Wednesday, December 26, 2018

PERSONAL SPECIAL ....Don’t Avoid Obstacles — Overcome Them

Don’t Avoid ObstaclesOvercome Them
Sometimes you have to let yourself celebrate your wins. You won’t always have good news and you need to learn how to embrace and enjoy these moments. You need to let yourself have some fun once in a while, or else you will burn out and lose all motivation.
Sometimes you have to switch your routines, even when they’re working for you. You might be going too easy on yourself. You have to reassess your challenges and make sure you’re continuously challenging yourself and pushing your boundaries. You have to make sure you’re not purposefully blinding yourself and impeding progress.
On the flip side, you might be going too hard on yourself. You might be pushing yourself to the brink of exhaustion. You might be miserable because you’re tyrannizing yourself over your schedule. You might need adjust if everyday feels like torture. You should be struggling, but not in constant pain.
I told myself that I would write and read every day. I often find myself making excuses.
“Sometimes it’s not possible.” I’d say.
Sometimes I’d lie to myself, procrastinate and never end up accomplishing my daily goals. Sometimes I won’t have an idea to write about and will end up pushing it until I have to publish something I am not proud of.
Creativity does not come by force. You can train yourself to produce and merge creative ideas constantly, but it cannot be coerced. The only thing you can do to influence creativity is to gain more experiences, observe the world around you and take in a variety of ideas.
Read more books. Watch more movies. Take a walk. Talk with people.
Sometimes, instead of trying to creating, you have to experience more. You need to put more ideas into your head.
You get out what you put in. These days, I haven’t been doing my due diligence in reading the books that have stacked up on my desk. I need to take more time to read. I need to take more time to digest the ideas and see what kind of interesting insights I can get out of them.
I feel like sometimes I should just spend a whole week focusing on the books, take some notes and come back with my observations. It is going to be harder to keep up a writing schedule, since I will no longer have the entire day to myself.
When problems arise and hinder my progress, I often find myself exactly where I started. I have no solution to deal with all the problems and happenings that occur in life. Every obstacle seems to affect me in a different way and threatens to crush my long-term goals. How do I deal with the numerous obstacles that will inevitably appear in my life?
The Obstacle Is The Way

But one thing that I have realized recently is the fact that the obstacle is the way. The quote is taken from Ryan Holiday’s bookThe Obstacle Is The Waywhich draws wisdom from stoicism, the philosophy of enduring pain or adversity with perseverance and resilience.
When you’re paving your way through life, you will be met with obstacles that block you from moving forward. We spend a lot of time in our lives because we believe that these obstacles should be avoided or worse, cause us to backtrack and take another direction.
When we face big problems in life, we often believe they are horrible and treat them as unfortunate events. But what if you were meant to overcome these obstacles? What if they are there for you to hurdle over?
What would happen if you learned how to overcome all obstacles? You would be unstoppable. Nothing would stop your way because you understand that these obstacles are not impediments. They are not roadblocks that are meant to be avoidedthey are meant to be taken head on.

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
— Marcus Aurelius
Life will throw things at you that will threaten to break you. It will take away the things and people you love. You will face misfortune, pain and suffering. You have no control or influence over what life can bring to the table.
The only thing you can control is your attitude and your behaviors.
If you control your attitude and your behaviors, you will overcome any obstacle in life. You will not be influenced by the troubles of life. You will treat every obstacle as something to be overcome. You will love the struggle, because you know you will learn and receive something valuable from the experience.
Even though I am starting a new chapter in my life, I will keep on chasing my dream to become a writer. I will keep writing, reading and learning everyday.
Sometimes I will fail. Sometimes I will win.
But one thing that will never change is my attitude. I will meet my failures with compassion and meet my wins with pride.
Every obstacle that appears in front of me will not be sidestepped. They will be overcome and destroyed.
How do you respond to the roadblocks in your path? Do you slink your head in defeat and walk back the way you came, or do you analyze the situation and plan out how to get around and solve the problem?

“There is always a countermove, always an escape or way through. No one said it would be easy and of course the stakes are high, but the path is there for those ready to take it.”
— Ryan Holiday
Holiday tells us that obstacles don’t inhibit success, they create success and that readers should see “through the negative, past its underside, and into its corollary: the positive.”
The decisions you make when faced with difficult obstacles will define you. So come face to face with each obstacle that you come across and do your best to overcome every single one of them.

https://mystudentvoices.com/dont-avoid-obstacles-overcome-them-4c4382303c88

SUCCESS SPECIAL.....7 World-Class Choices You Need to Make That Will Get You World-Class Success

7 World-Class Choices You Need to Make That Will Get You World-Class Success
1. Don’t Let Anyone Define “Success” For You
In the words of Srinivas Rao, host of The Unmistakable Creative podcast:
“At some point, I realized that I had to give up other people’s definition of success. This is one of the most difficult things to give up because it is so deeply embedded in our cultural narratives that it becomes the standard by which we measure our lives. Even as entrepreneurs we have collectively agreed that fame and fortune are the markers of success.
But, giving up other people’s definition of success is incredibly liberating and ultimately leads to the fullest expression of who you are and what matters to you.It’s not a one-time thing. It’s a daily habit of comparing less and creating more.”
“Success” doesn’t just mean what the larger mob of society says it means: “lots of money, fame, and fortune.” Many people with fame, fortune, and money have terribly empty, imbalanced lives.
No one can define your success but you. If you continue to let others tell you what success is, you’ll never reach it. Even if you did, it wouldn’t be a true success, because it’s not what you really valued.
No, living an extraordinary life means defining your own version of what success is. You can begin to spend your time on what really matters to you.
Do you really want 1,000,000 Twitter followers?
Do you really need to be in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list?
Do you really want to be a New York Times Bestselling Author?
Or is your version of success more nuanced, more narrowed, more focused, more specific?
If you want to live an extraordinary life, your definition of success must be your own. If we are always chasing what other people tell us to, we’ll never experience true success.
Let go of other people’s versions of success. Define your own success, and achieve it.
That is true success.
“Many people think in terms of ‘I have to do what my colleague/neighbor/family member is doing’ instead of ‘I have to do what’s best for me.’” -Grant Cardone

2. Stop Seeking Approval From Others
“When we are not chosen, we feel bad. When we are choseneven by idiotswe feel good. We need to unlearn this imprisonment. Not dissect and analyze it. Just completely unlearn it.” -James Altucher, best-selling author
If you live your life to please others, you’ll never experience world-class success.
That’s because world-class success requires you to be unique and extraordinary. World-class success almost always comes out of following a “crazy idea” to fruition. One day it’s crazy, and the next day, it’s a breakthrough.
You’ll never get to your breakthrough if you focus on the approval of others.
Wrote author Todd Henry:
“The more bold you are, the more rejection you’ll experience.”

The closer you get to your goals, the more criticism you attract. Your ascent often highlights others’ descent. If you’re seeking approval, you’ll get nowherejust stuck in other people’s changing opinions.
World-class performers went against the grain.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first agent begged him to take the only roles he was offered: Nazi henchmen and nameless villains. But Schwarzenegger believed he was leading-man material.
Steve Martin developed his comedy material through 10 years of rejection before hitting it big. (He even recorded every “boo” and applause for his jokes in a journal).
American chef Julia Child enrolled in a cutthroat, all-male, all-French chef school, where she was ridiculed for monthsuntil she become the #1 student.
Stop seeking approval from others.
Focus on being as authentic as possible instead.

3. Choose the Path of the Black Sheep
In the words of Chris Herd, founder of Nexves:
“There is one character trait that every successful person I have ever encountered all have: an immunity to peer pressure.”
If you do what everyone else is doing, you’ll get what everyone else has.
If you want big change, you need to make big changes.
It’s lonely at the top of the mountain. Those few who have reached world-class success have gone against the grain time and time again. They’ve ruffled feathered, flipped the status quo, and bothered more people than they can remember.
World-class success requires world-class choices. One of the most difficult of these choices is to be a black sheep:
Do things most people don’t do
Act in ways many people think are crazy
Say things people might not understand
Believe things people might find arrogant or stupid
Henry Ford, creator of one of the first automobiles, once said:
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
When you choose the path of the black sheep, you invariably draw ire and criticism from the rest of the herd.
But you also place yourself in a position to do what no one else has ever done, or ever accomplished.
As Douglas MacArthur once said:
“You are remembered for the rules that you break.”
4. Choose to Be Consistent Above All Else
Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” -Calvin Coolidge
Consistency is the most fundamental virtue to achieving world-class success.
To become world-class, you need to develop mastery over several complex areas. This will take time. Even the most disciplined individuals struggle with consistency. It won’t be easy.
But if you choose to fully commit, to keep going no matter what…
You can accomplish nearly any goal.
The truth is, consistency beat talent.
Consistency beats luck.
Consistency beats good intentions.
Frankly, consistency even beats quality. The consistent performer will, over time, outperform her more talented yet inconsistent counterpart.
World-class success requires extreme commitment. In the words of John Assaraf:
“If you’re ‘interested’, you come up with stories, excuses, reasons, and circumstances about why you can’t or why you won’t. If you’re committed, those go out the window. You just do whatever it takes.”
Do you want world-class success?
If so, ask yourself:
Am I committed?
Or merely interested?
Commit to consistency, and world-class success will follow.
“Most people knock on the door of their dreams once, then run away before anyone has a chance to the open the door. But if you keep knocking, persistently and endlessly, eventually the door will open.” -Les Brown
5. Spend More Time Learning and Creating Than On Entertainment and Distraction
“Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become.” -Hal Elrod
Entertainment and distraction are the enemies of true learning and growth. They will prevent you from being extraordinary.
Renowned motivational speaker Jim Rohn once said the most successful people in the world are always lifelong learners. As the old saying goes, “leaders are readers.” World-class individuals fully understand that their level of education directly determines their quality of life.
“Formal education makes a living, but self-education makes a fortune,” Rohn explained.
It’s not just about a college degree. Frankly, most of what you learn in college isn’t applicable to real-world success. It’s your self-education, the kind of learning that helps you develop into the next evolution of yourself.
Sadly, many people will continue to go through life “in quiet desperation, with their songs left unsung.” They let others dictate their income, their happiness, and their fulfillment.
If you want world-class success, you must choose self-education over entertainment. It’s a choice too few makethen again, there are very few world-class individuals.

6. Invest So Much in Yourself, People Will Think You’re Crazy
“Every skill you acquire doubles the odds of your success.” -Scott Adams
You are your greatest asset.
The world’s most successful individuals invest heavily into themselves.
This is the reason why athletes like LeBron James reportedly spend $1.5 million dollars a year investing in his health and body. It seems the more successful an individual, the more they invest in themselves.
Self-investment begets success, which begets more means (money and influence) to reinvest.
If you want world-class success, you’ll need many tools, abilities, and competenciesmost of which you might not have yet. This mastery costs money and time.
Ordinary people often spend their money and time on “liabilities”purchases that can’t earn you more income.
Extraordinary, world-class individuals constantly spend their time and money on “assets”purchases that earn you substantial income over time.
If you want to be middle-class and average, spend your life buying liabilities.
But if you want to be rich and successful, spend your life buying assets.
7. Choose Freedom Over Security
The ultimate measure of success isn’t money;
It’s freedom.
World-class individuals are constantly working towards a life where they can:
Spend their time how they want
Spend their time with whom they want
Have the freedom to do what they want
The more freedom you createtime-freedom, energy-freedom, schedule-freedomthe more you’ll be able to evolve into a world-class individual.
Most people, when given the choice, choose “security” over freedom: a safe job, a safe financial plan, a safe life.
This isn’t badmany people are content with living an ordinary life, without much risk. But what most of these individuals don’t recognize is that this “security” is really a lie.
In fact, when you choose security over freedom, you’re actually living a very risky life. You’re putting your safety in the hands of your employer (who says they won’t fire you?), the economy (we all know how unstable that it), and other people (who don’t truly care about your security).
World-class individuals choose freedom over security. You can’t have both.
Said Louis Sachar, New York Times best-selling author:
“So, what’s it going to besafety, or freedom? You can’t have both.”
In Conclusion
“The key to becoming world-class in your endeavors is to build your performance around world-class routines.” -Darren Hardy
https://medium.com/the-mission/7-world-class-choices-you-need-to-make-that-will-get-you-world-class-success-cf7380c67979

DESKTOP SPECIAL .....This new PC can keep you immersed in work and play

This new PC can keep you immersed in work and play

With a distinct front grill accenting and RGB system lighting, the tower can perform demanding tasks

Lenovo’s desktops have undergone a rename and a revamp. The Legion T730 Tower (starts at $1,429) is the company’s fastest tower, sporting topof-the-line components like six- and eight-core Intel CPUs and the latest Nvidia graphics. The Legion T730 includes an edgy design with RGB lighting, easy expandability and automatic processor overclocking. The company also offers the tower with up to the Core i9-9900K eight-core processor and a GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card.

The framework
The Legion T-series towers have completely replaced the old IdeaCentre Y-series towers in Lenovo’s line-up. The Legion T730’s built-in carry handle is an eye-catcher. It’s like an umbrella: You don’t value it until you need it. The handle makes moving the Legion T730 a lot easier than most PCs this size. The 28-litre case design means the Legion T730 is slightly smaller than the average mid-tower.

Power dynamics
The Legion T730 has two LED strips mounted inside the case, one running along the top edge and the other down the front panel. The front panel is perforated for airflow. The connectivity along the top edge of the front panel includes two USB Type-A 3.0 ports, an audio combo jack, and a dedicated microphone jack. There are only two DIMM slots on the motherboard, limiting the Legion T730 to 32GB RAM in a two-16GB DIMM configuration.
The T730 comes with Intel Core i7-8700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics, with the new NVIDIA Turing architecture to give you better speed, power efficiency and 1080p performance. The basic setup isn’t suited to 4K content. For that, you can get the Legion T730 configured with a GeForce RTX 2080.

in.pcmag.com
ET14DEC18

CHROME SPECIAL... 27 Incredibly Useful Things You Didn’t Know Chrome Could Do

27 Incredibly Useful Things You Didn’t Know Chrome Could Do

Give your internet experience a jolt of fresh energy with these easily overlooked features, options, and shortcuts for Google’s browser.

These days, a browser is more than just a basic navigator for the web. It’s effectively a second desktop—a gateway to countless apps, sites, and services. And optimizing that environment can go a long way in increasing your efficiency.
Google’s Chrome in particular is full of hidden shortcuts, features, and power-user possibilities. Take the time to learn these tips, and watch your productivity soar.
(Note that most of the tips here are specific to the desktop versions of Chrome for Windows PCs and Macs and may not apply to the browser’s mobile variants.)

LEARN SOME HANDY HIDDEN SHORTCUTS
1. Want to open a link into a new tab in the background, so it won’t interrupt what you’re doing? Hold down Ctrl- or Cmd- and click it. To open a link in a whole new window, meanwhile, use Shift instead. (This’ll work within most areas of Chrome, by the way—including the History page and the dropdown history list within the Back button, which we’ll get to in a bit.)
2. You probably know you can press the space bar to scroll down a full page-length, but there’s another side to that shortcut: If you press Shift and the space bar together, Chrome will do the opposite and scroll up by a full page-length at a time.
3. If you ever close a tab by mistake, hit Ctrl- or Cmd-Shift-T. Chrome will reopen your most recently closed tab as if nothing had ever happened. (And you can do it multiple times, too, if there’s more than one tab you’d like to recover.)
4. When you have a bunch of tabs open and want to hang onto the entire session for later, hit Ctrl-Shift-D. That’ll let you save all your open tabs into a folder for easy future access. To restore them, right-click the folder within your bookmarks and select “Open all” or “Open all in new window.” Quickly save a session so you can get back to it later.
5. Skip a step and get info about any word or phrase in a page by highlighting it and then right-clicking and selecting the “Search Google” option. You can also highlight a word or phrase and drag it into Chrome’s address bar to achieve the same result—or drag it into the area directly to the right of your final tab to launch the search in a newtab instead of your current one. (Bonus tip: Those same dragging behaviors can also be used to open links.)
6. Save a link with a single click: Just click, hold down your mouse button, and drag the link up into Chrome’s bookmarks bar. Drop it wherever you want, and it’ll be there the next time you need it.
7. If you download a file and then want to move it somewhere specific, click on its tile in the download bar that appears at the bottom of the browser. You can then drag and drop whatever you downloaded directly onto your desktop or into any folder.
8. You can also drag and drop files from Chrome’s download bar directly into an online service—like Google Drive, for instant uploading, or Gmail, for inserting the file as an attachment in a new message.
9. Should you ever find Chrome mysteriously misbehaving, remember this command: chrome://restart. Type it into Chrome’s address bar, and your browser will restart itself and restore all your tabs and windowsin a jiffy. You never know when it might come in handy.

TEACH YOUR BROWSER SOME NEW TRICKS
10. With 60 seconds of setup, you can give Chrome its own quick-access scratchpad that’ll let you jot down thoughts right within the browser
11. Chrome’s custom search engine feature has tons of untapped productivity potential. First, you can use it to create simple shortcuts to pages you visit often—anything from favorite websites to internal Chrome pages or even the scratchpad described in the previous tip. Just open up Chrome’s settings, click the line labeled “Manage search engines,” then click the “Add” command next to the “Other search engines” heading. Type the name of the page in the “Search engine” field, the shortcut you want for it in the “Keyword” field, and the page’s full URL in the “URL” field.
For instance, if you want to be able to pull up Chrome’s settings simply by typing “cs” into your address bar, you could use “Chrome Settings” as the search engine name, “cs” as the keyword, and chrome://settings as the URL. To get to your new scratchpad quickly, you could use “Scratchpad” as the search engine name, “s” as the keyword, and the full string of code from above as the URL.
12. You can also use Chrome’s custom search engines feature to create shortcuts for searching any sites you want. The trick is to first find the full URL of the site’s own search system—so if you wanted to do it for Fast Company, you’d go to fastcompany.com, click the search icon in the upper-right corner of the screen, then search for a word like “test.” The site will take you to https://www.fastcompany.com/search/test.
With that knowledge in tow, head back to Chrome’s “Manage search engines” section and click the “Add” command. This time, type “Fast Company” in as the search engine name, “fastcompany.com” as the keyword, and “https://www.fastcompany.com/search/%s”—with “%s” taking the place of the actual query—as the URL.
Custom search engines take only a minute to set up and can save you ample time in the future.
The next time you start typing “fastcompany.com” into Chrome’s address bar, you’ll see instructions telling you to press Tab to search the site. Set up similar systems for shopping sites, Wikipedia, dictionaries and thesauruses, travel sites, or anything else you search semi-regularly, and you’ll save valuable time by skipping steps and jumping straight to the info you need.
13. Want to be able to search your email directly from Chrome’s address bar? Create a new custom search engine with the name Gmail, whatever keyword you want (either “gmail.com” or some shortened command), and “https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/#search/%s” as the URL.
14. Search Google Drive from the address bar by creating a custom search engine with “https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/search?q=%s” as the URL.
15. Speaking of Google Drive, if you move between multiple devices during the day (and at this point, who doesn’t?), make your life a little easier by telling Chrome to save anything you download to a cloud-based folder. That way, you’ll be able to find important files from your desktop, laptop, smartphone, or any other device—regardless of where the download was actually performed.
First, you’ll have to install the desktop syncing program for your cloud storage service of choice. Most services, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive, offer such utilities for all the common operating systems. Once you set up the program, you’ll have a folder on your local hard drive that’s always synced to a folder in your cloud storage.
Now, head into Chrome’s settings, click “Advanced,” and scroll down to the section labeled “Downloads.” Click the “Change” command and find or create an appropriate subfolder within your cloud-synced folder. Once you’ve followed those steps on any desktop computers you want connected, anything you download will be available everywhere you work—and always accessible via the cloud service’s mobile apps as well.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HIDDEN POWER TOOLS
16. Quiet annoying sites once and for all by right-clicking their tabs (where the title is displayed) and selecting “Mute site.” This recently added option will prevent the site from playing any audio on your computer anytime you visit it.
17. Prefer to avoid leaving a trail as you navigate the web? Open Chrome’s settings, click “Advanced,” and then turn on the toggle next to “Send a ‘Do Not Track’ request with your browsing traffic,” located within the “Privacy and security” section.
18. For additional privacy, take advantage of Chrome’s out-of-the-way option to create multiple user profiles and allow guest access to your browser. That’ll let someone else use Chrome on your computer without gaining access to all of your personal data (and without gunking up your history with whatever sites they visit). Look for the line labeled “Manage other people” in Chrome’s settings to get started.
19. Chrome’s History page—accessible by hitting Ctrl- or Cmd-H or by typing chrome://history into your address bar—has a powerful yet easily overlooked feature: an always-synced list of tabs you have open in Chrome on other devices. Surf over there anytime you want to find what you were last viewing on your phone, your tablet, or another computer.
20. The Back button in Chrome’s upper-left corner does more than you might think. Click it and hold your mouse’s button down, and you’ll get a pop-up history of recent pages viewed within your current tab.
Hidden within Chrome’s Back button is a tab-specific (and fully interactive) history list.
21. Chrome can strip all formatting from copied text as you paste it—eliminating links, fonts, colors, and anything else you might not want to carry over. Once you’ve copied some text, hit Ctrl- or Cmd-Shift-V to give it a whirl.
22. Trying to look at a website that’s down—or need to step back in time and see how a particular page looked a while ago? Type cache:website.com into Chrome’s address bar, replacing website.comwith whatever URL you want.
23. Let Chrome act as your file explorer: Drag and drop any image, video, or audio file into the browser to open it right then and there—and on Windows, try typing C:\ into Chrome’s address bar to browse your hard drive’s contents.

ENHANCE YOUR ENVIRONMENT AND ELIMINATE ANNOYANCES
24. Sick of getting those pop-ups asking if some site can send notifications through your browser? Turn off site notifications entirelyby opening Chrome’s settings, clicking “Advanced,” then clicking the line labeled “Content settings.” Next, find and click the line for “Notifications” and turn the toggle at the top of the page off.
25. The next time you come across a text form on a website, give yourself a little space to think: Look for the two diagonal lines in the box’s lower-right corner. Click that area and drag downward, and ta-da: You can resize the text box to make it as large as you’d like.
Dragging down on the diagonal lines in a form’s lower-right corner lets you expand the box so you can actually see everything you’ve typed.
26. Chrome extensions can be incredibly useful, but they can also create a lot of clutter in your browser’s upper-right corner. Hide the extension icons you don’t need to see by right-clicking them and selecting “Hide in Chrome menu” from the options that appear. You can also just hover your mouse over the far right side of the address bar until you see a double-sided arrow appear and then drag the address bar toward the right to extend it and hide multiple extension icons at once.
And if you ever need to get to an out-of-sight extension icon, just open the main Chrome menu (the three-dot icon to the right of the extensions). You’ll see all of the icons there.
27. While we’re talking about extensions, did you know you can create custom keyboard shortcuts for opening extensions on demand?Some extensions even allow you to create shortcuts for specific commands. Type chrome://extensions/shortcuts into your browser’s address bar to set up your own.

BY JR RAPHAEL
https://www.fastcompany.com/40557798/27-incredibly-useful-things-you-didnt-know-chrome-could-do?utm_source=postup&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Fast%20Company%20Daily&position=8&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=12152018