How to Live Your Love (and Make More Money)

 How to Live Your Love (and Make More Money)

Have you ever stopped and thought about how to best share your purpose in life? How do you want to make a difference on this planet while making a lot of money doing what you love?

Throughout school we are told to lower our sights when we dare to entertain the idea that maybe, just maybe we can do what truly inspires us rather than settle for a life fulfilling the wishes of others.

We settle for less than the greatest version of ourselves.

We cheat ourselves (and the people around us who could benefit from our unique offerings and skills) of a life of prosperity, health and contentment. The reason we don't feel fulfilled is because we are not aligning to our highest values ​​... not truly doing in life and not honoring what is unique about us.

The good news is that you don't have to resign yourself to living an average life, with an average wage and average expectations.

So if you want to know how you can make your passion an vital part of your life purpose and earn a truckload of money doing just that, allow me to share his knowledge with you in this talk.

Believe it or not it can be as simple as making a list! Write down a list of one hundred reasons why you are worth twenty million dollars. As you write the list and read it out aloud your mind will start paving neural pathways that say that you are worthy, it is possible and it is important to head in this direction.

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What does happiness mean to you?

 What does happiness mean to you?

What does happiness mean to you?Defining happinessDefining happiness can seem as elusive as achieving it. We want to be happy, and we can say whether we are or not, but can it really be defined, studied and measured? And can we use this learning to become happier?Psychologists say yes, and that there are good reasons for doing so. Positive psychology is "the scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive." These researchers' work includes studying strengths, positive emotions, resilience, and happiness. Their argument is that only studying psychological disorders gives us just part of the picture of mental health. We will learn more about well-being by studying our strengths and what makes us happy. The hope is that by better understanding human strengths, we can learn new ways to recover from or prevent disorders, and may even learn to become happier.So how do these researchers define happiness? Psychologist Ed Diener, author of Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth, describes what psychologists call "subjective well-being" as a combination of life satisfaction and having more positive emotions than negative emotions.Martin Seligman, one of the leading researchers in positive psychology and author of Authentic Happiness, describes happiness as having three parts: pleasure, engagement, and meaning. Pleasure is the "feel good" part of happiness. Engagement refers to living a "good life" of work, family, friends, and hobbies. Meaning refers to using our strengths to contribute to a larger purpose. Seligman says that all three are important, but that of the three, engagement and meaning make the most difference to living a happy life.Moment-by-moment vs. long termResearchers also distinguish between the moment-by-moment feeling of happiness produced by positive emotions and how we describe our lives when we think about it. Regardless of whether you had a good day or not, do you describe your life as a happy one? Or describe yourself as a happy person? Psychologist Daniel Kahneman describes this difference as the "experiencing self" and the "remembering self." Psychologists study both to better understand how daily experiences add up to a happy life.Scientifically measuring happinessSince happiness is so subjective, can it really be measured and studied scientifically? Researchers say yes. They believe that we can reliably and honestly self-report our state of happiness and increases and decreases in happiness. After all, isn't our own perception of happiness what matters? And if we can report it, scientists can measure it. Psychologist Daniel Gilbert compares this to optometry: "Optometry is another one of those sciences that is built entirely on people's reports of subjective experience. The one and only way for an optometrist to know what your visual experience is like is to ask you, 'Does it look clearer like this or (click click) like this?' "Research frameworkResearchers have formed a useful framework for studying happiness:

    * Happiness is made up of pleasure, engagement, and meaning
    * It involves both daily positive emotions and a global sense that life is worthwhile
    * People can accurately report their own levels of happinessUsing this framework, researchers are learning more and more all the time about who is happy, what makes them happy, and why.

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Some Dark Thoughts on Happiness ShareThis

 Some Dark Thoughts on Happiness ShareThis

As a general rule, human beings adapt quickly to their circumstances because all of us have natural hedonic "set points," to which our bodies are likely to return, like our weight. This is true whether our experiences are marvelous-like winning the lottery-or shattering. Not only did Brickman and his colleagues look at lottery winners but also at 29 people who'd recently become paraplegic or quadriplegic. It turned out the victims of these accidents reported no more unhappy moments than a control group. (This exceptionally counterintuitive finding, however, has not been replicated in a published paper-and subsequent studies have certainly shown that the loss of a spouse or a child can dramatically depress our happiness thermostats, as can sustained unemployment.)There's surprisingly little in the happiness literature about raising children, which in and of itself is odd. Odder still is that most of it suggests children don't make parents any happier. Gilbert wrote only three scant pages about this in Stumbling on Happiness. But he says he's been asked about it on his book tour more than almost anything else. "It really violates our intuition," he says. "Yet every bit of data says children are an extreme source of negative affect, a mild source of negative affect, or none at all. It's hard to find a study where there's one net positive. "(One possible explanation, he says, is that children are sources of transcendent moments, and those highs are what people remember.)"Misery Loves Company" by Open, N.Y.Paradoxes abound. Nebraskans think that Californians are happier, but a study done by the Princeton Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman suggests they aren't. One might expect the homeless of Fresno to be happier than the slum-dwellers of Calcutta, but another study suggests they aren't (probably because Indians don't live in social isolation, as our homeless do). In a 2003 poll by the Roper organization, the Danes, the Americans, and the Australians rated themselves the happiest (Australian buoyancy, such an enduring mystery-they're like an entire nation of people who can't relate to Chekhov). Other polls have found the Swiss happiest, and the Canadians always do well (hardly a surprise to anyone who knows Canadians). Compared with their purchasing power, Latin and South Americans are much happier than one would imagine, and the Japanese are less so, though being happy in Japan might not be a value per se. And every survey agrees on one point: That the people of Eastern European nations-Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Latvia, Belarus, and Bulgaria-consistently rank themselves the least happy, with Russia coming in especially low. (This might explain my own desolate moods. You can take the girl out of Vladivostok, but you can't take Vladivostok out of the girl.) Yet people in the happiest countries are more likely to kill themselves.And no matter where they live, human beings are terrible predictors of what will make them happy. If Stumbling on Happiness tells us anything, it's this. "Imagination," says Gilbert, "is the poor man's wormhole." Our imagination has an odd knack for Photoshopping things in and airbrushing things out, which is why we think that getting back together with our exes is a good idea; it also tends to mistake our present feelings for future ones, which is why, when we decide to marry the right person, we find it unthinkable we'll ever be tempted to sleep with anyone else. At the same time, we forget that our imagination has a miraculous ability to rationalize its way out of grim situations-which is why we're more likely to take a positive view of things we did than things we didn't (so go ahead and ask that woman to marry you), more comfortable with decisions we can't reverse than ones we can, and more apt to make the best of a terrible situation than a merely annoying one.Because our imaginations are limited, we can be disappointed by the things we covet most. But it also means-and this is the gorgeous part-that we're much more likely to cope well with situations we never thought we'd be able to survive. Perhaps the most profound study Gilbert cites is about the disabled, showing that those who are permanently injured say they'd be willing to pay far less to undo their injuries than able-bodied people say they'd pay to prevent them. It's possible, as Gilbert notes, that they may even find some silver lining in their experiences, as when the late Christopher Reeve memorably said, "I didn't appreciate others nearly as much as I do now."Like most New Yorkers I know, I can't imagine living in most other places in the world. My troubles would surely be aggravated, rather than solved, by relocating to Branson. But reading the literature of happiness studies, I can't help but wonder whether we aren't all in the grip of some strange false consciousness. From the point of view of the happiness literature, New Yorkers seem to have been mysteriously seduced into a way of life that conspires, in almost every way, against the most basic level of contentment.

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happiness

In the growing field of "happiness research" new studies are turning some well-established theories upside-down, particularly the "set-point" theory of happiness. Now researchers think your permanent 'base' level of happiness can change.Psychologists have generally believed that human happiness (or what psychologists call "subjective well-being") is largely independent of our life circumstances. This explains why the wealthy aren't much happier than the middle class, married people aren't much happier than single people, healthy people aren't much happier than sick people, and so on.It would follow then that changes in life circumstances do not have long-term effects on our happiness. In fact this belief has been the dominant model of subjective well-being: People adapt to major life events, both positive and negative, and our happiness pretty much stays constant through our lives, even if it is occasionally perturbed.This theory predicts that winning the lottery, for example, won't make you happier in the long run. While a divorce or even a major illness will throw your life into upheaval, over the long-run your happiness level will eventually return to where it was at before. It is called the "set-point" theory and employs a term borrowed from the set-point theory of body-weight which states that weight-loss will almost always be temporary.But new research, and reexamination of old research, is challenging some of the these claims. Studies are showing that happiness levels in fact do change; adaptation is not inevitable and life events do matter. The most important variables are that not all life changes are the same and that there are differences in the way that individuals adapt to life changes.With regard to different types of life events, the study's authors noted the different adaptations to marriage on one hand to losing a spouse on the other. "On average, most people adapt quickly to marriage, for example - within just a couple of years, the peak in subjective well-being experienced around the time of getting married returns to its previous levels. People mostly adapt to the sorrows of losing a spouse too, but this takes longer - about 7 years. People who get divorced and people who become unemployed, however, do not, on average, return to the level of happiness they were at previously. The same can be said about physical debilitation. Numerous recent studies have demonstrated that major illnesses and injury result in significant, lasting decreases in subjective-well being.What does all of this theory mean in practice? A lot.If you meet an unhappy single, fall in love, get married and are thrilled to see your new spouse walking around with a smile on their face, be forewarned, withing 3 years of adapting to the new situation they may very likely adapt and return to their previous level. But at the same time it's important to know what is making them relatively unhappy when you met them. It is possible that they were in fact adapting to something bad that happened to them and that their baseline happiness is in fact much higher and that is the level to which they will return. (Note: don't expect to learn this in one speed-dating session.). It's also important to understand the rate of adaption for one individual may be completely different for another.

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Your Ticket to Davos

 Your Ticket to Davos

Your Ticket to Davos

Do you have the ultimate idea about how to close the poverty gap? Here's your chance to tell the world. For the fourth year, through the Davos Debates program, one lucky YouTube user will get an all-access pass to the World Economic Forum in Davos, where global leaders gather to tackle the most important issues facing our world.

To enter the running, all you have to do is submit your one-minute video summarizing your ideas on the importance of inclusive growth - a key theme of this year's event. Not sure what inclusive growth really means? Past Davos Debates winners break it down for you here:

The winner with the best video will be selected as an informal YouTube community representative to participate in the Annual Meeting and take part in a special panel during the event. You'll not only have the opportunity to rub elbows with the most powerful leaders in the world, you'll be given a platform to share your views with them.

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Travel businesses on YouTube make it easier to get outta town

Planning to get away this spring? Want to see your destination - rather than just read about it? You're not alone. According to our research, nearly half of all travelers watch a travel video online when planning a trip.

YouTube is full of travel-related information from how to ride the Metro in Paris on the GeoBeats Channel to packing tips from travel guru Rick Steves. For businesses looking to reach future travelers video can help visualize destinations and services. Check out a few travel businesses already turning video views into reservations.

Take, for example, Airbnb, a travel business connecting hosts (property managers and owners willing to open their homes to guests) with travelers looking for a home away from home. Their YouTube Channel has gained a large following and millions of video views. By clearly illustrating what they offer and how their service works through how-to videos, such as "How to Airbnb," they've gained credibility and established trust with an active community of intrepid travelers.

 Travel businesses on YouTube make it easier to get outta town

As Virgin America announces more US routes they're using their YouTube Channel to get the word out. Their videos are full of their characteristic quirky humor, like when the infamous Greenman character from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" made an appearance in their video announcing Virgin America's new Philadelphia route.
With white sandy beaches and sparkling blue waters, the Nassau Paradise Island Promotion Board seems like an obvious fit for online video. But they use video to do more than tempt dreamers looking to escape winter weather. The board uses ads on YouTube to quickly spread relevant news. For example, when an airline recently added new nonstop flights from New York to Nassau, the board was able to show ads about this route to viewers in the New York area - ensuring that they reached the right people with relevant news.
We hope your business can use some of these tips to make your next video campaign take flight! You can learn more about promoting your business, content or cause with online video by joining our conversation on Google+ and adding the YouTube for marketers Google+ page to your circles.

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How we're making even more 3D video available on YouTube

Last year we kicked off a beta feature that let creators convert YouTube videos into 3D with a click, and since then you've converted hundreds of thousands of your videos to 3D. Today we're expanding the beta to all of you by adding automatic 3D conversion for short-form videos uploaded in 1080p. Meaning, you can select 3D viewing in the Quality settings (click on the gear icon) on the YouTube player, then pop on your 3D glasses and see YouTube in another dimension. Here's one of our favorites:

 How we're making even more 3D video available on YouTube

How it works

To give you more dimension on 3D, here's some background how the conversion technology works at YouTube. Since last September we've been constantly improving the underlying technology, which now uses several techniques:

    * We use a combination of video characteristics such as color, spatial layout and motion to estimate a depth map for each frame of a monoscopic video sequence
    * We use machine learning from the growing number of true 3D videos on YouTube to learn video depth characteristics and apply them in depth estimation
    * The generated depth map and the original monoscopic frame create a stereo 3D left-right pair, that a stereo display system needs to display a video as 3D

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Helping every business play big on YouTube

When Paul Eichen of Rokenbok Toy Company noticed that specialty toy shops were shuttering their doors, he started looking for a new way to introduce customers to his construction toy sets. Paul filmed and uploaded his first video to YouTube, and now it's become his most effective form of advertising with 50 percent of all customers introduced to his products through YouTube.With a global audience of 800 million monthly visitors to YouTube, every day can feel like you're advertising in the Super Bowl, and one video can launch a business. To help even more businesses play big with video, today we're introducing a number of new products, resources, and tools:Google AdWords for video is now available to all. Similar to search advertising-where you pay for clicks and set budgets with bids-we created a new model for video advertising. With Google AdWords for video, you only pay when someone chooses to watch your ad, and you can create and manage video campaigns from the same platform as your search and display ads. You can create an account and start promoting your first video in less than 5 minutes. With AdWords for video you can:

    * Find the right audience: AdWords for video provides a range of options to reach the right audience. For example, you can promote your video by keyword to appear in YouTube search results, or you can choose to show your ad against content your customers are most interested in - such as sports or music. Connect with your audience on YouTube and the Google Display Network, which includes millions of websites. AdWords for video links to your YouTube account so you can easily start a video campaign with your existing videos.
    * Measure the effectiveness of your spend: On average, we've found that YouTube video ads drive a 20 percent increase in traffic to your website and a 5 percent increase in searches for your business (Google Campaign Insights, 2011). With AdWords for video you can find out how viewers are engaging with your brand during and after they watch your ad. You can see how many viewers watched your entire video, visited your website, stayed on your channel to watch another video, or subscribed to your channel, after viewing your ad.
    * Only pay for engaged views: With TrueView video ads you only pay when viewers choose to watch your ad so you aren't charged when viewers skip your ad if they aren't interested or have already seen your video. This means your ad budget is focused on viewers interested in your video. By displaying a call-to-action overlay on your video you can talk about a sale or specific offer to your viewers, share more information about your business, or drive traffic to your website.

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