“Would you tell me which way I ought to go from here?” asked Alice.

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get,” said the Cat.

“I really don’t care where” replied Alice.

“Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

- Quote from the Alice in Wonderland Movie

My brother called me the other day and asked me for some advice?  He was trying to decide between two job offers:

Job 1 – The first job was your typical 40 hour a week “office” job.

Job 2 – The second job was more of a career in the insurance industry, where he would start at the bottom, and after many years and many long hours eventually rise to the top (if he was good).  The second job did not pay as well as the first job (initially), but the potential pay-off of the second job was much greater than the first job.

So which job should my brother take?  Well the answer is…it depends.

Just like the Cat was trying to tell Alice, which road you take depends a great deal on where you want to end up.

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Charisma can help you in many aspects of life.  It can help you win friends, be popular with the opposite sex, and even land that new exciting job.  There is almost nothing that charisma can’t help you achieve.  For some, it is very natural to be charismatic.  They just seem to have that ‘X-Factor’.  However it is comforting to know that charisma can also be developed.  Here are 4 top methods to help boost your charisma…

1. Have goals you are working towards

There are a lot more followers than leaders, so if you want to stand out then be a trailblazer.  There is nothing wrong with being a follower, but people are naturally drawn to leaders.  Set yourself goals to work to.  Have a sense of purpose and a vision – a big goal that you are working towards.  You may or may not succeed to meet your goal, or it might change over time, but if you always have one, people will naturally feel drawn to you as you present the possibility of an exciting future.

Don’t simply pretend to have a goal as people will quickly see through you and you will lose all credibility.  In any case it is far more satisfying to spend life attempting to meet realistic goals.

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photo credit: shoothead

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt

This quote embodies everything I know about willpower. It displays what we as people are capable of when we are pushed to the nth degree.

While this quote is indeed powerful, most of us still don’t understand how to increase our willpower. Whenever we perceive even a little step in the wrong direction, it becomes the end of world. Such thinking cannot yield good results. Remember that you have to always…

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Image courtesy of Krystal ‘Kito’ Cunningham

Yippee! It’s Monday. I am dying to get started with this exciting week.

Do you utter these words while making your way out of the bed on Monday mornings? Do you jump out of bed every morning in the state of excitement?

If your answer to this is “ Yes” then let me tell you that you are already living a life full of passion.

But if you are like most of us who are sleepwalking through life your answer to this would be “No! I would prefer to stay in the state of slumber. My dream world is far more alluring than my real world.”

We all go through life dealing with mundane matters. There are times when we feel that there is something missing in life, that there is something more to life. We might even try to dismiss this feeling of inner void by saying “ How  could I be so greedy? My life is just fine. I should stop asking for more and be happy with what I have.” With this notion deeply rooted in our mind, we consider ourselves to be happy. But deep down our heart we are still craving for a life that is more joyous and more exciting.

Whether we realize it or not, this kind of superficial living is self –destructive. We are sabotaging our growth and falling prey to our circumstances. Our life is meant to be colorful and enthralling and passion is what makes our life fulfilling in the true sense. Everyone is capable of pursuing their passion. All we need is a little effort towards creating our dream life.

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There was a guy who was building a pond in his back yard.  In the pond he was placing Japanese Koi fish.  He placed two of the Koi fish on the ground next to the pond; then he looked at them for a moment.  He thought, what dumb creatures, can’t walk, can’t talk, can’t fly, but when he put the fish in the water… swoosh …swoosh …swoosh …they began to swim exquisitely.

What’s the point…when you are where you are supposed to be… no one can compete with you…

You and I are like those Koi fish, we may not be good at everything, but there’s something that we can do better than anyone else.  That something is our unique purpose; we must discover that purpose, so that we can succeed.

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In times of strife or uncertainty, it is easy to beat yourself up – to think you’re not good enough. It is even easier to forget that despite all of our differences we are born with one very important thing is common: potential – and lots of it. What seems difficult, at times, is remembering this potential for greatness lies within us all. So I have compiled a short, easy to-do list with words of inspiration from great thinkers who have recognized their potential as a reminder and an inspiration, for those who have forgotten amidst the daily bump and grind, how to realize their power within:
#1. Reflect on your life.

The first step is committing to 20-30 minutes of quiet Reflection everyday. You don’t have to sit still, close your eyes, and meditate. But you do have to get away from all the distractions in your life such as the television, cell phones, email, radio, family, friends, coworkers, school mates, etc. They’re constantly clouding your thoughts and influencing your decisions.

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Hello PickTheBrain Readers!

I’d first like to thank our loyal community of readers and writers for the continued tremendous support! This month has been a record breaking month for PTB and it couldn’t have happened without you! Our Twitter followers have continued to rise, we have had an off-the-charts response from authors wishing to guest blog and be a part of our community, and we have recently launched our new FaceBook page (if you haven’t friended us, sign up now!)

Over the past month I have noticed a very interesting trend – we have received an overwhelming amount of emails and posted comments on the images we post with our blogs. Each image is carefully selected to represent the theme of our blogs and just as we like to give a chance to budding bloggers and writers to guest post, we also like to support young artistic talent in the areas of photography and digital art.

Due to the response these images have generated, PickTheBrain is now holding OPEN SUBMISSIONS for artists to submit their work to be considered for posting along with relevant new blogs. If you, or someone you know is trying to get their work seen, this is a great opportunity for exposure.

For the next month, please feel free to submit your photos/digital art for consideration, using the following guidelines:

Mail to: erin@pickthebrain.com
Subject Line: PTB Blog Art Submission Project
Include in email: Name of the piece, why you feel this piece is right for PTB, and an authorization for PTB to use the piece.

All photos must be wholly owned and submitted by the artist themselves (i.e. you may not submit on behalf of somebody else)

All images chosen will receive proper credit and artists will be notified by email should their images be chosen.

PickTheBrain has long been a source of quality, creative written material and we are very excited to be able to extend an opportunity to visual and graphic artists!

Thanks again for all the support…now go get creative!!

Erin,

Editorial Director, PickTheBrain

As a graduating engineer myself, I have often found myself hard pressed to solve a particular problem. Everyone experiences these kinds of situations more or less frequently, and even though every single mind has its methods and nuances in how it approaches problem solving in general, there are common pitfalls that everyone seems to fall into. I would theorize this phenomena is related to the structure of thought itself – our highly pattern-based thinking is optimized by evolution to solve certain problems, which comes at a cost. Exploring the biological and physical origins of these phenomena, while certainly interesting, will not be pursued in this short essay, both due to my lack of qualifications on those subjects and the goal of the writing of the essay. What I do intend is to provide insight into some the top three common pitfalls, so you may recognize them when you inevitably run into them. If the short time it takes to read this essay spares someone an afternoon of head-banging, then it will already have been worth it.

As the astute reader will notice throughout the essay, most (but not all) of these pitfalls are related to thinking habits and employment of otherwise good thinking strategies to the wrong problems. At every pitfall I will try to provide an illustrative example, and I’m sure more than a few readers will remember themselves in past experiences where they, too, walked in circles in a frustrating battle against a seemingly unsolvable problem of the same nature. I would also like to point out that in most cases an equilibrium must be found, as for every pitfall there is also the opposite equivalent. Having that said, I’ll begin by exposing a well known thinking flaw.

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In many situations in life – especially within a company or within a family – co-operation is a much more powerful principle than competition.

We all have a competitive instinct or drive, though, and many games make the most of this to ramp up the level of fun, excitement and involvement. (Sports, multi-player computer games, and board games all have “winners” and “losers”.)

As well as enjoying being competitive in game and play situations, we can use our natural competitive bent to give ourselves an edge when we’re trying to make gains in our personal life.

I’m going to give just three examples, but I’m sure you can come up with more areas of your life to apply this to (let’s hear them in the comments!)

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Do you always think the best of people – or do you think the worst? It’s so easy to make assumptions and to find ourselves falling into a judgmental or critical frame of mind – both about people we know well (like family members) and about complete strangers.

So why worry about changing your thoughts? So long as you don’t go around being verbally or physically abusive towards others, what does it matter what you think of them?

The danger of letting yourself think angrily or negatively about others is that the thoughts tend to rebound on you: your internal voice will start to be more self-critical. Plus, your relationships will suffer; perhaps you won’t make contact with a potential new friend, just because you had a bad first impression, or you might find yourself unable to patch up a tricky relationship with a colleague.

To top it all off, you’re likely to feel a lot more stressed and unhappy if you believe that others are deliberately out to irritate you or to cause you grief.

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