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The Beauty of Failure: The Value of Past Mistakes
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“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”  – Napoleon Hill

 

AbeAbraham Lincoln is known as one of the greatest U.S. Presidents of all time. The impact he made on our country is momentous, and to this day, we benefit from his noteworthy decisions. But what most people don’t know is that Lincoln had a string of significant failures before his Presidency.

In 1832, he lost his job and was defeated for State Legislature; in 1833 his business failed; in 1836 he suffered from a nervous breakdown, and between 1838 and 1858, he was defeated for Speaker of the House, land officer, a nomination for Congress, a seat in the U.S. Senate and a nomination for the Vice Presidency. Read more…

The Uncommon Hour
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Monday Morning Musings

I came across the following blog in the Najera Notion archive. It was written by Gabriela Garcia and was originally posted in 2010. Re-reading it helped combat my Monday morning blues. I thought it may be of help to others going thru the same. Enjoy!  – Gabriel Najera

The Uncommon Hour
By: Gabriel Garcia

imagesHenry David Thoreau once said, “I have learned that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

One lazy Sunday afternoon, as I was on a quest to gratify my caffeine addiction, I passed a local newsstand. Out from the glossy covers of strikingly beautiful women, the notable Crain’s Chicago Business caught my attention as the title bellowed at me: “40 Under 40.” Read more…

Success Rules Learned From Your Mom
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imagesSome of the best lessons learned aren’t from the classroom or boardroom, they are from the one person who knows you best: Mom. As we celebrated Mother’s Day, we came across an article from Inc.com that highlights 10 success rules your mom taught you. Take a read. What lessons have you learned from you mom that has helped you in your career? Share with us below.

Don’t Just Talk About it, Be About it!
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“The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.”

Sarah Ban Breathnach, Author, “Peace and Plenty”

thA few years ago, on a lazy Sunday afternoon on the Upper West Side of New York, I found myself reminiscing with two old friends in a small crowded diner. Talking about times past, one friend recalled a moment in time, over a decade earlier, when I had just moved to Los Angeles. He reminded me of a comment I made sitting on the bare floor of my new rented studio apartment: “I feel so lost. I feel as though I’ve been placed in the middle of this huge forest, with no compass, no guidance and no way of knowing how to get out.”  Read more…

Is Our Celebrity Obsessed Culture Hindering Young Girls from STEM Careers?
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LegoIn 2011, Fast Company published an article entitled, “The Most Influential Women in Technology.” The article highlighted 30 women in all aspects of science, technology, engineering and math who had made significant strides in technology. Indeed, the list was very impressive and included women ranging from CEO’s to scientists and engineers. Shortly thereafter Digg.com picked up the article, and the comments that followed drastically altered the original intention of the article. So much so, that they were just down right disappointing:

“That woman is a stone cold fox.”
“That girl is hot. I bet she has a way of controlling the men around her.”

Other comments that followed suggested that these women got on the list by utilizing their sexuality, and so on and so forth. One mother even commented that she wished her daughters would go into a career of technology because it would offer them “a lot of money to buy clothes, handbags and shoes,” but alas, their minds just “aren’t inclined to that type of work.” Read more…

Are You the Next Great Innovator?
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innovationI grew up playing the violin and therefore acquired a penchant for classical music. Learning to read musical notations and identify rhythms, pitches and tones opened my eyes to the infinite number of combinations that can create music. It also made me wonder, is it possible to run out of combinations of musical notes so that no more new music can be written?

Math dictates that the combination of notes, rhythm, cadence and so forth are finite. These are all things that can be measured and calculated, and eventually there is an end point. However, the combinations are so immense that it is quite possible to listen to a new piece of music every minute for the rest of your lifetime.

“All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.”

I often wonder the same thing about thoughts. Are thoughts endless? After all, thoughts cannot be measured. It was the 18th century writer and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who once wrote, “All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.” Read more…

The Upside of Stress
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Cat_YawningFor the majority of us, just waking up each morning can be stress inducing. From the blaring alarm clock to watching the morning news (“5 murdered last night”; “unemployment is rising”) to the grinding morning commute, stress seems to be lurking all around us.

And it’s even more stressful to read reports about how stress can practically kill us by causing heart disease, killing the neurons in our brains and making our immune systems weak, among many other horrifying things.

But it’s all a matter of perspective and how we deal with stress. If you’re the kind of person that reacts to stress with anger, guzzling a bottle of whiskey or eating two days worth of donuts, then yes, perhaps stress isn’t your friend. However, if you understand that stress can have its benefits, then maybe you and stress can get along.

No one ever invites stress into their lives; it just shows up, like a D-list reality “star” to an A-list red carpet event. Who invited that person? But unlike Snooki or the Kardashian clan, stress can actually make us better equipped to face the world.

Just look to the trees. Read more…