Merce Cardus's Blog, page 58

Happy Hollidays!

Happy Holidays!

Linkfest ~Best Reads on Writing, Screenwriting & Self-Publishing: When Everything Is Interesting

WRITING

Structuring a novel: 7 vital elements, Now Novel | Tweet Why is structuring a novel crucial?It puts in place the footholds you need to reach the finish. There are so many different ways of approaching structure in a novel that it can seem overwhelming. Regardless of what method of creating a structure for your book you find easiest, there are seven essential elements that most successful novels have

Emotional Wound Entry: Being unfairly blamed for the death of another, Writ...

Your Robot Assistant Will Be Able to Do What No Human Can Do

Your computer will be an assistant that helps you through the day, will answer your questions before you ask them or even before you realize you have a question, says Ray Kurzweil, author of How to create a mind.

If you really want to understand what’s on a written page right now we need a human to read it. That’s very slow. We will get, I believe technology very soon thatcan actually do a pretty good job of reading natural language documents. Watson shows that that’s feasible. If you consi...

A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want

The How of Happiness is a comprehensive guide to understanding the elemetns of happiness based on years of groundbreaking scientific research. It is also a practical, empowering, and easy-to-follow workbook, incorporating happiness strategies, excercises in new ways of thinking, and quizzes for understanding our individuality, all in an effort to help us realize our innate potential for joy and ways to sustain it in our lives.

How happy are you and why?

Any major life-changing endeavor must...

How to Persuade Others with the Right Questions

Sales guru and persuasion expert Daniel H. Pink explains how you can use motivational interviewing to influence others’ thoughts and behaviors. Pink’s book is To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others.

So let me give you a hypothetical. Suppose that you’re a parent and you have a daughter, say a teenage daughter, whose room is an absolute mess. It just looks like a bomb went off in there and you want your daughter to clean her room. You’re trying to sell her on the idea...

On Common Sense

As sociologist and network science pioneer Duncan Watts explains in Everything is obvious, the explanations that we give for the outcomes that we observe in life—explanation that seem obvious once we know the answer—are less useful than they seem.

Common sense

The miraculous piece of human intelligence that enables us to solve these problems is what we call common sense. Common sense is so ordinary that we tend to notice it only when it’s missing, but it is absolutely essential to functioni...

3 Myths About Mindfulness Meditation That Keep People From Its True Benefits

Rasmus Hougaard is co-author of the book One Second Ahead: Enhance Your Performance at Work with Mindfulness, as well as a highly regarded mindfulness teacher. In this video, he shares how the practice can be harnessed to improve your business career by re-teaching your brain how to focus.

There is a general, huge misconception around mindfulness. Many people think that mindfulness is a spiritual thing. Many think that it’s a private thing that we do at home. And most people think that mind...

How Can We Overcome Destructive Emotions?

Imagine sitting with the Dalai Lama in his private meeting room with a small group of world-class scientists and philosophers. The talk is lively and fascinating as these leading minds grapple with age-old questions of compelling contemporary urgency. Daniel Goleman, author of Destructive Emotions, provides the illuminating commentary—and reports on the breakthrough research this historic gathering inspired.

A radical disillusionment calms the mind

Richard Davidson picked up on my theme: “A...

Mindfulness: How to Call Off the Emotional Attack Dogs

Nature didn’t give us any tools to control our emotions. That is why psychologist Paul Ekman, author of Emotions Revealed, says you need to keep a diary of your emotions, writing what you are experiencing in great detail.

There are two things that people want to be able to do to improve their emotional life. You want to be able to choose what you become emotional about and when you become emotional. That’s number one. And the second is you want to be able to choose how you act when you are...