Category: People

Many people have leadership positions, but not many are good leaders.

It takes good leadership to be able to bring out the best in others.

These quotes will inspire you to be a good leader.

1. “To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

2. “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” — Ronald Reagan

3. “The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.” — John Buchan

4. “Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing.” — Albert Schweitzer

5. “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” — Jack Welch

6. “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

8. “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Peter F. Drucker

9. “I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.” — Robert E. Lee

10. “The day the soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.” — Colin Powell

11. “A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.” — Max Lucado

12. “Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems.” – Brian Tracy

13. “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

14. “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

15. “No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.” — Andrew Carnegie

16. “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” – John F. Kennedy

17. “There are three essentials to leadership: humility, clarity and courage.” — Fuchan Yuan

18. “There is a difference between being a leader and being a boss. Both are based on authority. A boss demands blind obedience; a leader earns his authority through understanding and trust.” — Klaus Balkenhol

19. “A leader isn’t someone who forces others to make him stronger; a leader is someone willing to give his strength to others so that they may have the strength to stand on their own.” Beth Revis

20. “Wisdom equals knowledge plus courage. You have to not only know what to do and when to do it, but you have to also be brave enough to follow through.” — Jarod Kintz

Do you want to be a good leader? Then these tips should be practiced and not just read.

When the curtain is about to be drawn on one’s life, what majority of people get to regret the most are the choices they never made when they had the time to.

These are some common life’s choices that you’ll regret not taking.

1. Finding love

Love is an important part of life that people don’t really take important when they are much younger; people chase after money and their career and deem love as unimportant — but loving someone and being loved in return is always important.

2. Chasing your dreams

Being young might seem like a lifetime, but even a lifetime isn’t long in reality. With each day you grow older, and if you don’t follow your heart and chase your dreams when you are younger, you might never chase those dreams again.

3. Being at peace with people

Living at peace with people you come across is a lifestyle that everyone should have, but people tend to be at war with their family, friends, their spouse and loved ones. When you are not at peace with people, your life will also lack peace, especially when you are much older.

4. Doing good things to people

Doing good should never be taken for granted. Only the joy that doing good brings is something money can’t buy.

5. Building great friendship

True friends stick together forever; that’s what true friendship is really all about. Not having great friendship is a choice you’ll always regret when you are much older. The love of a true friend can even be greater than that of a brother at times.

6. Loving your family

Many people are at war with their family, and it’s only at old age they get to regret their actions, when they’re being deserted and not being cared for. You only have one family, and you ought to love them.

7. Appreciating life

Life is to be appreciated; there are so many things going on for you that you should appreciate, but people only choose to complain about what isn’t working or what they don’t have rather than appreciate life and all it has to offer.

8. Valuing the things you have

Before you think of the things you need, value the ones you have; before you think of the things you lack, remember that there are people who would feel so great just to own half of what you have right now. The time to value all you have is now.

These are some life’s choices you’ll never regret making. Don’t wait till you are old and weary and then live in regrets and wish you had done better when you were much younger.

I love listening to good music everyday because I derive so many benefits from it. It helps calm me and also helps me when I need to sleep.

Listening to music have lots of benefits and below are 6 reasons why scientists feel you should listen to music every day

1. Helps you sleep

According to a May 2008 study, listening to music helps improve sleep quality in people with poor sleep. According to the researchers, relaxing classical music is an effective intervention in reducing sleep problems.

2. Helps relieve stress

Researchers have found that music can calm us down. According to researchers, listening to music is an effective way to reduce physiological stress.

3. Helps boost performance

According to researchers, listening to up-tempo, pleasing music can give you the motivation needed to start cognitive tasks and task requiring creativity. Researchers have also found that upbeat music can help you do well under pressure.

4. Music can elevate your mood

Researchers have found that listening to music can elevate your mood and make you happier.

5. Music can help you heal

According to a 2014 study, music can help us heal after a breakup and this is the reason we listen to melancholic, soul-shattering music after a breakup. Researchers found that listening to sad music after a breakup may actually induce positive emotions.

6. Music helps you work out better

According to researchers, listening to music can help boost your workout and also help you run faster.

Want to stop struggling with yourself and start getting things done?

You know what you need to accomplish. You sit down at your desk at the start of the day fully intending to do it. Or at least make meaningful headway toward your goal. But by the time you finally leave the office in the evening, you’re no further along than you were when the day began.

I don’t know if that sounds familiar to you but it certainly does to me. I start the day with a plan to make progress on a lot of blue-sky projects and by the time I’m done (usually way too late) I’ve taken up the entire day with busy work and haven’t made much progress on my bigger goals. It’s a problem I put to best-selling author and executive coach Wendy Capland. A while back, I wrote a column from an interview with Capland, and as a follow-up we decided she would coach me and that I would write about it.

We cover a lot of ground in these coaching sessions. We talk about my feeling burned out, my proud achievements and professional frustrations. Mainly, she helps keep me moving toward my biggest goals. And although coaching is great and I recommend you get it if you can, one of the methods she uses is simple, straightforward, and so effective anyone can use it to put an end to procrastination and start making progress on the things that really matter.

Step 1: Pick a few important tasks that you can commit to.

Don’t try to tackle everything all at once. This isn’t the time for your to-do list of every niggling thing you don’t want to forget. Pick important but perhaps challenging tasks that you know you need to do to get where you want to go, but just can’t seem to get started. Calling up that big customer. Pitching that new project or idea to your business partners or investors or your boss. Writing a business plan for the company you’re planning to start. Your list should have three to five items on it at a maximum.

Step 2: Pick deadlines for these items.

For each of the three to five items on your list, pick a date by which you can have it done. These deadlines should not require you to pull an all-nighter, or work through every weekend. They also shouldn’t assume that you will put aside all your other work and eliminate all distractions, focusing only on these tasks. You already know that won’t happen.

These dates shouldn’t be in the far distant future, but pick deadlines that you know you can make without killing yourself. Stagger the deadlines so you don’t have more than one task coming due on the same date. Then write those deadlines in your calendar. As Capland explains, if you write things in your calendar, they become like appointments with yourself, appointments that you’re likely to keep.

Step 3: Tell someone else.

This is the hardest step and truthfully it’s a step I’d be likely to skip except that fortunately I have a coach. Even if you don’t have one, do not skip this step. Pick a friend who can be your accountability buddy and ask if your friend will help you keep on track with some big goals. Choose someone who’s also working toward goals and offer to do the same for your friend. Don’t be shy about asking. Chances are, your friend will be flattered and happy to help.

Tell your accountability buddy exactly what you plan to and by what date. Better yet, do what Capland has me do after nearly every session: Write an email describing each of the tasks and its deadline and then send it off to your buddy. Ask your friend to send a similar email to you so you can help each other stay on track with both your goals.

Step 4: Plan when and how you will check in.

Pick a date when you and your buddy will speak by phone or video chat to see how each other is doing. A phone call, video call, or in-person meeting is the best way to do this–if you’re just checking in by email or text, it may be too easy not to take the deadline seriously. It’s also much harder to blow off or squirm out of keeping a commitment you made when you’re actually talking to someone in real time–there’s an embarrassment component that will serve as a useful motivator to get you going on those tough tasks.

Step 5: Repeat.

After your check-in, take another look at your list of tasks. Cross off the ones you’ve done. Remove any that are no longer relevant, or that you’ve decided not to do. If there are tasks you haven’t done but still intend to, leave them on the list. If you’ve crossed some tasks off, consider adding new ones. There may be other important tasks you’d like to accomplish, or you may have some new tasks that resulted from the first set. Your full list should still be no more than three to five items. If you have more tasks, they should wait until the next round.

Set new deadlines for your updated tasks, including those that didn’t get done last time. Once again, these should be realistic deadlines (and now that you’ve done this exercise once, you may have a good idea of how much time you’ll need). Write the new deadlines in your calendar, and then send them to your friend. Set a time for your next check-in. And so on.

Will following this method stop you from ever procrastinating again? No. There’s nothing on earth that can do that. But it will enable you to push past your own resistance, set “stretch” goals, and stick to them, and you can come back to it any time you get stuck. Like most writers, I’m a Grand Master at procrastination. If this works for me, it will work for you too.

Money management is an essential skill, and sometimes it’s not really about how much you make, but how well you manage your finances.

There are many people who earn good money, but have nothing to show for it, and there are those who have lesser income but live a well-planned life; there is no trick to this; it’s all about money management

If you are guilty of any of these signs below, then you have poor money management.

1. You don’t plan your money

Spending money without planning is the first sign you don’t have a good money management skill. Planning and budgeting should be an asset to you; you ought to know how you spend your money and where your money is going.

You should know how much you make and have a plan on how to spend that money, else you’d end up spending your money carelessly.

2. You don’t save for emergency

Emergencies and unplanned situations are a regular occurrence in life; it isn’t something you can probably plan against. So, the best bet is to have an emergency saving fund for those situations, else they’d take you by surprise and leave you clueless.

3. Not saving

Savings is important, very important indeed. A certain percentage of your income should be saved; when your income is used only on expenditure, then your money management is terrible, to say the least.

4. Buying everything you see

Being able to differentiate between your needs and your wants and knowing when to and when not to spend on your want is an art of money management — and this is where many people lose their money. Your wants are so many, and they can make you buy just everything you desire. Impulse spending is a major reason people go broke, and if you spend your money this way, you have poor money management.

5. Spending to impress

Of course you don’t need anyone to tell you that spending money just to impress someone is spending money the wrong way. Spend according to what you need and what you can; if you have the thoughts of impressing someone, you’d most definitely spend your money foolishly.

6. You spend all that you earn

Spending all you earn and more than you earn is a simple sign that your money management is zero. Spending all that you earn or more money than you make point to the fact that you are spending your money wrongly and your finance is doomed. When the repercussions of your actions catch up with you, there will be no hiding place.

7. You don’t know where your money is going

If you don’t know where your money is going, it’s because you don’t keep a track of it and you don’t plan your money well. When you plan and budget your money, you would always know where it’s going; but when you live without a plan, you’d never have an idea where your money is going and how to cut down cost.

8. You are always in debt

All these practices above will do one thing to you — they will leave you in debt. Being in debt is the lowest point of poor money management, and it doesn’t come like that — it happens when you don’t manage your money well.

Money management is a skill that should be learned and practiced. You can’t be a successful person when you can’t manage your money.

Every few years there’s a new dystopian novel or Star Trek–type show to remind us just how crazy our futures will be as technology and beauty products continue to merge. (Remember all the crazy beauty regimens in The Hunger Games, for example?) Well, Refinery 29 broke down for us some of their forecasted biggest beauty blends of the new year, and we have to say… some of them sound more than a little crazy, not to mention like an odd blend of science-fiction and hopeful dreaming.

Below are some of the most simultaneously fascinating and futuristic beauty trends:

Your DNA: The Future of Skincare.

As Dr. Ellen Marmur, MD, and director of Marmur Medical in New York City, told Refinery 29, “[The medical world is] working on personalizing drugs to treat diseases, using your unique genetic information as a guide.” Yikes.

Meanwhile, German physician and researcher Dr. Sturm is using a similar type of orthopedic therapy developed for arthritis on the skin with her bespoke blood-cream service. “Your blood is drawn into a syringe that has irregularly shaped glass beads, which trigger the blood cells to produce healing factors,” Dr. Sturm explained. Seriously, where’s Captain Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher?

Computerized Makeup.

Gone are the days of trying a million types of cover-up on your hand. Estée Lauder’s iMatch Digital Shade Finder, studies photos of your face (taken by a trained technician) and then uses an algorithm of around 22,000 color options to dispense an individualized Lancôme foundation. Want that flawless, perfect, no-makeup look? Estée Lauder can make that happen:

3-D Print Your Makeup & Hair.

3-D printing is just for graphic designers and art school students. Smashbox Cosmetics now offers a 3-D lipstick print, which uses a cartridge of Be Legendary Matte formula in a 3-D printer to create a lip print that users can apply with a simple brush. Meanwhile, L’Oréal is working on 3-D bio-printed skin and hair that could be used to test the safety of topical products.

One of the VPs in charge of the research explained, “In concept, it’s the same idea of programming the 3-D printer to print architecture on an X-Y-Z axis… We just happened to use living human cells. There’s delicacy involved.” Delicacy sounds like an understatement. As Refinery 29 points out, there are all sorts of exciting wound-healing and cures that seem possible in the near future as a result. We wonder if this is how the folks at Westworld got started.

There’s an app for that.

Those of you who are obsessed with your FitBit will love this new product: La Roche-Posay’s My UV Patch is a wearable heart-shaped sticker that accurately and consistently monitors your sun exposure while changing colors depending on the wearer’s potential sun damage. The sticker simultaneously syncs up to an app that allows it to chart your daily sun exposure. The future is now.

There’s no longer a need to fear the vacuum.

Our ingenious friends over in Korea have created a blackhead-extractor that literally sucks dirt from our face According to writer Joyce Kong, it’s a deep hydration facial known as an “Aqua Peel” that uses a special dermal suction to get rid of pore imperfections and dead skin layers.

As we navigate through life every day, we need plenty of inspiration to have it relatively easier for us. And you know that here at elcrema.com, we’re all about inspiring you and helping you be everything you want to be, as well as a better version of yourself. Check out these 8 daily reminders you need in your life.

1. Happiness is found within, not without. You’re all you really need to be happy. Don’t try to build your happiness around other people. It’s great to have friends and family around, but don’t let them decide whether or not you’re happy as a person– That power solely belongs to you, and you can start by loving yourself so much. When you do that, it’s difficult to not be happy.

2. What is failure? Failure isn’t failing at first or second or third try, it is not continuing to try even after you have been denied, it is giving up just because you failed once or twice. Good things don’t always come easy. If you try and fail today, dust yourself up, restrategise, and give it another go. Some of the great men you know today were once labeled ‘failures’ too.

3. Help those you can. If you’re in a position go render help to the needy, do not hesitate to do so. It may not seem so now, but someday, you’ll definitely reap the benefits.

4. Shrug off negativity. You’re what you think. You spend time thinking about evil, soon, you’ll start believing it. Accommodate positive thoughts only. Even if things around you do not look so great, tell yourself they are— that’s how positive change comes.

5. Forget the past, keep looking forward. Unless you can change the past, there’s no point worrying about it. The time you’ll use to bother about what’s happened, you can channel into learning from it, and moving on to something better.

6. What people think of you doesn’t really matter. People will criticise you and mock you, or say stuff that isn’t even true about you, but pay no attention to it all. You alone have the power to define your reality. You are who and what you want to be, not what other people say. So block all that side talk away, and keep doing you.

7. Don’t compare yourself to other people. Everyone’s journey is different. We all have different paths to walk on. Some will arrive earlier than others, but that doesn’t mean that the others won’t arrive. As long as you keep doing what is right, there’s no reason why you won’t get there. It may take a while, but eventually, it’ll happen.

8. Karma is real. Finally I want you to know that thing called ‘karma’ is very real. What you sow today, you’ll surely reap tomorrow (sometimes, it doesn’t even wait until tomorrow). So be guided. Do the right thing always, and make sure you can account for your every action. Good luck.

You can’t be successful if you don’t have the right habits. You can achieve success if you have the right attitude.

Below are everyday habits that will make you successful

1. Spend money only on the things that will help you achieve success. Spending money on your personal development and business will help you become successful.

2. Listen more and talk less. Always learn to be attentive and listen to people because you never know what they have to say.

3. The company you keep matters. You can’t be successful if you surround yourself with negative people who do nothing but destroy your dream. Surround yourself with positive people.

4. Working hard doesn’t guarantee success but working smart does.The most successful people are those that worked smart.

5. You can’t achieve success if you spend your day sleeping. Too much of sleep will never help you achieve your dreams. Wake up early and do what you have to do.

6. Building a good network is important. You have no idea who you might need tomorrow so build contacts wherever you go.

7. Always finish what you start. You can’t be successful if you never finish what you start.

8. Time is a valuable asset and you need to manage it properly. Learn to prioritize your tasks and accomplish set tasks before deadlines.

9. Be confident. No one can believe in you if you don’t first believe in yourself. Believe you can do and it will happen.

10. Read good books. Knowledge is power and there is no better avenue to get knowledge than reading good books.

11. Measure every goal you set. When you measure your goals, you know exactly what’s working and what isn’t.

12. You can’t be successful if you aren’t good at what you do. You stand out from the crowd when you are good at what you do.

13. Never let obstacles and challenges make you give up. There will definitely be obstacles before you achieve your dreams.

14. Know how to deal with people. You will go a long way in life when you know how to deal with people no matter how terrible they are.

15. Make everyday count. Never let a day pass without achieving something that will take you closer to your dreams.

You should be capable of motivating yourself when the chips are down. Motivation is an important tool to achieving many things, and when you find the right motivation, you can do anything.

Don’t wait for anyone to motivate you; this could be risky. Try to motivate yourself and carry yourself up when the chips are down. This is just how you do it.

1. LISTEN TO A MOTIVATIONAL AUDIO

Listening to the right message can easily stir you up. There are dozens of good messages you can listen to, and listening to the right message can do wonders to your mindset.

2. DEVELOP A MANTRA

There is a reason sports teams have mantra. A mantra could spur you up when the chips are and give you a sense of upliftment from within. Develop a mantra; it could be anything. For example, “I am a winner; I believe I can make it.” Having a positive mantra like this can quickly stir you up.

3. WRITE DOWN YOUR GOALS

When you write your goals down, this could give you a sense of motivation and belief, and you’d find motivation as well.

4. MAKE EACH DAY COUNT

When you are active and working each day towards something, you’d easily find motivation, compared to when you’re doing nothing.

5. ENVISION YOURSELF

Have a vision and envision where you want to be. Visualise yourself and create a picture of where you want to be. This can fuel you with the right motivation.

6. SEE FAILURE AS A LEARNING OPPORTUNITY

When you are scared of failure and see it as the end of the road, you’d miss a lot of opportunities and you’d hardly be motivated. However, when you see failure as an experience and an opportunity where you learn from, you’d easily pick yourself up.

7. TALK POSITIVELY

Speak positively! Positive speaking can affect the way you think, and the way you think will definitely affect the way you act. Speaking positively will also attract positive things to you and give you the right mindset to achieve great things.

Don’t wait for anyone to lift you up; you are responsible for your own success or failure. These tips will stir your mind in the right direction.

We all need to spend money but the big question you should ask yourself is how are you spending the money you earn?

Reckless spending can lead to financial problems and the best time to take a look at your finances is now.

Here are 9 signs you need to watch how you spend money

1. You spend money buying things you don’t actually use much. If you have several gadgets and equipment that you can’t remember the last time you used, you obviously need to watch how you spend money.

2. If you have several bills that go unpaid because you don’t have the cash to settle them, then you obviously need to watch how you spend money. Essential bills should be paid before you spend money on entertainment and non-essentials.

3. If you don’t have any money left at the end of the month, then you need to watch how you spend money. Irrespective of how much you earn, you need to have money left at the end of each month.

4. If you don’t save at least 5% of your income every month, then you need to watch how you spend money. It’s recommended you save between 10-15% of your income monthly and the minimum amount you should save is 5%.

6. If you always get home broke after a night out with friends, then you need to watch how you spend.

7. You need to watch how you spend money if everyone around you sees you as an impulse spender. If you spend without thinking about it, then you need to check how you spend.

8. If you have to borrow money a lot from your friends and colleagues, then you need to check how you spend. You are obviously living above your means if you end up borrowing every month.

9. You need to watch how you spend if you can’t go a day without spending money. Never assume spending little bills on random stuffs don’t matter because if you sum them all up at the end of the month, you will realise they matter.

Phil