13 Apr 2011
by ievain • Communications, • Happiness, • Inspiration, • Life, • psychology, • Self Tags: happiness, • Life, • psychology, • Self
If you are my blog fan you must have noticed how much I love exploring “happiness” subject. If this is your first time I encourage you to take a look at my “happiest” posts Peaceful Hurricanes and Chaotic Stillness, Power of Vulnerability, and Mistaken Expectations and Indifferent Choices. They all explore the idea of happiness and what it takes to be happy. I love when ideas and theories are based on facts rather than on one person’s opinion or unhappy person’s point of view. It is easier to be unhappy and humble than find positive side at darkest moments. I encourage you to stop for a minute, identify what happiness means to you and keep doing more of that!
10 Mar 2011
by ievain • Communications, • Inspiration, • Life, • psychology, • Self Tags: chaos, goal, love, • Life, • psychology, • Self
Some days things “just” happen. Good and bad, big and small, important and not so much.. Some days one minute we laugh and cannot contain our joy in our physical bodies and another we feel below the sea level. On such days peacefulness is threatened by the most hazardous chaos and emotional hurricanes elevate to never before seen (and probably felt) levels. I am sure you have gone through this a significant number of times.
I would like to share my observations what works when hurricanes take over and chaotic stillness becomes annoying. I will share only 3 very simple possible steps you can take (there are so many more of them!) to change the situation. Start with these 3 steps as, I believe, they are the foundation of all the other ones that are in between:
1. Calm down. It might sound a little bit way too simple but stop doing whatever you are doing, put aside everything, walk away from your computer and find a peaceful place where you can come back to your body and your peaceful mind. One of the possible things to do is to make yourself a cup of tea and while drinking it concentrate and think only about the tea, the smell, the flavor, observe the color and texture of it. Let it be all about the cup of tea. Let all the thoughts and worries slide away. Find something what you enjoy and what takes 2-5 minutes out of your busy day. Enjoy the moment and observe every millisecond of your peaceful return to pure happiness filled Earth. Try this!
2. Remember and decide what is important to you, deep in your heart, not in your brain. There are days when too many things happen at the same time and we lose a grip of what is important to us and what our priorities are. Don’t take the path that puts everybody’s responsibilities and faults on you. More
19 Feb 2011
by ievain • Business Tips, • Communications, • Inspiration, • Life
Today I attended TED x Berkeley. What an experience! I love (really love) ted.com. I find TED speeches to be inspiring and I feel that most of them are so rich in content that it is impossible not to learn something new.
It was quite an experience to participate in one of the TED events today. I learnt few new things and I met few new people. Shore Slocum, Anat Baniel and Gopi Kallayil presented ideas that made me wonder and think deeper. Shore Slocum was encouraging the audience to let go off things, accept opportunities, step through the opened doors and not to be afraid of changes. He was saying that situations unfold without us trying to control them and they leave us at a better place than we could have ever imagined to be.. At times he felt like a mini Tony Robbins. I found Shore to be truly inspiring.
Anat Baniel gave a talk about brain plasticity and led a 2 minute exercise session after which I could reach my toes with my straight legs effortlessly. What a complex and magical mechanism our brain is and how many ways there are to present information to it to get different outcomes/results. I was skeptical before Anat’s 2 minute exercise and was amazed and inspired to learn more after. Anat defined nine essentials that the brain requires in order to grow and develop new patterns and possibilities for lifetime fitness of mind and body to achieve true personal empowerment.
There was so much information today that I cannot really recall who said exactly what but I liked Gopi’s approach on self and how little things can lead to big changes. One step stood out a lot to me – taking 1 minute out of your day to do things that make you feel “yourself” and make it a routine. I feel there are so many people who set goals that are not achievable and 1 minute sounds not only doable, but also enjoyable. Gopi’s point was that in time 1 minute will become 5 minutes and after a while you might find out that 1 minute transformed into all 30… Isn’t this exciting?
I also learnt about biochar from Lopa Brunjes and about synesthesia of living organisms from Bryan Alvarez. All speeches were inspiring and none were better than other. All of them were so unique and heart felt that it was hard not to participate and engage with the speaker. I am so glad I had an opportunity to participate at TED x Berkeley. I admit, my day was geeky and so much fun!
02 Feb 2011
by ievain • art, • Communications, • design, • DIY, • Inspiration Tags: crafts, • art, • design, • DIY
Today I was playing around with ideas trying to come up with some cute and original Valentine’s Day cards that would be easy to make and would have a loving personal touch. I tried three different approaches making cards. All were fun and had a lot of flexibility so I ended up altering them the way I wanted them to be. If you decide to replicate any (which you are very welcome to do) don’t be afraid to start with one idea in your head and end up with a totally different result. That happens very often to me (this time including).
If you decide you want to make any of these, you will need a piece of paper (any that looks nice to you), scissors, pencil, glue and a razor knife. I am sharing a template for a folding heart card. Other ones I did myself after having a look at a Kirigami book.
Have fun experimenting with sizes, papers, fonts and text. I am curious to see what you will come up with!
27 Jan 2011
by ievain • Communications, • design, • Inspiration, • Life Tags: crafts, goal, • design, • Life
Yesterday I read an interesting article in New Yorker about a fashion blogger Tavi. Tavi is a fourteen-year-old girl. Tavi has a fashion blog that has more than 25.000 visitors and her opinion interests the finest fashion houses. I found the article inspiring and I thought it made few great points.
One of the points was the idea of a “phenomena.” I might be wrong but what I read between the lines in the article was that Tavi is in spotlight because she is a 14 year old girl. If she was 20 something, most likely nobody would pay attention to her and would look for something more exciting. I have to admit that Tavi is exciting – her clothes are mismatched but look great on her, she has an attitude of a kid and the knowledge of a college student when it comes to fashion. She has a 5 year old kid’s charm and is not afraid to do things, dress strange ways, and say things just the way she sees and perceives them.
Another point, made by Tavi, was about doing what you like/love. She loves fashion, she loves nice clothes, she likes matching and mismatching them . The whole fashion world is a big fantasy land to her where everything is possible and where Tavi feels comfortable. I really admired the fact that Tavi has a fashion blog because she likes fashion and her determination to continue blogging.. even when she turns 20..
On another hand, I thought Tavi was a typical New York hipster: lots of attitude, many words to describe simple things, making bubbles out of things that are simple and down to earth and wearing clothes that remind me of Beacon’s Closet in Williamsburg. I hope she will grow into a nice fashionable lady one day and many exciting things await her!
06 Jan 2011
by ievain • Communications, • Inspiration, • Life, • psychology, • Self Tags: communication, • Life, • psychology, • Self
I am a big fan of social psychology. My brain never gets tired reading researches on EBSCO and time becomes bounder-less when I dive into the social psychology world where there are more unsolved riddles than definite clear answers. Oh how I love fluidity of all the possible answers social psychologists provide us with. I find it entertaining and never the same. It makes me feel if everything is possible and nothing is either “right” or “wrong.”
I remember one day (3 years ago) while browsing through books at Strand book store in New York City my eye caught a very bold book cover with even bolder title “Stumbling on Happines.” That is how I got to know Daniel Gilbert, a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. I remember I fell in love with his book so much that I gave it for Christmas to many of my friends that year. I feel it is important to say that I am highly skeptical about “feel good” books and I am not an easy cookie on those, who claim they know the secret of happiness or who give steps to follow in order to be happy. I believe there are basics but even then, there are so many variations that it doesn’t make any sense to assume that there is any one thing or program that will make you happy. If that was the case, we would all be happy and the happiness subject wouldn’t be so toasty.
Anyways, treat yourself with Daniel Gilbert’s book “Stumbling on Happiness” if you haven’t – I promise, you will L O V E it and watch him on TED talking on our mistaken expectations – a 30 minute lecture that will change you forever.
Happy stumbling on happiness!
14 Dec 2010
by ievain • art, • Communications, • design, • Inspiration, • Social Media Tags: • art, • design, • Social Media
Today was a very interesting day. People really surprise me sometimes and at times I feel intimidated by their creativity. Like today, I got inspired by artist Alexandre Oudin’s creative Facebook profile. I had a strong feeling that tagged pictures might be used somehow…
And of course, being a little kid in heart I wanted to get one of my own so I went along and made one.
In case you wander how to make a Facebook profile picture like the one above, here are the instructions:
1) Pick a picture (the bigger the better)
2) The Profile picture which is also the main picture has to be 180 x 532 pixels. Crop it and make your Facebook profile picture. Once it is set, average out the area of the remaining pictures
3) Crop the picture on the right side of the profile picture in 5 different pieces/ pictures. The crop size should be 98×67 px and distance between crops is 2px.
4) Upload all the pictures to an album on Facebook and ask a friend to tag them in reverse order (i.e the image that has to be on the far right has to be tagged first.)
Have fun!!!
P.S. If you really really want a Facebook profile like above but cannot figure out how to cut pictures, I might help you out if you ask me nicely : )
09 Dec 2010
by ievain • Business Tips, • Communications, • design Tags: business, communication, goal, • design
I am one of those people who like keeping things organized and having their inbox close to zero. How do I that? Below are few tips that might help you to keep your desktop organized (I will do a post on “inbox zero” some other time):
1) choose a minimal desktop wallpaper
Busy wallpaper will add more clutter and documents/folders will get easily lost. I find the best desktop wallpapers to be the ones that have horizontal or vertical lines so that you can align your documents accordingly.
2) choose relevant categories for folders
As an example, if you have several work related projects going on, create a WORK folder and subfolders in it. Avoid creating many folders that have a very similar category or purpose. For example, if you like cooking don’t create separate folders on a desktop for “appetizers”, “potato dishes”, “cocktails” etc. Instead, make these folders into subfolders.
3) have an area on your desktop where you put files to be “processed”
It is hard sometimes to place things into right folders right away. Have a place on your desktop where you keep files that need to be sorted and placed into the right folders. Make sure not to overuse this space as things can get disorganized very fast.
4) do it now!
The best advise is whenever you are putting a file on a desktop, place it in a right folder right away. It not only saves time but also eliminates an enormous amount of clutter. Remember, just one file can create a mess that will take longer to clean than placing the file into the right folder right away.
Below are few examples of a clean desktop. I hope my tips were helpful.
Happy desktop organizing!
08 Dec 2010
by ievain • Communications Tags: communication
I get so many spam comments that I started wondering today how many “real” people actually visit my blog and read my posts..?
What I noticed is that spam comments are getting “more human” and if I didn’t look at email addresses and websites that go along with comments, I would sure miss half (or maybe more) of spam readers..
Sometimes spam is so frustrating…
On another note. I am working on a new project! Stay tuned for a new post.
XOXO ~
08 Sep 2010
by ievain • Business Tips, • Communications Tags: business, communication
English is my second language and I know how tough sometimes it can get communicating with people in a language you didn’t grow up with. What is more important, it becomes a slippery slope when you find yourself in a business setting when expectations are high and there is very little room for mistakes. Being fluent in English and understanding exactly what is said becomes crucial.
Lately I have been working with foreign speakers (I am one myself) and what caught my attention was the phrase “I don’t understand.” Being a foreigner in America and having a different than English Mother Tongue I understand the convenience of putting yourself in a safe place and blaming it all on the language barrier. It is wrong on many levels. If you cannot communicate your knowledge effectively it almost comes across if you don’t really have it. The worst is when the phrase “I don’t understand” becomes part of your daily routine and people around you instead of trying to engage and communicate with you, try to avoid you. You wonder why? Just imagine yourself talking to somebody smart and knowledgeable who at least 2-4 times a day says “I don’t understand.” It feels like a dead end and is very disengaging.
Instead of saying “I don’t understand” try one of these:
- learn key words and phrases in the field you work
- ask for explanation and clarification
- ask what a word that you don’t know means
Most importantly, remember that being nice and grateful will take you further than being abrupt. Words sorry and thank you should become your mantra. People like helping other people and you might be amazed how much more liked you will be when you part with the phrase “I don’t understand.”
Does anyone else have any suggestions or experiences with this particular issue? I would love to hear.
