Arsham Mirshah

Emotional Hygiene & Resilience

Guy Winch is a Doctor of Psychology and uses his experience to describe how humans could benefit from “emotional hygiene”.

He shares examples around how we learn physical hygiene at an early age yet are not taught how to handle our thoughts.

His real life examples of how we react to loneliness, failure, rejection, and

Main takeaways:

Take action when you’re lonely – do something about it and don’t fear the
Change response to failure – believe in yourself and affirm positive facts
Protect your self-esteem – build yourself up after rejection
Battle negative thinking – consciously monitor your thoughts and change them if needed
Prioritize psychological health

Doing these things will build emotional resilience and improve quality of life.

How to: Search gMail WITHOUT Opening Inbox

Hello everyone – this is a follow up gMail “hack” which can dramatically increase your productivity.(the first post was how to send an email without opening gMail inbox)

Premise: Seeing your inbox is distracting & often forces you to forget what you went in there for in the first place. <– That’s happened to make at least 2734928398 times.

Solution: Search gMail inbox WITHOUT opening gMail inbox!

BONUS: You can also do this with Google Drive.. here’s how… (SETUP)

In Google Chrome browser, open settings (CMD + ,)
Click “Manage Search Engines…”
Scroll to the bottom where there is a blank text box with grey’d out writing “Add a new search engine”
Enter “GMAIL” in the left box
Enter “gmail.com” in the center box
Enter “https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/%s” into the right box

Now, how to use it… (USAGE)

Open a new tab (CMD + t)
Start typing “gmail.com”
After several characters (or typing the whole thing), press TAB
You should see “Search GMAIL” in a blue box on the left of the address bar
Type the keyword you want to search and press enter

DONE!

That’s how to search gmail without opening your inbox…

To do the same thing with Google Drive, replace step 4, 5, and 6 in the first set of instructions (SETUP) with the following, respectively:

DRIVE
drive.google.com
https://drive.google.com/#search/%s

Then, in step 2 of the second set of instructions (USEAGE), replace “gmail.com” with “drive.google.com”

Simple as that – Now you can search Google Drive without opening “My Drive” and getting confused / forgetting what you went in there for in the first place!

I know these two tricks have saved me a whole lot of time & heartburn, hope they do the same for you!

Avishek Sengupta’s Memorial Service Information

The definition of tragedy

For information on what happened to Avi, please read this article describing his death at Tough Mudder.

Memorial Service Information

Please join Avi’s family in celebrating his life and honoring his memory. He was an incredible man and an amazing brother to us all.

Memorial services will be will be held at Donaldson Funeral Home & Crematory, 1411 Annapolis Rd, Odenton, MD on Thursday, April 25th, 2013, at 1:00.

Immediately afterward we will hold a Reception in Avi’s honor at the Malik family residence, 3886 Whitebrook Lane, Ellicott City, 21042. All are encouraged to come and share memories of Avi.

Further Details:

– Avi’s close friend, Jon Hess, is collecting money on behalf of Avi’s family for flowers, food, etc. If you would like to contribute, Jon is collecting via PayPal under his email account: Jonathanrhess@gmail.com. Feel free to contact him at 443-904-6420.

– If you would like to speak at the Memorial, please contact me separately via email or phone (410-207-5810).

– We encourage Avi’s many groups of friends to coordinate and make posters of your pictures with Avi. We would enjoy having your posters displayed at his Memorial Services.

– If you would like to send flowers, you can send them directly to the Donaldson Funeral Home & Crematory or Avi’s Parents (Mita & Bijon) House (10084 Waterford Drive, Ellicott City, MD 21042). If you send it to the Funeral Home, we can easily transport them after the services to Avi’s parents house

– Estimated time of events:
– 1:00 – 4:00 – Memorial Services
Donaldson Funeral Home & Crematory
1411 Annapolis Rd, Odenton, MD
http://www.donaldsonfuneralhome.com/
– 5:00 – Onward – Reception
Malik Family Residence
3886 Whitebrook Lane, Ellicott City, 21042

GMAIL: Send/Compose Email withOUT Opening Inbox

Here is a quick gMail tip for a HUGE #productivity boost…

If you’re like me, email is a serious part of your life. Often times you open your gMail inbox to send an email.. but once you get in there, you immediately start reading and replying to your latest emails… and often times FORGET why you opened your email in the first place.

This happen to me several times when communicating with the people behind this website.

SO – I figured out how to compose and send an email without opening and seeing your gMail inbox (the no-inbox approach)… Here is how it’s done….

Simple How To: Send an email w/o opening gMail

You will need:

To be logged into your gmail account in your browser of choice
Know how to add a bookmark
Know how to use your bookmarks

Step 1: Add this URL to your bookmark bar..

https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&shva=1

Step 2: When you want to send an email without opening your inbox… open that bookmark.

(I usually open it in a new window by holding apple (CMD) and clicking.. or with a mouse, click down on the mouse wheel to open a new window)

Done… and the best part is that since you’re logged into your Google account – it still drops down the names of people you’ve emailed and are in your contacts list.. AWESOME!

NOTE: With the new gMail compose & reply being laid on top of the inbox, it seems this trick still works, BUT it ruins and links or images you might have in your signature. I’m still looking for a way to compose an email without viewing your inbox AND without ruining your signature. Stay tuned…

Hope this helps.. I know it makes my life a lot easier.

Quick Advice on Starting a Business

Sharing some thoughts on “how to start a business” and “the struggles of starting a business” …

How to start your business…

1) Make your first sale & make sure you deliver 110% (always do this, but especially in the beginning)

—-OR—-

2)Put something on paper, build a prototype (if applicable), and practice pitching your business idea — Then either go after investment or see #1.

Either way, just do it (sorry Nike).

Be prepared…

There will always be stuggles, obstacles, roadblocks, difficulties, and challenges…

Remember that it’s all about attitude.

If you face a situation with a positive attitude.. the outcome will be positive 🙂

No matter what you do…

Read these 2 books..
http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671723650
http://www.amazon.com/Think-Grow-Rich-Napoleon-Hill/dp/0449214923
That’s all from me… of course I would like to hear what you have to add……

Note to Self: Don’t Have Kids [Yet]

It was a typical morning commute: I’m driving like an asshole (trying to wake up) which prompts someone to want to race.. bring it on.

This morning was extra interesting as the racing situation I faced made an awesome analogy to life, specifically the decisions of having children.

My opponent and I started out racing in a straight line, from light to light. He was winning.. he had the right lane choices and was ahead.. until it came to the final stretch before the highway on ramp.

You see, my opponent had a small child in a car seat strapped to the back seat.. so when it came to the open road before the 25mph curved on-ramp, he was too scared to push to higher speeds and didn’t want the hard brake before clinching for a tight turn.

How does this have anything to do with life choices?

My theory is that once you’ve made certain commitments (ie. getting married, having kids) – your risk tolerance and nimbleness to life’s curve balls (the on-ramp) lowers dramatically.

The opponent was winning when everything was easy going (the straight line), but as soon as the life conditions changed, he was not ready and had to slow down.

I definitely want a wife and kids, but don’t think I’m ready for it, yet.

Needless to say, once I entered the on-ramp, he was no longer in my rear view mirror 😀

Die Hard: 4 Gallons or Death

You have a 3 gallon bucket and a 5 gallon bucket – neither have any measurement markers so all you know is that when either one of them is full, you have 3 and 5 gallons respectively.

There is a bomb (of course, why wouldn’t there be).

You can defuse the bomb if you put exactly 4 gallons worth of water weight on top of the bomb… any more or less will set it off.

Luckily the bomb is located next to a big water fountain – so you have unlimited water.

By moving water back and forth between the buckets, how can you get to 4 gallons, precisely?

2 Men & 2 Doors – Get Out Alive Riddle

There are 2 men – One of them always tells the truth while the other always tells lies.

There are 2 doors – If you walk though one of them, you stay alive and safe… whereas the other door is dangerous and you die.

Another rendition of this riddle suggests that there are two guards, a truth teller and a lie teller — and these guards are blocking 2 doors which lead to either heaven or hell… whatever your preference…

One door sucks & the other one rules… that’s all you need to know.

You have to walk through one of the doors.

You also have 1 question which you must ask to either one of the men.

What is the question that you ask to either of the men to be sure you know which door to choose in order to stay alive?

Comment below… Don’t cheat by scrolling down 🙂

So You Want To Start A Website
(and get rich)?

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard an idea for a business or website… I’d probably have somewhere around $5.75.

I’m not sure if that was a joke or the truth.. whatever…

Seriously though, there are a couple important philosophies to follow when starting a website or a business:

Quick note: Only read this if you want to be successful.

Whether you want to impact the world, or make money and be profitable.. or (especially) BOTH.

Really looking forward to some comments on this one.

#1 – Riches Are In The Niches

Make sure your website or business caters to a niche market.

Service or product, just make sure you’re serving a niche.

Why? – Easy: it’s easier to #winning (for the future: that was a Charlie Sheen joke).

Do you want to compete with GE, Microsoft, or Home Depot? No, you want to compete with a few companies that you can easily differentiate yourself from.. or better yet, you want to compete with… NO ONE (Blue Ocean Strategy)!

Long story short: It’s easy to gain (or create) market share and differentiate yourself in a niche.

#2 – Monetization

Have you thought about your monetization strategy? You gotta love when someone pitches a business or website idea and you ask: “How are you going to make money?” … crickets chirp … “that’s just lovely.”

I participated in Startup Baltimore (where people with ideas and skills meet to bring an idea to life in one weekend’s time) – half the ideas hadn’t even thought of how to monetize their idea… that blew me away.

Don’t get me wrong, you don’t HAVE to make money — you can provide a service that betters the world (or community) and operate as a non profit company – that’s fine too.

The Most Important Part of Monetization

Actually, you don’t REALLY have to know EXACTLY what your monetization strategy is up front (I might get yelled at for saying that).

Monetization strategy is definitely very important… but two sound concepts (or focuses) always apply and if you do them both right, the money will always follow:

Traffic First: Retail, service, online, product… doesn’t matter. All businesses or websites need to start with traffic & gain a following. Without people digging what you have, you have nothing. If you’re starting a website, get traffic to the site first, make that your only focus… then you can always monetize the traffic later!
(Why do you think Facebook, Twitter, and these other websites are worth so much when they don’t make ANYTHING close to their valuation in revenue (let alone profit (yes, parentheses within parentheses within parentheses, you like it)) … it’s because of their potential (because they have TRAFFIC and a FOLLOWING))
And to get that traffic or follow… you need to always provide value. Value makes the world go round. No one likes the guy who takes but never gives (if you don’t know that guy, you’re him). If you’re providing serious value, or have an awesome product, you will earn traffic & a following, and a loyal one at that! Brand loyalty is hard to accurately value, but anyone in business or marketing will tell you it’s extremely important. Add value, make the world a better place 🙂

SO that’s it, that’s all I have for starting a website or business and making money. Just a quick disclaimer:

The ideas in this post are breifly explained and come form my experience. I’m not the most successful person in the world (yet, #winning), but I think the ideas are pretty solid for anything getting started with a business or a website.

Please discuss and add your thoughts for the use of everyone reading.

Cheers, -Arsham

Don’t Be Cheap
When Shopping For These 3 Things

This is a long overdue post which I would love to get some opinions and comments on…

I’ll make it nice, short, and to the point:

The main idea is this:

Getting great deals, shopping during sales, or buying the generic version of something is all well and good…

BUT, there are certain things that you should spend your money (or splurge) on.

What are these things you ask? – Well, they could vary from person to person, but let’s get a little general and talk about criteria:

Something you spend a lot of time in, on, or doing
Something that directly effects your health (either body or mind)

Don’t have the money to buy the high-quality product … learn how to use credit wisely.

That being said, here are 3 examples of things you should spend your money on.

1. Shoes.

Think about it, you spend over 12 hours a day in shoes.

Maybe you switch shoes during the day, or wear different shoes on different days with different outfits… whatever, all your shoes should be top-notch.

Why? – Oh, just a couple reasons:

Your feet are important – they support the rest of your body — bad shoes = feet problems which is 🙁
Style, baby! – Shoes can make or break an outfit, and if you’ve heard the saying “first impression is the most important one”, you’re gonna want some nice shoes, k?

So get some nice shoes… and while you’re shopping, throw down on some…

2. Clothes

Again, you spend 2/3 of your day in clothes (unless you do porn or live in a nudist colony).

Similar to shoes, style is important, if you want to make a good impression.

Believe me, I do my best to detach and “not care” about what other people think of me… but when it comes to business or trying to find a mate (yeah, I just said that) – you gotta look good… am I right or what?

Plus, I find that when you dress nice, you feel better about yourself and want to perform better.

For instance, when I work in my pajamas (it’s happened several times), I’m definitely not as productive or sharp as when I’m dressed, well, sharp!

Dress good, feel good… trust me.

I’ll even go shopping with my mom from time to time (great way to spend time with your mom btw)… she has great taste and knows how to make me look good.

Cool, so you’re clothed 2/3 of the day, and the 1/3 you’re sleeping, on a…

3. Bed

This one might lends itself to criteria #2 (health) more so than #1 –

Have you ever heard about people “waking up on the wrong side of the bed” or having “neck pains” from sleeping wrong?

Yeah, you don’t want that.

Get a nice bed.

You spend a third of your time sleeping, might as well do it comfortably, right?

Plus, it’s bad for your back otherwise.

And don’t act like putting sheets on the bed is hard, because it’s not, ok? 🙂

Other Things To Spurge On

Following the 2 criteria above, you could argue to spend your money on several different things…

If you’re a body builder: buy organic foods and high class protein… not the cheap stuff. Of course, you should always look at the nutrition facts.

If you’re an outside sales person, you probably drive a lot — get a nice, quality, reliable car.

If you’re a model: buy top-notch make up — you don’t want the cheap stuff ruining that pretty face.

Alright, you get the point… What do you spend your money on?