Merce Cardus's Blog, page 76
September 3, 2015
Unhappiness Is a Habit You Can Learn to Break
Habits play a major role in determining our levels of happiness, explains best-selling author Gretchen Rubin.In this interview, Rubin explains that success requires a commitment to follow through on your self-improvement endeavors.
How are happiness and habits related?
I’ve been researching and writing and thinking and talking to people about happiness for years. And what I started to notice was that habits play a really important role in happiness. Because a lot of times when I would talk...
WEEKEND LINKS ~ Reads on Writing, Self-Publishing & Better Living: The Anger Trap


Even when anger does not create the desired harmonious effect, it can serve the purpose of establishing self-respect. It can send a message to others that you believe in your own decency, and that you see yourself as one to be considered seriously.
~FRANK MINIRTH, author ofThe Anger Trap: Free Yourself from the Frustrations that Sabotage Your Life
WRITING
It’s Not A Story ‘Till Something Goes Wrong, Writers Write| TweetIf you’re struggling to start your story or you’re...
September 2, 2015
5 Ways To Unlock Your Creative Self
It is a common belief that creativity is something you are born with, and others can only envy. Most creative people are, in fact, just as ordinary as the rest of us. What they have is a belief in themselves, and this is a skill that everyone can learn.
InChange Your Mind, Rod Judkins reveals the 57 habits of some of the world’s most creative people. Here are five:
1. You are what you think you are
Creative people are not especially creative.
The gift that creative people have is that they...
How To Take Action In Challenging Situations
A few years ago, Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil,founded the Heroic Imagination Project, a non-profit organization that harnesses the findings of social psychology to help regular people “transform negative situations and create positive change.” Here Zimbardo muses on the two kinds of heroes: the impulsive reactive and the reflective proactive.
There are two kinds of heroes
One is the impulsive reactive hero, somebody who sees a child drowni...
THURSDAY LINKS ~ Reads on Writing, Self-Publishing & Better Living: The Running Revolution

On a long, hard run, the physiological, psychological, and mental fatigue a
ssociated with a maximum effort sends a danger signal to the body. What started out as a chosen and desired effort is interpreted as life threatening, something to be stopped. Your first response will not be a conscious sense of fear but rather physiological sensations. At this point, in fact, your conscious mind is still giving you full-steam-ahead signals, but the subconscious mind, intent on life...
September 1, 2015
Wayne Dyer on The Seven Faces of Intention
Intention is generally viewed as a pit-bull kind of determination propelling one to succeed at all costs by never giving up on an inner picture. In The Power of Intention, an attitude that combines hard work with an indefatigable drive toward excellence is the way to succeed.
The Power of Intention
Intention is something that I believe we can feel, connect with, know and trust. It’s an inner awereness that we explicitly feel, and yet at the same time cannot truly describe with words. I use...
How To Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone
For decades, film and TV producer Brian Grazer, author of A Curious Mindhas scheduled a weekly “curiosity conversation” with an accomplished stranger. From scientists to spies, and adventurers to business leaders, Grazer has met with anyone willing to answer his questions for a few hours.
The way it’s worked into my life, curiosity, and making movies and television shows, it’s enabled me to be a better curator of what’s an original idea. I think our first reflex is to go to the Internet as...
HUMP DAY LINKS ~ Reads on Writing, Self-Publishing & Better Living: Untangling Heroes

Photo Credit: elenasavonicheva via Compfight cc
Quote of the dayIn a post-Socratic world, we have chosen to place a premium o
n heroes who make other-regarding choices over self-interested ones. When humans face the fact of their mortality, they are able to think most clearly about the sort of life they want to have lived, and only in doing that does heroic action become a possibility.
~ARI KOHEN, author ofUntangling Heroism
WRITING
Fueling the Muse—How to Mentally Prepare for “TheNovel”,...
August 31, 2015
What Would You Ask The Genie Of The Lamp To Do?
Do you have trouble setting goals? Would you like to have greater focus, stronger follow-through, and achieve dramatically better results? Would you like to learn how to get anything youwant from life–more money, a new home, a promotion, better relationships, a greater sense of fulfillment, or anything else you can imagine?
If so, then readThe Magic Lamp: Goal Setting for People Who Hate Setting Goals
The Genie of the Lamp
Imagine taking a stroll one balmy evening when, in the twilight, you...
The History of the Venetian Gondola
Photo Credit: menniti giovanni via Compfight cc
The Gondola Makerbrings the centuries-old art of gondola-making to life in thetale of a young man’s complicated relationship with his master-craftsman fatherLovers of historical fiction will appreciate the authentic details of gondola craftsmanship, along with an intimate first-person narrative set against the richly textured backdrop of 16th-century Venice.
What are the origins of the Venetian Gondola?
If I say, ‘Venice,’ do you imagine yours...