How To Read A Woman's Mind

How To Read A Woman's Mind

Read a Woman's mind - Doesn't matter whether she is interested in you, you'll make her interested eventually anyway. But look for these signs to show you whether you're already making progress. It's also fun to look for these signs as a by-stander, either in everyday situations or for example in a bar - when the guy earnestly believes he is being sooo smooth but the woman he is talking to isn't displaying any of the signs presented below, you can't help but have a chuckle about it. Her lips - Big smiles with upper and lower teeth showing with a relaxed face. Biting of the lips or showing of the tongue, licking her lips or touching of her front teeth. She wets her lips, some women use only a single-lip lick, wetting the upper or lower lip, while others run the tongue around the entire lip area. She puts her fingernail between her teeth. She protrudes her lips and thrust her brea$ts forward. Her eyes - She gazes in your eyes with deep interest and her pupils are dilated. She raises both eyebrows exaggeratedly for a couple of seconds, this is often combined with a smile and some eye contact. She winks at you while talking to you or winks at you from a distance. While talking to you, she blinks more than usual, fluttering her eyelashes. Eyebrows raised and then lowered, then a smile indicates interest in you. Her hair - She pushes her fingers through her hair. This can be one hand movement or more of a stroking motion. She twirls her hair around her fingers while she is looking at you. She is throwing her hair back off her shoulders. Her clothing - If she is wearing clothes that show her nipples underneath and you notice they are getting perky and erect. The hem goes up to expose a little more leg. She is fixing, patting or smoothing her outfit to make herself look better. While she is seated - She moves in time to the music, with her eyes on you. She starts sitting straight up and her muscles appear to be firm. She is sitting with her legs open. She sits with her legs crossed in a manner to reveal her thigh. Her legs are rubbing against each other. Her legs are rubbing against the leg of the table. Her crossed leg is pointed towards you or if that same leg is rocking back and forth towards you. Her hands - She exposes the palms of her hand facing you. While talking to you, she rests an elbow in the palm of one hand, while holding out her other hand, palm up. She rubs her wrists up and down. She sits with one hand touching one of her breasts. She rubs her chin or touches her cheek. This indicates that she's thinking about you and her relating in some way. She is fondling keys, sliding hands up and down a glass, playing with toys or other things on the table. She plays with her jewellery, especially with stroking and pulling motions. She touches your arm, shoulder, thigh, or hand while talking to you (in case you already haven't started kino yourself, dumbass:). She is pretending to look at her watch as you pass her. Her voice - She raises or lowers the volume of her voice to match yours. She speeds up or slows down her speaking to match yours. She laughs in unison with you. In a crowd she speaks only to you and focuses all of her undivided attention on you. Miscellaneous - She mirrors your body language and body positions. Her skin tone becomes red while being around you. She blows smoke straight out from between her lips and toward you. She leans over and speaks into her friend's ear, just like in junior high school. She is standing with her head cocked slightly at an angle, one foot behind the other, hips slightly thrust forward. At a party - every once in a while she seems to appear out of nowhere in your vicinity and if you move to another spot, soon she appears out of nowhere again, you catch her glancing in your general direction (actually, glancing at YOU dummy!, she bumps into you… accidentally, touches you… accidentally etc. When talking to a girl, these are some of the more important signs to watch for - Can you keep conversation going with her? Does she react well to kino? Does she touch you? Does she laugh? Now I don't have to explain what the answer "yes" to these questions means, do From "Sweep women off their feet...": "All these signs usually tell you that the girl is captivated by your charms. But before you get there, chances are that her body language changes as the discussion progresses. Make sure that you watch her closely and as soon as you get a sign that should be an indication that you are on the right track, keep going in that direction. If the opposite happens, just change the subject and see what happens." The really gorgeous and beautiful girls however very seldom get around to displaying the signs of interest described above. They simply don't have to, as they are used to getting some attention already long before that. With such girls you have to be on a lookout for the initial and thus much more subtle signs of interest. One example of this would be a gorgeous girl simply looking at your face. Obviously people tend to look at what or whom they like to look at. But whereas an average girl first just looks at your face and then progresses into the more overt signs of interest described above, looking at your face from time to time might be the only sign of interest you'll ever get from the most beautiful of girls. So if you think you're not getting any signs of interest frombeautiful girls - you are, but you just can't see them well enough yet. Don Steele: "Here are signs of interest sent from across the room. Most are applicable to both $exes. The sequence of the list approximates the courtship sequence.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

The Subtlety of Language

The Subtlety of Language

I have found that sometimes the subtle difference in our attitude, which of course can make a major difference in our future, can be as simple as the language we use. The difference in even how you talk to yourself or others. Consciously making a decision to quit saying what you don't want and to start saying what you do want. I call that faith. Believing the best, hoping for the best and moving toward the best.

A few examples could be, instead of saying "What if somebody doesn't respond?" you start saying, "What if they do respond?" Instead of saying "What if someone says no?" you say "What if they say yes?" Instead of 'What if they start and quit?" you say 'What if they start and stay?" Or instead of "What if it doesn't work out?" you say "What if it does work out?" And the list goes on and on.

I found that when you start thinking and saying what you really want then your mind automatically shifts and pulls you in that direction. And sometimes it can be that simple, just a little twist in vocabulary that illustrates your attitude and philosophy.

Our language can also affect how others perform and behave around us. A teenager says to a parent, "I need $10." If the parent learns to say, "That kind of language doesn't work here. We've got plenty of money, but that's not how you get $10," then you teach your teenager how to ask, "How can I earn $10?"

That is the magic of words. There is plenty of money here. There is money for everybody, but you just have to learn the magic words to get them—for everything you could possibly want, if you just learn the philosophy. How could I earn $10? Because you can't go to the soil and say, "Give me a harvest." You know the soil smiles and says, "Who is this clown that brings me his need and brings me no seed." And if you said to the soil, "I've got this seed and if I planted it, would you work while I sleep?" the soil says, "No problem. Give me the seed. Go to sleep and I'll be working while you're sleeping."

If you just understand these simple principles, teaching them to a teenager (or adult) is sometimes just a matter of language. It's like an investment account instead of a savings account. Simple language, but so important. It is easy to stumble through almost a lifetime and not learn some of these simplicities. Then you have to put up with all the lack and all the challenges that don't work out simply from not reading the book, not listening to the tape, not sitting in the class, not studying your language and not being willing to search so you can then find.

But here is the great news: You can start this process anytime. For me it was at age 25. At 25 I'm broke. Six years later I'm a millionaire. Somebody says, "What kind of revolution, what kind of change, what kind of thinking, what kind of magic had to happen? Was it you?" And I say, "No. Any person, any six years, 36 to 42, 50 to 56. Whatever six years; whatever few years you go on an intensive, accelerated personal-development curve, learning curve, application curve, and learning the disciplines." Now, it might not take the same amount of time, but I'm telling you the same changes and the same rewards in some different fashion are available for those who pay that six–year price. And you might find that whether it's in the beginning to help get you started, or in the middle to keep you on track, that your language can have a great impact on your attitude, actions and results.

Jim Rohn
1930-2009, Author and Speaker

Charismatic Leadership Tricks to Get You Up the Career Ladder

Charismatic Leadership Tricks to Get You Up the Career Ladder

By Chris D'Cruz, Keeper of the Universal Life Secrets

Charismatic leadership has a convincing power to inspire other people. It is a leader with its own unique charm to persuade his or her group. To be a
charismatic leader, one should know how to identify the situation and step up for their team. After viewing some of what charismatic leadership means, let's try to look
a few vital tricks you need to know to achieve their charm.

First, develop a genuine interest in your subjects.

To succeed as a charismatic leader, you need to develop a genuine interest in your followers. You have to find time to relate with them at their level. Take your time to listen to their suggestions which you can easily implement to make things work. There is every need for you to show empathy to the plights of your followers. This can help you a lot in carrying them along.

Second, be sensitive to your domain.

You have to be very sensitive to your domain in order to succeed as a charismatic leader. Your immediate environment should be well known to you. From time to time, you have to make sure you know exactly the details of what is going on in the domain or environment. This helps you to know exactly the areas to focus on when leading your people.

Third, have a vision for the people.

A charismatic leader ought to have a vision for the people he is leading. It will be very difficult to the leader and for the people if no one knows where your team is heading. You have to set attainable goals and share your thoughts with your people. This gives both parties a sense of direction to look for.

Fourth, be ahead of your followers in everything

To succeed in your groups endeavour, you have to take the lead for them. You have to be ahead of your followers in everything. The leader should have the knowledge and interest to discover better ways of leading the team. Your followers should see you as their ultimate person whom they can rely on every time.

Fifth, take responsibility all the time.

As a charismatic leader, you have to take responsibility all the time in any given situation. You cannot run away from your responsibilities especially when the tides are working against you. A true leader should stick to the right principles and continue to carry out the duty for everyone.

Lastly, charismatic leader should be open to change. This is what keeps us moving forward, innovative and better every time.

To sum it all, it is believed that having these traits of charismatic leaders can work in an organization to boost the morale of the people and brings the company to the top for its overall performance. It also moulds the society the way they envision themselves to be.

With these attributes of a charismatic leader and if you are able to practice all these tricks for yourself, you could be one of those charismatic leaders that can lead your team to success.

Your friend, Chris D'Cruz

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

Attractive People Are More Successful. Really?

Bernard Marr

Best-selling business author and enterprise performance expert

Beautiful people, both men and women, tend to earn more than those with average looks. They also get hired sooner, get promoted quicker, sell more, and even get a bank loan more easily than their less attractive counterparts. Believe that? Surprisingly there's substantial research to support the theory!

I have to say that I was surprised by the amount of solid research that supports the idea that physically attractive people are more successful. What made me research this a little was a conversation with a CEO of a well known global company. She insisted that anybody she hires into the company should have good looks. When I work with companies they often ask for my help in filling senior positions for Chief Strategy Officers, Chief Performance Officers, or Chief Data Scientists, etc. and looks was never one of my search criteria. But maybe it should be...here is why:

Research compiled by economics professor Daniel Hamermesh and published in his book Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People Are More Successful, shows very convincingly that beautiful people earn a higher salary than average looking folk. He also shows that good looking individuals are employed sooner, get promoted more quickly, and tend to have higher ranking jobs in companies. His work also confirms that attractive employees tend to bring in more money for their companies, and therefore will be seen as more successful. What's more, this bias towards beauty goes beyond our careers. Hamermesh's research even shows that beautiful people are more likely to have successful loan applications and pay lower interest rates than less beautiful people (even if everything else is equal).

In other research, Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at London School of Economics, shows that beautiful people tend to have higher intelligence than ugly people (especially if they are men). Furthermore, researchers David Ruth and Amy Hodges at Rice University show that people with more beautiful faces are more likely to be successful in job interviews.

So why should this be? Professor Dario Maestripieri from the University of Chicago concludes in his article 'The truth about why beautiful people are more successful' that it comes down to the 'sex factor'. He basically argues that attractive people are more appealing as potential sex partners. This means that subconsciously (or not) we chose to interact and do business with attractive rather than ugly people - because it increases our chances to have sex with them.

Whether the 'sex factor' conclusion is the right one or not, it looks as if beauty might be seen as a key to success. So was my CEO client right to demand only beautiful candidates? I am still not convinced yet, but are you? Do you feel it's time to up-date your LinkedIn profile picture and have a beauty make-over? What is your view on this? Would you hire someone for their looks? Are you more likely to buy from a beautiful sales person? Are we biased towards attractive people or is this discrimination that needs to be stopped?

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

How To Achieve Higher Levels of Awareness

How To Achieve Higher Levels of Awareness

Source: What You Never Knew



There are several levels of awareness in an individual  from self-conscious up to oneness awareness.


You can find out if you have low or high level of awareness with the results you achieve in life. The better outcomes you achieve, the greater level of awareness you have.
 Now if you would like to achieve better results but unable to do that it means you're not conscious on how to achieve them.
So by increasing the level of your awareness, you'll gain a better understanding on how to attain a higher quality of life.

The only thing you can do to increase your awareness level is by visualization.

Go in circles

People typically want to get better outcomes in life, but they don't know how to achieve them. They look for information in the external world and eventually they become frustrated since it appears that they're just only going in circles.

The results they get are just the same since they don't use their mental faculties. All they use is their 5 basic senses to guide them. They operate at the normal awareness level and not at the higher awareness levels.
So to achieve better results in life, utilize your mental facilities. In that way you can progress in life.

Mental faculties

With Think and Grow Rich, the author Napoleon hill mentioned 6 faculties of the mind to be developed in order for an individual to achieve success. Successful  individuals
have highly developed mental faculties, which they use more than the 5 basic senses.

These are:

Reason

The reasoning faculty gives you the ability to think. Use your brain and think always before accepting opinions as truth. Think of the goals you want to achieve rather than that of those what other people would like you to achieve.
If you really want to achieve better results in your life, don't let others control you. Don't as well get influenced by the negativity around
you as it they will affect your level of awareness.

Will

Will represents the capability to constantly direct your energy in one purpose. You can enhance your will by focusing on an object and not allowing any thoughts affect your mind. The longer you will be able to focus on a certain object without your thoughts interrupted, the stronger the will becomes.

Perception

Your own perception describes how you visualize the world. Each individual perceives the same world in a different manner since everyone had different beliefs and experiences in life.  Know that your perception may almost be wrong always. So never allow your perception to deceive you. Look at all situations without having strong opinions.

Memory

Memory is a significant element of mental faculty. Everyone can achieve a perfect memory and having it can provide a lot of good things, but most people utilize their memory to their own disadvantage.  It all depends on what you would like to remember. You may remember your past failures or past achievements, it's only for you to decide.

Intuition

This mental faculty gives you the ability to detect or read the energies of the people around you. Anyone has this ability, but most people don't know how to develop it. The more you use it, the more it will become stronger.


By reading their energy, you can determine their mood (positive or negative) as well as their attitude.

When you interact with an individual, instead of listening to what he is saying, feel his energy. In this way, you can see what he is trying to point out as well as if it is true or not.

Imagination

Through the use of imagination, you can manifest clearly your desires. The more you use your imagination, the clearer your vision will be and the faster you can manifest your desires.


The key

You can achieve better results in your life with the use of visualization as well as the proper usage of your mental faculties.
When you visualize a goal you want to achieve, your mind and body moves according to that goal. Because of that, you will gain thoughts and ideas of higher levels of awareness.
That is how inspiration comes in to you when you visualize something. Your unconscious mind will make you aware on how to achieve your goal.
If you keep visualizing what you desire, the conscious mind will transfer that vision into the subconscious mind and it will provide you with ideas on how to achieve your goal. You will realize those ideas and eventually take appropriate actions to get what you want.

The results

Once you achieve a higher level of awareness, significant positive changes will take place in yourself and in your world. In general, you'll
become peaceful, happy and more understanding person.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

How to Double Your Memory Power in 5 Minutes

By Gary Busey/ Source: Power Memory Formula

I like to share with you a very simple memory releasing technique that will double your brain's short term memory capacity to develop photographic memory while you're on your way to work tomorrow.

The technique is simple.

Here goes:

As you're on your way to work, for a duration of 5 minutes... at every 30 seconds you glance quickly at something passing by then look away...

...and then try to remember what you saw as vividly as you can.

Do this simple exercise 5 minutes each day for the next 5 days and you'll double your short term memory's capacity in no time.

That's it! It's that easy to double your memory!

You see, your memory works in a very special way

Each and every time you practice this exercise, you trick your brain into paying attention and storing more of what you see.

Your short term memory exists because your brain doesn't want to store everything you come across. 

But it doesn't know what you'll need and what to discard at any given moment. 

So it chucks everything each moment into a temporary storage bin. 

If you don't recall it within a couple minutes your brain figures its useless data and dumps it to prevent clutter.

By asking back for the contents of these bins before dump time your brain automatically starts hanging onto them longer in anticipation that you may need them transferring them into long term storage. 

It also tries to make the bins bigger as you demand more details. 

Just practising this over a week forces your memory to become more effective.

And don't worry, you can't fill up your memory in one lifetime anyway, so don't feel bad for it.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

How to Move Forward Daily to Attract Your Goals

By Valerie Dawson, Exclusive for MindTrip Magazine

If you don't first get your mind and feelings in line with what you want, all the action in the world won't do much to help you. You can probably think of plenty of people who work ridiculously hard and still have very little to show for it. Maybe you are even one of those people. I used to be, so I know what a frustrating place that is to be.

However, action is not such a bad thing either, and in fact it can be a great help in getting things moving in a better direction.

So - while you are focusing on improving your thoughts and choosing more positive emotions and expectations, you may also want to begin taking action on just one thing each day that will help you to improve your financial situation. It does not have to be a BIG action - just something to begin moving you in the direction you want to go.

Right now, take a few minutes to jot down a list of 10 things you could do to help improve your financial situation right now. Ideas might include: selling something you no longer need, applying for a better job, starting a savings plan, investing money for long-term growth, going back to school for more career training, getting a part time job to pay down debt, starting your own business, having a yard sale, and so on.

The whole point of action steps like these is NOT to try to change everything yourself, but rather to make you feel more empowered as you begin moving toward what you want. As you begin taking at least one step in that direction every day, you'll usually find that each consecutive step seems easier and easier - and before long momentum takes over. Before you know it, you're making huge changes in your life and feeling great about it.

Another kind of action you'll definitely want to take is inspired action - that is when you feel you are being nudged to do something specific by the universe. For example, you might suddenly feel inspired to call a friend you haven't spoken to in a while, or take a different route home from work one day, or send away for information on a particular career option - and it will be exactly the right move to open up a new world of possibility for you.

It's hard to give examples of inspired actions because the actions themselves might seem inconsequential - but you'll always know because you'll just "feel" that you should do something specific. When you get that feeling, definitely follow through with it! More often than not it will lead you to something great.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

8 Pieces of Professional Advice I Didn't Want But Definitely Needed

Jeff Haden

Ghostwriter, speaker, Inc. columnist

Since screw-ups tend to be magnets for advice, I've received a lot of painfully direct -- yet ultimately very helpful comments -- along the way:

"Express your individuality on your own time." In my first job after college I sometimes let my personality overshadow my responsibilities and duties and it definitely hurt my performance and limited my opportunities.

We're all servants (in a good way) and our customers, peers, bosses, and direct reports all have needs. Meeting those needs -- on their terms -- is more important than somehow "staying true" to ourselves.

Maintaining your integrity is vital, but there's a big difference between staying true to yourself and "just being me." 

"Face value has no value." It's easy to view the actions of others through the lens of how that behavior impacts us, especially if those actions impact us negatively.

Still, most employees don't try to do a bad job. Most customers aren't intentionally difficult. Most bosses aren't simply out to get you.

There is always more to the story. Fail to look deeper and you miss an opportunity to make a bad situation better -- for everyone.

"They're just as scared of you." I wrestled in high school and travelled to summer tournaments where other wrestlers often seemed larger than life. I assigned them a near-mythical status because they came from different states and wore t-shirts from high-profile camps and wrestling clubs.

I never imagined they might see me the same way.

The same is true in business. Under the Armani and Wharton School and high-profile name-drops is a guy or gal just as nervous and insecure as you. Symbols of success are often just a mask.

The playing field is always more level than it seems.

"When you fire someone and need to say more than, 'We have to let you go,' you haven't done your job." Except in unusual circumstances, firing an employee is the last step in a longer process. If along the way you've identified sub-par performance, provided additional training or resources, set targets and timelines for performance improvement, and followed up when progress is lacking, then there are no surprises, no additional conversations necessary, no arguments to have... the employee knows.

And you've done your job as well as you can. But even so...

"If you can sleep the night after you fire someone, something is wrong with you."Even if you've done everything right, firing an employee feels horrible. (I know they "fired themselves," but still.) You've impacted their career, their life, their family... you should feel awful.

If you don't feel awful, it's time to step out of a management role.

"Always sell harder than you think you should." I'm fairly shy and often insecure so "selling" is hard for me. I felt more comfortable waiting for bosses to discover my talents and promote me. I feel more comfortable waiting for potential customers to somehow discover me.

That's a problem, because success in any field or profession is at least partly built on salesmanship -- the ability and willingness to determine needs, overcome objections, provide solutions, and to be charismatic and convincing.

Be enthusiastic. Be especially about yourself. People will respond positively.

"Seriously... just shut up." I used to talk a lot. I thought I was insightful and clever and witty and, well, I thought I was a hoot. Very occasionally I might have been.

Most of the time I wasn't.

Truly confident people don't feel the need to talk -- at all. I hate when it happens, but I still occasionally realize I'm talking not because the other person is interested in what I have to say but because I'm interested in what I have to say.

Never speak just to please yourself; when you do you end up pleasing no one.

"Pick something you believe in and stick to it." When I first started racing motorcycles the then-500cc world champion (this was before today's MotoGP; remember, I'm really old) told me he always walked an unfamiliar track before riding any laps. It was a ritual that allowed him to spot surfaces, bumps, and potential racing lines he might otherwise have missed.

Good enough fEdor him, good enough for me, so I started doing the same thing.

Did it work? I certainly thought it did... and therefore, placebo or not, it did.

Think about a task you perform frequently, choose something you can do that actually helps you perform better, and start doing it every time: Whether it's how you prepare, how you follow-up, how you'll double-check your work, etc. Soon performing your "ritual" will give you more confidence, especially when the stakes are high, and as a result your performance will improve.

Think of it like wearing lucky socks... except in this case it actually makes a difference.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

Mother Nature, the original entrepreneur

Richard Branson

Founder at Virgin Group

Since I was a young boy, I've been captivated by everything we find living and growing on our planet. We know that without healthy natural ecosystems and biodiversity there would be no life, and of course no business. We rely on our natural assets, balanced carbon cycles, and diverse plant and animal species, but each of the major global ecosystems is in decline. 

At the same time, the degradation of our natural resources lies at the root of many of our most pressing challenges. It also exacerbates others, such as poverty, disease, and climate change. The steps we take over the next ten or twenty years will fundamentally determine whether the natural ecosystems on which we have built our wealth for a hundred centuries will be able to persist beyond the end of this one. 

Since the dawn of the Industrial Age, we have built wealth and wellbeing by making trade-offs between profit and growth on one hand, and natural resources on the other. In order to minimise the damaging impact of business on biodiversity, we must recognise the value of the natural assets on our balance sheets.

There is some very exciting work being undertaken in this area. For example, at PUMA, Jochen Zeitz pioneered the Environmental Profit & Loss Account, which measures the value of the natural resources that businesses have traditionally treated as essentially free services. PUMA was the first international company to put a monetary value on the impact of its entire supply chain on the environment. 

Another exciting area is the growth of biomimicry – a movement that is changing the way we do business by learning from Mother Nature. A growing number of exciting science-business partnerships are pioneering biologically-inspired technology and designs that are based on the experience of life (and refined by 3.8 billion years of rigorous testing!).

The Eastgate Centre in Zimbabwe is an incredible example: the building was based on the design of termite mounds, and uses a naturally-inspired ventilation system to maintain constant temperatures. This has allowed the building to use only 10 per cent of the energy another similarly-sized building would use, save millions on air conditioning, plus enjoy fresh air! Another company, Sharklet Technologies, has developed a special surface material that harnesses the wisdom of Galapagos sharks. The surface mimics the sharks' skin, which naturally fights bacteria and micro-organisms, and is now being used for a number of industries, from safe surfaces for hospitals to hull coatings that improve shipping efficiency. 
Mother Nature is the original entrepreneurial force in the world – and learning from her will help us better value our natural assets and make business work for people and planet.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

35 Quotes To Transform Yourself Into A Leader

Leadership is a tricky thing. Is it innate or learned? Who needs it the most? What traits define a strong leader?

The fact of the matter is that everyone needs leadership. Entrepreneurs and business leaders of all industries must have sound leadership abilities. Even if you have a strong team driving your business forward, it won't get you anywhere without the proper leadership, guidance, and principles. Even if you don't currently hold a managerial title, an affinity for leadership is likely to take you far in your career.

Maybe some leaders are born, but the rest of the population must learn and grow throughout their careers. The transformation into an effective leader doesn't happen overnight -- it takes various experiences and often the guidance of others.

Not everyone has someone directly influencing their transformation into a better leader. This is why I find quotes from some of the most influential leaders to be beneficial to the process.

In need of a bit of inspiration? Use the following quotes to transform yourself as a leader:

1. "To lead people, walk beside them ... As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate ... When the best leader's work is done the people say, 'We did it ourselves!"— Lao-tsu

2. "Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them." — John Maxwell

3. "Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry."— Winston Churchill

4. "Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time in leading yourself—your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers." — Dee Hock, Founder and CEO Emeritus, Visa

5. "All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership."— John Kenneth Galbraith

6. "If a rhinoceros were to enter this restaurant now, there is no denying he would have great power here. But I should be the first to rise and assure him that he had no authority whatever." — G.K. Chesterton to Alexander Woollcott

7. "The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been." — Henry Kissinger

8. "The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there." — John Buchan

9. "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it." — Dwight D. Eisenhower

10. "The best is he who calls men to the best. And those who heed the call are also blessed. But worthless who call not, heed not, but rest." — Hesiod, 8th Century BC Greek poet

11. "Never give an order that can't be obeyed." — General Douglas MacArthur

12. "Leadership must be based on goodwill. Goodwill does not mean posturing and, least of all, pandering to the mob. It means obvious and wholehearted commitment to helping followers. We are tired of leaders we fear, tired of leaders we love, and of tired of leaders who let us take liberties with them. What we need for leaders are men of the heart who are so helpful that they, in effect, do away with the need of their jobs. But leaders like that are never out of a job, never out of followers. Strange as it sounds, great leaders gain authority by giving it away." — Admiral James B. Stockdale

13. "Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand." — General Colin Powell

14. "Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better." — Harry Truman

15. "Leadership is intentional influence." — Michael McKinney

16. "The leader is one who mobilizes others toward a goal shared by leaders and followers. ... Leaders, followers and goals make up the three equally necessary supports for leadership." — Gary Wills, Certain Trumpets: The Call of Leaders

17. "All Leadership is influence." — John C. Maxwell, Injoy, Inc.

18. "You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too." — Sam Rayburn

19. "Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others may receive your orders without being humiliated." — Dag Hammarskjöld

20. "The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men, the conviction and the will to carry on." — Walter Lippmann

21. "The function of a leader within any institution: to provide that regulation through his or her non-anxious, self-defined presence." — Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve

22. "People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives." — Theodore Roosevelt

23. "Humans will probably always need the help of especially gifted moral leaders in order to extend the bonds of caring and trust beyond the easy range of the family and the face-to-face community. Such bonds have become essential to the future of humanity." — Paul R. Lawrence, Driven To Lead

24. "You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case." — Ken Kesey

25. "The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant." — Max DePree

26. "Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall." — Stephen R. Covey

27. "As a leader, you're probably not doing a good job unless your employees can do a good impression of you when you're not around." — Patrick Lencioni

28. "Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not 'making friends and influencing people,' that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations." — Peter F. Drucke

29. "Leadership is the ability to establish standards and manage a creative climate where people are self-motivated toward the mastery of long term constructive goals, in a participatory environment of mutual respect, compatible with personal values." — Mike Vance

30. "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." — General George Patton

31. "A leader is a dealer in hope." — Napoleon Bonaparte

32. "Lead and inspire people. Don't try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be lead." — Ross Perot

33. "When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim, that a "drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall." — Abraham Lincoln

34."My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence." — General Montgomery

35. "High sentiments always win in the end, The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic." — George Orwell

Ilya Pozin

Edited by: Lawyer Asad

Visualizing Greatness

Brad Keywell

Co-founder of Lightbank & Groupon

The year was 1979 when Harvard researcher Ellen Langer led a ground breaking psychological experiment that has impacts on our personal and professional lives today. She took a group of men in their late 70s and early 80s to a monastery in a small town about 75 miles from Boston for week long retreat – and transported them back in time.

Suddenly, it was 1959.

The interior of the monastery was a snapshot of the late 50s era, with complete décor, magazines, television shows, radio programs and countless other details that reflected 1959, not 1979. The elderly men were given I.D.s with images of themselves from 20 years earlier, and Langer gave clear instructions: Don't reminisce, but live as if it were 1959. And they did. For a week they discussed the need for bomb shelters, analyzed Castro's advance on Havana and cheered as the Colts beat the Giants in the 1959 NFL championship game. These men, the subjects of her experiment, were about to prove a point that has powerful implications for all entrepreneurs.

Seven days later, Langer and her team were shocked to find the men's physical health had dramatically improved. Their eyesight was better. They had less arthritis, made improvements in height, weight, posture and memory – and to impartial observers of "before" and "after" photos, they looked years younger.

Society had defined these gentlemen as old, frail, sickly and dependent - but when they opened their minds and visualized themselves as younger and healthier, that visualization became a physical reality. Entrepreneurs and professionals across all industries need to do the same: Have a vision and believe in it so passionately that it materializes. So many forces can creep up, attempting to redefine your visions – potential investors, skeptical friends, restless employees, doubtful media, to name a few. And perhaps the most vociferous is the voice of doubt that whispers in your ear at the most unexpected hour.

"So if you want to find true ingenuity and genius, you have to block these voices and concentrate on the voice coming from within," Steve Jobs said to thousands of Stanford grads at their 2005 commencement. Jobs lived that sentiment, envisioning what Apple was going to be at a time when it was nothing, and watching that vision solidify into a company that redefined the tech world.

Visualization is a concept the Russians have utilized in churning out more than a dozen of the world's top-ranked tennis players from a run-down training academy in Moscow known as the Spartak Tennis Club. At this aging facility with just one indoor court, the young students do imitatsiya – repetitions of a drill where they focus on swing techniques. No balls. Just movements. Picturing perfect form and slicing into an imaginary little green sphere over and over and over again. They don't even compete for their first three years of their Spartak education.

And yet, this mental training method has molded athletes such as the No. 2 women's singles player in the world, Maria Sherapova, and retired star Anna Kournikova. To put the success of this learning-through-visualization technique in perspective, the Spartak Tennis Club alone produced more women's top-20 players between 2004 and 2007 than the entire United States, according to The New York Times.

I see the importance of visualizing greatness around me, and it pays off. We have several Sherapovas and Kournikovas who are running companies that our investment firm, Lightbank, is involved with – two of them, though lacking any skills on the tennis court, are Justyn Howard and Aaron Rankin.

While most people were consumed in 2009 with their new ability to tweet about Kim Kardashian's latest shoes, Justyn and Aaron saw a business opportunity with the birth of Twitter and other social media outlets. They predicted people would comment across Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and other sites instead of picking up a phone and waiting on hold for customer service – leaving companies ill-equipped to respond to real-time customer feedback outside traditional phone and email channels. They envisioned a world where companies would need workflow, engagement and social CRM tools to handle the increasing volumes of virtual customer comments.

While there was no evidence then that businesses would embrace social media, Howard and Rankin built an entire platform based on their vision and instincts. They launched Sprout Social in 2010, offering a system to integrate social media commentary with a company's broader customer service operations right before all their predictions came true.

But Justyn and Aaron did not stop visualizing greatness: They foresaw businesses needing a more collaborative environment as the space started to rapidly evolve, and the Sprout team began rebuilding their entire platform within just one month of releasing the first version. While doing so was a big risk at such an early stage, it was part of the team's greater vision - and turned out to be a critical move in the company's growth. Sprout Social recently topped 10,000 clients, adding companies like Yammer, Yahoo!, Nokia, McDonald's and Hyatt to their client list.

"We feel really good about the bar we set for ourselves as far as how we solve the problems and just doing what we thought was best for the customer, even if they didn't think it was best for them at the time," said Justyn, Sprout Social's CEO.

Immersing yourself in a more positive perception has psychological and physiological benefits that we are only just starting to understand. Most great entrepreneurial success stories like that of Sprout Social begin with significant struggle and round-the-clock hard work of a small team visualizing greatness. Justyn and Aaron are living in the same spirit as the 70- and 80-year-old men who magically found youth decades ago in a New England monastery – reminding us all to visualize greatness in our own lives, too. It sets the tone for your entire organization, and that wave sets off positive ripples that wash over your customers, prospects and partners. Whether the objective is finding the fountain of youth, breeding championship tennis players or building the next great disruptive technology, the art of visualization is at the foundation of success.

Edited by: Lawyer Asad