cover letter and what doesn’t.

If you consider these tips from the employer’s perspective, I think you’ll agree that most of them can be considered common sense. However, my experience thus far suggests they aren’t commonly applied. Because most people make these avoidable mistakes, I’ve been rejecting about 80% of applicants based on their cover letters alone.

Most of the time, the mistakes people make in their cover letters are actively disqualifying them. So I don’t even need to look at their resume or CV.

While these tips are based on my recent personal experiences, I believe they’re general enough to be of value to others.

Nothing says loser like a cover letter filled with spelling and/or grammatical errors.

What do such mistakes convey to a potential employer? They suggest that you do sloppy work, that you don’t pay much attention to detail, that you don’t care enough to do a good job, that you’re uneducated, or that you’re not very bright.

That one minor typo that sneaks through even after proofreading probably isn’t a big deal. Some may see it as a negative strike, but employers understand that mistakes happen and that perfection isn’t a realistic standard. However, if you have several spelling mistakes in your letter, or if your grammar sounds like you haven’t passed the 3rd grade, that’s likely to hurt your chances.

What if you’re applying for a job that isn’t in your native language? I still think you should make the effort to provide a quality cover letter and resume without spelling or grammar mistakes.

I’m used to communicating with non-native English speakers because 50% of my readers live outside the USA, and I’ve been doing business internationally since the mid-1990s. On a personal level, I’m impressed with people who can communicate in multiple languages. That said, it still makes a poor impression when you send a cover letter and resume with more grammar and spelling mistakes than most native speakers. This suggests that you may have difficulty communicating with other team members.

I’m not saying that you need perfect English skills. I’m simply saying that you shouldn’t let yourself be disqualified so easily by sending a poorly written cover letter. Don’t let your use of language betray you.

Take the time to have a native speaker proofread your cover letter and resume and correct any mistakes. This doesn’t take much extra time, but it could mean the difference between getting a follow up call vs. being disqualified as a poor communicator.

Think of it this way: If an employer has to decide between you and another equally qualified applicant, and the other person has an error-free letter while yours contains many mistakes, who has the advantage?

Speaking personally, I’d be very unlikely to follow up with someone who sent me a cover letter that showed poor English skills, even if it was obviously sent by a non-native speaker. I’m going to favor people who show can communicate well in the primary language of my company.

This is an easy mistake to avoid, so don’t be foolish or lazy here. If you simply provide an error-free cover letter and resume, that alone is probably enough to place you in the top 50% of applicants. Not doing so puts you in the bottom 50%; that’s the half that won’t get a callback.

Someone may think it’s ironic that I give such advice when my articles often contain typos. I do fix typos when people report them, but the nature of my work makes typos a lesser concern; I don’t compete with other bloggers to minimize typos. But perhaps I’d be interested in hiring people with a better eye for catching mistakes than I have. 

Businesses are built by people who stick around. From an employer’s perspective, there isn’t much value in working with someone who only wants to work for a few weeks or even a few months.

Hiring someone new is expensive. It takes time to filter applicants, interview them, and find suitable people. It takes more time to train and mentor them. Initially many employees produce negative value — they drain more value out of the company than they can provide.

High turnover is a problem for many companies. If you have a turnkey business that relies on unskilled workers who get paid minium wage, then high turnover may simply be par for the course. But for many small businesses or for businesses in creative fields, having stable, long-term workers is much better.

Suppose you’re an employer. One applicant says they’re looking for a summer job before they go back to school. Another indicates that they’re looking for long-term employment in your field. Who are you going to favor, all else being equal?

I received one letter from a man who wanted to work together for just 3 weeks, during a specific window of time he’s available. It doesn’t make sense to follow up with someone like that when there are other people looking for serious long-term work.

I’m not suggesting that you lie. If you’re only available for the summer, then be up front about that, and seek out seasonal positions. But if you see some possibilities for working together with an employer long-term, it’s wise to indicate that you may stick around if things work out. If you do the opposite by suggesting you probably won’t be around long, then it’s riskier for an employer to invest much in you.

If you position yourself as a high turnover employee, you’re also likely to depress your income. High turnover jobs tend to be close to minimum wage. If a job pays well, it’s probably not a high turnover job. So if you’d like to earn more money, position yourself as someone who will likely be around for years if you like the work.

No one expects you to commit up front to years of employment with a new company. You’ll have to feel each other out first to see if you’re a good match for each other. But at least suggest the possibility that if things go well, you may stick around. This makes you seem like a better investment. It can’t hurt your chances.

This of course assumes that you truly want to build a serious career, not just find a job. If all you want is a job, then read 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job and then see if that’s still what you want.

If you’re applying for work far from where you live, you’d better explain why in your cover letter. And your explanation should sound plausible.

Otherwise the employer may wonder: Why is this person looking for work so far from home? Are they unable to find work locally? They must not be very good.

Wanting to move to a new city to expand your horizons is a good enough reason. Lots of people move to New York City or San Francisco because they want the experience of living in those places. But if you’ve been living in your current city for years, and if there doesn’t seem to be a good reason for a major relocation other than the fact that you need an income, that just makes you look desperate and unworthy.

When I get applications from people in other countries for positions that would require relocation and a special work visa, I cringe a bit. Hiring someone from out of the country is riskier and more complicated than hiring a local. It doesn’t make much sense to look so far away unless I’ve already exhausted local possibilities, first within my own city and then within my own country.

Las Vegas isn’t a city for everyone. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for having people relocate here just to see if we can work well together. Naturally I’m going to start with local applicants for work that would be done locally.

The only reason to go outside my city, state, or country is if I’m looking for people to work virtually (over the Internet), or if I need people with such talents that the local workforce cannot provide. All else being equal, I’ll hire someone local to me before I give serious consideration to working with people in other cities or countries. It doesn’t make sense to go beyond local if I can find good people locally.

Some people send me employment-related letters that are so vague I honestly can’t tell what sort of work they’re interested in doing. These letters included phrases like, “I can do pretty much anything you need done.” Their resumes show a work history that has little or nothing to do with my field.

Since these people fail to specify what they want, they put the onus on me to use my imagination.

Unfortunately for them, I simply imagined myself dropping their letters into the recycle bin. That was fairly easy to visualize.

If you don’t know what you want, you should develop a clearer picture of that first before you go around applying for work. Don’t expect potential employers to figure it out for you.

It seems that some people mistakenly assume that raw enthusiasm and a willingness to work is enough to get them in the door. It isn’t.

Even if you’re looking for an internship, specify what type of internship you’re seeking. Are you a marketing student looking for a marketing internship? A programmer seeking a programming internship? Or an unfocused drifter looking for whatever? If you’re not clear, you’re positioning yourself as the latter. There aren’t as many quality internships for unfocused drifters.

If I get a vague letter from a local applicant who seems otherwise intelligent, and it’s easy to meet with them, I may do so if I’m not too busy. Perhaps we can have a nice chat, and maybe we’ll figure something out. But for the most part, I’m just being social when I do this. The person hasn’t given me sufficient cause to seriously consider working with them, at least not yet. If we share common interests, I may meet with them just to see what comes of it and because I have that kind of flexibility. But if I’m busy or if this sort of thing comes from a non-local applicant, there’s no reason to follow up.

Contrast these types of letters with someone who suggests something very specific in terms of working together. I received some great letters from web developers who want to upgrade my website. Their portfolios show a history of making websites for small businesses. It makes sense to follow up with these people. I don’t have to stretch my imagination to figure out how we might work together. They shared something clear and concrete to consider, something I can say yes to.

You might think you’re limiting your chances by being too specific. But look at this from the employer’s perspective. If I get a few letters each week from people who are offering to do “pretty much anything,” they’re all going to blur together. None of them will stand out. This approach is generic and warrants a generic rejection.

Now suppose I get a letter from someone offering to serve as my Logistics Coordinator for live events. They give me a list of things they can do. They build a good case for why they’re qualified to do this. Their resume shows some relevant work history. This makes it easier for me to imagine how I might fit this person into the company as a whole, making it more likely that I’ll follow up. If I don’t need to hire such a person just yet, then obviously I won’t hire them. But even in that situation, I’m likely to file their letter in case I need such a person down the road or if I decide to expand capacity in this area by bringing on a new person. And I may also follow up with something like, “Check back with me in 6 months. I may have something for you then.” At the very least, I’d be more likely to follow up with this person in some fashion.

If you’re too vague in specifying what you want to do, you’ll be passed over. Employers are too busy figuring out how to hire, train, and integrate people who actually do know what they want. They don’t have as much time to help you figure out what you want. Figuring it out is your job, not theirs.

Remember that most jobs are never advertised anywhere. You have the power to design and create your own position instead of merely responding to what’s being advertised. The advertised positions are generally much more rigid than what you can design for yourself, and they’ll also attract a lot more competition. When I ran my games business, I was able to find and hire everyone I needed without advertising any of the positions. I filled every position through my network of contacts.

If you have any difficulty grasping the importance of defining your own work position, and especially if you disagree with it, read How to Order.

Think like an attorney building a case as to why you should be hired. Make sure your case is a strong one.

When you’re seeking a rewarding long-term career, understand and accept that lots of other people are looking for the same thing. It’s a competitive situation, so you need to play to win. Being good isn’t enough. You need to be the best among the other applicants for your position.

In a criminal trial in the USA, the mantra is “innocent until proven guilty.” This means that you’re assumed to be innocent unless the prosecutor can prove your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Some people apply for work as if “employable until proven incompetent” is the mantra that applies. They provide pretty good cover letters and resumes, figuring that as long as they satisfy expectations and don’t screw something up, they have a reasonable chance of getting hired. They’re careful to avoid the obvious mistakes, and yet quite often they still lose. They lose to people who are willing to be unreasonable — unreasonably good, that is.

That’s because the mantra that applies in the world of work is closer to the standard in civil cases as opposed to criminal cases. In a civil case, the standard is “the preponderance of evidence.” This means that whichever side builds the best case wins, and the other side loses. One side may build a great case and still lose if the other side builds a slightly better case. This may not sound fair, but such are the vicissitudes of life.

Some people send me very good applications. However, a few surpassed the standard of very good. They provided something excellent — like a significantly longer letter explaining in detail how we might specifically work together. They didn’t merely offer up enthusiastic ramblings; they built a strong case for what we could accomplish together.

If you hold yourself to an unreasonable standard of going well beyond what most people do, then even if you don’t come out on top, you’re more likely to get a follow up. The employer might even add an extra position to accommodate you.

People with higher than normal standards are very valuable in the world of work. What employer would want to hire someone very good if they could hire someone outstanding?

Being too close to the average (even the good side of average) isn’t such a great idea if you want to be hired for a competitive position. You want to be at least one standard deviation beyond that. If you’re good-average, you’re still in the slush pile. It’s too easy for a more competitive candidate to knock you out of the running simply by trying harder.

If someone else could easily beat you by spending an extra half-hour on their cover letter, you’re probably going to be beaten.

If you claim certain skills, back them up with solid evidence. Explain how you developed skills that aren’t conveyed by your education and work history. Don’t claim general skills like being a hard worker or being well-organized unless you can back them up. Share a quick story to explain how you’ve applied these skills. Otherwise you’re doing what so many other people do, and someone else that includes such evidence will make you look like a second-rate applicant.

You don’t have to like the competitive aspect, but don’t ignore it either. If you’re going to compete, then compete to win; otherwise don’t bother.

Present yourself as a competent pro — or at least an amateur on the rise. Employers want to hire competent professionals with strong skills. It’s too risky to hire people who position themselves as emotionally immature and unprofessional.

I received several letters from people who:

complained about their previous employerscomplained about their history, upbringing, current life situation, etc.shared what types of work they’re sick and tired of doingexplained how under-appreciated and misunderstood they felttold me how fed up they are with their unfulfilling lives

This sort of thing may seem honest and open, but it’s really unprofessional. If you do anything like the above, you’re positioning yourself as an emotionally immature man-child or woman-child, not a serious professional. In my view any such applicant is an easy no, instantly disqualified.

I sympathize that you may be looking to improve your life situation, and you may have had real problems with previous employers. Let’s give you the benefit of the doubt and say those problems were beyond your control. Even so, it’s unwise to position yourself as someone who needs rescuing. This doesn’t make you look like a quality hire. It makes you look irresponsible. A new employer can’t verify that your ex-boss was an idiot.

When an employer sees the above, they’re likely to assume:

If this person had conflicts with previous employers, they’ll probably have similar conflicts here.If this person is willing to complain about their previous employers, they’ll eventually complain about me.This person is unappreciative, ungrateful, and disloyal.This person has an unreasonable sense of entitlement.This person has a negative attitude.This isn’t someone I’d want on my team.

Again, I sympathize if you really are in a rough spot, but it isn’t appropriate to vent your past resentments in a professional cover letter if you’re looking for serious work.

Put yourself in the employer’s shoes. When one applicant sends a letter complaining about their “poor me” situation, while another equally qualified applicant writes positively of how much they learned from previous employers and why they moved on without burning bridges, which person would you invite to join your team?

A potential employer isn’t your therapist. Put your best foot forward if you want to be hired. Do you want sympathy, or do you want to work?

Cover letters and resumes are typically very bland. It’s likely that your potential employer will be looking at several other applications at the same time. I’ve been going through them in stacks of 10-15 at a time.

If your communication style is just as bland as everyone else’s, it won’t help you stand out. But if you inject some originality and personality in your cover letter and resume, this can help you.

For one, it makes you more memorable. If your letter is more memorable, you have a better shot of getting a follow up.

Some of the letters I received expressed a lot of personality, such as a quirky sense of humor. I can’t speak for all employers, but I appreciate it when people do this, as long as they’re expressing positive aspects of their personality.

You take a bit more risk when you do this, but I think it’s a reasonable risk. I respect people who do this. It gives me a more realistic sense of what it would be like to work with you. If you express your geeky side, your humorous side, or your creative side, then I can more easily visualize you as a real member of the team as opposed to a faceless applicant.

A friendly tone is generally good, but don’t be so casual that you seem unprofessionally goofy. Make sure that each paragraph of your letter contains substance and value; cut the fluff.

Another thing you can do to personalize your cover letter or resume is to include a photo. Since most people don’t do it, it’s one more easy thing you can do to make yourself stand out from the crowd. Even a grayscale photo is nice. If you’re worried about discrimination based on how you look, then feel free to decline this suggestion, but keep in mind that if you do an in-person interview, your employer will eventually see what you look like anyway. If you show an employer what you look like, it’s easier for them to visualize working with you. I think this is a risk that should generally work in your favor.

If you can express some of your skills through your cover letter and resume, do that too. Follow the mantra “Show me; don’t tell me” when possible. If you claim to have strong design skills, make sure your resume reflects it. If you claim to be highly creative, but your cover letter and resume look very bland and typical, that’s a mismatch that can work against you.

On the other hand, I don’t recommend expressing aspects of your personality that could work against you. Try not to position yourself as someone dark and creepy who’d be difficult to work with in a team environment. For instance, don’t share your interest in collecting firearms unless it’s relevant to your work.

If an angel came to you in a dream and said you’re going to work for this company, or if you receive several synchronicities about applying for a certain position, please don’t put that in your cover letter. It may be exciting for you, but it can come off as immature and manipulative if you convey this to a potential employer.

One problem is that when you do this, it’s not unique. It won’t impress any but the most gullible employers. Most of the people who play the destiny card aren’t going to get hired. So when you claim that your application was divinely mandated, you’re actually triggering a “don’t hire me” pattern by grouping yourself with others who weren’t hired. This is more likely to hurt you than help you.

Another problem is that from an employer’s perspective, this sort of thing can come across as manipulative and border-line desperate. I’d like to believe that I have the free will to hire or not hire you according to your skills and qualifications. If you suggest that I’m supposed to hire you or that I’d be wrong, foolish, or mistaken to do otherwise, you’re going to trigger my B.S. detector. And I’ll drop your application into the recycle bin right along with the other divinely inspired ones.

If I happen to experience a major synchronicity with respect to hiring you, then great; by itself that wouldn’t be enough for me to say yes, but it might nudge me to take a second look. But your synchronicities are yours; they mean nothing to me. If you frame our potential working relationship as something that’s fated to happen, then I’ll provide you with a lesson in free will. Perhaps you were fated to apply and get rejected, so you can learn how to avoid this mistake in the future.

We may choose to work together, but we aren’t fated to do so. Don’t try to subvert a potential employer’s ability to decide. If you seek to be the best choice, then earn it without playing the destiny card.

Don’t position yourself as weak, timid, desperate, or needy. Do position yourself as an excellent choice in a competitive field.

What do you excel at? Why should an employer hire you instead of someone else?

Identify one or two qualities you possess that you’ve developed to a much greater degree than most people. Emphasize those qualities. Present them as strengths, and center your application around these strengths.

For example, if you believe you’re very creative, then send an application that you’d expect to be the most creative one an employer will see this year. Otherwise you’re just blowing smoke; your creativity claim is weak.

If you claim to be an excellent video editor, then why would you send a plain text cover letter? Send a video application, and make it shine. Or at least send a letter with a link to a video.

Share that which makes you stand out from the crowd. If you’ve won some awards, share that. If you’ve published some articles in your field, share that too.

If you can’t share anything that makes you seem different and better, someone else will. They’ll get hired. You’ll get ignored.

Don’t apply for work for which you aren’t qualified with a “what have I got to lose?” attitude. You’re just wasting people’s time.

Apply when there’s a strong match between the position and your skills, experience, and goals. Otherwise don’t apply at all.

One thing that’s actually impressive is when you share where else you’re applying to. If you send an employer a letter that you’re applying to them as well as 5 of their top competitors, they’re more likely to take notice of you. Some employers may want to hire you partly to keep you from joining their competitors, especially if you’re well qualified. This is particularly true in technical fields.

Even if you manage to get a job for which you’re a mismatch, it’s unlikely to work out in the long run. And while you’re stuck in that mismatched job, better opportunities will pass you by because you’ll be too busy to notice them. Meanwhile, you probably won’t be very productive in a job you don’t really want to be doing.

You’re responsible for your own career development. Don’t put the onus on potential employers to figure out who you are. No one else can give you a life purpose; you must figure that out for yourself.

If someone applies to work with me, but their education and work history shows a mismatch with what I can provide, I can’t really take them seriously. I’ll hold out for a more qualified applicant. I’d rather keep a position vacant than fill it with someone who’s a mismatch.

If you know that your resume won’t seem to be a good match for a new position for which you’re applying, you’d better explain that, and your explanation had better make sense. Otherwise it seems like you’re branching out in desperation because you couldn’t find work in your intended field. It also suggests that you don’t really know what you want, and you probably won’t be sticking around for long.

Decide what kind of work you’d like to do. Build your education and skills in that direction, whether through formal university education or self-education (both are equally valid in my view). Then apply for positions that match your current skills and which will help you continue your career development.

* * *

I don’t think anything above is particularly controversial if you simply consider the hiring situation from the employer’s point of view. This POV is important to consider because it’s the POV that decides whether or not you get hired.

You have the ability to create an amazing career for yourself, but only if you step up and do what it takes to make it a reality. Most people are unwilling to pay that price, and so they wallow in unsatisfying work. The price of fulfilling work may seem high, but it’s still affordable for those who accept that fulfilling work deserves a premium price.

This article assumes that you seek meaningful and fulfilling work — a consciously chosen career that challenges you as opposed to a cog-like job to pay the bills. You aren’t likely to find such career positions advertised anywhere; it’s up to you to define and create them. But if all you want is a job, there are plenty of frappuccinos in dire need of frapping.

10 Tips for a Better Cover Letter I Steve Pavlina

Applying for a job is a lot like sex. The more interviews you get, the better your odds are. 9 Cover Letter Tips That Will Actually Help You to Get an Interview

Featured photo credit: Waponivia Flickr

Anthony is a Lifehacker who lives and breathes giving tips to make your life easier. He is also a broadcaster/professional blogger who is fueled by cappuccino and Rock Music. If he's not busy writing for clients, and churning out e-books for greenhorn broadcasters and freelance writers, he gives tips to entry level broadcasters and freelance writers on his site The Write Freelance

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How To Be A Better Friend

Bare with me on this sentence: If you could be friends with yourself, would you be? Do you think you’re a good friend to have? Friends play a crucial part in our overall happiness but it’s often trickier than simply spending time together. Knowing whether you are surrounding yourself with good people or if you yourself could be better can be difficult to work out. Vincent Nguyen shares some insight on how you can become the kind of friend you want to be:

To be a good friend, you first need to learn what makes a bad friend. From there, it’s pretty easy to reverse-engineer.

After a while you start assuming that because you think a certain way, your friends and others do too. For example, if you’re prone to talking about others behind their back then you’d assume everyone else does the same. Eventually, you begin to blame others and talk about how they went and did something even though they never did. This gets annoying and yes, your friends do notice this.

You feel like nothing is your fault and you’re always right. Everything wrong is because of them. Then you start letting them know, even non-verbally, how you feel about the situation. This is how you lose friends.

When you reach for the phone it’s never to see how they’re doing or to get together and have fun. There is always a reason to call or text. It becomes so habitual that every time you call or text, their response is “What do you need?” If that’s a common response you get from multiple people then you’ve got a clear warning sign.

When there’s work to be done or responsibilities that should be divided you just sort of sit in the back and relax. Teamwork goes out the door because you’d rather be doing something else (or nothing) than to help out. What’s worse is when you walk away when the going gets tough. Soon enough, you’ll be the one your friends will be evading.

Your words hurt like knives and you might not even know it (or care,) because you have a disregard for how they may feel. You don’t stop to wonder how your decisions, actions, and words may affect what your friends think. Sometimes it’s the lack of action that hurts them most. So many things to be mindful of! Are you losing track?

Although this doesn’t always mean you’re a bad friend, it shows some flaws in character on your part. You could begin to wear down the friendship if the other person feels like you constantly show off or downplay their accomplishments. People have enough insecurities and self-esteem issues as is. Don’t make them feel the same way around their own friends.

Their opinions mean nothing to you and it’s usually drowned out by your own stories. You fight for time to speak and when they are talking you’re usually tapping your feet impatiently for your turn to talk. Oh and they know when you’re pretending to listen. Tossing in a question to make it seem like you care is insincere. What’s worse is when you ask them something only to interrupt them mid-answer so you can start talking.

Come on. If you say you’ll do something, don’t go back on your word. Punctuality goes into this too. Don’t be the person who is consistently an hour later than promised.

It’s easy to go overboard, but when tactful it can mean the world to them when you show you’re concerned. Send them a text, a phone call (even better,) or surprise them by showing up at their front door. Make an excuse to spend time with them. This doesn’t mean you have to shove advice down their throat. It just means showing you want them to be okay.

Unfortunately, there’s no universal method to being caring without being too pushy. Instead, you’ve got to figure out what works best and adjust as needed.

Some people are very good at hiding their negative emotions. Hopefully you’ve learned when they’re wearing a mask. Masks get heavy when you wear them for so long and sometimes you forget how to take it off. I used to put on a brave face when I was going through rough times. It sucked but having good friends around who knew when I wasn’t really okay helped a lot.

When it’s time to be serious, you get down to business. No goofing off. No cheap attempt at being funny to avoid the real issues. You may argue from time to time and that’s alright. It’s natural. Be mature and aim at finding common ground instead of trying to divert the attention elsewhere.

There are times to be messing around, but it gets tiring for others if you don’t know how or when to turn it off. If you can’t then how can others trust you enough to share important things with you?

When they ask for your opinion or help on something that means something. It means they value what you think. If someone hands you an essay asking for you to help proofread or revise it then go the extra mile. Bust out a red pen and start marking it up like crazy. Show them you’re as invested as they are.

This means never half-ass things when it comes to your friends. These are your friends we’re talking about here. It’s a committed relationship and it sucks when the other person doesn’t put in effort to help when needed.

Going hand in hand with the first point, you don’t give up. If they’re going through really difficult times then they may begin to close themselves off from you and your other friends. They’d say no to going out and hide from the world. This annoys some people and eventually they give up, but good friends keep trying.

Sure, it sucks to be the one trying to pull a friend out of rough times and it does get difficult to not throw my hands up in the air with frustration, but damn it, I know they’re not going to be able to get out on their own.

This means you listen to everything they say intently. You show you like being around them. Hell, sometimes even say it outright. “You’re an awesome friend,” “It’s not as fun when you’re not there,” or “I like hanging out with you, you know?” You should be comfortable enough together to be blunt about it without feeling weird.

Insecurity kicks in even when it shouldn’t. It doesn’t take a lot to show you care and re-assure them from time to time.

Remind them that you’re friends for life by making sure they know you’ll always be there. This means keeping in touch or being there to cheer them up when they’ve got it rough.

If you’ve never told your closest friends this then make sure you do next time your friends tell you about a problem they’re hung up on.

Know that you don’t have to be together 24/7. I need my space to recharge and I don’t always feel like hanging out with others. That doesn’t mean I don’t like them. Good friends aren’t pushy and don’t get upset because of an occasional “no.” In fact, good friends know how to pick up right where they left off no matter how long it’s been since they last saw each other.

There’s a difference between being conscious of their feelings and letting them ruin themselves in the long-run. If they’ve developed a bad habit then kindly point it out and show you’re concerned. They’re picking up smoking? You care about their lungs. Drinking too much? Let them know you’ve noticed.

For less serious examples, imagine their breath smells and they’re going on a date. Do you want them to crash and burn later or would you rather let them suffer an ego hit, fix their act, and get out there in full confidence? If you feel like criticisms are harsh, offer them tips on how to improve.

Your social circle might be tightly knit, but there’s always room for expansion. Introduce them to people they don’t know just to show you’re not afraid of being seen with them. Remember, you want to be proud of being in public with them.

It’s up to them to decide if they want to start hanging out with these new people in the long-run. In fact, it doesn’t even matter if they do. Fun is what you’re aiming for here.

We all get in unexpected trouble and it’s good to know people who would jump to your rescue. My car’s battery died in a parking lot at 3 in the morning last month. I called people I knew would come to my aid because they were the type to help. Guess who I didn’t bother calling? Those who I knew would have an excuse.

This doesn’t mean avoiding subjects that are important and possibly life-changing. I’m talking about bringing up things that serve no constructive purpose but to annoy them or to just fill the silence. Which brings me to my next point…

Silent gaps will naturally occur in a conversation. Be comfortable with them. Don’t feel like you absolutely have to fill every single second with a sentence. It’s okay to be comfortable and just enjoy each other’s company.

Especially as an introvert, I need time to recharge after spending time with a lot of people. I really enjoy my time, but I need to recharge my batteries on occasion. With that in mind, learn the real differences between introverts and extroverts. You may have the wrong idea.

When you say you’ll do something, be a person that sticks to your word. That means being punctual, not going back on your promises, and ensuring that you’re viewed as a reliable friend.

Being unreliable will make your friends think twice before asking you for something.

It takes a lot to admit you did something wrong. Don’t be afraid of admitting to your friends that you messed up. It happens to the best of us. Someone who can swallow his or her pride and admit they’re in the wrong is a great friend.

Don’t know how to apologize? Check out this article, courtesy of The Art of Manliness.

We all get too caught up in our own lives and forget how to show appreciation. Sure, we know we care, but it’s difficult for the other person to know you do if you don’t show it.

It’s easy to tell when someone is dishonest. “Wow, I’m so happy for you,” with an non-eager face isn’t very convincing. Be invested in their successes and show in your facial expressions that you really are happy.

It can be as simple as buying them something you thought they might like. I’d be thrilled if a friend of mine bought me a Sonic Screwdriver from Doctor Who. That would tell me a lot of things. First, I know they remember what I enjoy. Second, they were thinking of me. Third, they spent their hard-earned cash to let me know they like me. Awesome feeling.

It’s not a good feeling to be turned down by your friends. Sometimes life gets in the way and that’s okay. After all, remember the point about boundaries. However, I know how easy it is to say no. It becomes habitual. It’s just so easy when you’re “not feeling it.” Make it a point to say yes more often to your friends when you can.

You’re not that busy. Unless you’re absolutely certain there is no possibility of making room for your friends, you have no reason to have no time for your friends. It’s easy to convince yourself you’re too busy. Don’t buy into your own stories. Always make time for them because it’s easy to drift apart.

Life goes on and everyone has their own thing to do. Sure, picking up where you left off may be easy for you, but it’s just as easy to completely lose contact. It takes effort, especially when there’s a lot of physical distance, to maintain a good friendship. It’s a relationship that takes both sides to work.

Share this article with your friends and let them know you think they’re a good friend.

Or… Passive aggressively pass this onto someone you’re mad at.

This is a guest post by Vincent Nguyen, the founder of Selfstairway.com. Vincent teaches people how to form genuine self-confidence and think unconventionally. Learn how to be confident with his upcoming free eBook.

Original Base Article: How To Be A Good Friend (And Signs To Avoid Being A Bad One) | Self Stairway

Once you hit 20-something and over, you reach a point where your time becomes your most precious asset. 3 WARNING Signs of a Bad Friend

Featured photo credit: lying on a soft bed with her boy friend breed pug puppyvia Shutterstock

Siobhan Harmer is a freelance writer who drinks far too much coffee, here to help you hack your way to a happier life.

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TED Radio Hour: Hacking our way to a better world

Technology

This week’s TED Radio Hour examines the hacker, a term often associated with computer crime. But, as host Guy Raz tells us, “All of our TED speakers today are hacking for good — hacking into our brains, into the environment, even into the DNA of extinct animals — hackers trying to save the world.”

First up, Mikko Hypponen, the programmer who visited the creators of The_Brain, the very first computer virus that plagued the technology world in 1986. In his talk from 2011, Hypponen tells the story of how his investigation of the virus led him to an address in Pakistan. Embedded in the code of an infected floppy disk, Hypponen found English text that said, “Welcome to the dungeon 1986. Beware of this virus. Contact us for vaccination.” Following their instructions, Hypponen found himself face to face with the people who had made history. The reason they did it: to prove that the new PC computers were insecure. it’s evidence that the first hackers were actually good hackers.

The next TED speaker in the episode is a completely different kind of hacker. Stewart Brand is using DNA from fossils and preserved specimens to bring a species back from extinction. In his talk from TED2013, he tells the story of Martha, the last living passenger pigeon who died on September 1, 1914. Brand and his colleagues are engaged in “resurrection biology,” also known as “de-extinction.” The idea is to insert genes from an extinct species into a closely related living species. Brand says he is using hacking to organize the past. “Sorrow, anger, mourning?” he says. “Don’t mourn; organize.”

David Keith imagines hacking the planet — the idea that we could correct climate change by manipulating the stratosphere. As he explains in his TED Talk, the addition of sulfuric acid droplets to the stratosphere could create small wisps of cloud that can deflect some of the sun’s rays. Adding one pollutant to another could cool the global temperature back down again. But the unintended consequences could be dire. Just as people drive faster when they have an airbag in their car, would such scientific manipulation keep us from truly solving the problems with our environment? Keith concludes, “The understanding of nature gives us power to do great harm as well as, potentially, power to do good..”

Jay Silver is the most literal hacker on the show, and he gives us an interesting way to think about the job. “A hacker is someone who doesn’t ask how something works, they just see what works,” he says. He compares his work to a kid who tries something over and over again in order to explore the different possibilities. The creator of the Makey-Makey, Silver suggests that almost everything is hackable: “Humans, plants, kitty cats, grandmas, water, graphite.” For Silver, hacking has made the very landscape of life a form of expression.

Closing out the episode this week is Andres Lozano, the renowned neurosurgeon who is hacking into the human brain. Lozano explains how it is possible to adjust the circuits of the human brain using electricity, turning up or down areas of activity using something similar to a remote control. In his TED Talk, Lozano shows a video of a woman with Parkinson’s disease and demonstrates his technique by alleviating her tremor almost entirely.

Having conquered the control of movement, Lozano suggests, could we also use this technique to clear the dark cloud of depression? In the episode, he broaches the controversial subject of what he calls “cosmetic brain surgery.” He says that the possibility of altering cognitive personality is within reach and describes it as “mapping an unexplored galaxy, an unexplored universe.” But like David Keith’s issues with manipulating the atmosphere, the celebration of human ingenuity is not the only consideration here. Lozano asks the important questions: should we be messing with intrinsic personality? And is it fair that only the rich will have this expensive opportunity?

All these speakers prove that humans have developed incredible ways to manipulate the universe — but just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. The question, then: Who should be making the decisions?

Check out your local NPR schedule to find out when TED Radio Hour’s “The Hackers” airs or listen to via the NPR website »

You can also head to iTunes, where the podcast is available now »

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20 Questions to Know Yourself Better and Unlock the Immense Potential Within

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Get On The Road To Better Health By Building Healthy Habits At The Office

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5 Tips on How to Change Your Attitude for the Better

John N. Mitchell said it best when he said that, “Our attitude toward life determines life’s attitude towards us.” We’ve all heard about the power of our attitude, and that it’s our attitude that determines how much we succeed in life.

If you look around you, you will see that people with a positive attitude enjoy life more and are generally happier and more successful than those who walk around grumpy and pessimistic. Our attitude is the driving force in our lives—it can either push you to do great things or pull you down to your demise.

While it’s true that humans are born with certain tendencies or orientations, our personalities and attitudes are developed through our relationships and experiences. Our attitudes begin to develop in childhood and constantly evolve and change over the years through day-to-day interactions and experiences.

All the things that you have been through, all the people you have met and interacted with can have an impact on your attitude. If you think that all these factors have molded you into a person with a poor attitude towards life, there is no need to worry as there is always an opportunity for change. Let me share with you how I did it.

The first step towards change is clearly understanding what needs to be changed. Setting clear goals is the key to success in any endeavor. When it comes to changing your attitude, you need to do an honest and in-depth self-evaluation so you could point out exactly which of your traits need to be improved or totally changed.

We all need to know that what we’re trying to accomplish can in fact be achieved; that we can be more optimistic, more social or more patient. Find someone who has the kind of attitude that you want to have, and let his or her life give you inspiration and encouragement to move beyond your temporary failures in your journey towards becoming a better person.

To be able to hurtle through all the difficulties that lie ahead of you in your journey towards self betterment, you need to figure out exactly what this supposed change could bring to your life. Will changing your attitude mean a happier family or social life? Will a change in your attitude mean a more successful career or business? Fix your mind on the things that would come as a result of your attitude change and you will have a greater chance of reaching your goal.

As they say, “Bad company corrupts good character.” You don’t expect yourself to be able to change if you go on surrounding yourself with people who possess all the negative traits that you want to change. Consider befriending new people, especially those who are optimistic and have a healthy attitude towards life. You will see that your effort to change will be easier with these kinds of people as friends.

Often, the greatest obstacle between us and our goals is ourselves or our inability to trust in what we are able to do. If you don’t believe in yourself or believe that you or your life can change, it just won’t happen—you will either never start, or give up quickly so you won’t  have even given yourself the opportunity to succeed.

It cannot be denied that a positive attitude is very important for living a successful and satisfying life, so it is only right to strive to have a positive attitude. I have struggled with reforming my negative attitude as well, but over the years, through persistence and self evaluation, I have managed to change for the better. You can too!

Want to change your attitude quickly? Try one of these six tricks to change your mood right now: 6 Ways to Change Your Attitude Right Now

Featured photo credit: a successful school student is walking home holding his schoolbag in his hands via Shutterstock Kara Heissman has seen over the years how the quality of people's lives are reduced by their inability to find solutions for certain difficulties in their lives. With the great want to help, she has decided to share her experiences, knowledge and insights through her own self-improvement blog Contented Life.

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Does brain stimulation make you better at maths?

The Headlines

Brain stimulation promises “long-lasting” maths boost

Mild electric shocks to brain may help students solve maths problems

Electrical brain boost can make you better at maths

What they actually did

Researchers led by Roi Cohen Kadosh at the University of Oxford trained people on two kinds of maths skills, rote learning simple arithmetic problems and practicing more varied calculations.

During this learning process they applied small and continually varying electrical currents to the scalp, above the temples. A control group wore the electrodes but didn’t receive any current. Compared to the controls, the people who practiced with the current turned on performed faster on the maths problems.

Even more amazing, when a subset of the participants were brought back six months later, those who had received the electrical treatment were still significantly faster, albeit only for the harder, more varied, calculations.

How plausible is it?

The particular technique these researchers used, called Transcranial Random Noise Stimulation (TRNS) is a recent invention, but the use of electrical stimulation to affect brain activity has a long history.

The brain is an electrochemical machine, so there’s every reason to think that electrical stimulation should affect its function. The part of the brain the researchers stimulated – the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex – is known to be involved in complex tasks like learning, decision making and calculation.

What’s amazing is that such a gross intervention as applying a current via electrodes, to such a large part of the brain, could have a specific (and beneficial) effect on mathematical ability.

Tom’s take

This is technically impressive work, done by highly capable researchers at well respected institutions and published in a prestigious journal. Still, there are a few warning signs that make me nervous about how reliable the result is.

The key result showing the long-lasting nature of the effect is based on just six people who received the treatment (out of the 12 originally treated and the 12 controls). Even worse, the statistical test they rely on would have come up as “no effect” if they had done it the conventional way. While the result is based on such small numbers it has to remain as “promising” at best, rather than confirmed.

The researchers recorded percentage correctly on the maths problems, as well as speed of responding, but they only discuss the speed of responding. The graphs of errors make it look like the people who got faster also make more mistakes, which doesn’t count as an improvement in my book. Why no combined analysis of speed and accuracy?

We don’t know which part of the brain this effect is due to. Although they did record brain activity and show that it changes in the area they were interested in, the basic comparison is still “doing something to the brain” vs “doing nothing to the brain” (thanks to Vince Walsh for pointing this out). It is hard to make any solid conclusions on how this technique might be having an effect.

There was no systematic check that participants were truly ignorant of which group they were in, although the researchers believe this to be the case. If participants knew when their brain was being stimulated then the change in performance could have been due to motivation or a desire to please rather than any specific manipulation of brain function.

Putting these worries aside, we’re not going to see this technique used in the classroom any time soon, even if it holds up. Suppose this technique is reliable, and we really can improve people’s basic maths skills with a bit of electrical stimulation we’d still hesitate to deploy it. Does it affect any other skills, perhaps taking resources away from them?

Competition is a basic principle of brain development, it isn’t implausible that there would be a cost to overclocking the brain like this. There might be all sort of minor side effects such as increased fatigue or poorer attention, which would mean that stimulation wasn’t just pure benefit. Or – also plausible – perhaps the more rapid learning of the basics would mean that skills which build on those basics would be harder to learn (sort of like screenburn for memories).

I’m not worried for the participants in this research, but I’d still want a lot more questions answered before I started setting electrical stimulation along with homework.

Read more

The original paper: Snowball, A., Tachtsidis, I., Popescu, T., Thompson, J., Delazer, M., Zamarian, L., Zhu, T., Cohen Kadosh, R. (2013). Long-Term Enhancement of Brain Function and Cognition Using Cognitive Training and Brain Stimulation. Current Biology. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2013.04.045Ed

Ed Yong on the dangers of neuroscience with small data sets.

Dorothy Bishop has collected some reactions to misleading headlines about ‘shocks’).

Tom Stafford does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
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20+ resources for better giving and living a more altruistic life

Global Issues TEDTalks Peter Singer explains the “effective altruism” movement at TED2013. Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Every day, most of us do something morally indefensible — we go about our lives without sending help to the 6.9 million children under the age of 5 who will die this year from poverty-related disease. In today’s talk, philosopher Peter Singer makes the case that ignoring these kids is as inhumane as ignoring a child who’s been hit by a car on the street in front of you.

Peter Singer: The why and how of effective altruism “Does it really matter that they’re far away?” asks Singer. “I don’t think it does make a morally relevant difference — the fact that they’re not right in front of us, or the fact that they’re of a different nationality or race.”

But he’s not saying this to make us feel bad and helpless. Today’s talk actually delivers good news: that through what Singer calls “effective altruism,” we all have the ability to make a difference. Effective altruism begins with reason – the realization that all lives are of equal value — and looking for charities that affect the most lives, the most effectively.

To hear how a single person — and one who is nowhere close to a billionaire – can make a big impact for good in the world, watch this talk. And below, some resources to get you thinking about giving more effectively.

Peter Singer’s top 10 recommended charities:

Against Malaria Foundation. Of those 6.9 million children who die every year of poverty-related illness, 1 million succumb to malaria. AMF provides insecticide-treated bed nets, which only cost $5 apiece.Schistosomiasis Control Initiative. Protecting a child from worm-based disease for a full year costs around 50 cents. This organization works with governments to make sure it happens.The Humane League. Invests time, money and energy to reduce animal cruelty and save the lives of animals, focusing on farmed animals.GiveDirectly. This nonprofit transfers money to poor individuals in Kenya, letting them spend it for food and other basic needs, or on high-return investments.Oxfam International. This mega aid organization works in a wide range of areas, including disaster relief, education, sanitation and women’s rights.Proven Impact Fund. Dedicated to data and results, this fund from Innovations for Poverty Action supports interventions with strong evidence of success.The Fistula Foundation. Fistula is a ghastly injury during childbirth, and it afflicts women living in the poorest areas of the world. This organization provides needed surgery.The Hunger Project. Encouraging men and women to end their own hunger, this organization assists poor villages for five years, relying on the local workforce to build skills and take over before they leave.Vegan Outreach. A nonprofit that seeks to expose and end cruelty to animals.Population Services International. A global health organization that focuses on family planning, a simple service that can improve the health of women and their children.

Resources for finding other charities to support:

GiveWell. This nonprofit does in-depth research on charities and highlights a small number that do a remarkable amount of good per dollar they receive. (Singer recommends this site.)Effective Animal Activism. One of the causes nearest to Singer’s heart is animal liberation, and he is impressed with this charity evaluator that focuses on animal suffering.Charity Navigator. The largest charity evaluator in the U.S., Charity Navigator has data and ratings for nearly 6,000 charities.Great Nonprofits. A site dedicated to informing would-be donors through reviews from board members, volunteers, experts and regular folks who’ve interfaced with a charity.

Resources Singer recommends for connecting with other people interested in doing good:

Giving What We Can. The members of this international society make a bold pledge: to donate 10% of their income to eliminating poverty in the developing world. A good place to connect with others, and to find high-quality organizations to support.The Life You Can Save. At this site, you can pledge to donate any percentage of your income to those in need. In addition to directing you to great charities to support, it’s also a log for local volunteer opportunities.Effective Altruism. A blog from Peter Singer and William MacAskill dedicated to the tenets of effective altruism.The High Impact Network. This group has a great acronym – THINK. Members meet up to ponder effective giving — both strategically and creatively.

A resource for finding the career that does the greatest good:

80,000 Hours. Named after the number of hours most people will work over their lifetime, this career advice site has a twist – it gives advice on how different careers can have an impact on poverty. As Singer mentions in his talk, the site doesn’t shy away from unusual answers; it suggests that working in finance and donating a percentage of your income could fund multiple aid workers.

And further reading in effective altruism:

Want more advice on how to parse the world of nonprofits and giving? Check out Dan Pallotta’s tips for picking a charity that’s right for you »

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7 tech tools now available in the classroom, for better or worse

education

The analog-to-digital shift that has seen e-readers booting out books, smartphones trumping landlines and tablets making desktops look fuddy-duddy is also bringing new tech tools to the classroom. Last month, I read this New York Times article about CourseSmart, an app that allows teachers to track whether students have done their reading in digital textbooks, with interest. In the article, the dean of Texas A&M’s business school, which is testing out the technology, admitted it was “Big Brother, sort of, but with a good intent.” And while it did seem to undermine one of the main points of college — that reading and studying are self-motivated — it also seemed like a good way for students to be able to demonstrate to professors that, yes, they are paying attention, and for professors to get real data as to what material just isn’t clicking for their students.

The tech solutions available to teachers now go far beyond the overhead projector. Below, a look at some tools in this burgeoning category.

BetterLesson
The Boston-based startup BetterLesson, founded in 2008, is a social media platform that educators can use to organize and share their curricula. Last year, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded BetterLesson $3.5 million. “Considering the startup allows teachers to browse a serious repository of documents, presentations, lessons and even complete units and courses, all through a simple search interface, and upload their own lessons onto a dashboard, you can see why teachers will love this kind of resource,” TechCrunch wrote in 2011. “Add the ability to share curricula directly with international educators and receive feedback, and you’ve got yourself a goddamn deal, as Dave Chappelle would say.”
.ClassDojo
Launched in August 2011, ClassDojo helps teachers with what many call their hardest task: classroom management. The platform, which teachers can use on a smartphone, laptop or tablet, allows them to give students points (or take them away) “in real-time, with just one click,” as the website has it. Students are notified (“Well done Josh! +1 for teamwork!”), and teachers can use the platform to generate analytics and reports to share with parents and administrators.
.PowerSchool
PowerSchool allows teachers to track attendance, grades, and a lot more for students and parents to view at home. According to Pearson, which sells the system, PowerSchool supports 10 million students in over 65 countries.
.SMART Board
An “interactive whiteboard,” SMART Board allows teachers to write class notes digitally, so they can be saved for students to access later. (Feel like building your own whiteboard? At TED in 2008, Johnny Lee showed how you can hack a Wii Remote to build a simple interactive whiteboard.)
.Remind101
Started by a team of two brothers, Remind101 enables students and parents to sign up to receive teachers’ text-message reminders about assignments. It’s private—these are mass texts, and teachers can’t see students’ phone numbers. It’s also one-way, meaning that teachers can send out texts, but students can’t respond to them.
.Educreations
Using Educreations, teachers can produce video lessons using a “recordable interactive whiteboard” via an iPad app or the website. There’s a public directory of lessons, available for browsing by students or other teachers (or you).

Share your own favorite teacher tech in the comments, and for a comprehensive list, check out the NewSchools Venture Fund’s interactive map. We’re curious—what tools here sound like a good idea and which could be problematic?

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