4 Ways to Turn 'No' Into 'Yes'

1. A no means that a yes is possible.

Most people won't say yes to an idea without saying no first.  In fact, studies show that the average customer says no an average of five times before saying yes. This is because decision-making is an emotional process, not an intellectual one.

Most people will do more to avoid pain than achieve pleasure, so the first impulse most people have when asked to make a decision is to find reasons not to make that decision. That usually takes the form of a no when what's actually meant is maybe.

2. There are three generic types of no.

Assuming you're asking the right person (that is, someone who ought to say yes), a no usually means one of the following:

1. Wrong information. You didn't explain well enough why yes is a good decision for the other person. Therefore, you must now do a better job of explaining.
2. Wrong timing. The other person needs some time to ponder and thus is saying no to stall. Therefore, you must now be patient and ask for the yes later.
3. Wrong circumstance. There's something over which the other person has no control that's blocking him or her from saying yes. Therefore, you must now work with the other person to transcend the block.

3. Be curious rather than persistent.

The old adage "never take no for an answer" is usually misinterpreted to mean "keep pestering customers until they say yes." This doesn't work; in fact, it only hardens the no.  For example:

• You: "Can you provide an initial funding of $2 million?"
• VC: "No."
• You: "Are you sure?  It's not a very big amount."
• VC: "Yes, I'm sure." (i.e., "No.")
• You: "How about only $1 million?"
• VC: "Please leave now."

By contrast, if you become curious about the no, you can continue the conversation and find out what it will take to get to yes, like so:

• You: "Can you provide an initial funding of $1 million?"
• VC: "No."
• You: "If I understand rightly, though, you are looking to make investments of this kind. What is it about my plan that isn't working for you?"

4. Move the conversation forward.

Depending upon what you learn (as the result of being curious), move the conversation so that it gradually opens up the possibility of a yes. For instance, in the example above, your question might get any of three responses:

1. Wrong information.  In this case, you roll back to that part of the discussion and clarify the misunderstanding.

• VC: "I don't understand how you're monetizing."
• You: "I apologize for not explaining it well. Let's go over that part again, and I'll try to make things clearer."

2. Wrong timing. In this case, you focus the conversation on making commitments to meet again to discuss the matter.

• VC: "I need to think about this for a while."
• You: "I understand. What are the areas of uncertainty that we should clear up before we meet again?"

3. Wrong circumstance. In this case, you suggest a creative approach that overcomes the blockage.

• VC: "We've already invested in a competitor."
• You: "Maybe we should be thinking in terms of a merger. What can you tell me about them?"

Needless to say, there's a lot more that you can do to turn a no into yes (you might want to invest in Tom's book when it comes out), but the above contains the essence of what you'll need in many business situations.

BY Geoffrey James

14 Ways to Spoil Yourself--And Why You Should

Many of us write New Year's resolutions about what we vow not to do or how we want to improve either professionally or personally.  That's a worthwhile exercise, to be sure. But to truly stay motivated, don't be so focused that you forget the little things: You need a little indulgence along the way to help keep yourself going.

I talked with some fellow entrepreneurs and uncovered 14 ways--big and small--you can plan to spoil yourself to stay motivated as you move through the upcoming year:

1. Buy your favorite drink.

It would be far cheaper if I brewed coffee at home each morning, but I look forward to stopping by a Starbucks as I begin my day. It provides a break in my commute and I enjoy the cup of coffee throughout my morning.  I also sneak out on occasion and pick up a brew in the afternoon to give me that last boost I need to make it through a late afternoon meeting or networking event.

2. Sleep in an extra hour.

We all know and studies confirm that we just don't get enough sleep.  Kim Kaupe from ZinePak builds time into her calendar to get some extra shut-eye. Sleep makes your mind sharper, allowing you to focus more clearly on potential solutions to business problems at hand.

3. Splurge.

When you are working towards a big goal, put small incentives in place along the way.  A new sweater or a pair of shoes becomes tangible evidence of the results of your work. Blake Miller of Think Big Partners finds himself at sites like JackThreads often in pursuit of a little reward for a job well done.  My personal weakness is the goodies in my monthly trunk from TrunkClub.

4. Plan a trip.

When Darrah Brustein isn't planning her next Under 40 Networking event, she is thinking about the next place she is going to get away from it all. In fact, many of my fellow entrepreneurs cited travel as one of the best ways to reward themselves throughout the year.

5. Extend a trip.

Many times I travel to exotic locations or  great cities only to see the inside of a hotel conference facility. Brendan McCarthy with clicktoshop takes advantage of business trips and extends his time a couple of days to take in the sights and sounds. It doesn't have to be expensive--by staying over a Saturday night, the airfare is often cheap enough to cover the extra hotel and food expense.

6. Get active.

If you enjoy running, walking, hiking or biking, sign up for a local race or event in your community. It gives you a goal to work towards that is not part of your day to day business routine.

Dan Popovic is the founder of a company called cMECompete that combines health and fitness events with a gamification element that makes being active doubly rewarding. Join a community and earn points by participating in a local race or event, and you could even earn some great prizes.

7. Take time to give back.

Alex Pirouz of Linkfluencer took time out of his schedule at the end of 2013 to walk 10,000 steps to raise money for clubkidpreneur.com. The break in routine was refreshing and gave him time to plan for the upcoming year.

8. Unplug.

Quinetha Frasier of Social Mission Architects schedules mini-staycations. She takes a Sunday afternoon to unplug, shutting down all of her gadgets and catching up on reading or listening to music. These mini-breaks recharge her for the upcoming week and she can apply the knowledge she learns from her reading to her business and the non-profits she consults.

9. Upgrade your digital life.

Let's face it, we all want the latest and greatest phone or gadget when it hits the market. This is Patrick Conley of Automation Heroes favorite way to spoil himself. Want a way to justify it?  The newest gadgets are the fastest, so think of these purchases as an investment in being more efficient with your time.

10. Get great tickets.

I don't attend concerts or games that often, but when I do I always buy the best tickets I can get.  It's all about the experience of the band or the game and if you are going to go, it might as well be on the front row.

11. Take time off at odd times.

Susan Strayer LaMotte of exaqueo takes time off when others are working. Few things feel more indulgent than hanging out with a loved one or a friend in the middle of the day when everyone else is hard at work at the office.

12. Pick up a new hobby.

I started taking piano lessons a little over two years ago and continue to see my teacher once every week. The 30-minute block of time allows me to learn something I have always wanted to and the accountability of seeing my teacher forces me to take time to practice throughout the week.

13. Get a massage.

Kuty Shalev of Clevertech's go-to self reward is a  90 minute massage. It's a great way to transport your mind.

14. Hire a virtual assistant.

While I don't know how I could live without my staff, others see this as a luxury.  The people who work for you give you back time to do more important things.  Firing yourself can be one of the greatest ways to spoil yourself this year. You'll be able to focus on the bigger and more challenging aspect of building your business, not working in it.

BY Eric V. Holtzclaw

 

 

5 Easy Ways to Work Smarter, Not Longer

Be ruthless about prioritizing tasks.

One of the biggest drivers of overwork is to assume that absolutely everything is important and, therefore, must be done. But that is silly. Is changing the shade of red on an interior page of your website something that will make or break the business? Of course not. I've written about the famous time-management tip that Bethlehem Steel CEO Charles Schwab thought so valuable that he paid a consultant what today would have been $550,000 after he saw its effectiveness. List your items to do, prioritize them, and work on the most important, then the second most important, and so on. Now you need to move beyond your own day and prioritize the tasks for your company as a whole. Focus on what drives value for customers, investors, and employees. Everything else is superfluous.

Don't start anything without a plan first.

The biggest time waster is redoing a task you didn't do completely the first time around, thus doubling the time it takes. That includes not having everything you need at hand to accomplish something, allotting insufficient time for what is necessary, failing to track and follow up on items when you were supposed to, or otherwise wasting opportunity because you didn't think things through sufficiently up front. Planning takes a little extra time up front, but you save enormous amounts--more than you think possible, until you try it and see the results.

Be realistic about how many gains you can really make.

You need to think and dream big. It's one of the cardinal differences between you and people who settle for following orders all their lives. But temper your long-term ambitions with short-term realism. Want to squeeze in one more city during a business trip? You can try, but cutting short buffers for planes that may leave late could have you miss an important meeting. Get a few more sales this week? Great thought, but not if you prospect when your customers are out on a long weekend. Examine every effort and ask yourself, "Will this really make a difference, or am I indulging in wishful thinking that keeps me in the long-hours cult?"

Invest in help.

You want to save money--understandably. And you want things done right. Trying to do everything yourself, though, is another way of ignoring priorities and avoiding planning. You can't do everything yourself and shouldn't. Get the help you need and train people to do a job the way it needs to be done. At the same time, avoid being overbearing. Don't expect others to put in the same efforts when they don't own part of the business. Put people on a treadmill and you'll help them build up enough momentum to walk right out the door.

Carve out and protect time for yourself.

One of the hidden problems of overwork is that people often have put their entire sense of identity into the business or job. You end up working more and more because there's either not enough going on in your life or you're not recognizing its importance. Schedule time to keep yourself healthy, maintain important relationships, and follow passions that aren't related to your current venture.

BY Erik Sherman

 

 

10 Things You Didn't Know About Smiling

Most likely, the last thing you think about when you’re posing for your latest Facebook shot is the science behind your smile. But there’s a lot more to a smile than meets the eye. Here are 10 little-known facts that will have you beaming.

 

1. Smiling has body benefits.
Every time you frown, you’re unnecessarily exhausting 43 facial muscles, while smiling only uses 17 muscles. Some studies show that beaming can benefit your blood pressure levels. Add a laugh and you’ll also slim your middle -- the movement exercises your abs, diaphragm, shoulders and heart. Scientists at Vanderbilt University in Nashville found that laughing can stoke your calorie burn by up to 20 percent.

 

2. Grinning is human.
One thing that separates us from animals is our capacity to smile. We don’t learn how to smile from our surroundings; rather, it’s a natural mechanism that’s hardwired in us from birth. Studies have shown that newborn babies crack their first smile as early as two hours after delivery.

 

3. Women are more likely to smile.

Fact: The average woman smiles approximately 62 times a day. In that same day, a man only flashes his pearly whites a mere eight times. Interestingly enough, a Yale University study found that the difference declines when the two genders share the same occupation. Why? The researchers believe that it could be because every workplace has an unspoken “smiling standard” that’s followed by all employees.

 

4. There are different types of smiles.
Happiness isn’t the only thing we can express when we turn up the corners of our mouths. During his research at the University of California, San Francisco, scientist Paul Ekman discovered that people smile 19 different ways, depending on social situations and emotions, including fear, grief and hatred. All types fall under two larger categories: heartfelt and artificial. You can differentiate the two: Sincere smiles cause the corners of your eyes to scrunch up -- insincere ones don’t.

 

5. Beauty comes from a smile.
When asked to select more attractive counterparts, study participants at Scotland’s University of Aberdeen pointed to those people who were beaming. In another recent lab report, 69 percent of those asked said that women look younger and more attractive when they wear a smile rather than makeup.

6. Smiling leads to a longer life.
Research conducted at the University of Illinois has suggested that people who generally feel happy and smile more often have a longer life expectancy of nearly a decade. In another study that looked at baseball cards, Wayne State University scientists in Detroit concluded that those athletes who flashed their pearly whites in their pictures lived on average seven years longer than those who didn’t.

 

7. Healthy marriages thrive on smiles.
People who grin consistently are more likely to have healthy marriages, say researchers at DePauw University in Indiana. Some say it’s because smilers can more easily express their emotions, and others think that people who grin often attract happier people, allowing them to form stronger, more positive connections.

8. Smiling releases endorphins.
Research shows that the simple act of turning your mouth up, whether authentic or not, can help release endorphins, feel-good hormones. Serotonin, a natural stress-reducing chemical, also increases when you smile.

 

9. You can fight a cold with a grin.
Cut down on those sick days by plastering a big, cheesy smile on your face. Every time you flash your teeth, your body produces greater quantities of antibodies and T-cells (or white blood cells), which may give your immune system a huge power boost.

10. Smiling is contagious.
During an experiment conducted in Sweden, participants reported that they found it very difficult to frown when they saw other participants smiling. Many began to turn their mouths up without even realizing it. Start smiling and the whole world will smile with you.

 

 

10 Bad Parenting Habits

10: Not Following Through

 

Parents don't really want to punish their kids. It's so easy to think that a warning (or two or three) will avoid a fight, save everyone's feelings and fix the problem. Instead, failing to enforce the consequences of bad behavior just makes your child see you as unreliable and easily manipulated. And since engaging in the bad behavior carries no consequences, your child has no reason to change it. In fact, your child's behavior may become worse if not appropriately disciplined. Kids want the limits, and they'll probe until they find them.

9: Not Setting Limits

Keep limits few, basic and clear. Children can't memorize a book of rules, so focus on behaviors with high importance. Keep in mind your child's level of maturity and his or her ability to meet certain expectations. This will help you set reasonable behavior guidelines. A toddler would have a hard time staying quiet and still through a two-hour movie, but he or she can learn that we handle problems with words, not fists and teeth.

8: Failing to Stretch Limits

Stretching limits involves two-way trust and communication. Don't just drop the fences. Your kid wants opportunities to safely explore outside the old rules, not the removal of them all. That can be frightening and imply that you no longer care. Reevaluate boundaries before you change them and decide what's appropriate for your child at his or her present age and maturity level.

7: Consistently Giving In to Your Kids

Kids start negotiating surprisingly early. They may not be able to form complete sentences, but they can form complete thoughts, including how to get you to do what they want. At first, it's a charming glimpse into your child's developing personality, as well as a startling revelation of how well they've got you figured out. By the time they hit the tween years, though, negotiation can feel like constant battle. It's so much easier just to give in and let them have what they want. At least you get a few minutes of peace and quiet.

When you constantly give in to pressure from your child, you've given up your role as parent. You're no longer guiding your child toward responsible behavior and sound decision-making. Meanwhile, your child loses respect for you and keeps arguing for outrageous privileges.

6: Acting Like a Servant

Since the goal of child-rearing is to grow them up and move them out, it's counterintuitive to spare them chores. Kids need responsibilities to feel mature and part of the family, as well as to develop the skills they'll need for living on their own.

Parents, however, get used to doing everything for our sons and daughters when we bring them home as infants. Sometimes it's hard to break that habit. By the time kids reach their teens, parents can feel overwhelmed, frustrated and resentful toward children who don't do anything for themselves. For some parents, that's what it takes to make us see that our kids are capable of doing much more for themselves.

5: Using Intimidation

Emotions are normal and natural, and everyone experiences the full range, including anger. But just as you want to model good behavior for your child, it's important to model self-control of emotions. Here are some tips for avoiding the intimidation scene:

• Take a deep breath and relax your body. Counting to 10 can help shift you out of the emotional part of your brain and back into the rational part.
• Sit down. This puts you at eye level with your child, so you're not looming over him or her.
• Put your hands in your pockets or reach out to hold your kid's hands. This keeps you from stabbing angry fingers in his or her face.
• Focus on the problem, not your son or daughter.
• Take a break if you or your child gets too worked up.

4: Being a Friend Before Being a Parent

Parents need to be teachers, leaders, providers and disciplinarians. That's as it should be, since kids rely on parents to take care of them. Sure, it's no fun being the rules police, especially when you've only got a few hours each day to spend with your child. But children want parents to be in charge, despite what they say to the contrary, or how many times they tell us that all their friends' parents are more fun than we are.

3: Comparing and Criticizing

Instead of making negative comparisons between your children, or between your child and his or her peers, identify your boy or girl's unique strengths and qualities and cultivate an appreciation for them. If you must vent about a particular incident involving your kid, do so with a trusted confidant when your son or daughter isn't around to hear the conversation. Don't try to discuss the issue in veiled phrases and code words in your child's presence. Kids are smart, and your subterfuge won't fool them.

2: Doing Too Much

There are many ways parents can do too much for their children; one is to buy everything your child asks for. In our material world, new gadgets and must-have fashions pop up as quickly as weeds after rain. Kids are often convinced they can't live without the latest thing, and many parents may believe the only way to make their boy or girl happy is to buy everything on the wish list. But deep down, we know that money and things don't provide happiness. Overindulging children with gifts sometimes serves the parent more than the child.

Another way parents do too much is to help your child with every project, problem or task. Sure, adults usually have the know-how to get the assignment done quickly. We've been there and done that -- and the past is the point. Now it's your kid's turn to grow and learn though the experience of doing. As parents, we've got to learn to back up, put our hands in our pockets and our mouths on mute and let our youngsters' ideas unfold.

Parenting doesn't come with a handbook. It's all on-the-job training. But the same is true for kids trying to grow into adults. No guidelines, just lots of unwritten rules that restrict who our children think they want to be. Ultimately, both parties want the same outcome: the kids' independence. Parents just tend to want to attach a couple of modifiers to that: responsible, successful independence.

There are subplots in every family drama, hurdles that must be overcome before our goals are met. Some of those hurdles we set up for ourselves. Often our good intentions, hopes and desires sabotage our parenting program. Sometimes we'd rather be the good parent than engage in good parenting. And sometimes our kids are right. We just don't understand what they're going through.

Parenting isn't just a job; it's a lifelong commitment. And when you're caught up in the day-in, day-out adventures of raising kids for around two decades, it's easy to fall into habitual behavior. Unfortunately, some of those habits are counterproductive. In this article, we'll look at 10 bad habits parents fall into, often without realizing it. Read on to learn their symptoms, as well as tips for breaking them.

1: Not Listening Enough

Listening is a much more effective approach to helping your child work through problems and make decisions. These are, after all, important life skills that need exercise to develop. Instead of telling your kid what to do in a given situation, sit down and ask him or her to tell you what he or she wants the ultimate outcome to be. Pay attention to your boy or girl's feelings and emotions. Listen and learn about daily challenges and achievements. Then ask to hear your child's thoughts on how to get to that endpoint. This brainstorming session helps your child explore possibilities, and it gives you a deeper understanding of how your offspring thinks and feels. Next, ask your kid to sift through the ideas he or she came up with to find the one most likely to bring success. Finally, ask how he or she plans to put the solution into action.

FOOTNOTES

Bribery Blues

Attempting to bribe your child into good behavior often has negative results. Food rewards can lead to unhealthy eating habits. Over time, bribery can get out of hand, with your child demanding ever-increasing rewards for doing what he or she is supposed to do anyway. It's better to catch your child being good and reward them for that than to try to buy his or her way out of bad behavior.

Tone It Down

Chronic yelling is a form of emotional abuse and can harm children's mental health. When shouting is overused, kids just tune it out, but they often exhibit negative behaviors, such as aggression and withdrawal

Equal Isn't Fair

Each child is different. While you shouldn't make negative comparisons between your children, it's also not the best policy to treat them exactly the same. Show each child respect for his or her individual strengths, abilities, needs and preferences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Understanding Family Structures and Dynamics

Despite the changing lifestyles and ever-increasing personal mobility that characterize modern society, the family remains the central element of contemporary life. Families offer companionship, security, and a measure of protection against an often uncaring world. But family structure, like society at large, has undergone significant changes in the years since World War II. While the nuclear family -- with Dad, Mom, and offspring happily coexisting beneath one roof-remains the ideal, variations in family structure are plentiful -- and often successful. Whatever your particular family situation, it will have tremendous influence upon your baby's happiness, development, and future. In this article, we will examine all of the many variations of the family structure and its inherent dynamics over the following sections:

 

    The Nuclear Family

 

    The Nuclear Family is traditionally thought of the parents and the siblings. Though this is the most basic family arrangement, it also rife with complexities. One thing parents much consider is whether to have multiple children. This question raises a host of others, such as, the effect of being the oldest, youngest, and middle child. We will also discuss only children and children who are much older than their siblings. Finally we will talk about how to form strong family bonds.

 

    The Extended Family

 

    The extended family refers to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. A strong relationship with your extended family can be just as rewarding as close ties inside the nuclear family. However, building those bonds inside the extended family can be a little more difficult because, obviously, everyone does not live under the same roof. In this section, we offer some suggestions for building a close extended family.

 

    Working Parents

 

    The decision to go back to work can be a tough one to make for new parents. Naturally, the financial stability of a regular paycheck can take a lot of pressure of your household. Then again, missing your child's first encounters with the world cannot be replaced. Each family must learn how to make this difficult decision for themselves, but on this page you will find some advice for weighing the pros and cons. We will also talk about corporate benefits for new parents and how to make the time you have with your child count.

 

    Single Parents

 

    Numerous extenuating circumstances can result in a single parent. Traditionally, single parents are thought to be a product of a divorce, but a widower or a mother who had never been married can also be a single parent. Regardless of the causes, single parents face an uphill battle. On this page, we will offer some advice for dealing with an ex-spouse and a child who misses their other parent. While being a single parent is difficult, it can be just as rewarding a traditional, nuclear family.

 

    Older Parents

 

    Parents who have children later in life face several advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, they are most likely more financially stable, secure in their job and home, and clear about what they want. On the other hand, they probably have less energy than their younger counterparts and the situation will only be more pronounced as their child matures. On this page, we will lay out all of the positives and negatives to help you make the most informed decision possible.

 

    Much Older Siblings

 

    If you have another child many years after your first born, your new baby may have three parents. A much older sibling can help watch, mentor, and care for your new baby. Of course, not every big brother or sister will want to embrace this role. On this page, we will examine the pros and cons of much older siblings.

 

    Younger Parents

 

    Parents who have children in their teens face a variety of problems. First, there is the social stigma attached to have a child at such an early age. Without the support of your family and friends, the new parents will most likely not get the financial and emotional support they need to bring a child into the world. As a result, teen parents have difficulty going to college and finding satisfying careers. On this page, will explore all aspects of this difficult situation.

 

    Stepfamilies

 

    In past generations, stepfamilies were uncommon and most people did not know how to relate to them. Now, as the stigmas against divorce and remarriage continue to dissolve, more and more stepfamilies are coming together. While it's never easy to merge two families together, stepfamilies can be an opportunity to forge new, lasting, loving bonds. On this page, we will offer some advice for relating to your new family, and for smoothing out the potential conflicts that will inevitably arise. We will also discuss the subject having children once you've remarried into a stepfamily. No one said it would be simple and easy.

 

    Adoption

 

    Adopting a baby can be very difficult. There are long -- and sometimes embarrassing --probes into your life and home to judge your potential ability as a parent. There are also many different types of adoption to consider. You can adopt through an agency, chose private adoption, foreign adoptions, open adoptions, or independent adoptions. Don't worry -- we'll explain all of the options to you. Unfortunately, when you take your new baby home, your challenges are just beginning. On this page, we will explore all aspects of adoption and what to do as your adopted child grows.

 

10 Commandments of Good Parenting

1. What you do matters. "This is one of the most important principles," Steinberg tells WebMD. "What you do makes a difference. Your kids are watching you. Don't just react on the spur of the moment. Ask yourself, 'What do I want to accomplish, and is this likely to produce that result?'"

2. You cannot be too loving. "It is simply not possible to spoil a child with love," he writes. "What we often think of as the product of spoiling a child is never the result of showing a child too much love. It is usually the consequence of giving a child things in place of love -- things like leniency, lowered expectations, or material possessions."

3. Be involved in your child's life. "Being an involved parent takes time and is hard work, and it often means rethinking and rearranging your priorities. It frequently means sacrificing what you want to do for what your child needs to do. Be there mentally as well as physically."

Being involved does not mean doing a child's homework -- or reading it over or correcting it. "Homework is a tool for teachers to know whether the child is learning or not," Steinberg tells WebMD. "If you do the homework, you're not letting the teacher know what the child is learning."

4. Adapt your parenting to fit your child. Keep pace with your child's development. Your child is growing up. Consider how age is affecting the child's behavior.

"The same drive for independence that is making your three-year-old say 'no' all the time is what's motivating him to be toilet trained," writes Steinberg. "The same intellectual growth spurt that is making your 13-year-old curious and inquisitive in the classroom also is making her argumentative at the dinner table."

For example: An eighth grader is easily distracted, irritable. His grades in school are suffering. He's argumentative. Should parents push him more, or should they be understanding so his self-esteem doesn't suffer?

"With a 13-year-old, the problem could be a number of things," Steinberg says. "He may be depressed. He could be getting too little sleep. Is he staying up too late? It could be he simply needs some help in structuring time to allow time for studying. He may have a learning problem. Pushing him to do better is not the answer. The problem needs to be diagnosed by a professional."

5. Establish and set rules. "If you don't manage your child's behavior when he is young, he will have a hard time learning how to manage himself when he is older and you aren't around. Any time of the day or night, you should always be able to answer these three questions: Where is my child? Who is with my child? What is my child doing? The rules your child has learned from you are going to shape the rules he applies to himself."

"But you can't micromanage your child," Steinberg tells WebMD. "Once they're in middle school, you need let the child do their own homework, make their own choices, and not intervene."

6. Foster your child's independence. "Setting limits helps your child develop a sense of self-control. Encouraging independence helps her develop a sense of self-direction. To be successful in life, she's going to need both."

It is normal for children to push for autonomy, says Steinberg. "Many parents mistakenly equate their child's independence with rebelliousness or disobedience. Children push for independence because it is part of human nature to want to feel in control rather than to feel controlled by someone else."

7. Be consistent. "If your rules vary from day to day in an unpredictable fashion or if you enforce them only intermittently, your child's misbehavior is your fault, not his. Your most important disciplinary tool is consistency. Identify your non-negotiables. The more your authority is based on wisdom and not on power, the less your child will challenge it."

Many parents have problems being consistent, Steinberg tells WebMD. "When parents aren't consistent, children get confused. You have to force yourself to be more consistent."

8. Avoid harsh discipline. Parents should never hit a child, under any circumstances. "Children who are spanked, hit, or slapped are more prone to fighting with other children," he writes. "They are more likely to be bullies and more likely to use aggression to solve disputes with others."

"There is a lot of evidence that spanking causes aggression in children, which can lead to relationship problems with other kids," Steinberg tells WebMD. "There are many other ways to discipline a child, including 'time out,' which work better and do not involve aggression."

9. Explain your rules and decisions. "Good parents have expectations they want their child to live up to," he writes. "Generally, parents overexplain to young children and underexplain to adolescents. What is obvious to you may not be evident to a 12-year-old. He doesn't have the priorities, judgment or experience that you have."

An example: A 6-year-old is very active and very smart -- but blurts out answers in class, doesn't give other kids a chance, and talks too much in class. His teacher needs to address the child behavior problem. He needs to talk to the child about it, says Steinberg. "Parents might want to meet with the teacher and develop a joint strategy. That child needs to learn to give other children a chance to answer questions."

10. Treat your child with respect. "The best way to get respectful treatment from your child is to treat him respectfully," Steinberg writes. "You should give your child the same courtesies you would give to anyone else. Speak to him politely. Respect his opinion. Pay attention when he is speaking to you. Treat him kindly. Try to please him when you can. Children treat others the way their parents treat them. Your relationship with your child is the foundation for her relationships with others."

 

 

A Few Signs 2014 Will Be a Good Year for Business

More business owners are putting their money where their mouths are, using personal savings to fund their startups, according to a new Kauffman Foundation survey. That's a sign, the Foundation says, that the economic recovery is, finally, upon us.

For its second annual "Who Started Businesses in 2013" report, the Kauffman Foundation, in partnership with LegalZoom, surveyed 720 entrepreneurs who incorporated their businesses in 2013. Of that group, a whopping 86 percent said they invested their own savings into their businesses last year. That's a 20 point jump from 2012, and a strong sign of financial security for people like you.

"Few actions correlate more directly with economic confidence than personal investment," said John Suh, CEO of LegalZoom, in a statement. "Investing personal savings to start a business when credit is readily available signals high conviction in the future."

There are other reasons to be optimistic, albeit cautiously so. First, the fact that in 2013, just 36 percent of respondents said that unpredictability was a major hurdle to starting a business. That's a 19 percent decrease from 2012.

Meanwhile, though 28 percent of business owners reported having trouble accessing credit, that number, too, is a drastic decrease from the 45 percent of business owners who said they had trouble getting credit back in 2012.

That said, the survey revealed that business owners might have had a slightly tougher time getting started last year than in 2012. Though 37 percent of business owners reported no difficulties starting up, that's a 3 percent drop from the year before.

Still, the results -- which also showed an increased number of businesses making more than $100,000 in revenue, and a decreased number of businesses making less than $50,000 -- should give you, and indeed the rest of the country, ample reason for optimism in 2014.

"Entrepreneurs are on the economy's front lines daily," said Dane Stangler, vice president of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation, in a statement. "The fact that the survey shows small, positive growth among these companies suggests that economic recovery may be gaining vibrancy on a broader scale, as well."

 

 

Competing in a Crowded Market? Take a Page From Stripe.

You don't have to run a payments processing company, or even a tech company, to take a page from the playbook of Stripe, a four-year-old payments processor that just announced an $80 million round of funding valuing the company at $1.75 billion.

The money came from Founders’ Fund, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Allen & Co. Stripe has raised a total of about $120 million. Plus, three of PayPal’s five original founders have now invested in rival Stripe.

Stripe reportedly processes billions of dollars in payments a year, with total payment volume doubling since September. Its customers include Rackspace, Lyft, Evite, and Blue Bottle Coffee. The San Francisco-based company is also rumored to be in talks with Twitter, where it might power a new shopping feature.

Stripe's success raising money and rolling out its platform shows the value of thinking globally right from the start and of rethinking who, exactly, your customer actually is.

Brothers John and Patrick Collins, Stripe's co-founders, are originally from Tipperrary, Ireland. In the early stages of the company, when both were still students, John was on a visa and Patrick was on a green card. “It kills me every time we when we meet people who are very talented who we know would make a huge contribution to Stripe and we can’t hire them because of visas getting in the way,” said John Collins in an earlier interview with Inc

But the company is growing more quickly globally than it is in the U.S. It expanded into Canada in 2012, when it was only about two years old. About 40 percent of Stripe's 85 employees are from outside the U.S., and it’s looking for country managers to run operations in new geographies as the company expands. So far, it's processing payments in 12 countries and running an open beta in eight more. The recent funding will be used for international expansion.

While other payments processors try to get merchants excited about their offerings, Stripe has made its name as the payments processor that's easy for developers to implement. The Collins brothers are coders, and they're targeting other coders--the ones who tell merchants which payments software they should be using--as customers.

Stripe also appeals to merchants, of course. It lets them accept online payments without having to set up a merchant account or deal with a bank. With Stripe, an online retailer’s payments form and pages can be designed to look like the rest of the retailer’s site. That allows the merchant to put its own brand on the checkout pages, increasing the odds that the sale will be completed.

Stripe charges 2.9 percent per transaction in addition to a 30 cent fee--exactly the same as PayPal.

At the end of last year, Stripe’s biggest competitor, PayPal, bought payments processor Braintree for $800 million. Activist investor Carl Icahn recently bought a stake in eBay, and is pushing for PayPal to be spun out of the company. 

 

 

10 actions to help you deal with difficult people

The ability to lead difficult individuals out of unproductive situations to improve performance and better working relationships are an essential management skill. Here are ten actions to help you deal with difficult people.

1. Identify the difficult people. People who are difficult absorb your time and energy. The earlier you can identify who will be difficult and when, the better your chances will be of dealing with them successfully. In order to do this, you need to know what makes people difficult.

2. Understand the dynamics. Effective communication moves relationships forward and helps people to work together successfully. By identifying the barriers to good communication, managers can maximise the potential of their team and mobilise difficult people.

3. Be assertive. In order to remain calm, even when the difficult person confronting you may be angry and aggressive, you need to be assertive. Encourage others to be aware of whether or not they are being assertive can help a difficult person move towards agreement.

4. Know when to stop. If you cannot change a difficult person, you may have to change your attitude. It is sometimes better for the organisation if you learn to live with, rather than continue to try to change, the individual. Alternatively, he or she may need to accept that it is time to leave.

5. Handle poor performance. Employees who are under too much or too little stress may under-perform. Spot the signs early so that you can help a difficult person operate at constructive stress levels. If performance fails to improve, you may have to dismiss the difficult individual.

6. Be objective. When dealing with difficult people, it helps to stay objective. Being objective demands a high level of self-awareness. Knowing your own biases and personality helps you understand what stands in the way of your working effectively with other people.

7. Communicate non-verbally. A difficult person will understand your approach through non-verbal communication long before you speak. Being able to observe the other person’s non-verbal signs, to know when a person is about to become difficult, puts you one step ahead.

8. Take the heat out of the situation. When a difficult person is behaving aggressively, you need to know how to take the immediate heat out of the situation. Only when you have calmed the person down will you be able to regain his or her attention and move forward into productive discussion.

9. Agree ground rules. Starting with an agreement on ground rules for working together is often easier to achieve than agreeing on the solution to the problem between you, and is a positive first step towards working more effectively with difficult people.

10. Learn for the next time. Every time you come into conflict with a difficult persona, you can learn how to handle the situation better for next time. To develop your sill at dealing with difficult people, review how the conflict arose in the first place, and how co-operation was gained.

 

 

20 unusual résumé tactics to avoid

When asked to recall the most unusual résumés they have received, employers shared the following:

 

1. Candidate said the more you paid him, the harder he worked.

 

2. Candidate included that he was arrested for assaulting his previous boss.

 

3. Candidate said he just wanted an opportunity to show off his new tie.

 

4. Candidate listed her dog as reference.

 

5. Candidate listed the ability to do the moonwalk as a special skill.

 

6. Candidates -- a husband and wife looking to job share -- submitted a co-written poem.

 

7. Candidate included "versatile toes" as a selling point.

 

8. Candidate stated she was "particularly adept at comprehending the obvious."

 

9. Candidate said that he would be a "good asset to the company," but failed to include the "et" in the word "asset."

 

10. Candidate's email address on the résumé had "shakinmybootie" in it.

 

11. Candidate said he was qualified because he was a "marvelous physical specimen."

 

12. Candidate included that she survived a bite from a deadly aquatic animal.

 

13. Candidate was fired from different jobs, but included each one as a reference.

 

14. Candidate used first name only.

 

15. Candidate presented a list of demands in order to work for the organization.

 

16. Candidate asked, "Would you pass up an opportunity to hire someone like this? I think not."

 

17. Candidate insisted that the company pay him to interview with them because his time was valuable.

 

18. Candidate's résumé was intentionally written from right to left instead of left to right.

 

19. Candidate shipped a lemon with résumé, stating "I am not a lemon."

 

20. Candidate submitted 40-page résumé that included photos and diplomas

 

 

3 digital missteps that could cost you your job

There are all kinds of potential landmines in the workplace. Hardnosed office politics. Tight deadlines. Difficult co-workers. But perhaps few areas are as difficult to navigate and as fraught with peril as technology, where one wrong step could literally cost you your job.

 

We could -- and did -- fill a book with rules and etiquette for the digital age. But let's focus on three particularly tricky trouble spots where even the most experienced professionals sometimes struggle. Here's how to spot and avoid these digital hazards.

 

Complaining about work on social media

It feels good in the moment to post about your terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad workday or passive aggressive co-worker on Facebook. But venting about work on any social-media channel -- from Twitter to Instagram to a personal blog that no one reads but your mom -- can have serious career consequences.

 

Don't think you'll get caught? Neither did the executive who sent out a negative tweet about Memphis just hours before a meeting with FedEx, which happens to have its headquarters there. This misstep damaged a client relationship and even made news headlines.

 

Your moment of bad judgment might not hit CNN, but there's a long list of workers who have jeopardized or lost jobs because of social media slipups. Their online offenses ranged from criticizing company policies to badmouthing management to poking fun at customers or clients.

 

Remember that people are always watching online, and you never know how far or wide your posts will spread. Even expert use of privacy settings can't guarantee your comments will remain secret.

So skip the negative comments about your company, boss, clients or colleagues. If you're in the middle of a bad day at the office, try counting to 10 before you post online, and use those few seconds to consider the consequences of what you're about to share.

 

Forgetting that you're at work

If you're lucky, you have a few close friends at the office. That's great, but it's crucial to keep your interactions within professional limits.

 

It's easy to think that your buddy won't be offended by a racy joke or will agree with your feelings about a certain political party. But think about even seemingly innocuous steps outside workplace boundaries. That hilarious -- and totally PG -- cat video you sent your mom isn't appropriate for the boss.

 

Gossip is another office no-no. If you must blow off steam, separate it from the workplace. Save your comments for your spouse or a close friend who doesn't share the same employer.

 

In fact, your best bet is to draw a line between your personal digital activities and your professional ones. Don't check your eBay bids or shop on Amazon at the office. Even streaming music is frowned upon at many companies because it hogs bandwidth.

 

Failing to secure company laptops or phones

Did you hear about the unlucky Apple employee who left an unreleased iPhone prototype in a bar? You're probably not carrying around top-secret new hardware, but your laptop and smartphone hold more company secrets than you think.

 

It's crucial to keep these devices secure to protect your employer's confidential information and your good standing at work. For starters, play within your IT department's rules. Don't turn off password protection or any other security features installed on your devices.

 

Take the time to review your company's security policies. Some workplaces frown upon leaving a laptop at your desk after hours if it's not locked to the desk. There might even be rules about anything from using public Wi-Fi networks to overseas travel. A few companies, for instance, don't allow workers to take laptops or smartphones to certain countries because of piracy concerns.

 

If you're traveling, never check a laptop in carry-on luggage and keep a close eye on your devices as you move through security. You also should avoid leaving your devices unattended in a car -- even a locked trunk -- or a hotel room. The same goes for coffee shop tables or conference rooms.

 

When it comes to navigating the digital world at work, it's always better to err on the safe and cautious side. Slow down, use common sense, and if you're not sure about something, it's better to skip it than to make a misstep that could put your professional reputation -- or even your job -- at risk.

 

 

BIOGRAPHY : Agatha Christie

Born: 

09/15/1890

 

Died: 

01/12/1976

 

Birthplace: 

Torquay, Devon, UK

Millions across the world have gone to bed with the Duchess of Death, each night retreating with her from the monotony of their daily lives, into a world of mystery and murder.

The legendary creator of the funny man with the waxed moustache - Hercule Poirot - and that busy body old maid - Miss Marple - never went to school; her mother believed it destroyed the brain and ruined the eyes.

Instead, she studied history and her father taught her mathematics until he died. As a teenager, she read the Sherlock Holmes series and was heavily influenced by the novelist Eden Phillpotts, whom she would visit regularly.

Christie married the young Lieutenant Archibald Christie in 1914 and, when he went to fight in WW1, the young bride fulfilled one of her ambitions, and worked as a nurse in a Red Cross hospital close to Torquay.

Her natural intelligence and red hair made her a favourite with the soldiers and doctors, and she soon advanced to the dispensary. Here, she learnt a knowledge of drugs and poisons, invaluable to her later writing career.

Sibling rivalry pressed the decommissioned nurse to write her first book. Her sister challenged Christie to write a detective story, where the ending could not be guessed so quickly. Christie went to Hay Tor on Dartmoor for three weeks in 1920, and tapped out 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles'.

Styles was a town very much like Torquay, and the details of the mystery were drawn from her nursing experience. To solve the foul deed Christie created her Belgian character Monsieur Poirot, an eccentric man infatuated with the power of his ‘little grey cells’. He was to appear in over 40 books, often accompanied by the ‘idiot’ narrator, Captain Hastings, whose role in the plot was not unlike that of Dr Watson in the Sherlock Holmes tales.

Her other famous sleuth, the very English Miss Marple of St Mary Mead, was created in 'The Murder at the Vicarage', and featured in 12 novels.

During her writing career, Christie also wrote romantic fiction under the name of Mary Westmacott, non-fiction accounts of archaeological digs she attended with her second husband, Sir Max Mallowan, and a few theatre scripts including 'The Mousetrap', the world's longest running play.

Fast Facts: 

* Agatha was fascinated by archaeology, and it was when she travelled to work on a dig in South Iraq that she met her second husband, Sir Max Mallowan.

* Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in over 45 foreign languages.

 

 

 

6 Management Tactics That Drive Employees Crazy

Everyone knows that hectic employees are Productive employees, so here's how to ensure your entire team is always on their toes and on tenterhooks:

1. Set multiple priorities. Since having one priority is good, multiple priorities is even better. Why have a single most important task or goal when every task and goal can be equally important?

2. Constantly reprioritize. Once you've set your multiple priorities, be sure to switch them around, add new ones, temporarily remove old ones, and so forth. Success in today's business world is all about flexibility.

3. Expect the unreasonable. Now that you've explained what you want, set non-negotiable "stretch" goals that can't possibly be achieved. Be sure to tie compensation and raises to the achievement those goals.

4. Dole out permission. At this point, your employees should be fully motivated and busy. However, you don't want them to do things without proper approval! Make certain that they run everything by you.

5. Shoot messengers. Risk management is crucially important, so now it's time to ensure that nothing goes wrong. The best way to accomplish this is to publicly punish anybody who screws up. That way they won't screw up.

6. Micromanage. And finally we get to management's most important role... making certain that everything runs smoothly. Don't be satisfied with monthly or weekly status reports! Think daily or even hourly! The more the better!

- BY Geoffrey James

 

How Paying Employees More Can Make You More Profitable

It seems like simple math: The more you pay your employees, the lower your profits.

How then, to explain companies such as Costco? Costco employees, on average, get paid twice as much as those at competitors such as Sam's Club, and Costco is still profitable. It's not the only one: Trader Joe's, Spanish supermarket chain Marcadona, and the convenience store company QuikTrip all follow a similar pattern. To some extent, they all compete on price.

This is the dilemma that fascinated Zeynep Ton, an adjunct associate professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management and author of the recently published The Good Jobs Strategy. After years of research, she determined that the answer lies partly in how management looks at their employees: Are workers mostly costs that detract from profitability, or are they engines that drive revenue growth? Ton's research suggests, counterintuitively, that companies such as Costco are more profitable precisely because of relatively high employee wages--not in spite of them.

"This is not a hypothetical thing," says Ton. "And it's so much better for everybody."

Travelling globally, getting lost locally

Ton's interest in the subject began with a four-year study of Borders bookstores. She was looking at a problem familiar to any shopper: The item the customer wants is listed as "in stock" by the store's inventory system, but no one has any idea where it is. "Think about it," says Ton. "Some guy in supply chain management got that thing all the way from China, and now no one can find it!"

This is not a small problem: Ton found that so-called "phantom stock" was eating up a whopping 25 percent of Borders' profits. When she presented her findings to an audience of CEOs and managers in retail, she says, "everyone raised their hand" when asked if this was happening at their companies.

There was a clue: The Borders stores with the highest turnover, and the least employee training, had the biggest problems with phantom stock. So Ton started to look at the effects of investment in employees -- in the form of training and pay-- on profitability. She soon found a group of companies that invested in their employees, paid them relatively well, yet were more profitable than their peers.

Of course, you can't just pay employees more and hope it will all work out for the best. There are four strategies, Ton says, that turn employees into revenue-generators rather than mere costs. Paying more is one of them, but they all work together.

1. Offer less

At first, this might not make sense. But the typical supermarket, says Ton, stocks about 40,000 unique items, or stock-keeping units (SKUs). How can any employee, no matter how well-trained, know where everything is? Or offer a customer a substitute if the desired item isn't there? Trader Joe's, by contrast, stocks about 4,000 SKUs. That lets their employees be truly informed about the store's merchandise, bringing sales receipts higher.

There are other ways to offer less. Costco doesn't provide shopping bags, making check-outs faster. It only accepts American Express and debit cards. QuikTrip, which runs a chain of convenience stores, eschews customization, selling the same merchandise and using the same store layout no matter where it does business. That makes it easy for employees to move between stores.

2. Combine standardization with empowerment

At QuikTrip, says Ton, there is only one way to get merchandise off a truck. There is only one way to check out a customer. That might smack of micromanagement, but it makes employees more efficient. When it makes sense, employees have great latitude. The store manager doesn't place the order for out-of-stock items -- individual employees do.

Ton says this is the retail equivalent of the "thinking production system" championed by Toyota. In this system, an employee who notices a problem can pull a so-called andon cord to stop the assembly line. They can then take the time to fix the problem and also fix whatever caused the problem in the first place.

At one assembly line Ton visited, the company had installed an andon cord, but workers obviously didn't feel empowered to pull it. When one worker noticed a dent in the back panel of a car, Ton expected him to pull the cord. Instead, he grabbed a mallet and banged out the dent.

You can't just tell workers they need to improve, says Ton. You need to make sure they're comfortable calling everything to a halt in order to do it.

3. Invest in employees

This is especially important in service companies, says Ton. It comes in two forms -- pay and cross-training. She says it's unrealistic to expect employees to do a great job at work, and to provide great service, if their salaries are so low that they're worried about buying groceries. And if employees are properly cross-trained, they can find useful things to do when they're not working directly with customers. If employees are cross-trained, you won't have people sitting around twiddling their thumbs, it's more efficient, and employees feel more competent and find their jobs more interesting.

4. Operate with slack

Most companies would rather have too few employees than too many, says Ton. That's a mistake.

Again, think about an assembly line. A line that's running at 120 percent capacity may sound impressive, but it's trouble waiting to happen: Things are more likely to go wrong, and when they do, it's really hard to find a break in the action to fix them.

Given a choice, says Ton, you want more employees. That way, when you identify a problem, you have time to fix it. And if workers are properly cross-trained and empowered (see above) they'll find something useful to do even if it seems like there are "too many" of them.

A new old-fashioned mindset

"These choices work well when you invest in your people," says Ton. "If you invest in your employees, they're more productive. It's not that the employees at QuikTrip get you the perfect donut, personalized just for you. It's that they get the right donut to the right place at the right time."

These strategies are easier to follow if you're just starting out or if your company is private, Ton says. It's easier for entrepreneurs in the same way that it's often easier to build a house from scratch than to attempt a massive renovation. This is a long-term strategy, so it's easier to commit to it if you're not always hustling to meet the expectations of Wall Street analysts.

No matter how you approach it, says Ton, start with a mentality: "All decisions should be good for employees, good for customers, and good for investors. It creates a virtuous cycle. And if you make these four choices, the business will improve over time."

BY Kimberly Weisul