Incomia

The new year can be an opportunity for a new beginning, a new chance to reach your goals. But will you actually take the chance to start over, to aim for bigger and better things? Surprisingly, many don’t.  Only 29% of people planned to make a New Year’s resolution in 2022, according to a CBS News poll . Why? Perhaps because the goals can seem too big, the fear of failure stops us or we’ve simply decided resolutions just don’t work. Why don’t they work? Well, look at the top five resolutions for 2023, according to a 2022 Forbes Health/OnePoll survey : “Improved mental health (45%)” “Improved fitness (39%)” “Lose weight (37%)” “Improved diet (33%)” “Improved finances (30%)” These are large-scale goals that can’t be reached with one simple habit tweak or schedule adjustment. But even big, bold changes can start with simple ones—if you focus on just today, this week or this month. While researching for my book Make Waves , I found that significant changes often have a smal...

What are the characteristics and skills of a good entrepreneur ? What’s the “it” factor that makes for a great entrepreneur? To be a basketball star, it’s likely that you would need to be extremely tall, fast, athletic and have real chops. But for someone studying entrepreneurship and business, the qualities of a great entrepreneur are more abstract and elusive.  Top qualities of a successful entrepreneur In my experience, there are five major traits that mean you have the chops to build a business and live the life of an entrepreneur: 1. Salesmanship. The ability to sell something is absolutely necessary to running a business at any stage. Whether you’re starting out on the floor selling a physical product like I did or you’re the CEO of an agency selling talented employees, you need to know how to make a sale . 2. A chip on your shoulder. Yes, I’m serious. And that can come in two forms. Either you were born with nothing and you’re just hungrier than the average human, or i...

There was a time when I was feeling drained, depleted, small, powerless, isolated and unhappy with myself. But then I took a self-portrait. And the person I came face to face with was a strong, powerful, capable, brave, beautiful, successful woman. I couldn’t believe she was me. That self-portrait photograph opened my eyes to a whole new world. It awakened something in my soul and led me on a journey of self-realization. COURTESY OF PAZIT PEREZ PHOTOGRAPHS How the self-portrait photo changed my life I was ready and committed to become the woman staring at me from the photo. Every day, I looked at her. That self-portrait inspired me to take action to create a brand-new kind of me and align myself with her. It helped raise my level of consciousness and connected me to my vision of my ideal self, which in turn inspired me to take action to become that person and live my authentic life . I started by taking full responsibility for my self-sabotaging thoughts and changed them by usi...

There is an age where children can benefit from a cell phone, and there are a variety of plans on the market that give them the service they need without breaking the bank!  Main image courtesy of Very Well Family .  Cell phones are a great way to stay in touch with your children whenever they are at school, with friends, or otherwise out of the house. The knowledge that your kids are always just a phone call away helps parents feel that their kids are safe when they are out away. A cell phone ensures a constant line of communication between parents and their kids.  There will be a time when your child is ready for their first cell phone. Unfortunately, it is hard to know the exact moment that the time is right. It is worth the research to see if getting them a cell phone is the right decision for you and for your child, especially if they’ve brought up that they want a phone. They will need one at some point, but there are so many pros and cons associated with findi...

Public speaking can be a terrifying experience —it’s certainly something many people have been nervous about at some point in their life. Getting up on that stage, you suddenly have flashbacks to that fifth-grade book report you didn’t prepare for. You can learn how to speak in public and give presentations without fear —it just takes time and these expert tips. 6 Tips for public speaking Here are my tips to become a better public speaker to get you started: 1. Get the first gig(s). Getting your first gig can be tricky, but there is one thing I want you to remember when you’re trying to book stuff: You may have to wait for that nice paycheck. Why? Because you need to show that you can get an audience. The organizers want to make sure they are getting a bang for their buck. Makes sense, right? Maybe it sucks a bit, and this might mean eating crow (getting paid less than you want) until you’ve done a bunch of talks. If you’re not that well known yet, you may have to speak for free ....

Do you talk too much in conversations? Maybe you’re prone to interrupting. Or are you a one-upper? It could even be that you can’t stop looking at your phone every three seconds. We all have one—a bad conversation habit. We asked the Young Entrepreneur Council for their opinions on the most off-putting things entrepreneurs and self-starters do in conversations. See if you’re guilty of any of these bad conversation habits. And if you are? Stop, stat. Bad conversation habits to stop ASAP 1. Talking too much People tend to talk themselves out of a deal by saying too much. Only answer the questions that people ask of you. As a rule of thumb, you should say about 20% of what you really want to. Offering too much information tends to generate more questions, which in turn leads to fear of the unknown. Keep it concise and direct. —Andy Karuza, NachoNacho 2. Inflating yourself A little humility goes a long way. I think your work can speak for itself, and oftentimes other people will b...

Anne Grady’s journey toward resilience started with her son, Evan, who is now 19 years old. She knew something wasn’t right even before he was born. After his delivery, the nurse said she had never met a baby that angry—not what a first-time parent wants to hear. Evan cried constantly, and when he was 11 months old, Grady enrolled him in therapy; when he was 18 months old, his father, Grady’s husband, left. Suddenly, Grady was a single mom with a baby who cried 20 hours a day, and nobody could tell her what was wrong. When Evan was 3, he tried to kill her with a pair of scissors. By the time he was 4, he was on his first antipsychotic, and, by 7, he was in his first psychiatric hospitalization. Spurred by her son’s growing medical needs, Grady started studying the brain and neurodevelopment. Now, she teaches Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, associations and nonprofits that resilience is a skill that can be learned and honed —a skill she’s mastered firsthand. After Evan’s ...

My business is so small that I’m the general manager, assistant manager, shift manager and more. My budget doesn’t allow me to hire a manager, so how can I delegate duties to hourly employees? Been there, done that. In my first year of business , I handled sales, marketing, web design and accounting. Oh, and I also took out the trash and mopped the floor. At some point, it became clear that I couldn’t do it all. So I enlisted help from the people closest to me who wanted me to succeed. I tapped my mom, whose background was in the sales of children’s clothing and (later) antiques, to help me run my career expos geared toward women. A quick study, she became my de facto event planner in no time. My husband, a newspaper reporter, happily handled banking between interviews. I trained my aunt, a stay-at-home mom who loves to read novels , to make sales calls. Within months, she was a pro. But eventually the generosity of friends and family wears out, and you’ve got to hire help . Delega...

Finding the best budgeting app for you can be tricky since there are multiple options, and each is slightly different. Often appearing on lists of the best budgeting apps, Mint is one of the most popular and easy-to-use apps available.  Mint can help you track your spending and income, alert you to fees or interest and even help you set goals like paying down debt or increasing your emergency fund. Although there are some drawbacks, the robust features that Mint offers make it a good choice for those seeking help keeping track of their finances. If you’re looking for a budgeting app that’s free, highly rated and easy to use, check out our review of Mint by Intuit .  What is the Mint app? Initially founded in 2006, Mint is a free budgeting app that allows users to see their complete financial picture in one place. It also offers helpful tools like automatic account syncing and categorization, goal setting, spending alerts and even investment tracking.  Mint also offe...

Have you heard? Don’t tell anyone, but… I really shouldn’t say anything, but did you know… This stays between us… Miss Manners might clutch her pearls at the idea of this decorum-shattering habit, but gossip isn’t always in poor form. While it is mainly talk about someone who isn’t present, it doesn’t always have to carry a negative connotation.  Is 2023 the year you’ve vowed to elevate your workplace etiquette? Read on to better understand why people gossip in the first place, types of gossip to avoid and how to better engage in watercooler (or Zoom) talk to reap gossip’s many benefits. Why do we do it? Fifty-two minutes equates to about two Emily in Paris episodes. It’s also the amount of time the typical person spends per day gossiping in a 16-hour day, according to a May 2019 study published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science . Given the amount of hours we devote each day to working, it tracks that the two intersect. At some point doing ...

It’s been said that “two heads are better than one.” But what about four? Or even eight? While you and your fellow employees might share common goals, more collaboration doesn’t always mean the team will be successful. Sometimes, too many cooks in the kitchen (or collaboration overload) can slow the process, reduce efficiency and derail engagement. But teamwork isn’t going away anytime soon. A 2016 Harvard Business Review article found that over the past two decades, time spent by leadership and employees in collaborative activities has grown by more than 50%. That is, they’re spending around 80% of their time on collaboration—time they’re not able to spend on their own work. In addition, technological innovations and increased emphasis on remote work make it easier to partner cross-functionally from every corner of the world. So it’s critical to get a handle on managing collaboration . Rob Cross, author of Beyond Collaboration Overload: How to Work Smarter, Get Ahead and Restore...

KC Davis struggled with being messy most of her life. Even though she lacked systems for organizing her home, she found ways to function. However, things changed dramatically after she had her second child during the pandemic. “My ability to shoot from the hip without systems didn’t work anymore,” says Davis, a licensed professional therapist and the author of How to Keep House While Drowning . In an effort to learn how to tame the mess in her home, Davis researched organizational systems. The problem was that these systems were created for neurotypical people; at this point, she didn’t know she had attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). “I tried to implement systems for folding my underwear or using rainbow-colored bookcases and glass containers, but none of it was working,” she says. Her house was chaotic, and since it was during the pandemic, she “had nothing to do but sit around and think, Why is my house not working ?” Through a slow process of trial and error, a lo...

Goal-setting theory describes the mechanisms that best engage and motivate employees. It implies tactics you can use to increase productivity on your team or throughout your organization. These tactics include setting goals that are specific and realistic yet challenging. Best practices in goal setting also require a completion date for a project. Milestones with due dates for smaller tasks that are part of that goal also motivate your teams. Finally, goal-setting theorists suggest using two-way communication and feedback loops. For instance, regular meetings enhance engagement , identify bottlenecks and other difficulties and ensure goal alignment. A Short History on the Goal-Setting Theory Setting goals to incentivize laborers and managers to complete tasks is not a new idea. After all, the Egyptian pyramids stand today as a tribute to cross-generational goal setting and completion. Yet, modern theoretical science has a keen ability to quantify what “we already know.” In that proc...