5 Ways To Increase Your Income

I know it has by far been the longest since I last wrote a post. Countless things have happened during this period of time. My personal and professional plans have not exactly come to fruition just yet. Notwithstanding, I have recently been working towards growing my small teaching business. Even though I have lately yielded a little more profit than usual, it is still far from my financial goal. Thus, today I wanted to share some information on how to maximize our income and be able to have enough money at the end of the month to keep working towards our long-term goals.

These pieces of advice are not set in stone. Nonetheless, they are going to give you an overall guideline on how to become more financially successful and self-aware of how you spend your money.

Step 1: Become more valuable as an employee: If you happen to be part of a team of staff members in a big corporation, it his highly recommended that you constantly be proactive and look for creative ways to be of more help to your employer. Hence, if your boss sees you as a more valuable asset, you can over time request a raise in your job.

Step 2: Move into a company's profit stream: There are three types of jobs in the business world: Technical jobs, operation jobs and revenue generating jobs. 

Technical jobs have positions such as the legal department, the accounting department and the financial department. 

Operational jobs have positions such as customer service and product fulfillment.

Revenue generating jobs have positions such as sales representatives, marketers, copywriters and even managers. This is where you want to be.

Step 3: Become an intrapreneur: This means than an employee within an organization becomes an entrepreneur with the CEO's permission.

For instance, by starting a project that would benefit the company's productivity, income generation, customer satisfaction, etc.

Step 4: Develop a high-income skill: The aforesaid is a skill that will help you be able to generate a large amount of money. This tip is definitely tied to starting your own business. 

Be that as it may, it takes time and dedication to master a skill that will allow you to produce enough income to justify setting up a business.

Step 5: Use your high-income skill to start a side business: You can use the skill set you have developed in order to create a business. Granted you could begin with this step and forget all of the above. Nevertheless, so as to set up a business you need capital. Consequently, working a regular job is the correct avenue in order to earn that money allocated for that undertaking. 

In review, the best way to leverage your income is by becoming an indispensable asset in your line of work. As well saving enough money to run a profitable business. 

This particular YouTuber I gathered information from is obviously not the only one you can take advice from. This is just an example from many available in the web. 

Sources:
- Dan Lok YouTube channel
- Personal Experience.

Black-and-White Thinking: Cognitive Distortion #1

To say that I have taken a long time to resume my post writing would be an understatement. Has it been over half a year since my last online publication. So as to redress my decline in posts, I will start writing more often. Needless to say that the motivation I have towards keeping this blog alive has not been the same this year as it has been in previous ones. Without further ado, I will proceed with the topic for today: "Dichotomous thinking"

Before we start nonetheless, it would be wise to understand what a dichotomy is first. According to the Cambridge Online Dictionary a dichotomy is: "The difference between two completely opposite ideas or things." Case in point, a dichotomy between what people say and what they do.  Back to our main point, Dichotomous thinking, otherwise known as "Black and White thinking" refers to the following: Thinking in extremes or absolutes regarding everyday situations. For instance, Mary is having a job interview for a sales rep position she wants to take at a local mall. Everything seems to be fine. However, she notices that she forgot to mention one of the places where she had worked before when asked about her experience. Even though the aforesaid is a minor detail, she takes it to heart and believes her potential employer might take note of this. Mary decides to leave in the middle of the interview and excuses herself. Not only did she lose the opportunity to find a new job, she also limited herself by assuming a minor slip would affect her overall assessment. 

This sort of behavior can have serious repercussions in a person's personal and professional development. Thus, the need to seek help from a mental health specialist when you feel your life is getting out of control due to this condition. Having weekly therapy sessions and making use of cognitive behavioral therapy should be enough to tackle this issue. Our mind is incredibly powerful. It can either lift us up or it can bring us down. It all depends on how much we take care of our emotional and mental health. In most cases, not having an "in-between" is not good whatsoever. To illustrate my point, let us consider the following situation: If a person commits a crime such as a robbery, they should be punished. There is not an "in the middle". On the other hand, what if a teacher has a student who does not show up for the final exam of the semester owing to the death of a loved one? Should he fail such student? Or should the school and he give the student another chance to take the test when she recovers emotionally?

Lastly, I would say that we all need help at some point. It does not always work to have a conversation with a relative or friend to deal with a condition such as "All or nothing reasoning". Oftentimes it takes the help of a therapist to put us back on track. Having the right mindset can be a great asset towards the pursuit of our ultimate goal. Only by keeping both our mind and body working at 100%, will we be able to realize our goals.  I will leave by quoting Obi-Wan from Star Wars: "Only a Sith deals in Absolutes."

Sources:

- Therapy in a Nutshell YouTube channel

- Dichotomous Thinking definition | Psychology Glossary | alleydog.com

- Cambridge Dictionary | English Dictionary, Translations & Thesaurus

Why Do Stupid People Think They're Smart? The Dunning Kruger Effect (ani...

It has been about 5 months since my last post. To be quite honest, at some point I was considering to delete this blog. Mainluy due to the fact that I do not make any profit whatsoever out of this. My only reward out of this page is the satisfaction of the few readers I have. Apart from what I learn myself by writing this posts. The topic for today has to do with some people overstimating their intellectual skills. In the following, I will tackle to "The Dunning Kruger Effect" to the best of my ability.

Rumor has it that at some point at 1995, a man decided to rob a bank in Pitsburg, Penssylvania by himself. He was convinced that since he had smeared his face with lemon juice, he would not get recognized by the security cameras. His reasoning was that since this juice was one of the compotents used to make invisible ink, his idea would work. Be that as it may, he was sadly mistaken. Not only did he not succeed in his endeavor, he was also shown the footage of the robbery. Despite the proof, he was quite dazzled to realize his plan had failed. 

This peculiar case inspired Cornel University psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger to research this phenomenon in depth. He conducted a study with two groups of undergraduate students in different categories. The categories taken into account were: grammatical writing, logical reasoning, and sense of humor. After all the participants had taken the test, they were asked how well they thought they had scored. The group with the lowest score overstimated their results by a large margin.  As opposed to the other group who had performed better than they anticipated. The first group ended up obtaining a low score. The second on the other hand overperformed. The Dunning Kruger Effect posits that low ability people wronly assume to have better skills at a particular discipline than they actually do.

In summary, I would say that the more we know about a subject, the more we realize how much we still have to learn. It is always highly recommed to have unbiased feedback from peers and teachers. As well keeping track of our progress. 

Sources:

- Better Than Yesterday YouTube Channel.                                                                                        - Dunning-Kruger Effect | Psychology Today

Better Than Yesterday

The Pygmalion Effect