The Reciprocity Rule compels us to repay what others provide. This deeply ingrained principle:<ul><li>Creates a sense of obligation that feels uncomfortable until discharged</li><li>Works with even unwanted or minor favors</li><li>Often triggers larger returns than the original gift</li><li>Applies universally across cultures</li></ul>This principle explains why free samples, corporate gifts, and political favors work so effectively. The initial gift creates psychological discomfort that we seek to alleviate through compliance with subsequent requests. Even when we recognize the tactic, the obligation remains powerful.

Reciprocity

Commitment and Consistency drive us to align our actions with our established commitments and self-image. This powerful tendency:
<ul>
<li>Makes us justify earlier decisions by taking further consistent actions</li>
<li>Works best with active, public, voluntary commitments</li>
<li>Grows stronger when we take ownership of our choices</li>
<li>Operates largely below conscious awareness</li>
</ul>
The desire for consistency is rooted in both social approval and cognitive efficiency. Once we take a stand, we feel internal and external pressure to behave consistently with that position. Compliance professionals leverage this by starting with small requests that establish the desired self-perception before making larger requests.

Commitment and Consistency

A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.

Social Proof operates on the principle that we determine what's correct by finding out what other people think is correct. This mental shortcut:<ul><li>Becomes more powerful in situations of uncertainty or ambiguity</li><li>Works most effectively with people we perceive as similar to ourselves</li><li>Operates even when the proof is deliberately manufactured</li><li>Functions largely without conscious awareness</li></ul>This explains why laugh tracks, testimonials, and bestseller labels substantially influence behavior. We instinctively look to others' actions as evidence of right action, particularly when situations are unclear. The more people appear to endorse something, the more valid it seems.

Social Proof

The Liking Rule demonstrates that we prefer to comply with requests from people we like. Compliance professionals leverage several factors that reliably increase liking:
<ul>
<li>Physical attractiveness (creates a halo effect)</li>
<li>Similarity (we like people who are like us)</li>
<li>Compliments (we like people who like us)</li>
<li>Contact and cooperation (familiarity through positive interactions)</li>
<li>Association (linking to things we already like)</li>
</ul>
These factors explain why attractive people earn more, why salespeople emphasize similarities with customers, and why brands use celebrities and attractive models. The positive feelings toward the liked person transfer to their requests and associated products.

Liking

Authority triggers automatic compliance even when the authority figure's directives are questionable. This powerful influence occurs because:<ul><li>Authority figures represent wisdom, power, and knowledge in their domains</li><li>Society trains us from childhood to obey legitimate authorities</li><li>Symbols of authority (titles, uniforms, trappings) trigger compliance even without actual authority</li><li>The response occurs rapidly and often without conscious consideration</li></ul>Experiments show people will administer apparently lethal shocks, perform clearly incorrect medical procedures, and make harmful decisions when directed by perceived authorities. We respond not just to actual authority but to its symbols—explaining why actors in lab coats sell more products.

Authority

Often we don't realize that our attitude toward something has been influenced by the number of times we have been exposed to it in the past.

The Scarcity Principle states that opportunities appear more valuable when they seem limited in availability. This powerful motivator works because:<ul><li>Limited availability suggests higher value</li><li>We hate losing freedoms and options we already have (psychological reactance)</li><li>The threat of potential loss creates more motivation than potential gain</li><li>Competition for scarce resources heightens their perceived value</li></ul>This psychological trigger explains why limited time offers, exclusive access, and while supplies last messaging significantly drives sales. The effect strengthens when items become suddenly scarce rather than being scarce already, and when we believe we're competing with others.

Scarcity

The Contrast Principle affects how we perceive differences between items presented sequentially. This perceptual phenomenon:<ul><li>Makes the second item seem more different from the first than it actually is</li><li>Works with weight, price, attractiveness, and other attributes</li><li>Operates below conscious awareness, affecting judgment without recognition</li><li>Can be deliberately employed to manipulate perception</li></ul>This explains why retailers place expensive items first, why salespeople show the priciest options initially, and why additional add-ons seem negligible after a large purchase. Our perceptual systems naturally evaluate relative differences rather than absolute values, making contrast a powerful tool for influencing decisions.

Contrast Principle

Fixed-Action Patterns are automatic behavioral sequences triggered by specific features in the environment. These preprogrammed responses:<ul><li>Execute automatically once triggered by the correct stimulus</li><li>Run to completion without conscious direction</li><li>Respond to specific trigger features rather than complete information</li><li>Create vulnerability to counterfeit triggers that contain only the key feature</li></ul>Humans have similar automatic responses—psychological shortcuts that typically serve us well but can be exploited. All six influence principles work because they activate fixed responses that bypass careful consideration. In a complex world, these shortcuts are necessary but create predictable vulnerabilities.

Fixed-Action Patterns

The truly gifted negotiator, then, is one whose initial position is exaggerated enough to allow for a series of concessions that will yield a desirable final offer from the opponent, yet is not so outlandish as to be seen as illegitimate from the start.

Defending against unwanted influence starts with awareness of which triggers are being used. The most effective defense strategy includes:
<ul>
<li>Recognize the influence technique being employed</li>
<li>Feel the emotional response as a signal, not a command</li>
<li>Mentally redefine the situation from normal social exchange to influence attempt</li>
<li>Ask: Is this how I want to be influenced in making this decision?</li>
<li>Evaluate the merits separated from the influence tactic</li>
</ul>
This approach doesn't reject all influence—these principles often signal genuinely good choices. Rather, it distinguishes between appropriate influence and manipulation, allowing reasoned rather than automatic responses to persuasion attempts.

Defense Against Influence

Ever wonder why you bought something you didn't really need? This eye-opening classic reveals the psychological triggers that marketers, salespeople, and compliance professionals use to get us saying "yes." Based on decades of research, it's not about manipulating others—it's about recognizing when you're being manipulated! These six universal principles work like automatic switches in our brains. Once you spot them, you'll see them everywhere and finally understand why that car salesman or charity caller is so hard to resist.

The foundational and wildly popular go-to resource for influence and persuasion—a renowned international bestseller, with over 5 million copies sold—now revised adding: new research, new insights, new examples, and online applications.In the new edition of this highly acclaimed bestseller, Robert Cialdini—New York Times bestselling author of Pre-Suasion and the seminal expert in the fields of influence and persuasion—explains the psychology of why people say yes and how to apply these insights ethically in business and everyday settings. Using memorable stories and relatable examples, Cialdini makes this crucially important subject surprisingly easy. With Cialdini as a guide, you don’t have to be a scientist to learn how to use this science. You’ll learn Cialdini’s Universal Principles of Influence, including new research and new uses so you can become an even more skilled persuader—and just as importantly, you’ll learn how to defend yourself against unethical influence attempts. You may think you know these principles, but without understanding their intricacies, you may be ceding their power to someone else. Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion: <ul><li>Reciprocation</li><li>Commitment and Consistency</li><li>Social Proof </li><li>Liking </li><li>Authority</li><li>Scarcity</li><li>Unity, the newest principle for this edition</li></ul>Understanding and applying the principles ethically is cost-free and deceptively easy. Backed by Dr. Cialdini’s 35 years of evidence-based, peer-reviewed scientific research—including a three-year field study on what leads people to change—Influence is a comprehensive guide to using these principles to move others in your direction.

Robert B. Cialdini, PhD is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Robert B. Cialdini, PhD has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Robert B. Cialdini, PhD's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

Robert B. Cialdini, PhD

Influence

Technologies like AI, robotics, synthetic biology, and nanotech are accelerating exponentially, becoming massively more powerful and accessible over shorter timeframes.Harnessing these tools properly has the potential to overcome resource scarcity and profoundly address global challenges through abundance thinking.

The Power of Exponential Technologies

Many of the new tech billionaires are passionately turning their wealth towards positively impacting the world.Bill Gates, Jeff Skoll, Elon Musk and others aim to strategically leverage technology to help solve humanity's grand challenges on a global scale.Their bold visions and moonshot thinking are accelerating change.

The Rise of Tech Philanthropy 

Bringing the poorest 4 billion people in the world into the global economy will expand markets while unlocking massive human potential.Mobile technologies, wireless infrastructure, and breakthroughs in health, education, and finance are collectively empowering and transforming the bottom billion.

Building on the Bottom Billion 

Innovators and entrepreneurs now have access to do-it-yourself tools for manipulating biology, manufacturing products, building robots, and more.This democratization of innovation empowers everyday individuals to create solutions and build micro-enterprises.Tech-empowered people can drive large-scale change.

The DIY Innovator

As the next billion people come online primarily through mobile, new opportunities emerge for crowdsourcing solutions, funding startups, leveraging collective intelligence, and spreading ideas.Connecting humanity en masse will fuel accelerated innovation, entrepreneurship, and social change.

Crowdaccelerating Innovation

The pace of innovation and testing is accelerating towards real-time speed, as technologies rapidly build on each other and ideas spread globally and instantly.Real-time feedback loops drive faster development and testing for everything from products to policies and ideas.

Real-Time Innovation Cycles

The forces driving abundance are the accelerating rate of technological progress, the power of capitalism and markets, bold entrepreneurs and companies, and visionary individuals striving for bold goals.Together these forces can exponentially elevate global standards of living while addressing humanity's grand challenges.

Forces Driving Abundance

Scarcity thinking focuses on zero-sum competition and short-term goals, while abundance focuses on mutual gains and long-term solutions.Spreading abundance mindsets unlocks more collaborative, innovative, and optimistic thinking to solve global problems.

Expanding Abundance Mindsets

There are a lot of problems in the world, and it's hard to get people to change, but the right technological innovations can make a big difference.

Abundance shows practical solutions to humanity’s most significant concerns such as lack of quality food, water, education, healthcare, and freedom. The author shows us how exponential technologies can help us improve our quality of life to achieve abundance.Abundance is not about providing everyone on this planet with a life of luxury—rather it's about providing all with a life of possibility. 

The New York Times bestselling “manifesto for the future that is grounded in practical solutions addressing the world’s most pressing concerns: overpopulation, food, water, energy, education, health care and freedom” (The Wall Street Journal). Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing—and fast. In Abundance, space entrepreneur turned innovation pioneer Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler document how progress in artificial intelligence, robotics, digital manufacturing synthetic biology, and other exponentially growing technologies will enable us to make greater gains in the next two decades than we have in the previous 200 years. We will soon have the ability to meet and exceed the basic needs of every person on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp. Breaking down human needs by category—water, food, energy, healthcare, education, freedom—Diamandis and Kotler introduce us to innovators and industry captains making tremendous strides in each area. “Not only is Abundance a riveting page-turner…but it’s a book that gives us a future worth fighting for” (The Christian Science Monitor).

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

creativity

Creativity

books

Books

Peter H. Diamandis is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Peter H. Diamandis has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Peter H. Diamandis's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

Peter H. Diamandis

Steven Kotler

Abundance

Quitting social media isn't easy because as long as you are connected to the internet, the internet will find a way to ensnare you in some form or another.Okay, there are 30,000 hours of newly uploaded content per hour on YouTube. That’s almost 3½ years worth of video added to the bottomless internet pit every hour. This literally means that you will never, ever, catch up with how much content there is out there. And that’s just YouTube alone.

Can't Let Go Of Social Media

The trick here is not to squeeze in more in the hours of the day (it’s not possible anyway), but to work with “what I want”.We can’t change the number of hours in the day, nobody can. The only thing we can change is how much time we sleep, and other things we do on a daily basis. So we need to really ask ourselves, are we willing to give up sleep, work, and connecting with people, to consume that much more content to catch up with all this stuff that is put out into the world? Probably not. So the only thing that we can change is choosing what we want to consume.

Making Peace with Infinity

The first step is to acknowledge that you can never finish watching every video, TV show, or movie you want in the world. You can never finish reading every book you want. You can never finish scrolling through every page on Reddit. There’s just too much and you have to accept that there are just some things in this world that you are going to miss out on.And that’s okay.

Step 1: Give up Wanting It All

The second step is to have priorities to what you consume. This is to be conscious of what you really want to consume, and not just because it’s there. It’s very tempting to let the YouTube recommended videos or autoplay decide for you what to watch next. But if what’s there is not the priority of what you want to consume, don’t do it.

Step 2: Discern the Priorities

<ul><li>The pages of Instagram and Facebook are an endless scroll, they are always there, and there is always more.</li><li>You have to set self-imposed content and time limits. Decide that you will watch just one episode, or will scroll for only 10 minutes.</li><li>Even if you exceed these guidelines occasionally, it is good to have them.</li></ul>

Step 3: Setting up limits

We can’t expect ourselves to be able to resist triggers if we don’t train our nervous system to handle these triggers.These triggers could just be as simple as the tempting infinite scroll, or the eye-catching thumbnail of a YouTube video. The ones that trigger your dopamine response to want to consume and satisfy the curiosity that has been planted in you.Meditation at the start of your day can help inject some calm throughout your day and make you less jittery.

Step 4: Training Your Nervous System

Like it or not, “content” is here to stay. As long as we progress technologically in this information age, where content is king, we have to live with it. Even this stash, it's content.So our duty to ourselves is to find the content that energizes us, content that we choose to consume, so we don’t fall into the infinity of the internet. We have to make peace with how we will never experience all that is out there, and that’s okay.

Content Is Here To Stay

You will always miss out on social media. Relax.

Over the course of the months, I have been anxious, distracted, and cluttered with a megaton of brainfog. You know, the feeling where you feel like you are moving through life with a thick veil that…

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

DEPENDING ON WHEN you were born, there’s a good chance you’ve spent either several decades online or have never known an offline world. Whatever the case, the internet and its advertising giants know a huge amount about your life.Amazon, Facebook, and Google all have reams of data about you—including your likes and dislikes, health information and social connections—but they’re not the only ones. Countless murky data brokers that you’ve never heard of collect huge quantities of information about you and sell it on.

Your Identity On The Internet

At this stage it’s going to be very difficult to completely delete yourself from the internet, but there are some steps you can take to remove a lot of it. Removing personal information and deleting accounts is a fiddly process, so it’s better to break it down into a few smaller steps and tackle them over time.

Deleting Yourself From The Web

Collecting and selling your data is big business. In 2019 the US state of Vermont passed a law requiring all companies buying and selling third-party personal information to register: In response, more than <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90310803/here-are-the-data-brokers-quietly-buying-and-selling-your-personal-information">120 firms logged their details</a>. They included companies building search tools to look up individuals, firms handling location data, and those specializing in your health data. These companies collect everything from your name, address, and date of birth to your social security number, buying habits, and where you went to school and for how long.

Data Brokers

Among the biggest data brokers are Acxiom, Equifax, Experian, Oracle, and Epsilon. Some, but not all, data brokers let people opt out of having their personal information processed—this also depends on where you are in the world. You’ll often have to contact them via email, fill in online forms, and provide extra identification information.Privacy-focused group <a href="https://yourdigitalrights.org/data-brokers">YourDigitalRights has created opt-out forms</a> for 10 of the biggest data brokers to speed up the process of getting your information deleted. It’s probably best to start opting out of the biggest companies first.

Getting Rid Of Data Brokers

You can’t change the way that Google displays its search results, but there are some limited steps you can take to make sure that what’s displayed is up to date and to remove harmful details, such as doxing attempts. If a web page has been updated by its owner but it isn’t reflected in Google’s search results, you can use its tool to remove outdated content. Google will <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7041154">update its search results</a> for pages that no longer exist or are significantly different to the versions it has indexed previously.

Get Google Search Results Updated

Right to be Forgotten is a principle that was established in European courts in 2014 and was incorporated into GDPR in 2018. This allows certain specific information to be removed from search results, <a href="https://support.google.com/legal/answer/10769224?hl=en">including Google</a>, when relevant criteria are met. Generally, if information about you is in the <a href="https://www.farrer.co.uk/news-and-insights/removing-your-information-from-google-search-results-what-is-the-right-to-be-forgotten/">public interest</a> then it will be very difficult to get it removed from search results.

The Right To Be Forgotten

if you really want to minimize your online presence then you need to track down those old Myspace and Tumblr accounts and remove all traces of them. You need a desktop—and a good chunk of time.Start by making a list of all the old accounts you remember using—email addresses and usernames you’ve used can be helpful—and then work through them one by one. For each, you’ll need to sign in or recover the account and navigate through the deletion process.Justdelete.me has a list of links that point to the deletion pages of everything from Gumtree to Vimeo.

Delete Old Online Accounts

You should also search for your name online and combine it with some other pieces of personal data—for instance your email address or where you live—to see what comes up. If you’re diving deep into your online history and attempting to remove old posts on forums or similar services you may have to email web administrators. If the contact details aren’t clear, as might be the case with really old pages, one starting point is to check the web registration details through a <a href="https://who.is/">WHOIS lookup</a>.

Google Your Name

Even if you’re not deleting your online accounts you can still clean up what data you store online. It’s likely your email account contains thousands of old messages (and attachments) dating back years; your Facebook and Twitter accounts might still have posts on them that you’d rather didn’t resurface publicly.

Clean Up Your Digital History

If you’re using Gmail you can bulk-delete old messages by using the search command “older_than:” and adding a time period (1y or 6m, for instance), and then selecting all messages and deleting them.

Those Gmail Messages

Publicly posted data—either photos or text—is obviously far more likely to be found by others. If you’re considering taking the plunge and deleting your current profiles or existing posts, consider downloading and backing up your posts first. Almost all major social media platforms have backup options in their settings.

Those Public Facebook Posts

Twitter doesn’t have any tools to easily delete all your old tweets in bulk, but third-party services do. Both <a href="https://tweetdeleter.com/">Tweet Deleter</a> and <a href="https://tweetdelete.net/">TweetDelete</a> will get rid of your old tweets. If you’re deleting in bulk, both services can be a little glitchy when handling years of data. Forking out TweetDeleter’s monthly $5.99 cost—you can cancel after one month—may be worth it to delete an unlimited number of tweets at once. Keep in mind that by allowing any third-party service access to your online accounts, they may be able to access information stored within them, such as your direct messages.

Those Tweets You Don't Want People To See

In Facebook head to Settings & privacy, Activity log and select the type of activity you want to delete—ranging from posts to photos you’re tagged in. The tool isn’t the most streamlined if you want to delete years of Facebook usage, but as with all efforts to wipe yourself from the internet, you’ll get better results if you spend more time doing it. Alternatively, you can just <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-delete-your-facebook-account/">delete your Facebook account entirely</a>.

Deleting Facebook

A lot of the ways to remove yourself from the web are time-consuming and involve a lot of paperwork. There may be some instances where you may want to try to speed things up a little or use legal muscle. It may be sensible to seek legal advice and help remove your data from the web if it involves defamatory statements, explicit photographs, and other harmful content.<a href="https://joindeleteme.com/">DeleteMe</a> will try to remove your data from data brokers selling your information, for example. And <a href="https://www.withjumbo.com/">Jumbo</a> can alert you to data breaches and automatically delete new social media posts after a certain number of days.

Getting Serious About Erasing Yourself From The Web

It’s pretty much impossible to keep your data off the internet entirely, but there are some steps you can take going forward. First, consider how much information you want to proactively put online. When you’re signing up for new online accounts, consider whether you need to enter your personal details or whether it would be better to use a <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/avoid-spam-disposable-email-burner-phone-number/">burner account to mask your identity</a>.

Future Protections

Where possible avoid using Big Tech for all your online activities. Pick a <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/privacy-browsers-duckduckgo-ghostery-brave/">web browser</a> and <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/best-google-search-engine-alternative-privacy">search engine</a> that don’t collect your data; use end-to-end-encrypted apps and <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whatsapp-signal-disappearing-messages">disappearing messages</a> when appropriate; and understand what data WhatsApp, Instagram, Google, <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/amazon-history-data">Amazon</a>, Spotify and others collect about you.

Don't Use Big Tech

You’ll never be able to get a clean slate—but you can significantly downsize your digital footprint.

parenting

Parenting

computerscience

Computer Science

6 Ways to Delete Yourself From the Internet

Being inauthentic by hiding underlying authentic emotions may be done with a prosocial motivation to benefit others, with a realization that true authenticity may not be appropriate for the context.
<ul>
<li>If you are communicating authentically, try to use the richest communication medium available.</li>
<li>If you are communicating inauthentically, utilize telephone or audio communication in order to appear most authentic.</li>
<li>If you have to use email to relay emotions that you want to be perceived as authentic, find a way to make it clear that you didn’t make the choice on purpose.</li>
</ul>

The Way We Communicate Matters

While being perceived as authentic is ideal, actually always behaving authentically can lead to disaster. Imagine a manager who, while laying off an employee, expresses underlying happiness because her soon-to-be spouse just accepted her marriage proposal that morning. Or an executive sending out a message about a new company diversity initiative, but doing so in a dour tone because his child just dropped out of college.

Being Perceived As Authentic

Regardless of their motives, it is first important to acknowledge that despite someone’s best efforts, true underlying emotions often do leak through, resulting in emotional mismatches that may make them appear inauthentic.

When Mismatched Emotions Make Authenticity Challenging

It may be difficult to display the needed emotion due to challenges or conflicting factors directly related to the situation.
For instance, even when required by a job, it can be nearly impossible to engage in authentic “service with a smile” if a customer is yelling at you, or be emotionally supportive of a subordinate whose recent poor performance created more work for you.

Situational Conflicts

Even if there are no emotionally-relevant challenges to the situation itself, emotions often spill over from one moment to the next. A strong emotion from a prior interaction doesn’t automatically dissipate as soon as that interaction is done.
As a result, emotions may linger to contexts where they are no longer appropriate. For instance, a manager might want to communicate excitement about an upcoming business opportunity but may feel stressed for an unrelated reason.

Spillover Effects

Given that many workplace interactions now occur at a distance, there is often a choice of which mode of communication to utilize, from email to face-to-face and video conferencing. If it’s possible that some modes of communication can result in misinterpretations or masking of emotions, could they be used strategically to make inauthentic emotions seem more authentic? In other words, which communication medium is best for being perceived as communicating emotionally authentically, even when the communication itself may be inauthentic?

How to Choose a Communication Method to Maximize Authenticity

Even when an individual’s emotion is truly authentic, there are now technology-driven communication barriers that may prevent that emotion from being perceived as authentic. Especially given recent pandemic-related workspace changes, many work interactions now occur at a distance. 
Yet, significant research shows that virtual communication can undermine effectively communicating emotion.

Errors In Communication Channels

When emotion is authentic, it is best to use the richest communication medium available, such as face-to-face or video communication. However, when needing to relay inauthentic communication, there was a surprising difference. Email communication was not the best choice — but neither was face-to-face communication. It turned out that over the course of many interactions, “medium richness” communication, such as telephone or audio, is most likely to make inauthentically communicated emotion seem the most authentic.

How To Communicate Authenticity, and How Not To

The medium can be as important as the message.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

communication

Communication

Communicating Authentically in a Virtual World

Elizabeth Gilbert teaches how to be creative despite fears and uncertainty and where innovative ideas actually come from.An absolute must-read for anyone who is holding themselves back from pursuing her dreams and hesitating to take the next big leap in life.“Creative entitlement simply means believing that you are allowed to be here, and that — merely by being here — you are allowed to have a voice and a vision of your own.”

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

The book is not only packed with inspiration that will empower you to go out and live your best life, but it also includes actionable tasks and ideas on how to find your passion, or element, as Robinson calls it.The ideal read for anyone who is still on the path of finding his passion and calling in life.<blockquote>“If you’re doing something that you love, by the end of the day you may be physically tired but spiritually energized.”</blockquote>

Finding Your Element by Ken Robinson

This is a fantastic piece that will convince you to speed up your decision-making process, no matter how important the decision seems to be.Gladwell describes how most of our decisions are based on our gut feeling and what happens when we listen to our intuition instead of over-thinking and creating endless pro-contra lists.“If we are to learn to improve the quality of the decisions we make, we need to accept the mysterious nature of our snap judgments.”

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

21 Lessons For The 21st Century summarizes today’s highlights in terms of politics, culture, and economics in a way everybody can relate and still make up their own opinion.<blockquote>“In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power.”</blockquote>

21 Lessons For The 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

This book is the ultimate must-read for anyone who wants to level up her performance and life in general.“Be more intentional about who you want to become. Have vision beyond your current circumstances. Imagine your best future self, and start acting like that person today.”

High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard

It’s basically a look into all the lessons Oprah learned throughout the past decades.She openly shares all the struggles she faced and the lessons learned on her path to becoming one of the most influential people of today’s wold.<blockquote>“What I know for sure is that every day brings a chance for you to draw in a breath, kick off your shoes, and step out and dance — to live free of regret and filled with as much joy, fun, and laughter as you can stand.”</blockquote>

What I Know For Sure by Oprah

This one is a fantastic step-by-step guide on how to create a happier, more joyful life without much effort.Rubin describes her own happiness project, which she practiced for 12 months and openly shares which strategies best worked for her and how you can apply them as well.“The belief that unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish is misguided. It’s more selfless to act happy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly lighthearted, yet everyone takes the happy person for granted.”

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

Jen Sincero talks about topics like the law of attraction and <a href="https://medium.com/publishous/how-i-manifested-my-first-5-000-month-on-medium-88966064b346">manifestation</a> in a way everybody can understand and apply the lessons.An absolute recommendation for anyone who wants to make the universal laws work for them and finally attract all their biggest desires.<blockquote>“You’ve gotten to where you are right now by doing whatever it is you’re doing, so if you’re less than impressed with your current situation, you clearly need to change things up.”</blockquote>

You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero

The 4-Hour Workweek is a bible for personal growth and business.Ferriss teaches so many strategies on how to live better and build lasting, automated businesses. This sounds like too much to cover in a single book, but he truly delivers the value. <blockquote>“Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness. This is hard for most to accept, because our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity.”</blockquote>

The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

Best books to read in 2020: Must-read books about personal development, creativity, business, and how to succeed in life. Books to read for a better life.

productivity

Productivity

If You Only Read A Few Books This Year, Read These

<ul><li>Logaster : Professional online logo maker & generator.   </li><li>HTML5 UP: Responsive HTML5 and CSS3 site templates.  </li><li>Bootswatch: Free themes for Bootstrap.  </li><li>Templated: A collection of 845 free CSS & HTML5 site templates.  </li><li>Wordpress.org | Wordpress.com : Create your new website for free.  </li><li>Strikingly: Free, unlimited mobile-optimized websites for strikingly domains.  </li><li>Withoomph : Beautiful logos designed instantly.  </li><li>Hipster Logo Generator: It’s Hip, It’s Current, It’s Stylish, It’s Hipster.  </li><li>Squarespace Free Logo: Free logos</li></ul>

Free Website and Hosting

<ul><li>Freebbble : High-quality design freebies from Dribbble.  </li><li>Dribbble: Dribbble search results for “freebie”. An absolute freebie treasure.  </li><li>Graphic Burger: Tasty design resources made with care for each pixel.  </li><li>Pixel Buddha: Free and premium resources for professional community.  </li><li>Premium Pixels: Free Stuff for Creative Folk.  </li><li>Fribbble: Free PSD resources by Dribbblers curated by Gilbert Pellegrom.  </li><li>Freebiesbug: Latest free PSDs & other resources for designers.  </li><li>365 Psd: Download a free psd every day.  </li><li>Dbf: Dribbble & Behance best design freebies.  </li></ul>

Free Design Resources

<ul><li>Noisli : Background noise & color generator.  </li><li>Noizio: Ambient sound equalizer for relax or productivity.  </li><li>Defonic: Combine the sounds of the world into a melody.  </li><li>Designers.mx: Curated playlists by designers, for designers.  </li><li>Coffitivity: Stream the sounds of a coffee shop at work.  </li></ul>

Background Sounds

<ul><li>Product Hunt: Curation of the best new products, every day.  </li><li>Angellist: Where the world meets startups.  </li><li>Beta List: Discover and get early access to tomorrow’s startups.  </li><li>StartupLi.st: Find. Follow. Recommend startups.  </li><li>Startups List: Collections of the best startups in different places.  </li><li>Erli Bird: Where great new products are born.  </li></ul>

Discover Tools and Apps


<ul><li><a href="http://thenameapp.com/">The Name App</a>: Find an available name for your brilliant idea.</li><li><a href="http://www.naminum.com/">Naminum:</a> Discover a perfect company name.</li><li><a href="http://shortdomainsearch.com/">Short Domain Search:</a> Find short, available single-word domain names.</li><li><a href="http://wordoid.com/">Wordoid:</a> Pick a short and catchy name for your business.</li><li><a href="http://www.hipsterbusiness.name/">Hipster Business Name:</a> Hipster business name generator.</li><li><a href="http://impossibility.org/">Impossibility</a>: The best domain name generator ever.</li><li><a href="http://www.leandomainsearch.com/">Lean Domain Search</a>: Find a domain name for your website in seconds.</li><li><a href="https://domainr.com/">Domainr:</a> Fast, free, domain name search, short URLs.</li></ul>

Free Business Name Generators

<ul><li><a href="http://www.hemingwayapp.com/">Hemingway:</a> Hemingway App makes your writing bold and clear.</li><li><a href="https://free.grammarly.com/">Grammarly:</a> Finds & corrects mistakes of your writing.</li><li><a href="https://medium.com/">Medium:</a> Everyone’s stories and ideas.</li><li><a href="http://www.zenpen.io/">ZenPen:</a> The minimal writing tool of web.</li><li><a href="http://liber.io/">Liberio:</a> Simple eBook creation and publishing right from Google Drive.</li><li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/editorial-calendar/">Editorial Calendar:</a> See all your posts, drag & drop to manage your blog.</li><li><a href="https://www.storywars.net/">Story Wars:</a> Writing stories together.</li><li><a href="http://www.aminstitute.com/headline/">Headline Analyzer:</a> Emotional marketing value headline analyzer.</li><li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-hide-post/">WP Hide Post:</a> Control the visibility of items on your blog.</li></ul>

Writing And Blogging

<ul><li><a href="http://www.portent.com/tools/title-maker">Portent:</a> Content idea generator.</li><li><a href="http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends/visualize?pn=p1">Google Trends:</a> A new way of displaying trending searches.</li><li><a href="http://buzzsumo.com/">Buzzsumo:</a> Analyze what content performs best for any topic or competitor.</li><li><a href="http://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator">Hubspot Blog Topic Generator:</a> Custom blog ideas.</li><li><a href="http://www.swayy.co/">Swayy:</a> Discover the most engaging content. Free for 1 dashboard user.</li><li>Others: <a href="https://plus.google.com/explore/_">Google+ What’s Hot</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/">Twitter Trendin</a>g | <a href="http://www.quora.com/Content-Strategy">Quora</a> | <a href="http://www.reddit.com/">Reddit</a></li></ul>

Finding Trending Content

<ul><li><a href="https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/">Open Site Explorer:</a> A comprehensive tool for link analysis.</li><li><a href="https://ahrefs.com/">Ahrefs:</a> Site explorer & backlink checker.</li><li><a href="http://www.quicksprout.com/">Quick Sprout:</a> Complete analysis of your website.</li><li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/">Wordpress SEO by Yoast:</a> Have a fully optimized WordPress site.</li><li><a href="http://seositecheckup.com/">SEO Site Checkup:</a> Check your website’s SEO problems for free.</li><li><a href="https://marketing.grader.com/">Hubspot Marketing Grader:</a> Grade your marketing.</li><li><a href="http://www.similarweb.com/">SimilarWeb:</a> Analyze website statistics for any domain.</li><li><a href="http://www.alexa.com/">Alexa Ranking:</a> Analytical insights to analyze any site’s rank.</li><li><a href="https://serps.com/tools/rank_checker">SERPs Rank Checker:</a> Free keyword rank & SERP checker.</li></ul>

Free SEO and Analytics

<ul><li><a href="https://tinyjpg.com/">TinyJPG</a> | <a href="https://tinypng.com/">TinyPNG</a> Compress images.</li><li><a href="https://compressor.io/">Compressor.io:</a> Optimize and compress your images online.</li><li><a href="https://kraken.io/web-interface">Kraken:</a> Optimize your images & accelerate your websites.</li><li><a href="http://www.imageoptimizer.net/Pages/Home.aspx">ImageOptimizer:</a> Resize, compress and optimize your image files.</li><li><a href="https://imageoptim.com/">ImageOptim:</a> Makes images take up less disk space & load faster.</li><li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-smushit/">Smush.it:</a> Image optimizer Wordpress plugin.</li></ul>

Free Image Optimizers

<ul><li><a href="https://www.canva.com/">Canva:</a> Amazingly simple graphic design for bloggers.</li><li><a href="http://apps.pixlr.com/editor/">Pixlr:</a> Pixlr Editor is a robust browser photo editor.</li><li><a href="https://evernote.com/skitch/">Skitch:</a> Get your point across with fewer words.</li><li><a href="http://www.easel.ly/">Easel.ly:</a> Empowers anyone to create & share powerful visuals.</li><li><a href="http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/seo-tools/favicon-generator-crop-images/">Social Image Resizer Tool:</a> Create optimized images for social media.</li><li><a href="https://placeit.net/">Placeit:</a> Free product mockups & templates.</li><li><a href="http://www.recitethis.com/">Recite:</a> Turn a quote into a visual masterpiece.</li><li><a href="http://memegenerator.net/">Meme Generator:</a> The first online meme generator</li></ul>

Free Image Editors

<ul><li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/">Contact form 7:</a> Famous Wordpress plugin to collect email addresses.</li><li><a href="http://mailchimp.com/">Mailchimp:</a> Send 12,000 emails to 2,000 subscribers for free.</li><li><a href="https://www.manycontacts.com/">ManyContactsBar:</a> Free contact form sits on top of your website.</li><li><a href="http://hellobar.com/">Hello Bar:</a> Get more email subscribers.</li><li><a href="https://sumome.com/app/list-builder">Sumome List Builder:</a> Collect email addresses with light box popover.</li><li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/dreamgrow-scroll-triggered-box/">Scroll Triggered Box:</a> Boost your conversion rates — Wordpress only.</li><li><a href="http://sumome.com/app/scroll-box">Sumome Scroll Box:</a> Capture more email addresses, politely.</li></ul>

Email Freebies

<ul><li><a href="http://writerack.com/">WriteRack:</a> The easiest way to blog/tweetstorm on twitter.</li><li><a href="http://www.tryspruce.com/">Spruce:</a> Make Twitter ready images in seconds.</li><li><a href="http://coschedule.com/click-to-tweet">Click To Tweet:</a> Get more shares on your content.</li><li><a href="https://www.jotform.com/">JotForm:</a> The easiest way to build online forms</li><li><a href="http://mytweetlinks.com/">MyTweetLinks:</a> Increases Twitter traffic.</li><li><a href="http://www.latergram.me/">Latergram</a>: Easily plan & schedule your Instagram posts.</li><li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/pinterest-pin-it-button-for-images/">Wordpress Pin it Button for Images:</a> Add a “Pin It” button.</li><li><a href="http://www.sharedcount.com/">SharedCount:</a> Track URL shares, likes, tweets, and more.</li></ul>

Free Social Tools

<ul><li><a href="http://petithacks.com/">Petit Hacks:</a> Acquisition, retention, & revenue hacks used by companies.</li><li><a href="https://www.optimizely.com/">Optimizely:</a> One optimization platform for websites and mobile apps.</li><li><a href="http://hellobar.com/">Hello Bar:</a> Tool for A/B testing different CTAs & power words.</li><li><a href="https://growthhackers.com/">GrowthHackers:</a> Unlocking growth. Together.</li></ul>

Growth Hacking

<ul><li><a href="http://www.materialpalette.com/">Material Palette:</a> Generate & export your Material Design color palette.</li><li><a href="http://www.flatuicolorpicker.com/">New Flat UI Color Picker:</a> Best flat colors for UI design.</li><li><a href="http://flatuicolors.com/">Flat UI Colors:</a> Beautiful flat colors.</li><li><a href="http://coolors.co/">Coolors:</a> Super fast color schemes generator for cool designers.</li><li><a href="http://bjango.com/mac/skalacolor/">Skala Color:</a> An extraordinary color picker for designers and developers.</li><li><a href="http://couleursapp.com/">Couleurs:</a> Simple app for grabbing & tweaking colors you see on screen.</li><li><a href="http://www.materialui.co/colors">Material UI Colors:</a> Material ui color palette for Android, Web & iOS.</li><li><a href="http://colorfulgradients.tumblr.com/">Colorful Gradients:</a> Gradients automatically created by a computer.</li><li><a href="http://briangonzalez.github.io/jquery.adaptive-backgrounds.js/">Adaptive Backgrounds:</a> Extract dominant colours from images.</li></ul>

Free Color Pickers

<ul><li><a href="http://www.materialup.com/">MaterialUp:</a> Daily material design inspiration.</li><li><a href="http://fltdsgn.com/">FLTDSGN</a>: Daily showcase of the best flat UI design websites and apps.</li><li><a href="http://www.siteinspire.com/">Site Inspire:</a> Web design inspiration.</li><li><a href="http://ui-cloud.com/">UI Cloud:</a> The largest user interface design database in the world.</li><li><a href="http://www.gomoodboard.com/">Moodboard:</a> Build a beautiful moodboard and share the result.</li><li><a href="http://www.crayon.co/">Crayon:</a> The most comprehensive collection of marketing designs.</li><li><a href="http://land-book.com/">Land-Book:</a> Product landing pages gallery.</li><li><a href="http://ocean.ink/">Ocean:</a> A community of designers sharing feedback.</li></ul>

Inspire Yourself

<ul><li><a href="http://www.sitebuilderreport.com/stock-up">Stock Up:</a> Best free stock photo websites in one place.</li><li><a href="http://www.pexels.com/">Pexels:</a> Best free photos in one place.</li><li><a href="http://allthefreestock.com/">All The Free Stock:</a> Free stock images, icons, and videos.</li><li><a href="http://unsplash.com/">Unsplash:</a> Free (do whatever you want) high-resolution photos.</li><li><a href="http://www.splashbase.co/">Splashbase:</a> Search & discover free, hi res photos & videos.</li><li><a href="http://startupstockphotos.com/">Startup Stock Photos:</a> Go. Make something.</li><li><a href="http://jaymantri.com/">Jay Mantri:</a> Free pics. do anything (CC0). Make magic.</li><li><a href="http://moveast.me/">Moveast:</a> This is a journey of a portuguese guy moving east.</li></ul>

Free Photos

<ul><li><a href="http://www.typegenius.com/">TypeGenius:</a> Find the perfect font combo for your next project.</li><li><a href="http://www.fontsquirrel.com/">Font Squirrel:</a> 100% free commercial fonts.</li><li><a href="http://www.fontface.ninja/">FontFaceNinja:</a> Browser extension to find the web fonts a site uses.</li><li><a href="http://www.google.com/fonts">Google Fonts:</a> Free, open-source fonts optimized for the web.</li><li><a href="http://hellohappy.org/beautiful-web-type/">Beautiful Web Type:</a> Best typefaces from the Google web fonts directory.</li><li><a href="http://www.dafont.com/">DaFont:</a> Archive of freely downloadable fonts.</li><li><a href="http://www.1001freefonts.com/">1001 Free Fonts:</a> A huge selection of free fonts.</li><li><a href="http://www.fontpark.net/en/">FontPark:</a> The web’s largest archive of free fonts.</li></ul>

Free Typography

<ul><li><a href="http://fontello.com/">Fontello:</a> Icon fonts generator.</li><li><a href="http://www.flaticon.com/">Flat Icon:</a> A search engine for 16000+ glyph vector icons.</li><li><a href="https://github.com/google/material-design-icons/releases/tag/1.0.0">Material Design Icons:</a> 750 Free open-source glyphs by Google.</li><li><a href="http://fortawesome.github.io/Font-Awesome/">Font Awesome:</a> The iconic font and CSS toolkit.</li><li><a href="http://glyphsearch.com/">Glyphsearch:</a> Search for icons from other icon databases.</li><li><a href="http://makeappicon.com/">MakeAppIcon:</a> Generate App Icons of all sizes with a click.</li><li><a href="http://www.endlessicons.com/">Endless Icons:</a> Free flat icons and creative stuff.</li><li><a href="https://icomoon.io/">Ico Moon:</a> 4000+ free vector icons, icon generator.</li><li><a href="http://thenounproject.com/">The Noun Project:</a> Thousands of glyph icons from different artists.</li><li><a href="http://perfecticons.com/">Perfect Icons:</a> A social icon creation tool.</li></ul>

Free Icons

<ul><li><a href="http://uinames.com/">UI Names:</a> Generate random names for use in designs and mockups.</li><li><a href="http://uifaces.com/">UI Faces:</a> Find and generate sample avatars for user interfaces.</li><li><a href="http://uiblurbs.com/">UI Blurbs:</a> Quick user bios for your mockups.</li><li><a href="http://copypastecharacter.com/">Copy Paste Character:</a> Click to copy.</li><li><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/window-resizer/kkelicaakdanhinjdeammmilcgefonfh/details?hl=en">Window Resizer:</a> See how it looks on various screen resolutions.</li></ul>

Free Random Stuff

<ul><li><a href="http://selfcontrolapp.com/">Self Control</a>: Mac: free application to help you avoid distracting websites.</li><li><a href="http://getcoldturkey.com/">Cold Turkey:</a> Windows: temporarily block yourself off of distracting websites.</li></ul>

Avoiding Distraction

A Massive List of Free Stuff Made by Awesome People. “+300 Awesome Free Things for Entrepreneurs and Startups” is published by Ali Mese in The Startup.

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