This post is so special guys, cause it's coming from a special person ;)
Guest post form Sandy... yes you heard it right! He took some time to share his recent reading with us!! 
Way to go Sandy... we are expecting a lot of motivational reads!! and Thanks a ton love <3 <3 <3

We have so many face packs, masks, creams for anti-aging today. Have you guys ever wondered, just by applying cream or packs will anti-aging truly work? Is anti-aging more of an internal thing rather than external? Has anti-aging not got to do with internal workings of our brain?

The answer is YES. Anti-aging is something to do with the brain. Studies have shown there is a Cognitive Candy available to all of us which is truly an anti-aging agent. It is EXERCISE J.

We recently happened to watch this awesome video by Simon Sinek - Why Leaders eat last. He talks about the chemistry within our body which is responsible for our happiness and stress... which can be controlled by practice. 

After watching this video, I got more interested in knowing about these chemicals and how to control them. I'm sure you would also do that after watching this :) If you are more into it, you can also read the book "Meet your happy chemicals" by Loretta Graziano Breuning. 

You need to know about 5 chemicals in our body - EDSOC (Endorphin, Dopamine, Serotonin, Oxytocin, Cortisol)
Endorphin and Dopamine are selfish chemicals and they are very addictive. Endorphin is triggered when you do any physical activity and it masks pain. Even laughing and crying stimulates endorphin. So exercising gives the required endorphin to be happy but it is for a short time. Once it's gone, you'll start feeling the pain coming back because of physical distress.


Dopamine is triggered when you get a sense of accomplishment... the "I got it" feeling!! When you see food when you are hungry, when an alcoholic sees a bar, winning points when you play games, or achieving your goals.. you get a surge of dopamine. It is very addictive, and you try to do it again and again to get the high feeling!!


Serotonin and Oxytocin are very generous chemicals because it spreads to others too. Serotonin is a leadership chemical.. triggered when you get a sense of pride or recognition or when you feel important. When you feel proud about your accomplishment, like getting a degree or award in front of a huge crowd... even your parents and teachers would get a serotonin surge. This video also talks about the advantages and disadvantages of being a leader.. leadership comes at a cost and risk. You will not envy bosses or leaders after watching this video. 


Oxytocin is a chemical of love and trust. Whenever you hug someone, there is a drop of oxytocin released. So when you shake hands and wish someone... hug and greet someone... there is a oxytocin surge. Whenever there is a trust or a bond developed between people, oxytocin comes to play. Simon gives a good explanation of why we are not happy with out jobs... when we have a strong trust on our company and boss, we would never get unhappy with our jobs ever!!


Lastly the bad chemical Cortisol - which is the main reason for stress!! Cortisol is a chemical triggered when a 'fight or flight' response is required in a problematic situation. But the cortisol should be active only for a few seconds... but now we have a constant cortisol generation throughout the day which causes stress. We have to look for ways to reduce cortisol levels and increase serotonin and oxytocin levels to be happy.

What if you could learn a new skill while you drink your coffee?? What if you could master a creative skill by spending just a few hours a week and without spending a dime?? You can then take up that dream creative career!! What if you could sharpen your professional skills and get better at work... you might even get a well paying job or a promotion?? Imagine all this without spending a penny!! It needs only your enthusiasm to learn, a tad bit of time, dedication and interest. So wondering what we are talking about??

First thing this is not some sort of a scam or something... :D
Second thing we are not trying to sell any product or service here for our benefit, it's all available free and we just want to share what we know.

I know there are a lot of bored family women, students wanting some part time work, unemployed youngsters out there... not knowing what to do in life and thinking that they need some money to do anything at all. This is for you guys!!  And we know how it feels to be at home, after becoming a graduate and not using our skills in this technological era!! And of course we need to earn money to sustain. So how do we do it?

Sit and think what skills do you have. We are not joking!! Write down your skills and strengths in a paper. Rank them according to your mastery level. What are your interests during free time? What do you like to do in the weekends? We know most of you would answer "eat and sleep" :).. But even that's an interest!! You can find a goldmine out of these, hone them a little more and become perfect, then start earning with the same!! Now, let's see how to start developing your existing skills (both personal and professional) or start learning a totally new skill:

1. Do you know what is MOOC?
Massive Open Online Course - This is a recent development in distance education method. It's amazing to know there are so many ways to learn what you want, earn credits and even get a certificate from a University. And all this is open to anyone across the world and doesn't need you to pay!! There are so many free courses for you... then if you want you can pay and take the advanced courses. But we tell you you'll not have time to complete the free ones. :) They teach you with various materials, videos, assignments and interactive forums for the students across the world!! Many of you might have known such online websites offering free courses, but do you know you can even earn a credit by completing these courses and apply for a certification or a graduate degree? Yes, you can!! You need to explore the courses, gather your credits (Credits are transferable) and just google how to get a degree from a University with earned credits. (More than 27% US and 8% Indians have taken certification courses online for free)
The least thing - get you Certificate of Mastery for free!!

Getting a Degree or Certificate is secondary... You need to improve your skills and make use of them in your new career or as a side income. There are many open university sites which offer free courses, ranging from Science to Art to Technology -  arts, photography, crafting, music, technology, computer science, math, business management, programming, humanities and every damn subject in this world. Delivered by the best professors and universities across the world!! Some of them are listed below... EXPLORE the courses, CHOOSE, ENROLL, STUDY ON THE GO and EARN MASTERY CERTIFICATE!!  It's easy to enroll... not much details required about you. Just an email would do in most cases.

One stop shop for all the listed courses from various online education providers:
http://www.mooc-list.com/

Apart from this you have these Universities and entities:

• Coursera
• Udemy
• WEU (World Education University)
• edX - Started by Harvard and MIT Universities to offer free online education

These are the best, and there are other online sites too which you can find in the MOOC list.
Personally I have registered in all these forums for various courses which suits my creative interests and to take The Kavic Living to the next best level:

• "Introduction to Art: Concepts & Techniques" from Coursera offered by Pennsylvania State University
• "DIGA 130: DIGA 130 Introduction to Adobe Illustrator" from WEU
• "Karl Taylor's Free Photography course" from Udemy

You can also just learn some basics from websites (without any certifications) like Khanacademy, openculture.com, MIT Open Courseware, codecademy.com, udacity.com, engineerguy.com, etc.

So hop on into these online education communities and start sharpening your skills. Remember it is never too late to start something new!!

2. So how do we earn now?
Now that we have got the right skills, you can play with them to earn some money.
First option is Freelancing!! You can freelance any skill you got.. be it training a dog to teaching programming!! You can be a virtual assistant... you can help someone in writing.. work on digital graphics.. create logos for others.. web design.. freelance photography... voice over.. anything for that matter. There are different forums to find some real work! It's pretty easy to get started. Give it a try.. If you are able to earn some bucks, I don't think you'll stop it :)
Some of the freelance sites are: oDesk, Elance, Guru, Rent A Coder, Fiverr, etc. Explore the Web for others!!
I have personally used some of them as a freelance market researcher (Will tell you more about my market research freelancing in another post) and earned about $400 in my first few months of freelancing. That's actually big for me while I do a full time job and take care of family!! Now that I'm busy with my website I couldn't hang on.. but would get back for sure after learning a gamut of creative skills. :)

The second option is to CREATE your own products and sell them. If you can write well, write an ebook and publish it.. Cook books is a best way... if you can craft, sell your hand crafted products online through shopo or etsy... Facebook is a great way to sell your stuff!! If you can paint well.. sell your art!! There are N number of things that you can create.

The third option is to search for a new job with your new skills, which gives you a pay hike!! Or the least ask for a promotion with your developed skills :)

Hope we gave you an insight of how you can personally develop yourself and try earning a bit more than what you are!! If you have any other ideas, share it to our readers here!

We are excited... We are sure to post a Success story write-up on our newly learn t skills and
Have fun learning and earning!!

Everyday we face some sort of criticism or other... be it at workplace or home... family or friends... parents or in-laws. They keep saying rather shouting something or the other. They get a pleasure out of mocking or critisizing someone. For example, you bought a new watch which you liked so much, when you show it to your family they might criticize like "It's good.. but the color is bad.. it is too small... you could have bought something else". This is a very subtle way of critizing but your liking for the watch comes down because of this and your mood becomes worse with the same comment running all along for weeks. Throw it out of your mind.. Remember they are jealous of you that you made your own decision to buy what you liked!!!

You need to be emotionally intelligent to handle criticism... there can be two types of criticism:

 1. Criticism with good intentions like if your parent was criticizing you because he wants you to be the best, then better keep quite and dont give back. Think or judge whether the comment is correct or not, and try to improve yourself on it.

 2. Criticism with bad intentions, the person particularly makes sure to criticize whatever you do! This is because he/she hates you and is obviously jealous of you abt something. Dont give a damn to that person, dont respond immediately to show that his/her comment is worthy enough. Don't defend on the comment, Give back in a different direction so that the person keeps mum.

How do you handle such criticism? What do you do inbad criticism situations? What do you do to come out of it later? Do share with us...

More studies reveal the adverse effects of prolonged sitting in the workplace.

1.      Everybody sits more than they sleep -> Sitting for 9.5 hrs and sleeping for 7 hrs a day.
2.      Everyone has a lot of meetings everyday at work  -> If we start meetings with a walk around, we reduce the amount we sit.
3.      If we walk while meetings -> It is out of the box and it triggers out of the box thinking.
4.      Fresh air drives fresh thinking.

Many of us have on the go meetings (on phone), meetings having a cup of coffee, meetings while driving home... so why not try meetings with a walk?? Helps your waist!! Next time you have your meeting with not much to write down ofcourse, take a walk with others around your work place. I hope your office has some sort of a garden or a lawn :) Mine has a beautiful lawn, pathway, ponds and some ducks too!!

Inspired by: TED talk.
Article Courtesy: Sandy

It's good to start the day/week with a complete To-Do list (for work or personal), with all the action items written down on a piece of paper (sticknotes/ notepad for geeks!!). This helps in reminding all the pending jobs and organizing ourselves depending on the list.

But we end up writing too many to-do items and spend a lot of time on unwanted or unneccessary jobs on the list. Seeing our lengthy list, we might become frustrated and un-productive by the end of the day!! :(

So here is a good way to write our to-do lists:
# Have one HIT list - High Impact Tasks. Tasks which has to be finished today at any cost and has a higher impact when completed on the same day.
# Prioritize your To - Do list and give priority rating in front of the item. Do not waste time on low priority jobs.
# Have a Master list that has long term tasks to be completed but not important right now, like hiring someone into the team, researching about new tool, etc.
# Most Important - Write down tasks which is not to be done :)
Like *Don't take up mundane jobs rather than delegating to subordinates, *Don't deal with work issues during personal time, *Don't fall prey to perfectionism *Don't micromanage * Don't keep checking your mails the whole day, mails do not come with a priority tag attached.

Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/225384#ixzz2PqebV900
Happy Working!!