Merce Cardus's Blog, page 89

WEEKEND LINKS ~ Reads on Writing, Self-Publishing and Better Living: Autopilot

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Quote of the day

What neuroscience has revealed is that there is no such control center in the brain. There are hubs in our brain networks whose activity is more influential than others; however, there is no one single hub that dictates action. Our brains are much more like an ant colony: billions of neurons collaborating to give rise to our selves without any external or internal agent. In other words you are an emergent self-organizing phenomenon....

The Stoic Art Of Confronting The Worst-Case Scenario

The Antidoteis the intelligent person’s guide to understanding the much-misunderstood idea of happiness.

Most popular approaches to happiness

Behind many of the most popular approaches to happiness is the simple philosophy of focusing on things going right. In the world of self-help, the most overt expression of this outlook is the technique known as ‘positive visualization‘: If you mentally picture things turning out well, the reasoning goes, they are far more likely to do so.

The fashiona...

The Science of Capturing People’s Attention

An ad for a new television show catches your eyes. Your immediate attention is captured. You watch the first episode and enjoy it. Your short attention has been captured. You devote yourself to the show, buy every season, read every relevant page on Wikipedia, and get the main character’s face tattooed on your sternum. Your long attention has been captured. Marketers take advantage of the scientific secrets behind attention to get you hooked on their products. Ben Parr, author ofCaptivologye...

THURSDAY LINKS ~ Reads on Writing, Self-publishing and Better Living: Sugar and Sweets

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Once living cells have been grown on a network of sugar fibers that mimic blood vessels, the sugar is dissolved, leaving behind interconnected channels. So, one day, the sugar we eat could be used to create the organs that help digest it.

~DARRA GOLSTEIN, author ofThe Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets (Oxford Companions)

WRITING & SCREENWRITING

How fiction writers can show emotions in their characters in effective ways, Live Write Thrive| Tw...

Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom For Living A Better Life

Resilienceexplains how we can build purpose, confront pain, practice compassion, develop a vocation, find a mentor, create happiness, and much more. Eric s lessons are deep yet practical, and his advice leads to clear solutions.

We all face pain, difficulty, and doubt. But we also have the tools to take control of our lives.

The virtue of resilience

Resilience is the virtue that enables people to move through hardship and become better. No one escapes pain, fear, and suffering. Yet f...

Tony Robbins Dispels Some Common Myths About Investing

Tony Robbins, author of the new book MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedomdraws on his research with industry leaders to help new investors become acquainted with the basics. Robbins tackles a few common myths such as “you have to already be rich to make money investing” and “my financial planner is always looking out for my best interest.”

So one of the things that I learned by working with all these investors was that there are some common steps that we all need to...

HUMP DAY LINKS ~ Reads on Writing, Self-publishing, and Better Living: Modern Romance

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Marriage was an economic institution in which you were given a partnership for life in terms of children and social status and succession and companionship. But now we want our partner to still give us all these things, but in addition I want you to be my best friend and my trusted confidant and my passionate lover to boot, and we live twice as long. So we come to one person, and we basically are asking them to give us what once an entire villag...

Four Types Of People and How To Deal With Evil People

I Was Blind But Now I See: Time to Be Happylays out the techniques to escape the zombie recruitment machine, expanding our personal frontiers, and finding the tools to build up the wealth of happiness inside.

Happiness is the path

There are only four types of people. If you understand in advance how to deal with each of these four types you will be infinitely happier. Ultimately, interacting with the four types in the way I describe below will make one fit firmly into the first type, howeve...

Tom Yorton On The Most Valuable Skill That Nobody Teaches: How To Listen

Tom Yorton explains why listening is paramount to good business. The value of working toward excellent listening skills is one of the key lessons he’s learned from working as an executive at Second City. Yorton is co-author of a new book titledYes, And: How Improvisation Reverses “No, But” Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration–Lessons from The Second City

Listening is critical in life, in business, and certainly in our work on the stage.

We can’t create something if we’re not p...

TUESDAY LINKS ~ Reads on Writing, Self-publishing, and Better Living: Your Ultimate Calling, Inspiration

Quote of the day

Our purpose in life isn’t to arrive at a destination where we find inspiration, just as the purpose of dancing isn’t to end up at a particular spot on the floor. The purpose of dancing – and of life – is to enjoy every moment and every step, regardless of where we are when the music ends.

~WAYNE DYER, author ofInspiration: Your Ultimate Calling

WRITING & SCREENWRITING

4 Revision goals: Conflict, emotion, surprise, enrich, Fiction Notes| Tweet

For the next month, my writi...