The ability to recognize deception is an essential skill for business dealings and personal relationships. If you can’t spot a liar, you’ll be easily fooled into taking bad deals — costing you money and credibility.Yahoo! Finance has an interesting article that explains 7 social cues you can use to recognize liars. The article is targeted towards entrepreneurs, but the information could be applied anywhere.One tip recommends looking for incongruent communication:

When our words and our body language don’t agree, our communication is incongruent. Imagine that you ask a salesman if he can assure your delivery will be on time. If he explains how certain he is about it being on time while also shaking his head–as if non-verbally saying “no”–he is incongruent. When this sort of incongruence occurs, you would do well to believe the person’s body over his words.

How else do you know when someone is lying to you?Are They Lying to You? [Yahoo! Finance]

If you’re anything like me then you experience motivation in waves. One day you’ll feel unstoppable and eager to work, as if success is a certainty. A few days later your confidence will drop and you’ll start to drag your feet and feel discouraged, hopeless, or worse — indifferent.

These ups and downs are a natural part of life, but if you don’t work to minimize the downs you’ll reach a plateau. If every positive step is followed by a down slide, the net gain is minimal. The key to reaching your highest potential is stringing together positive steps and constantly accelerating forward. Click here to continue »

It’s been approximately 16 months since I entered the working world and assumed responsibility for my personal finances. In that time, the number of accounts and expenses I need to track has grown to the point where I’m desperately in need of a tool to manage it all.

There are so many options that it’s hard to distinguish one from the next, so I turn to the PickTheBrain community: what tool do you use to manage your personal finances?

Here is the main criteria:

• Simple: Tons of features aren’t a must, but speed and usability are.
• Cost Effective: Cheap is the best price, but I’d spend a moderate amount for the right package.
• Accessible: Ideally there would be a solution that can be accessed from multiple computers (PC and Mac).
• Comprehensive: Capable of handling a wide range of expenses, income streams, and bank/investment accounts.

After that I’m open to anything. I really appreciate your responses and hopefully we’ll be able to create a comprehensive list of best tools available.

There’s a big myth in our culture: that passion can only be spontaneous. You either love your job or you don’t. You either enjoy exercising or hate it. You are interested in reading books or you find them boring. That passion can’t be forced or created.

I disagree. Passion can be created. Even for things you don’t currently enjoy.

By tweaking the activities and pursuits you engage in, you can find a passion for anything. All it takes is a bit of patience and an open mind.

The benefit is that you end up loving the things you have to do anyways. Exercising, learning, studying, working and almost any pursuit can be made into a passion. And if you know how to do it, existing passions can be turned from mildly interesting to exciting. The skill of finding your passion is like turning up the dial for the amount of color you experience in life. Click here to continue »