Dress For Success

This may add a new angle to the phrase “dress for success”: A study published in the journal Social Psychological and Personal Science suggests that how you dress may influence how you think.

Researchers found that dressing in formal clothes may help you with big, broad, long-term thinking, letting you focus on the forest instead of the trees. Formal attire may also help you in business negotiations, making you feel more influential than someone in casual clothes.

On the other hand, a more casual wardrobe can help you connect better with peers, while reducing obstacles to cooperation and teamwork. You’re more comfortable, and co-workers may be more comfortable with you in turn.

Hone Your Life Vision

Just as businesses are guided by a vision, your life can also benefit from having a vision. A vision is a description of your idealized lifestyle and outcomes. Vision is often based on living according to your highest values and principles.

When honing your life vision, here are things to keep in mind:

• Your vision shouldn’t be about “shoulds.” A compelling vision is based on what you want to achieve, not what you (or others) think you should have or should do.
• A vision includes identifying your highest values. One exercise is to list all of your most important values (such as honor, trust, fun, play, love, etc.), then imagine you have to throw away one of your values. Which one would you cross off? Then you have to throw away another value from your list. You keep doing this until you’re left with the values you refuse to throw away.

Focus

• Focus your vision on a higher sense of what you’d like out of life based on your values, without worrying about specific details.
• Keep your vision distinct from your goals. A goal has a time-bound and measurable outcome. A vision is the broad sense of direction you want your goals to take you.
• Keep your vision fresh. If you’re feeling bored, reevaluate your life vision. Are you still on the right path? Are you living your vision and finding that it’s not what you thought it would be? Or have you discovered that there’s more to life and you need a bigger vision?

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Avoid Mistakes With Retirement Savings

Make one or two mistakes in handling your retirement money, and you could be paying a stiff penalty later in your life. The stock market goes up and down, but you’ll survive if you stay clear of these common mistakes:

• Obsessing about market losses.

  Focus instead on long-term needs. Catastrophic events and long-term health care needs cause as much damage when you’re caught unaware as does a shaky stock market. Will your nest egg be able to handle long-term care?

• Forgetting about inflation and taxes.

  Your retirement savings is a lot smaller than you think it is when you start factoring in the rate of inflation and the taxes you’ll have to pay when you start drawing out of it.

• Indulging instead of saving during your last years before retirement.

  When you’ve got only a handful of years left before you retire, don’t go out and buy that new sports car. Some people are able to build up almost a third of their savings in the last five years before retirement because they got serious about saving and investing. Be that person.

• Thinking you can withdraw more than you really can.

  If you rely on average annual returns on your investments to determine just how much you can withdraw, you could be drawing down your retirement fund faster than you should. Average returns are seldom steady. A safe rule of thumb: Count on a 3% rate of withdrawal.

Not expecting to live a long life. Despite the rise in life expectancy, people still seriously underestimate how long they’ll live. If you’re not thinking

I’m always asked, “What’s the secret to success?”  But there are no secrets. Be humble. Be hungry. And always be the hardest worker in the room. —Dwayne Johnson

Get Up And Work Out

The alarm rings. Do you leap out of bed to head for the gym? Or hit snooze? Motivating yourself to get up and start exercising can be tough. Try these tips to get moving:
• Eat light the night before. A heavy snack right before you hit the mattress will make you feel lethargic in the morning.
• Get a full night’s sleep. You’ll wake up feeling refreshed and energetic.
• Lay out your clothes the night before. If all your gear is waiting for you, you have fewer excuses between you and your exercise.
• Get a buddy. Getting over resistance might be as easy as having someone call you.

Imagine me as your real estate consultant…
What I do for you is invest my time consulting, negotiating, and organizing the details of your transaction because I want you to have a superb experience that will cause you to want to introduce me to the people you care about most.

The purpose of my business is referrals, which means I must bring the type of value that makes you feel comfortable introducing me to the people you know that need my help.

I thank you sincerely, and so will the people that you introduce to me. Cliff Keith

Dogs Speak Volumes With Their Tails

Scientists have discovered that dogs communicate far more information about their emotions to each other with their tails than was previously believed.

A recent study has shown that dogs tend to move their tails more to the right or the left depending on how happy or sad they feel.

This emotional signal can also be recognized by other dogs, affecting how the animals respond to each other.

Research conducted by neuroscientists at the University of Trento, Italy, showed that dogs’ tails tend to move slightly more to the right if they are happy. If they are experiencing negative emotions, such as feeling threatened, then their tail will move slightly more to the left.

While the subtle bias in movement can be difficult for humans to detect, when video footage of the behavior is slowed down, it becomes more obvious.

Your Dog Knows

Dogs, however, seem to be able to pick up on these signals just fine. The researchers found that dogs’ heart rates increased and they showed signs of anxiety when they saw an unfamiliar dog with its tail wagging slightly to the left.

If the dog met a new dog whose tail wagged slightly to the right, then the animals remained calm and showed a relaxed heart rate.

Scientists attribute this to a similar function in human brains—the left/right bias of our brains to produce different emotions.

Science is the key to our future, and if you don’t believe in science, then you’re holding everybody back. —Bill Nye

Science literacy is the artery through which the solutions of tomorrow’s problems flow. —Neil deGrasse Tyson

The History Of Easter Egg Hunting

Many cherished Easter traditions have been around for centuries. The Easter bunny, reportedly began in Germany with an egg-laying hare.

The decoration of eggs is believed to date back to at least the 13th century, while the rite of the Easter parade has even older roots.

But the novelty of hunting for Easter eggs was first referenced in writing in England. During A. E. Housman’s inaugural lecture as Professor of Latin at University College, London in 1892, he said, “In Germany at Easter time they hide coloured eggs about the house and garden so that the children may amuse themselves in discovering them.”

Keep Workplace Ideas Flowing

Ideas are crucial to innovation and growth, but many employees choose to keep their ideas to themselves. Why?

One of the most common, and most easily remedied, reasons is proximity. Studies have found that employees are extremely unlikely to share information with co-workers who sit more than 30 feet away from their workstations. To create cross-functional sharing, work areas may need to be rearranged, or more frequent meetings arranged. Other reasons that the flow of ideas gets stopped:

YOUR FEAR

• Fear of rejection.
• Your Fear of exposing ignorance, or fear of embarrassment.
• Fear of theft.

The first two fears are usually due to office culture, and change must come from the top down. Otherwise, an employee must be skilled at influence to get their ideas accepted.

The fear of having ideas stolen is more difficult to address. It is the reason that many organizations report difficulty in getting employees to participate in knowledge management systems. Some organizations have achieved success by including the sharing of information and ideas in the annual review process and linking such behavior to raises and rewards.

There are some people who live in a dream world, and some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other. —Douglas Everett

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything. —George Lois

This information is solely advisory, and should not be substituted for medical, legal, financial or tax advice. Any and all decisions and actions must be done through the advice and counsel of a qualified physician, attorney, financial advisor and/or CPA. We cannot be held responsible for actions you may take without proper medical, financial, legal or tax advice.

This newsletter is intended for entertainment purposes only. Credit is given to the authors of articles that are reprinted when the original author is known. Any omission of credit to an author is purely unintentional and should not be construed as plagiarism or literary theft. Copyright 2020