3 Easy Strategies to Help You Achieve Your Vision | Getentrepreneurial.com

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Sometimes the simplest tools can lead us to our biggest breakthroughs. Here are three tips that can help you achieve the vision you have for yourself.

Visualize Your Way to Success

If you have a pair of scissors, some old magazines, glue or tape, and some sort of poster board or canvas, you can make your own vision board. You don’t need to be a talented artist – you really don’t even need to be particularly creative – the purpose is to make your vision come alive through meaningful images.

You can cut out pictures, single words, and entire quotes – anything that you can dream of! Choose images that really resonate with the goals you have. You can create multiple boards if you’re the type of person who loves organization – for instance, one board for your personal goals, another for business oriented ones.

To get the most out of this exercise, I recommend setting aside about an hour where you’ll be undisturbed. Remember, there is no right or wrong way to create your board – have fun with this!

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Congress May Give IRS Authority To Regulate Tax Preparers | Forbes

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Last year, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner John Koskinen announced the Annual Filing Season Program, a voluntary and temporary program intended to fill the holes left after the IRS lost the right to regulate tax preparers following Loving v. Commissioner. At the time, Commissioner Koskinen called the program “not the ideal solution” and was hopeful that Congress would enact a proposal that would give the IRS the authority for mandatory oversight of return preparers.

He wasn’t alone. Nina E. Olson, the National Taxpayer Advocate, has long been a proponent of tax preparer regulation: she has been urging Congress to move forward on such a program since 2002. Post-Loving, Olson has pushed Congress to pass legislation to authorize the IRS to reinstate the RTRP program.

Now, more than a year – and a few more lawsuits – after Loving, it appears that both Commissioner Koskinen and Taxpayer Advocate Olson may get their wishes.

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5 Ways Any Business Can Survive (and Thrive) Against Amazon | All Business

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The last twenty years has seen a dramatic shift in the retail landscape ever since Amazon burst onto the scene. Offering a vast selection and ever-shorter shipping times, Amazon came to dominate retail sales, starting with books and quickly expanding to other categories.

Yet for all of Amazon’s disruption, the online giant is not invincible. Many retailers and etailers have built significant businesses by refusing to accept the status quo. Any business can learn to beat Amazon by incorporating these five easy tips:

1. Create a unique voice.

Many businesses believe they are unique when they really do not have anything that truly sets them apart. In order for a brand to stand out, it must have a story that aligns with both their business values and personal values.

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We’re Not Nearly as Busy as We Pretend to Be, According to a New Study | Adweek

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Hey are you busy?” We all know that when someone asks this question at work, there’s only one possible answer.

But maybe, just maybe, we’re not actually that busy.

A new study from Havas Worldwide surveyed 10,000 adults worldwide and found that 42 percent admitted to overstating their obligations, while around 60 percent believe that other people are pretending to be busier than they really are.

Millennials were most likely to exaggerate their workload (51 percent) and to accuse their peers of doing the same (65 percent), while only 26 percent of Boomers said they pretend to be busier than they are.

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Aziz Ansari: 4 Marketing Lessons from Online Dating | Inc.com

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What’s love got to do with marketing?

More than you might have guessed, according to some recent research from comedian Aziz Ansari and NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg. With the June publication of Modern Romance: An Investigation, the co-authors shared their findings from a serious research project–including extensive interviews and focus groups–asking men and women of all ages, all over the world, about their communications experiences in the realm of romance.

On Thursday, at HubSpot’s INBOUND conference in Boston, Ansari and Klinenberg took the stage to present their findings to a crowd of more than 14,000 attendees. Here are four highlights:

1. Age has a lot to do with preferred modes of communication.

One topic Ansari and Klinenberg explored in their book was a common dating question: If you meet someone at a bar and get their contact info, what’s the best way to follow up? Should you call or should you text?

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California drops plan for 50% cut in petroleum use | BBC News

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California has dropped plans to halve petroleum use in vehicles by 2030, after intense oil industry lobbying.

Governor Jerry Brown and other senior lawmakers had included the proposal in a climate change bill, but were forced to retreat amid growing opposition.

State senate leader Kevin de Leon, who supported the cut, accused oil firms of deploying “scare tactics”.

The leaders have vowed to push ahead with other reforms, including boosting renewable electricity use.

“I’d say oil has won the skirmish, but they’ve lost the bigger battle,” Mr Brown said.

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What You Need to Know about Body Language at Work | Page 19

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We’ve heard it a million times before: “90% of communication is nonverbal.” But what does that really mean? And how can you use that information? We asked the experts.

When we talk about language, we almost always are referring to words and sentences, nouns, verbs, dependent clauses, and all the various things that we can write down.

However, human communication is much broader than that—it includes variations in tone, emphasis, and entirely nonverbal signals like facial expressions, eye contact (or lack thereof), and hand gestures. Even the direction you’re facing communicates something to your conversation partner, regardless of whether or not they’re totally aware of it.

Clearly, there is a benefit to being able to reliably read (and project) nonverbal signals. So what’s a person to do? We consulted industry experts on nonverbal communication for their best tips. Read on.

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Improve decision-making through the relieving mindset of self-responsibility | The Startup Magazine

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For all of us life starts in a similar way, however through our decisions we change it with lasting effect. Decisions can bring you closer to your goals or lead you much further away. Think about this: Everything exists in your life, because at first you have made a decision on something. Decisions are the roots of all your results. You make your decisions and your decisions make you!

“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

The tricky thing

Primarily it is not about whether your decisions are wrong or right. In the first place, it is rather about discovering when you really make a decision. They are usually intertwined with behaviour and habits so it often seems a decision would be out of your control. [In at least half of the decisions you make,] you are not even aware of making them in that moment.

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