A New Type of Life Balance - The Five-Pointed Star of Balance

Balance.  Since Gen X'ers learned many lessons from their divorced parents in the 1990s and 2000s, many people began seeing balance as more important to their overall success in life than to just make it to the corner office at work. While so many people were focused on achieving great things at their office or career, they were missing out on a lot of other things that they could possibly regret at a later stage in life.  Most of these things revolved around time with their kids and family. They were focused on having more of those life events that allowed them to look back on life and feel proud of what they had accomplished in relation to raising their children and building a family structure that they could be proud of.  And while this is a noble focus, there were many who woke up one day at 40 or 50 and realized that for the last 18-25 years or so, they had completely forgotten what it was like to live a life that was not completely revolved around someone else.  These people would often be at a loss for what to do next with their lives and would then have to find a way to learn how to live life again as an independent person with their own goals and dreams and hopes.  In this week's KMM Views, I want to explore a new type of life balance that is not focused on the original dichotomy of choice: work and family, but instead brings a more holistic approach to achieving a more well-rounded life that add three more elements to the mix.  This new balance will ultimately allow one to live a more rewarding life overall and creates, what I like to call, a Five-Pointed Star of Balance.

Outside of Work Friends - Often when people begin to date someone seriously or get married, they have a tendency to make a decision to put their friends to the back burner. This often leads to this individual only spending time with the people she/he works with to try to build deeper relationships for her/his success. While this is definitely a wise thing to do, one cannot forget about the numerous people who have been there for you from day one and who know you best.  Making sure that one continues to hone and develop these relationships is imperative to one's life, as these people can often give perspective about various decisions in life and consistently "check" you when they recognize something in you that someone who hasn't known you as well wouldn't recognize. They can also be a good indicator of how much you have grown as they can see the full transformation from where you were to where you are now.  One can achieve this by always making time for those friends by scheduling an outing with them every other week or once a month. You have to have a scheduled time to do it, because if you don't it, it will get lost in the "shuffle" of the day.  The great thing about this is that it will give you a mental break from your every day life to mentally relax and recharge as will as teach your kids a valuable lesson about the importance of true friendship and how it takes INTENTIONAL work to actually foster and maintain it.

Personal Hobbies/Interests - Having personal hobbies and interests allows an individual to continually "dream" about the different things that she/he may want to accomplish one day.  As kids, one of the most exciting things of growing up was the thought of what our lives were going to be like when we reached adulthood.  Often we had some type of personal interest that we focused on and wanted to build upon to achieve some level of greatness.  As we become adults, many of us lose these every day hobbies and interests because of the lack of time and never continue to develop any new skill for ourselves.  One of the needs of the human brain is to continually learn and grow to stay mentally sharp and prepared for new challenges.  This only occurs when we intentionally work to develop a new skill that requires our ultimate attention and focus.  This needs to be something that we purposely have to make time for and practice to get better.  This is also great for our kids as it serves as a model to demonstrate to them that "mommy and daddy" both are willing to put in the hard work it takes to improve as something - an idea that should translate to them applying this to their academic and athletic attempts to improve.

Academic and Cultural Development - Often when one reaches a level of competence at a job or in a field, one has the tendency to allow this to be her/his threshold of knowledge, and there is no longer any intentional effort to improve in this endeavor. This can apply to one's job or just life in general. This last point on the Five-Pointed Star of Balance is about continuously working to improve one's overall knowledge about different things in the world in general.  People who live the most fulfilling lives are the one's who tend to know a little about a lot of different things. For this reason, they often have a lot of different perspectives on how to approach situations in life, which many times gives them the ability to make better decisions as whole.  We live in an enormous world in which the dynamics of academic and cultural interaction are forever changing.  It is only by making this a priority in our lives, will we then be able to continue to grow and enrich our own lives by challenging ourselves to not just life in a bubble but to learn more and more about others and the outside world. This type of world approach will also encourage one's kids to be more world-centric as opposed to region-centric - a trait that will no doubt be a differentiator for them as we move towards a more globally-minded world.

The Five-Pointed Star of Balance.  This is important for anyone who desires to live a more enriched life than just the ordinary day to day that most people live.  To do so, however, takes more of an effort than the usual balance between work and family (that's the norm).  One has to intentionally work to develop the other three aspects of our Five-Pointed Star to live a life of continual growth and excitement that will make the next day more enjoyable and exciting than the last. And while one may feel bad because it will take some time away from what one is able to dedicate to one's kids, it ultimately comes back to be a teacher/model to them of how to life a more well-balanced life themselves - a feat that isn't easy, but worth every amount of effort and investment it takes to achieve it.

Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech. You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN

The Value of Taking "Calculated" Risk

Recently, an opportunity presented itself that would be considered somewhat of a risk considering my current situation.  There were a number of people who were also considering this opportunity that would equally translate into a risk for them as well.  Ultimately, many decided to not attempt the risk, which made me want to take a stab at it even more.  The reason for this thought process is generally related to the Pareto principle, or what is better known to most as the 80/20 rule.  This was initially an economic rule created by the Italian economist, Wilfred Pareto, which stated 80 percent of the Italy's wealth was owned by 20 percent of the Italian society.  From this, society has created a number of different interpretations of the rule in relation to a number of different things, e.g. sales activity, marital focus, and leadership.  What I related this to in consideration of this decision, however, is that 80 percent of the world rarely take risk and attempt to live lives as predictable and comfortable as possible. However, it's these 20 percent who put themselves out there and take a swing without knowing that everything is going to work out who often end up living the lives they've always dreamed down the road.  If one thinks about it, the reasons one should take risk are simple.

RISK USUALLY YIELD THE BIGGEST OPPORTUNITIES
If you know anything about investing, the index funds that generally project the highest return on your investment are also the ones that either A. has the highest volatility from year to year or B. is a dependent on a set of factors or circumstances (i.e. merger going through or government policy being passed) that are somewhat out of the investor's control.  The reasons the ROI is so high is because the risk is so great, so your decision to invest in such an opportunity must be offset with a return that will prove worth the attempt. This is true in life when an opportunity comes by that makes us sacrifice or puts us in a position in which we are not sure.  This "unsureness" and/or sacrifice often will create a huge opportunity on the backside if we are able to get through it successfully.  For those who always play it safe and "stay close to home," they could potentially be missing out on grand opportunities that are waiting for them if they are willing to get outside of their comfort zone and push themselves to another level of excellence that they may not be even aware they possess themselves.

IT'LL STRETCH YOU TO MAKE YOU BETTER
One of the great things about risks is that even when you don't succeed as you may had ultimately planned, it still stretches you to improve the person you are in a number of areas. When you take risk, the reason it is considered said risk is because there are a number of things that are outside of your control and that you don't have exact experience with per se.  Often, if you desire to be successful at your new endeavor, you have to educate yourself on those things which you do not know and attempt to build a bridge from where you are to where you want to be in relation to understanding how to control the situation.  By taking on this risky endeavor, you put yourself in position to stretch your current abilities and improve in areas which you may have never considered before.  Often, the times of our greatest growth are those times in which we feel the most uncomfortable initially and allow ourselves to make mistakes and continually learn from them. Without taking risk, we generally do the same things over and over and have only incremental growth, if any at all.

YOU CAN ALWAYS RECOVER
The last reason why risks are generally a good idea is because, at the end of the day, there is always the ability to recover.  Especially when you are young in your life, risks should definitely be more considered since, if you do fail, you have a lot of time to make up any setbacks this may have created.  Admittedly, as you age, your tolerance for risk should lessen, since you have much more to lose, but if you have planned things out accordingly and given yourself enough of a financial cushion to be willing to have a minor set back here or there, you should still be able to take calculated risk to receive a larger return when it presents itself. Take Donald Trump for example; he took a number of calculated risk during the 80's and 90's in real estate and many of them didn't turn out the way he had hoped.  He bombed and had to declare bankruptcy several times before getting back on his feet.  His net worth before those decisions was in the low hundreds of millions (not bad, I know). His net worth now is approximately $2.7 billion.  Clearly, the lessons he learned from those mistakes gave him the knowledge he needed to course-correct and create the empire he has today.

Calculated risk. As the title suggest, you have to make sure that whatever risk you take is well thought through and considered from every angle.  I'm not suggesting that you should go to Vegas and put your entire life savings on black. That's just foolish.  However, I am suggesting that you keep an open eye for an opportunity that you would initially pass up because it would be considered by most as too "risky" that could yield big dividends for you if you take a swing at it. As always, do your due diligence by investigating all the ends and outs of the opportunity before pulling the trigger, but don't let the fact that most people wouldn't do it deter you from taking the shot.  Most people aren't millionaires either (less than 1% of the world's population to be exact).

Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech. You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN

My 3-STOP Philosophy

Recently, I've had a lot of conversations with individuals about where their life is now as opposed to where they "thought" it would be.  From these discussions, I have heard the same reoccurring themes of why this is the case.  These themes aren't in any way different from what we all know, but, at times, we all have the tendency to allow these things to mask the truth of what we should do to overcome these obstacles. From these conversations, I've developed three simple STOPS that will enable individuals to stop feeling sorry for themselves and take control of their lives.

STOP PROCRASTINATING
Sounds simple,but it's one of the things that hold so many people back all the time. They consistently tell themselves that they don't have the time to do something or the situation isn't perfect, so they'll put this off until later. What happens is that later turn into much later, which eventually turns into never.  The trick that most of us use to justify why we have to wait to do something sounds noble or correct.  We tell ourselves we are focusing on some other goal that is more important so this other thing will have to wait.  People put off starting to diet and exercise until the beginning of the year because "they just started a new job and want to focus on that first." They put off going to school and improving their marketability to get a new job because their child just started at a new school and they want to put focus on him/her first.  The crazy thing about this rationale is that individuals forget that there IS a way to do it all at the same time.  We often try to make situations mutually exclusive when they can easily be collectively inclusive, and, by doing so, have a greater exponential impact on the quality of our lives.  By exercising and dieting, one will often have more energy and greater focus to be able to dedicate oneself to his or her job even more.  By going to school and, subsequently, getting a promotion or different job, one is actually being a better role model to her or his child, while also increasing one's ability to provide the academic resources needed to help the child succeed through school. There's always going to be a reason you CAN'T do something. Find the reasons you can.

STOP MAKING EXCUSES (BE A BETTER PARENT TO YOURSELF)
This is very close to the stop procrastinating axiom, except that it goes a step further by not even considering taking an action EVER because of some "legitimate" reason.  The thinking is often very closely related in that one will give a good reason why she or he cannot do something based on things that just will not allow this to happen.  People say they can't lose any weight because they are born with an overactive pituitary gland or thyroid (I love when I hear this). They can't get to work early or on time because they just aren't a morning people. They can't learn to cook because they just don't have the time or energy. I compare these people to bad parents who are always making excuses for why their kids behave badly. Children don't become law abiding citizens by luck.  It's associated with the hard work and discipline of the parents to make sure kids stay on task, learn right from wrong, and don't deviate from the lessons they learn. When we don't hold ourselves accountable and push ourselves to do that which we know we should, we are like those lazy parents who let their kids run wild and free that we just want to smack at times (the kids and the parents). Don't make yourself a smack-worthy parent.

STOP BLAMING OTHERS AND "SITUATIONS"
The biggest difference I've seen between people who generally live a pretty successful life and those who seems to flounder throughout life and never truly progress in any capacity is that the former group rarely, if ever, blames an outcome on a "situation" or other people. They consistently are pointing the finger at themselves when something doesn't go as planned and will in no way, shape, or form deny they are responsible for what occurred.  On the contrary, the latter group has a tendency to blame negative situations on everything from the weather to the astrology (You know those Tauruses are just bull-headed).  It's amazing how many people truly believe they have no control or hold no blame in the outcome of a situation in which they were completely involved.  I've found that the more successful one is, the more likely she or he is to actually take responsibility that most people would consider as being out of one's control.  This instinct is one that comes from a feeling of a responsibility for all situations and a proactive view of what one could've done better/differently to prevent someone from taking an action that most would have never seen coming. It's a view that keeps these individuals steadily growing and getting better at "seeing around the corner." - a trait that will always keep them progressing and improving their plight in life.

Procrastination. Excuses. Blame.  The three deadly "sins" that hold so many people back in life. By simply applying my 3-STOP methodology, one has the ability to easily overcome these tendencies and create the life one desires.  While it may prove challenging at first, with time, the feeling of control that one will begin to feel over one's life as of result of this will be well worth the fight.  And if you don't do start doing this TODAY, you don't have anyone else to blame but yourself, you smack-worthy parent.

Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech. You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN

Masters Degree Versus Marriage

Recently, I found out that my 20 year old cousin had decided that she found the love of her life and wanted to get married.  While marriage is a wonderful thing, I worry about so many young people who feel that it is okay to decide who they want to spend the rest of their lives with at such a young age.  Think about it, what if you could decide what job you would have for the rest of your life at the age of 20?  What if you could decide what type of clothes or hairstyle you would have at 20?  What about what kind of car you drove or neighborhood you lived in?  The reason why these questions sound absurd is because we all know as we get older and experience different things, our tastes and attitudes change.  Also, as we get older and acquire more wealth, our ability to afford more expensive and higher quality items tend to change as well. So, while the 2005 Toyota Camry may have been nice in 2008, it just doesn't cut the mustard in 2014.  For this reason, I think that all individuals should utilize the milestone of achieving a master degree before marriage (if they plan to get one) or at least the equivalent time it would take someone to do so (probably around the age of 30 or so) before getting married.  I have several simple reasons for this.

TIME TO FOCUS ON ONE'S CAREER
When one first begins a career, it can be very challenging to try to balance the time needed to dedicate to learning to hone one's craft and the time needed to keep a marriage healthy and raise a family.  When most people start out with a new company, they are at the bottom of the totem pole. There is so much to learn that one's colleagues already know, that often the first 1-3 years of someone's career can be an intense game of catch-up with long hours and late nights to acquire the necessary knowledge to be successful at one's job and gain the respect of one's peers from a credibility and effectiveness standpoint. If someone is married during this time in his/her life, they will feel reluctant to stay at the office for yet another late night or to put in a lot of hours on the weekend to prepare for a big project that upcoming week.  By remaining single, the dedication and focus one can put on his/her career cannot even be compared to the person who is always worrying about having to make her/his spouse happy.  On the flip side, if you are married to someone who says that he or she is good with you working such long hours and not spending that much time with them because they understand you are working for the future, that is fantastic, but isn't that being a little selfish to that person?  While you are building a career and creating the life you desire, that person is relegated to "passing" through life by waiting for the free time you can spend with him/her.  I feel it would be much better to allow that person to be free to live the life they desire and not holding that person hostage to your success. While it may be a tough decision, they will thank you for it in the long run.

TIME TO MATURE EMOTIONALLY AND PHILOSOPHICALLY
When you are young, you don't know what you don't know.  When you give yourself time to just live life and experience a number of different lessons, you'll be amazed at how ridiculous some of your previous views were.  I only use the Master's degree as a good barometer because with higher education comes a deeper understanding of various truths in our world and how things work. As with your undergrad degree, you are exposed to a number of different philosophies and opinions about life that have a tendency to change the way you think and your opinion and focus on things.  The same is true of the higher level degree in which this intellectual stimulation is heightened based on the deeper level understanding of various subjects that you pursue.  Also, time gives us the ability to create a large data set from which to pull to make better decisions about our interactions with others, who we are as people, and what is the best course of action as it relates to us individually.  I would argue from the age of 18-30, you are still very much trying to figure out what life is all about. You have theories.  You have ideas.  You have lessons that other people shared with you when you were younger that you are testing, but you don't really know.  By giving yourself time to grow, have experiences, and learn from them, you will have a much better sense of who you are and what is the type of right person for you.  The journey to obtain your masters degree will help with that exploration and discovery greatly.

PRE-MASTERS VERSUS POST-MASTERS TYPE OF PEOPLE
As with anything in life, once you achieve different milestones and accomplishments, the circle of those with whom you interact will change.  The reason I give the advice to wait on marriage until after your Masters is because the individuals with whom you will have a chance to interact with should change somewhat as you begin to become a part of different circles as you grow in your career.  When one allows himself/herself to stay open to meeting new people who may share some of their evolved views and interest over time, it decreases the chances of marrying someone who one generally liked and cared for at the age of 26, but who is not the person that he/she sees the more-maturely educated and enlightened self with at age 34.  While it doesn't mean there is anything wrong with this person and that you two still couldn't be the best of friends, the thought of spending the rest of one's life with someone from whom they are so drastically different can be terrifying.  By putting this standard in place (attaining one's Master's), one ensures herself/himself that they are keeping all of their options open for when they may meet that special man or woman who is absolutely perfect for their 34-year-old, more thoroughly-educated self, who surprisingly wouldn't have been for their 26-year-old, still-learning self.

A Master Degree.  While I will agree it's not for everyone, just as a undergrad degree isn't for everyone, for those whose careers can be greatly enhanced with the attainment of this degree (which I would argue is about 98% of them), your focus should be on obtaining this before any thoughts of marriage begin to cross your mind.  Undergrads are like high school diplomas these days, and you need the extra credentials to set yourself apart from the masses to obtain that competitive advantage.  And while you may think that you've already met the person of your dreams and you don't want to lose him/her because you are trying to obtain this degree first, the truth of the matter is, if they don't decide to stay with you because of your focus on this for your career, they probably weren't the right person for you in the first place.

Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech. You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN

Goal Evolution - Make it an Iterative Process

This past weekend, I was reviewing a list of goals that I created when I first moved to Atlanta.  It was a plan for my life from the age of 29 to 80.  As I reviewed them, I was somewhat pleased at the number of goals that I actually achieved during my four plus years here, but I was also a little disappointed at the ones in which I hadn't yet. This led me to think about why this occurred and if there was anything that I could have done differently that would've allow me to see the success in ALL of these. At the end of the day, I believe the answer was no, as I realized one thing that became a major goal later was not on that sheet (obtaining my MBA) and that has made all the difference with a lot of things in my life. This led me to consider that it was time to do another major goal setting session to understand where I want to be now in 5, 10, and even 50 years.  Even though you may have done this in the past, I encourage all to consistently review and tweak their long term goals for several reasons.  These reason are:

LIFE HAPPENS AND PRIORITIES CHANGE
What occurs for many people is that when a life-changing event happens (pregnancy, marriage, etc), they have a tendency to completely forget about the goals they may have had in the past and begin to "live in the moment."  While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, the issue comes down the road when one looks back on their life after 20 years when the kids are finally off to college and think why didn't I ever open up that bakery that I desired. Why didn't I get that masters degree that I promised myself I would get.  When we don't take a minute to redo our goals in light of a life-changing event, we cheat ourselves out of continuing to live the life that we desire. While the children or marriage should definitely change your life in some way, it shouldn't completely derail you from any of your hopes and dreams for the future.  What one needs to do is take some time to review what goals he/she may have had in the past and then rewrite those goals based on what is realistic with the current life you live to continue to allow you to "move the ball" in the right direction of your ultimate goal (while it may be at a much slower pace).  This will allow you to continue to be excited about life and work your new responsibilities as a parent or spouse to add to your world of accomplishment, not take it over.

YOU SHOULD GROW ENOUGH TO WANT DIFFERENT THINGS
Sometimes, we create goals out of what we think we would like and want to do, but once we have a chance to do it, we may change our minds completely. Therefore, we must continually iterate our goal setting to change with our change in desires and what is important to us. When you were younger, purchasing a Maserati may have been the most important goal you could think of.  Now, you would much rather have a nice SUV to take the kids to soccer practice.  By consistently taking time to evaluate whether you truly want something any more based on how you may have changed with time, you'll be surprised how many of your goals may not be goals anymore.  If one doesn't do this consistently, one could potentially be putting a lot of sweat and effort towards something that will not satisfy that person once they get it. Always think through WHY your goals are your goals and if anything changes that changes that answer, then you may need to reconsider that one and create a new one.

THINGS DON'T ALWAYS GO ORIGINALLY AS PLANNED
The only predictable thing in life is unpredictability.  You can never tell what is going to happen in the future. Regardless of what all the soothsayers and Ms Cleos of the world may tell you, there is no crystal ball to tell us exactly what is going to happen.  For this reason, regardless of how well your plans are laid out and how well you may execute them, there are still things that are outside of your span of control that could greatly reduce your chances of being successful. What some do when this occurs is they give up and immediately drop this as a goal from there list.  What would be more beneficial and effective is to begin to identify the other ways that you can still accomplish your goal but in a different manner. By consistently taking the time to re-evaluate and re-analyze your goals, you will give yourself a much better chance of coming up with a plan that will allow you to still achieve your goal.  Perhaps not in the same time frame as before, but at least you will have an idea of what needs to be done to "roll with the punches" to still move forward with your desire.

Goal setting is a fun time for me, as it reminds me of the days of when I was a five year old kindergartner, thinking about all the great things I was going to do when I "grew up." And while I've accomplished many of those things so far, there are still many on the table for me to do.  By consistent, iterative goal setting, not only do I get to have this feeling of excitment more consistently, but I also put myself in the best position to make sure my future plans are in tune with my current self - something that may not be the case for many if one doesn't take the necessary time to think and "make it so." Shout out to Jean Luc Picard.

Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech. You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN

Hating...Why It Doesn't Help Anyone

So, if you ask me, there is about a 99% chance that the Heat are going home Sunday night very disappointed with how their season ended.  Pop and Timmy are just too good at what they do, and their hunger after what happened last year is just too strong to be denied.  If the Heat are able to make history and pull off one of the most amazing comebacks of all time that would be awesome to watch.  However, what disturbs me is the large group of people who are so happy that the Heat are going to lose and would want nothing better than to see this occur.  It’s not that these people are Spurs fans.  No. No. No.  They are Heat Haters and the large group of these individuals throughout the world seems to continue to grow. Urban dictionary defines hating as “when one puts down the success or fortune of others due to jealousy.” While I don’t think that all the people who dislike Lebron James and the Heat are exactly “jealous” of him, I do think there is something wrong when someone else lack of success actually makes you happy.  There are several reasons that I think people should do away with hating and move on to focusing on more positive things in life to make our world better.  These reasons are simple.

HATING BREEDS NEGATIVITY

Hating is probably one of the most natural negative things one can do. Think about it.  It’s the act of being happy at the failure of someone else but their failure in no way affects your success in any measure.  It’s similar to all the Carolina fans out that were happy that Duke lost in the first round to Macon.  I could never quite understand this. I’m from North Carolina, and I’m a Duke fan. If Duke plays Carolina, I want Duke to win, but if Carolina plays anyone else, it doesn’t affect me in any way.  At any rate, I would probably root for Carolina as long as they weren’t playing Duke as I would be proud that a team from the ACC and my home state would win.  This keeps me positive when I’m at a party and I’m cheering on with my friends for Carolina to win.  It shows a sense of sportsmanship and camaraderie to one’s fellow opponent.  This is in contrast to the guy whose team lost and now he is only rooting against the team that beat him.  That guy is usually considered a nuisance at most parties because even though he doesn’t have a dog in the fight, he hopes one dog dies. It just seems somewhat sinister and evil. Others around you would notice, and no one likes to hang around with negative people.   

HATING TAKES FOCUS AWAY FROM HOW YOU CAN GET BETTER

Have you ever been passed up for a promotion at work and instantly think that the person that got it didn’t deserve it?  Do you then begin to secretly hope that this person fails so you would be proven right?  This is another form of hating and is as dangerous as the previous example because it actually hurts you in a more direct way. While you are focusing on hoping this individual fails, you are missing out on the fact that perhaps there was a real reason that you were passed up for the promotion and haven’t done an analysis on why this was the case to improve. It would be like the Indiana Pacers rooting for the Spurs because they couldn’t beat the Heat.  This actually would take away from what they should actually be focusing on, which is how can they get better to beat the Heat next year.  Overall, this just focuses your energy on the wrong things. We only have so much energy that we are able to give to something, and if part of that energy is focused on hoping someone else fails, this is taking away from our focus on how we can grow each day to get better and improve ourselves for our future success.

HATING SHOWS A LACK OF CONFIDENCE IN YOUR ABILITY TO BE SUCCESSFUL

The last point is very subtle but I feel it is very true.  I believe that some individuals who consistently “hate” on others in the spotlight do so because deep down inside they don’t ever feel they will be put in a position to be that successful and have yet to understand the tremendous amount of sacrifice and effort it takes to get to that level.  If you look at any individual who is truly successful at his job, whether it is in the business world or athletic field, there is a sense of respect and admiration for others who have made it to the top of their mountain in some way. The reason for this is because these individuals know the amount of effort it takes to get there and, while none of us are free from criticism, we shouldn’t have people who dislike us for no good reason just because of who we are.  Individuals who are at this height in their life or feel they are going to get there one day are always happier to celebrate someone’s achievement than to tear them down.  It is usually those individuals who are resigned to their place in the world and have no true aspirations or ability to improve their plight in life, who are the ones who are the most vehement against the success of others.  Since they feel there is no chance of them ever being in a position to be criticized by others for no reason, they have no compassion for these people and instead decide to join the masses who would rather hurl insults at them and desire for their demise than the individuals who respect their level of success because they know they will match it one day. These people are generally less apt to criticize because they hope they will receive this same compassion from others when they reach their level of success one day.

So, please think about it. The next time you find yourself wanting to gain solace at another person’s misfortunes, fight this feeling of negativity and instead focus on the positive things in life to improve yourself and your position overall.  And while there are still those who refuse to give up this notion of Heat/Lebron-hating to make them feel better about their own lives, I’ve always reminded of the poetic phrase from the great urban philosopher Sean Carter who once said (and I’m paraphrasing here) “What you eat doesn’t affect my digestive health (as Erin Andrews would say).” #goheat

Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech.

You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN

America's Silent Killer (Why Selfies are Bad for America)

The selfie - the most loved and hated thing in America since Justin Bieber.  The amazing act of taking a picture of yourself to post on some social media site has been adopted by so many individuals that even Pope Francis took a selfie to send out to his loyal social media followers.  I’ve always had a feeling that there was something inherently evil about selfies. It was as if Lucifer himself had created this trend to consistently annoy those who can’t believe that someone would be so wrapped up in themselves that would decide to “bless” the social world with yet another picture of them.  It’s almost as bad as people who send you a picture of their family for Christmas.  I’m always thinking who started this and why did they think it was a good idea.  "Merry Christmas. Here’s a gift".  "Oh. Is this a gift card that I can use at a restaurant for my family?"  "Goodness no.  It’s a picture of my family again."  "Oh great."  Who really thinks this is a good gift?! At any rate, that's another topic for another time.  I knew in my heart of heart that selfies were bad, and now through scientific research, this has been proven.  The top three scientifically proven reasons selfies are bad are

SELFIES DECREASE AN INDIVIDUALS ABILITY TO FEEL CLOSE TO OTHERS

If you think about the first reason, it kind of makes sense.  If most of the pictures that individuals post on their social media site are just pictures of themselves, one has to think where are all their friends?  In the past, before selfies became the hottest thing since Stacy Dash in Clueless (I love Stacy Dash by the way), people wouldn’t post pictures of anything and would be forced to go interact with more people so they would actually have something to post to prove to others they indeed had interesting lives. Now, with the acceptance of the selfie, people can just incessantly post picture of themselves doing the most mundane things (Ken buying a donut from Dunkin Donuts, Ken eating said donut, Ken throwing the second half of the donut away because he feels guilty and wants to make sure he's right for the summer).  Now that they have this crutch to lean on, individuals who take more selfies are less apt to have the ability to socially interact well with others. Don’t take my word for it, however.  In a study done by four professors from three business schools in Europe, they took a survey of 508 Facebook users with an average age of 24 to rank how close they feel to their friends, co-workers, and relatives.  What they found was there was a large correlation between the individuals who ranked low on their feelings of intimacy towards others and how many selfies were posted on their Facebook account. Interesting stuff, huh?

SELFIES CAN BECOME ADDICTIVE

Second, selfies for many are a validation of who they are as a person and can become a dangerous 

addiction. For some, when they post a picture of themselves online and get a certain number of likes, it gives them a boost of confidence of who they are and how beautiful they are.  Their entire focus is on how good they look and how good others think they look.  This is especially dangerous for some teenagers who often struggle with their image.  When they begin to post selfies and get a lot of likes, it can give an extra boost of confidence to make them feel comfortable in their own skin.  The adverse side of this, however, is that often when individuals don’t get the number of likes they think they deserve, it has the negative affect and hurts their pride somewhat, so they have to continue to post self and get likes for that extra boost of confidence they need for the day.  This can become more and more damaging as the self-addiction becomes so enthralled in that person’s life that they cannot stop posting pictures of themselves to receive this validation and if they don’t get it, they may not be able to function correctly for that day.  They are constantly searching for that right pic that will get the likes that will give them that needed boost of serotonin for the day.  To get a sense of how far this obsession could go, just look up Danny Bowman. He is a British teenager who was so obsessed with capturing the perfect selfie that he would roughly spend 10 hours per day taking up to 200 selfies trying to get the perfect shot.  As this addiction became more intense, he lost 30 lbs, dropped out of school, and did not leave his house for six months as he tried to take the perfect selfie.  He actually took it so far as trying to commit suicide because he couldn’t do it and was luckily saved by his mom. He is currently go through rehab to treat this addiction. 

SELFIES ACTUALLY CAN DECREASE ONE'S SELF-ESTEEM

The last point, and perhaps the most disturbing trend about our selfie nation is that ironically the more selfies you take of only yourself, the more you feel worst and worst about yourself. This is very comparable to how individuals who are always looking in the mirror are the most self-conscious about their looks.  Because they are not 100 percent sure of their individual beauty, they are constantly checking it to make sure it is there.  These people often also have a skewed view of the importance of looks and often hold it in too high regard for themselves and for others. In a scientific study conducted by the Psychiatry of London in which they had two groups (one with what is known as Body Dismorphic Disorder and one group without it), it was proven that not only did the BDD sufferers experience increased anxiety and depression about their looks after prolonged engagement in the mirror (10 minutes to be exact), but the non-BDD participants did as well.  The more and more individuals are obsessed with taking the perfect selfie, the more they will subconsciously lose confidence and self-esteem in their natural beauty, something that is sad because we are all beautiful in our own way.

So, in conclusion, while I hate selfies with a passion and think they were created to piss sensible people off, don’t just take my word for it. Science has proven that selfies can be bad for a number of reasons. And even though it is cool to post a pic of you buying, eating, and throwing that donut away, you’ll do yourself a much better favor by just telling us about it on twitter. #dunkindonuts #donutnation #theyhavethebestcoffeeontheplanet 

Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech.

You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN