Author: Nadia K

Posted in Books, Management, TED talks, Workplace

Must-Read Book: “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t” by Simon Sinek

Posted on by Nadia K

You probably have heard about this book already in the media many times, and much has been already said and written about it since it was published in 2014, so I won’t take your time with long persuasive speech. I enjoyed the book thoroughly, learned a lot about how people grow to be good leaders, and recommend if you haven’t read it yet and want to improve your leadership skills to set time aside and read it.

I promise you, you will feel wiser and better person at the end, and will treat your team with more respect and integrity.

Posted in Inspirational, Quotes, success

Herbert Bayard Swope: “I can give you a formula for failure” – Inspirational Quote of the Week

Posted on by Nadia K

Happy Wednesday!

Today’s quote comes from Herbert Bayard Swope. He was a US journalist and editor, who was born at the of XIX century and lived until mid XX century. He was the first recipient of Pulitzer Prize for Reporting in 1917 for articles about the German Empire and is a three-times Pulitzer Prize recipient for his lifetime.

Have you ever found yourself trying to please people around you? It happens to me often … I seek to be surrounded with predominantly happy people, but pleasing them might not be always a recipe for successful relationship. Actually, pleasing is not equal to kindness, so see if you could practice the following techniques to reduce your inclination to please people:

  • Don’t pretend you agree with everyone just to be liked.
  • Don’t feel responsible for how other people feel.
  • Stop apologizing.
  • You’re in charge of how you spend your time. Don’t spend it for activities that are not part of your priorities.
  • Learn how to say NO assertively.
  • Don’t feel bad if other people are angry at you. It’s not necessary your fault and you should not compromise your values.
  • Don’t wait for compliments to feel good about yourself.
  • Don’t try to avoid conflicts at all costs.
  • Keep relationships authentic and share honestly when you feel angry, sad, embarrassed, or disappointed, and don’t try to hide your feelings.

Let me know how you feel about pleasing others and what you do to fight the inclination to agree with others, just to keep them happy.

Posted in Excel, Tutorial

Excel Video Tutorial: World Geographic Heat Map With Real Covid-19 Data

Posted on by Nadia K

Follow step-by-step tutorial on how to build a World Geographic Heat Maps in Excel, using Covid-19 data from World Health Organization.

For more tutorials please make sure to check out the complete list of videos on EZ Excel YouTube Channel. Please also leave a comment of what you would like to learn in future and subscribe to the channel. Thank you.

Posted in Excel, Tutorial

Excel Video Tutorial: How to Build Dynamic Unit Converter

Posted on by Nadia K

With this video, you can learn how to build your own dynamic Unit Converter in Excel, performing very similar to the one on Google’s result page.

GoogleUnitConversion

If you have intermediate Excel skills, you won’t have a problem to follow the step by step instructions and build the Conversion calculator by yourself.

With this mini-project, you will practice the following Excel skills:

  • Dependable drop-down lists with data validation;
  • Defining list names for ranges;
  • Creating tables;
  • Using functions like VLOOKUP, INDIRECT, CONVERT & IFERROR, and last but not least
  • Recording and using macros.

I hope you will enjoy this video and will find the project interesting!

Posted in Books, Motivation, Quotes, success

Seven Reasons You Might Fail to Become the Best in the World, defined by Seth Godin in “The Dip”

Posted on by Nadia K

In his bestselling little book “The Dip”, the famous business marketer and author Seth Godin proves that winners are really the best quitters. Godin helps us understand that winners quit fast and often, and without feeling guilty – until they commit to beating the right Dip.

Every new project, job, or hobby starts out exciting and fun until … it gets really hard, and not much fun at all. You might be in a Dip – a temporary setback that will get better if you keep pushing. But maybe it’s a total dead-end. What really sets the superstars apart is the ability to know if it’s a dead-end or temporary setback.

Winners seek out the Dip. They realize that the bigger the challenge, the bigger the reward for getting past it. If you can beat the Dip to be the best, you’ll earn profits, glory, and long-term security.

Do you quit often? Can you handle “the dip”?

Seven Reasons

 

 

If you haven’t yet, consider reading it:

The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)

Posted in Inspirational, life, Quotes

Martin Luther King Jr.: “You have to keep moving forward.” – Inspirational Quote of the Week

Posted on by Nadia K

Happy Wednesday!

What does it mean to you to keep moving forward? Here are some points on what it means to me and practices and trying to implement:

  • Stay positive, find positive – make the best of a bad situation. Researchers say that up to 80% of our thoughts are negative. You should learn to recognize your negative thoughts and switch to positivity, which will make you feel better about yourself and your life. Imagine having 80 percent positive thoughts!
  • Don’t quit early – you need to try one thing enough times to make it work and learn how to perfect it. If you give up too early you might never build resilience to cope with difficult situations.
  • Keep learning –  whether it’s in the office or in personal life, you stumble upon random things you don’t know but can make your life and work better. Take the time to learn more about them and start using and implementing new techniques.
  • It’s not a race, and you should move at your own speed. Complete one task at a time and then move to the next one. Multitasking is creating stress and overwhelming – it feels like you have a mountain of work on your shoulders, you don’t know where to start and lose a perspective of which task is more important and the priorities overall.
  • Learn to deal with the disappointment – recognize that what you are going through now is not permanent. Take the time to refocus and gain clarity, and prepare for the next challenge.

 

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” ~ Albert Einstein

Hope you are keeing your balance and moving forward every day!

Posted in Books, Inspirational, life, success

A Great Summer Read – “Thirst” by Scott Harrison

Posted on by Nadia K

Thirst is a remarkable representation of empathy, compassion and true giving. the author of the book Scott Harrison founded The charity: water back in 2006 with no funds and no experience. Through the years, his organization has raised over $300 million to bring clean drinking water to more than 8.2 million people around the globe.

Well written, the book is a memoir of the author’s life and a story of The charity: water – his vision of changing the world for the better, the purpose and the WHY of his life. Thirst is full of interesting and compassionate stories about the communities suffering from lack of water and the tireless unique & creative ways of the charity to collect funds, build trust in donors and deliver sustainable water solutions for the millions of families in need.

Everyone should read this book – there is so much that can inspire you to go out and change the world by as little as donating your birthday to a higher cause than just acquiring stuff.

Happy reading!

Posted in happiness, Inspirational, life, Quotes

Maya Angelou: “Don’t Complain.” – Inspirational Quote of the Week

Posted on by Nadia K

Happy Wednesday!

Today’s quote is really powerful, but you have to be ready to change and be emotionally mature to be able to make it work for you. 

What should you do when you are not happy with the reality? You should cultivate a “can-do” attitude and start changing the life around you one-step-at-a-time, piece by piece until you build a happier place for you and people surrounding you.

If things are out of your hands, and it’s hard to alter the reality around, you should try to change your way of thinking and make the most of the situation, keep positive and find the things that makes you happy.

Here are 10 tips to complain less and stop the negative thoughts so you can focus on finding solutions and be happier:

  1. Shift your thinking from negative to positive thoughts
  2. Be less judgmental to you and the others
  3. Make a list of things you’re grateful for
  4. Be the change you wish to see in the world
  5. Accept responsibility
  6. Keep moving forward and take care of yourself
  7. Find what makes you happy.
  8. Practice yoga
  9. Allow yourself to vent every once in a while
  10. Be more mindful and assertive

Posted in communication, life, Personality, success, TED talks

The 4 Practices to Cultivate Wholeheartedness?

Posted on by Nadia K

When you ask people about love, they’ll tell you about heartbreak. When you ask people about belonging, they’ll tell you about how they have been excluded. When you ask people about connection, the stories they’ll tell you are about disconnection.

Interesting, right? We always first recall the negative experiences in life and mute the positive memories.

Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston and the author of five #1 New York Times bestsellers: The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, Braving the Wilderness, and Dare to Lead.

In her TED Talk: The power of vulnerability, she outlines the following four life-changing practices that can help us live worthy, wholehearted life, stop recalling only the heartbreak, pain and disconnection, but find the joy and happiness: 

  1. Have a sense of COURAGE – when communicating with others tell the story of who you really are and accept your imperfections.
  2. Practice COMPASSION – treat yourself kindly first and then treat others with compassion.
  3. Develop CONNECTION as a result of authenticity – willingness to let go of who you think you should be in order to be who you are.
  4. Embrace VULNERABILITY – give without expecting anything in return, share anything without the fear of being judged, open yourself to people you love, because you are worthy of the same love. If we don’t allow to be vulnerable, we block the joy, gratitude and happiness, and feel worse.
wholehearted-living-definition-800x800-1

If you want to learn more how to live with courage an vulnerability, check out Dr. Brown’s book

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Posted in happiness, Inspirational, life, Quotes

Helen Keller: “When one door of happiness closes” – Inspirational Quote of the Week

Posted on by Nadia K

Happy Tuesday!

I hope all of you were able to have a relaxing and happy long weekend despite the overwhelming and controversial pandemic news everywhere.

This week’s quote comes from Helen Keller – an American author, political activist, and lecturer, who was the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.

This quote is almost 100-years old and still 100% valid.

When we have experienced happiness, we try to cherish and think of it, like it will never happen again and tend not to jump right into a new experience. Most of us are cautious when starting a new task or event and assess the success of it through the lens of already experienced success. It’s the same with happiness – we don’t see the new opportunity of being happy again, as we are comparing the new experience with the previous, and they will never be the same.

More happiness quotes from Helen Keller:

“We are never really happy until we try to brighten the lives of others.”

“I take happiness very seriously. It is a creed, a philosophy, and an objective.”

“If we do not like our work, and do not try to get happiness out of it, we are a menace to our profession as well as to ourselves.”