 The research is clear. You can improve your physical and mental health by thinking this more frequently. Most people realize that the mind and body are connected into a feedback loop. "A healthy mind in a healthy body" is why psychologists and physicians alike recommend sensible eating and regular exercise. Neuroscientists, however, recommend a different approach. Because they know that body-centric lifestyle changes (like diet and exercise) are difficult to maintain, they recommend starting with the mind. And they've identified the one thought that, when regularly focused upon, is most likely to propel your mind and body into an upward spiral. That thought?  Neuroscience Says Your Body and Mind Get Stronger When You Focus on GRATITUDEYes, that sounds all crunchy granola, but there's actually extensive research into the positive mental and physical effect of that specific thought and emotion, according to a fascinating article published by the Wharton Health Care Management Alumni Association. Here are some highlights: 1. Gratitude makes you more likely to exercise. According to the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, people who keep gratitude journals "reported fewer health complaints, more time exercising, and fewer symptoms of physical illness." 2. Gratitude reduces your stress level. According to a study published by National Center for Biotechnology Information "cultivating appreciation and other positive emotions showed lower levels of stress hormones [specifically] a 23 percent reduction in cortisol and 100 percent increase in DHEA/DHEAS levels." 3. Gratitude improves the quality of your sleep. According to a study conducted at the University of Manchester and published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research, regularly focusing on gratitude and thankfulness "improved quality of sleep and [resulted in] longer sleep hours." 4. Gratitude increases your emotional well-being. According to studies published in the Journal of Research in Personality, gratitude leads to lower depression and higher levels of social support while making you less likely to consider suicide. 5. Gratitude makes your heart stronger and healthier. According to research conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital, the presence of gratitude in a patient "may independently predict superior cardiovascular health." Other studies show that gratitude increases the physical activity and therefore the speed of recovery for heart patients while reducing their inflammatory biomarkers. 6. Gratitude makes you a more effective leader. According to a Wharton study, grateful leaders "motivated employees to become more productive [because] when employees feel valued, they have high job satisfaction, engage in productive relationships, are motivated to do their best, and work toward achieving the company's goals." In some of the studies, participants kept a gratitude journal in which they'd list at the end of the day all the reasons they felt grateful. That's a good technique, but you can feel gratitude all day by simply asking yourself, "What can I feel grateful for right now, right here?" Your brain will come up with an answer.
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 You may not have heard of Tubi, Pluto TV, or Kanopy—but they're the perfect cure for subscription fatigue.
THE MAIN CASUALTY of the streaming wars so far has been your wallet. Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, CBS All Access, HBO Now, Apple TV+, Disney+: They all demand a monthly tithe. Toss in a live service like YouTube TV, the music app of your choice, and whatever gaming concoction suits your needs, and you're suddenly ringing up a pretty grim bill. But wait! The proliferation of streaming services has also yielded a bumper crop of free options. They're the perfect cure for subscription fatigue. The adage "you get what you pay for" does apply here to some extent. The selections generally aren't huge, and most make you watch a few ads along the way. But they're also better than you might expect, and continuing to improve. On Wednesday, popular streaming platform Plex introduced an ad-supported movie and TV show library with thousands of titles, with about half the ads you'd expect from broadcast television viewing. In other words, while you shouldn't expect any of the following to replace Netflix from your streaming regimen, you shouldn't count them out either. Each almost certainly offers at least something you want to watch, and won't cost you an arm and a leg—or anything at all—to take advantage. Plex We just talked about this one! But more specifically, Plex makes a compelling case by partnering with big-name studios like MGM, Lionsgate, and Warner Bros., which means it has a relatively well-stocked streaming larder focused on classics: The Right Stuff, Raging Bull, and Apocalypse Now just for starters. It also carved out international licensing deals, meaning unlike many streaming services, your library won't suddenly disappear when you travel. IMDb TV To access the IMDb library, you'll need to create an account, or use your existing Amazon credentials. Your current options are decent but not great; the most popular movie appears to be Fury, although bonus points for also carrying Sing Street. Your best bet for a binge is probably sci-fi series Fringe, and not just because it rhymes. Even though it's getting a deluge of new content, it's probably unlikely that IMDb TV will ever catch up to its Prime Video sibling, so manage those expectations accordingly. The Roku Channel OK, this could potentially be confusing, since Roku is made up of thousands of "channels," including the majors like Hulu and HBO Now. But it also operates the Roku Channel, which offers a smorgasbord of classics like Groundhog Day and Tombstone, along with slightly more recent fare like Spotlight. But really the important thing to know is that it has all five seasons of the incomparable Schitt's Creek. You're welcome! The more interesting reason to take a look at the Roku Channel, though, is that it also offers free livestreaming, including news reports from ABC and indie movies and classic TV from Filmrise. During a Friday afternoon check-in, the latter was playing a black and white episode of Lost in Space. Fun! You can also subscribe to other streaming services—HBO, Showtime, Acorn TV, and so on—through the Roku Channel, which should save you some navigational clicks. Again, if you already have the Roku app on your smartphone, the Roku Channel is right there waiting for you. Or you can get it—and everything else on this list—through your Roku device. Kanopy Do you have a library card? Then you have Kanopy! Well, sort of. You still have to sign up for a separate Kanopy account, but once you have, you can connect it to your public library, assuming you're a member, which you should be because libraries are great! Individual libraries set their own limits; mine allows for 10 movies a month, with three days to watch from the time you press play. Your credits refresh on the first of each month, and there are apps available for Android, iOS, Apple TV, Fire TV, Roku, and so on. The selection here leans toward indies, but it includes lots of Criterion Collection flicks like The 400 Blows and Rashomon, making it a cinephile's dream. Also? No ads. Libraries! Hoopla is another library-connected service that has a great selection but no Criterion. On the plus side, you can also manage your library ebooks, comics, and other media through it, while Kanopy is strictly video. So do with that what you will. Tubi Tubi lacks the name recognition of some of its peers, but its library outpaces most of them, with thousands of ad-supported TV and movie titles. You don't even need to register an account to watch. It also arranges its haul into helpful categories—including a "Not on Netflix" collection to help you better appreciate what you're not paying for. There's still a lot of junk to sift through on Tubi, but it doesn't take long to turn up rewatchable classics like Ronin, art-house hits like Nebraska, and underappreciated gems like The Host. Pluto TV Most of the streaming services on this list specialize in on-demand content. Not so the Viacom-owned Pluto TV, which replicates the traditional cable-viewing menu, but with specialized channels serving up nonstop Doctor Who, Antiques Roadshow, and even The Hills. It also has traditional networks, like CNN and Fox Sports. There are hundreds of channels to surf through in all, as well as a slightly anemic on-demand selection of movies and TV shows. Basically, if you've got decision fatigue—if you're tired of wasting an hour scrolling through Netflix before you actually watch anything—Pluto is the elixir you're looking for. Crackle Did you know that Sony Crackle has been around in one form or another since 2004? That's three years before Netflix started streaming. That head start may not have won it a massive following, but Crackle does house some gems, particularly in the realm of cult and classic TV. You can binge the entirety of News Radio and Parker Lewis Can't Lose, and early seasons of All in the Family and Bewitched. Relatively rare for a free streaming service, Crackle also has original shows like Rob Riggle's Ski Master Academy and the very much less ridiculous The Oath. There are plenty of movies here, too, spanning decades but with a heavy concentration of '90s classics like Jerry Maguire and In the Line of Fire. You don't need an account to watch, and the content gets updated pretty regularly. Vudu You already know Vudu as the Walmart movie rental service you never use. But Vudu is also a Walmart free movie and TV streaming service you never use! The selection isn't great, or at least not appreciably better than your other options here. (In fairness, it does feature The Rock). But keep an eye on Vudu; it's investing in original programming, which includes a sci-fi drama called Albedo, starring Evangeline Lilly and directed by Brad Peyton, who has directed the actor known as the Rock in three feature films. Impossible to say if it'll be any good. But at least it'll be free.  Clearly, we’re not in the same dating world my grandparents inhabited. The way in which we, as a society, approach love has changed drastically in the last few generations and decades. My grandpa likes to recall the story of when, in high school, he saw my grandma for the first time and told his friends, “I’m going to marry that girl.” Well. I highly doubt that the men who like my photos on Hinge are coming to that same immediate conclusion, given the number of times a match has opened conversation with something along the lines of “wanna smash?” I mean, I have so many questions: Like, smash? That’s what you’re going with? Does that ever work for you? And, not a question, but someone please come and put me out of my dating misery because things are rarely fun, rarely hopeful, and rarely romantic. Clearly, we’re not in the same dating world my grandparents inhabited. The way in which we, as a society, approach love has changed drastically in the last few generations and decades. Common steps in a relationship formerly followed the trajectory of date, get engaged, get married, move in together, have kids. Now, TBH, it feels like a huge milestone to simply have a toothbrush at someone’s place…and even then, unless you’ve DTR, that person could still be dating other people. While noting the differences between my situation and that of my grandparents, I couldn’t help but wonder—said in my best Carrie Bradshaw voice—what are the new relationship milestones? “Each couple needs to know whether mundane everyday tasks, like paying the bills, cleaning the house, or doing the cooking work within their relationship.” —Annabelle Knight, relationship expert Perhaps most strikingly is the order shift between “get married” and “make a family home.” It used to be widely taboo for couples to live together before getting married, and data from The First Measured Century report by PBS backs up that notion. In 1960, only 0.2 percent of couples lived together pre-marriage, per the findings. But by 1998, that number jumped to 7.1 percent. Also supporting this shift in milestones is a Pew Research Center finding that in 2016, 18 million people were cohabiting before marriage--up 29 percent from 2007. And according to this visualization of the results of Stanford’s “How Couples Meet and Stay Together” survey published in 2017, people are waiting much longer to get married now than they did the 1970s, but the number of couples living together before marriage has been drastically increasing. For instance, after one year together, 70 percent of couples in the 70s were married with just 4 percent cohabiting, and after the same amount of time, 5 percent of couples in the 2010s were married with 26 percent cohabiting. And after five years together, 84 percent of couples in the 70s were married with 1 percent cohabiting, and 52 percent of couples in the 2010s were married with 24 percent cohabiting.  Basically, it’s been a steady trend that more and more people are living together before getting married. But is moving in together actually a bigger, more important relationship milestone than tying the knot? For some couples, yes. “Moving in together has become a huge milestone for couples, as it signifies the joining of two lives and, if couples are not interested in getting married, it becomes the milestone to replace that,” sex and relationship expert Annabelle Knight says. Given that marriage—and divorce—rates have been declining, this intel tracks. So long as both people in the relationship are onboard with doing so, Knight wholly supports living together before tying the knot. While many naysayers of cohabitation point to it compromising the sanctity of marriage, per Knight’s stance, living together first can actually help determine whether or not wedded bliss is actually a viable option for a couple in question. “It’s the test drive that shows you whether or not you work together when your day-to-day lives have been fully integrated,” she says. “Each couple needs to know whether mundane everyday tasks, like paying the bills, cleaning the house, or doing the cooking work within their relationship.” Her take reflects attitudes toward marriage as well—well, attitudes in big city centers, at least. According to data from OkCupid, 83 percent of Gen X women and 87 percent of millennial women in New York City believe that a couple should live together before getting married. 90 percent of Gen X men and 92 percent of millennial men in New York City agree. The same OkCupid data points for San Francisco and Chicago reflect similar results supporting shacking up, which Knight says shows that people want to know a relationship can work in a real setting. But it’s also worth noting that, especially in pricey metropolises, if you’re spending a ton of time at your boo’s place, it can make both financial and time sense to move in together. (That’s part of the reason why I moved in with my now ex-boyfriend. Spoiler alert: We didn’t get married, and that’s for the best.) So what’s the cause of this shift? “Societal changes definitely have a huge impact on people’s relationships, like a ripple effect,” Knight says. “We must also consider the importance of celebrity culture on regular relationships. If people see their idols leaning toward a different relational structure, they’re more likely to consider a different path for themselves.” Furthermore, recent data from Pew Research Center notes that in the United States, there’s a large differential between younger and older people who affiliate with a religion. Since being a religious “none” (or not affiliating with a formal belief system) is on the rise, it stands to reason that traditional, religious-leaning reasons that may have kept certain people from cohabiting before marriage are no longer a factor. 
“It really is different for every couple, as every relationship has a unique journey, marked by different milestones,” Knight says. (But according to the data, a growing chunk of us singles would find it really effing weird to get married before living with our S.O. first.) Story by Alejandro Cremades Former Contributor. Entrepreneurs Author of The Art of Startup Fundraising & Serial Entrepreneur  Henrique Dubugras has accomplished more in just 22 years than most entrepreneurs aspire to in a lifetime. He’s started multiple companies, won coding competitions, attended some of the most envied learning places, started multiple companies, hired hundreds of people and raised millions of dollars. How has he done it? What secrets to success can he share with other entrepreneurs? I had the pleasure of interviewing Henrique Dubugras on a recent episode of the Deal Makers Podcast. Here’s a glimpse at his story behind the scenes, and his tips for raising millions of dollars, landing top tier investors and more (listen to the full episode here). Young Entrepreneurship Henrique started striking out with his own businesses at just 12 years old. Being obsessed with online gaming he decided it was best to learn to code, build his own games, and play for free. Unfortunately, just two years later he got hit with a patent infringement notice at just 14 years old, and had to shut it down. Hacking Your Way into Stanford After discovering a TV show called Chuck, who was a really good programmer and hacker, Henrique decided, "If I want to be like Chuck, I have to go to Stanford." As a foreigner, he found the whole U.S. college application process very complicated. So, he found another Brazilian guy that was graduating from Stanford. They made this deal. He was starting a ticketing company in Brazil. He would teach Henrique the Stanford application process, and in exchange, he would code for him for free. After working for him for a year, his mentor had raised a bunch of money and hired a bunch of senior engineers. Dubugras thought, "Hey, maybe I can try to start my own company." He decided to start a company that teaches other students the U.S. application process. Despite getting to 800,000 uses in just nine months, it became pretty obvious that the user base didn’t really have the money or credit cards to pay. Their parents were also skeptical. The love for that venture faded out as he found new opportunities. Winning the Miami Hackathon & Raising $300K at 16 Rent is expensive, so Henrique headed to a hackathon in Miami that was worth $50,000. He built this dating app called Ask Me Out, which instead of Geolocation, was through Facebook friends. He won the hackathon, went back to Brazil and tried to launch that. He and his cofounder ended up transitioning to a payments startup, Pagar.me, which is like Stripe in Brazil. The connections made led to raising $300k from two investors at just 16 years old. They scaled to 150 employees and decided to sell the company and go back to school. Lessons Learned on the Journey Some of the early lessons Henrique Dubugras says he learned along the journey in those early ventures were: 1. To aim big, not just for what could be big in one country, but could be done at a global scale. 2. Monetize early to prove your business model and commercial viability. 3. Relying on others, like banks, to run your business can be tedious, risky and derail your product. Leaving a Half-Billion Dollar Business to go Back to College Most workers or entrepreneurs couldn’t fathom wanting to go back to school after having grown a $500,000,000 a year business. Henrique and his cofounder Pedro did. Four reasons that drove their decision were:
After attending the prestigious startup accelerator program, Y Combinator, the pair of cofounders dropped out of Stanford. Why not? They probably knew more than many of their professors from first hand experience, even before they got it. The Irony in Raising Millions of Dollars for Hot Startups Going through startup accelerator Y Combinator, Henrique realized the irony of so many successful founders that were raising millions of dollars, yet couldn’t get a simple corporate credit card. Crazy, right? You have millions of dollars in the bank, top investors and financiers in the country love you, but you can’t use the money. Often due to short financial history. So, Henrique’s next startup became offering a corporate credit card to these founders. It went live in 2018. It’s called Brex. Who to Hire & How to Land a Super-Angel Henrique has learned from the best and has hired hundreds of people through different startups. With Brex he says his first hires were a generalist, a CFO, and then general counsel. All of which helped to build credibility with investors. Something particularly useful when raising money when you are just 21 years old. Brex has now raised at least $220 million and is valued at more than $1.1 billion. Funding has come from names like Ribbit Capital, DST Global, Global Founders Capital, and SV Angel. Even Peter Thiel and Max Levchin are in. Henrique says they landed Max after having gone through the interview process at one of his companies, just to learn the recruiting process. The final interview was with him, and they have now found him to be one of their most helpful investors. That helpfulness is the top quality Dubugras says he looks for in an investor. Often working on building a relationship with them for months in advance to see just how helpful they’ll be. Quick Tips for New Founders
Listen in to the full podcast episode for all the details, as well as how to contact him directly with your ideas and questions (listen to the full episode here).  When you were a kid it was a lot easier. In college, you almost had to be trying not to make friends.
But then you’re an adult. You get busy with work. Your friends get busy with work. People get married. Have kids. And pretty soon being “close” means a text message twice a year. You’re not alone… Or, actually, the whole point of this is you really may be alone. But you’re not alone in being alone. These days we’re all alone together. In 1985 most people said they had 3 close friends. In 2004 the most common number was zero. Via Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect: In a survey given in 1985, people were asked to list their friends in response to the question “Over the last six months, who are the people with whom you discussed matters important to you?” The most common number of friends listed was three; 59 percent of respondents listed three or more friends fitting this description. The same survey was given again in 2004. This time the most common number of friends was zero. And only 37 percent of respondents listed three or more friends. Back in 1985, only 10 percent indicated that they had zero confidants. In 2004, this number skyrocketed to 25 percent. One out of every four of us is walking around with no one to share our lives with. Friends are important. Nobody would dispute that. But I doubt you know how very important they are. So let’s see just how critical friends can be — and the scientifically-backed ways to get more of them in your life…Loneliness Is A KillerWhen people are dying, what do they regret the most? Coming in at #4 is: “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.” And neglecting your friends can make those deathbed regrets come a lot sooner than you’d like. When I spoke to Carlin Flora, author of Friendfluence: The Surprising Ways Friends Make Us Who We Are, she told me: Julianne Holt-Lunstad did a meta-analysis of social support and health outcomes and found that not having enough friends or having a weak social circle is the same risk factor as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Maybe your grandparents lived to 100 and you take good care of yourself. You’re healthy. But if you want those years to be full of smiles, you need to invest in friendship. 70% of your happiness comes from relationships. Via The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People: Contrary to the belief that happiness is hard to explain, or that it depends on having great wealth, researchers have identified the core factors in a happy life. The primary components are number of friends, closeness of friends, closeness of family, and relationships with co-workers and neighbors. Together these features explain about 70 percent of personal happiness. – Murray and Peacock 1996 The Grant Study at Harvard has followed a group of men for their entire lives. The guy who led the study for a few decades, George Vaillant, was asked, “What have you learned from the Grant Study men?” Vaillant’s response? That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people. So friendships are really really really important. But maybe you’re not worried. Maybe you have lots of friends. Guess what? In seven years, half of your close friends won’t be close to you anymore. Via Friendfluence: The Surprising Ways Friends Make Us Who We Are: A study by a Dutch sociologist who tracked about a thousand people of all ages found that on average, we lose half of our close network members every seven years. To think that half of the people currently on your “most dialed” list will fade out of your life in less than a decade is frightening indeed. Ouch. Scared yet? I am. So what do we do? (No, going back to college is not the answer.) How do we make new friends as adults? 1) The New Starts With The Old The first step to making new friends is… don’t. Instead, reconnect with old friends: These findings suggest that dormant relationships – often overlooked or underutilized – can be a valuable source of knowledge and social capital. Doing this is easy, it’s not scary, they’re people you already have a history with, and it doesn’t take a lot of time or work to get to know them. Go to Facebook or LinkedIn for ideas and then send some texts. Boom. You already have more friends. If you’re going to be strategic, who should you prioritize? You probably met a disproportionate number of your friends through just a handful of people. Those are your “super connectors.” Rekindle those relationships. And then ask them if there’s anyone you should meet. Next time you get together, see if that new person can come along. Not. Hard. At. All. (To learn how to deal with a narcissist, click here.) But maybe this feels a little awkward. Maybe your friendship muscles have atrophied. Maybe you weren’t great at making friends in the first place. So what really makes people “click”? 2) Listen, Seek Similarity, and Celebrate Clicking with people is a lot less about you and a lot more about focusing on them. Don’t be interesting. Be interested. And what are the best ways to do that? Listen, Seek Similarity, and Celebrate. Studies show being likable can be as easy as listening to people and asking them to tell you more. And mountains of research show similarity is critical. So when they mention something you have in common, point it out. Finally, celebrate the positive. When someone talks about the good things in their life, be enthusiastic and encouraging. Via The Myths of Happiness: The surprising finding is that the closest, most intimate, and most trusting relationships appear to be distinguished not by how the partners respond to each other’s disappointments, losses, and reversals but how they react to good news. Alright, your superconnectors are making introductions and you’re clicking. But how do you get close to these new people? We’ve all met people we thought were cool… but just didn’t know how to take it to the next level and go from acquaintance to friend. It’s simple, but not necessarily easy… 3) Be Vulnerable Open up a bit. Don’t go full TMI, but make yourself a little bit vulnerable. Nobody becomes besties by only discussing the weather. Close friends are what leads to personal discussions. But personal discussions are also what leads to close friends. Via Click: The Magic of Instant Connections: Allowing yourself to be vulnerable helps the other person to trust you, precisely because you are putting yourself at emotional, psychological, or physical risk. Other people tend to react by being more open and vulnerable themselves. The fact that both of you are letting down your guard helps to lay the groundwork for a faster, closer personal connection. Close friends have a good “if-then profile” of each other. Once you have an idea of “if” someone was in situation X, “then” they would display behavior Y, that means you’re really starting to understand them. And this leads to good friendships: People who had more knowledge of their friend’s if-then profile of triggers had better relationships. They had less conflict with the friend and less frustration with the relationship. How many close friends do you need? If we go by the science, you want to aim for at least five. Via Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life: National surveys find that when someone claims to have five or more friends with whom they can discuss important problems, they are 60 percent more likely to say that they are ‘very happy.’ (To learn the lazy way to an awesome life, click here.) So you have new friends. Awesome. Now how do you not screw this up? 4) Don’t Be A Stranger First and foremost: make the time. What’s the most common thing friends fight about? Time commitments. Via Friendfluence: The Surprising Ways Friends Make Us Who We Are: Daniel Hruschka reviewed studies on the causes of conflict in friendship and found that the most common friendship fights boil down to time commitments. Spending time with someone is a sure indicator that you value him; no one likes to feel undervalued. You need to keep in touch. (Remember: not keeping in touch is how you got into this problem in the first place.) If you want to stay close friends with someone, how often do you need to check in? Research says at least every two weeks. So even if you need to set a reminder on your calendar, check in every two weeks. But, actually, there’s a better way to make sure you don’t forget… 5) Start A Group Denmark has the happiest people in the world. (I’m guessing Hamlet was an exception.) Why are Danes so happy? One reason is that 92% of them are members of some kind of social group. Via Engineering Happiness: A New Approach for Building a Joyful Life: The sociologist Ruut Veenhoven and his team have collected happiness data from ninety-one countries, representing two-thirds of the world’s population. He has concluded that Denmark is home to the happiest people in the world, with Switzerland close behind… Interestingly enough, one of the more detailed points of the research found that 92 percent of the people in Denmark are members of some sort of group, ranging from sports to cultural interests. To avoid loneliness, we must seek active social lives, maintain friendships, and enjoy stable relationships. And what’s the best way to make sure you’re in a group? Start one. That makes it a lot easier to stay in touch and a lot easier to manage those big 5 friendships with 20% of the effort. A weekly lunch. A monthly sewing circle. A quarterly movie night. Whatever works. Friends bring friends and suddenly it’s not so hard to meet cool new people. And who does everyone have to thank for this? You. And make the effort to keep that group solid for everyone. Many studies show older people are happier. What’s one of the reasons? They prune the jerks out of their social circles: Other studies have discovered that as people age, they seek out situations that will lift their moods — for instance, pruning social circles of friends or acquaintances who might bring them down. (To learn the 6 rituals ancient wisdom says will make you happy, click here.) Alright, popular kid, we’ve learned a lot. Let’s round it up and find out how to keep your new friendships alive over the long haul… Sum Up Here’s how to make friends as an adult: The new starts with the old: Touch base with old friends and leverage your superconnectors. Listen, seek similarity and celebrate: Don’t be interesting. Be interested. Be vulnerable: Open up a bit. Form an “if-then” profile. Don’t be a stranger: Check in every two weeks, minimum. Start a group: Things that are habits get done. So start a group habit. What does Carlin Flora, author of Friendfluence, say is the number one tip for keeping friendships alive? Reach out to your good friends and tell them how much they mean to you. It’s just not something we’re accustomed to doing. It’ll make you feel great, it’ll make them feel great and it will strengthen the bond between you. Be more giving to the friends you already have. People in romantic relationships always celebrate anniversaries, yet you might have a friend for 15 years and you’ve probably never gone out to dinner and raised a glass to that. We need to cherish our friendships more. Okay, you’re done reading. Time to start doing. Reach out to a friend right now. Send them this post and let’em know you want to get together. Listen to what they’ve been up to. Celebrate their good news. Offer to help them out with something. After all, that’s what friends are for. Join over 285,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here. This article first appeared on Barking Up the Wrong Tree.  There’s an old Chinese folk tale about two monks. They come to a poor village to beg for food, but no-one has any to spare, each family barely has enough to feed themselves.
So the monks say they’ll feed the entire village by making a huge pot of Stone Soup. Then they start searching for the perfect stone. Eventually they find it: large, smooth, round, flat, evenly coloured. They bring it back to the village and ask to borrow a large pot, they fill it with water. As it boils, they taste it, it needs a little salt. Someone brings salt. The monks say it’s good, but it would be better for a few herbs. Someone else brings herbs. The monks sip again, they say it’s getting there, it just needs a little rice. Someone brings some rice. The monks say it’s nearly done, it just needs a little meat. Someone brings some meat. The preparation goes on like this until everyone in the village has contributed something. Eventually, the monks say it’s perfect. They throw the stone away, and the monks and the villagers enjoy the delicious soup. Now, of course, we all know what’s happened. The stone had no more taste than any other stone. The stone was only an excuse to get everyone to add the ingredients for a soup. But without noticing, the villagers went from only having a tiny bit of food each, to having enough delicious soup to feed everyone. It’s a simple folk-tale, but actually, it’s a story about diversity. How an intangible idea can mix separate elements together to make something better. The creative motto used to be: "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts." Nowadays we’d simply say 1+1=3. Keeping things separate means that’s all we get, but putting them together means a new thing happens. In cinema, it’s generally accepted that Sergei Eisenstein was first to recognize this. Every art-school film class starts with Battleship Potemkin: the Cossacks on the steps. On its own, a soldier’s boots are just that. A pram is just that. A woman’s face is just that. But edit them together and the mix creates a terrifying massacre. The mix is what inspired French Nouvelle Vague cinema, which inspired Martin Scorsese. That’s what we should learn, to mix things together. If strategy, creative, and media stay in their silos, then we’ll only get separate thinking. But the most exciting work I’ve ever been part of is when we work together. We won creative awards where the "creativity" didn’t come from the creative department. Because we had diversity of thinking. But diversity doesn’t just mean strategy and media having an opinion on creative. It also means creative having an opinion on strategy and media. Obviously, we need diversity of race, gender, age, class, religion, etc. Because once we get past that, we can hire the best brains and ignore the package. That’s the great thing about Stone Soup, the essential ingredient is the stone. But the stone doesn’t add anything to the soup, it’s just an idea. What the stone represents is what Buddhists call "mind". The mind itself is nothing, it doesn’t even exist in the physical world. But, that’s the power of an intangible idea: as Buddha said, "All there is, is mind." By Dave Trott Dave Trott is the author of Creative Blindness and How to Cure It, Creative Mischief, Predatory Thinking, and One Plus One Equals Three. Previously published over at Campaign Live |
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The Bergen Review is Bergen county's concierge for the best businesses, restaurants & venues in New Jersey. Our agency has over 10 years experience in web branding, online media and marketing. Our team of experts scour every nook and cranny of New Jerseys best businesses, restaurants & venues to present our clients the full scoop of where best deals & experiences are. Even after researching & looking at reviews, finding the REAL scoop on what Businesses, restaurants or venues best fit your interest can be a challenge. Bergen Review Media has a team that researches & visits various establishments. Making sure the consumer gets the best experience.
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Bergen Review Media was Named Best in Search By TOP SEO's
50 East Ridgewood Ave. #215
Ridgewood, NJ 07050 Phone: (201) 948-5500 |
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Bergen Review Media is a
WebClientReach, llc Company |
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WE'RE MORE THAN A MEDIA GROUP
WE'RE PART OF YOUR COMMUNITY |
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