A tongue-in-cheek NPR.org headline comparing the fetching abilities of cats and dogs revealed a truth known by countless cat owners: Some cats do fetch.

"Cats Don't Fetch, But Know Their Names As Well As Dogs, Researchers Say," the original headline proclaimed. This didn't sit well with some readers.

"In what world do cats not fetch?" Kate Haffey commented on Facebook.

"Artemis knows her name and fetches," Brandi Whitson said on Twitter. "She's obsessed."

"My cat fetches, but only when he wants to," commented Charlie Whelan. "Which is why I like cats."

So if cats can fetch, why have they earned such a reputation for recalcitrance, especially compared with dogs?

"The success of dogs is built around their ability to please people — this is how they get their food and shelter," Jeff Podos, an animal behavior specialist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, told NPR. "This is what dogs are all about. The more they please their owners, the more benefits they gain. Whereas cats just don't have this same imperative... [ read more ]

One of the most important career lessons I’ve learned is to pursue a career and not a job. At first glance, you might think, “What’s the difference?” I also didn’t get it for years.

That’s how I finally ended up in an IT job that I wasn’t passionate about. At one point, I was reflecting on my career and life by writing in my journal and thought, “How on earth did I end up in this job?”I didn’t have a good answer. All I knew was that I felt stuck and lacked any future perspective. If you have ever been in that position, or are in it right now, you know that it’s depressing.

How Conscious Are Your Decisions?

If you would ask me “how did you end up in your current job?” four years ago, I would tell you this: “It just happened.” It’s a common answer to that question.

Looking back, I realized that I never made conscious decisions about my career until that point.

We all believe we’re Independent and that we make our own decisions. But that idea about ourselves is false. The truth is that we chase things like money, status, job titles, promotions, corner offices, respect from our peers, you name it. All external factors.

We must stop putting our careers in other people’s hands. We must take control by making conscious decisions... [ read more ]

In his 1930 essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted a 15-hour workweek in the 21st century, creating the equivalent of a five-day weekend. “For the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem,” Keynes wrote, “how to occupy the leisure.”

This became a popular view. In a 1957 article in The New York Times, the writer Erik Barnouw predicted that, as work became easier, our identity would be defined by our hobbies, or our family life. “The increasingly automatic nature of many jobs, coupled with the shortening work week [leads] an increasing number of workers to look not to work but to leisure for satisfaction, meaning, expression,” he wrote... [ read more ]

While it may seem counterintuitive, giving up can be a winning strategy. You have to lose some to win some. Read more to find out how eliminating habits including multi-tasking and perfectionism can lead to greater success for your business... [ read more ]

Jen’s story is like a lot of people’s stories. She’s 35 years old. She and her sister were the first in their family to go to college. She emerged from undergrad with $12,000 in debt, and even though she was making just $30,000 a year at her first job, she made her standard monthly loan payments on time. In 2008, when she was laid off into the depths of the economic crisis, she decided to do what so many other people did then: go back to school.

Jen enrolled in a one-year master’s program in public policy at an Ivy League university, where, despite having small scholarships and participating in work-study programs, she accumulated an additional $50,000 in federal loans. But by the time she graduated, the economy still hadn’t recovered, and she struggled to find work. She deferred her loans (meaning she did not have to make payments, and no interest accrued) and when the deferment period ran out, she put them in forbearance (during which payments are suspended, but interest does accrue). In 2010, she found a job — only to be laid off, again, two years later. She managed to find a contract gig that put her to work three days a week, and consolidated her loans into a single loan that would be easier to manage.

Just months later, Jen, then in her twenties, had a stroke. She didn’t have health insurance, but was able to get on Medicaid, which allowed to her to focus on recovering without incurring additional medical debt. She landed a job in October 2012, but between juggling her new gig, physical therapy, and the day-to-day stressors of her life, she struggled to keep up with her loan payments... [ read more ]

Your best days are likely the ones in which you take good care of yourself while being highly productive. To make it happen, though, you need to be intentional with how you use the minutes of your day. Here are more than a dozen habits highly successful people practice to push themselves to the next level.

1. Find your purpose, refer to it, and let it guide your path

"Knowing and following a personal, specific purpose empowers us to live with greater confidence. Having an active awareness of our purpose leads to deeper satisfaction as we readily know if a choice or task serves or takes from our purpose. Set aside time and explore your purpose. Write it down, refine it, share it, and refer to it often no matter how large or small. It doesn't have to be monumental: 'Make memories with my family,' 'Provide for those I love,' 'Create jobs,' 'Serve others,' etc. Just be certain to make your purpose your daily mantra."

– Doug Bloom, Philadelphia chair of Tiger 21, a peer membership organization with more than 650 high-net-worth wealth creators and preservers worldwide.

2. Connect with someone

"Humans are inherently social. We've an innate desire to connect with one another--whether it be over a meal, traveling to other countries, or watching a movie together. Due to this, I make a daily effort to get out of the office (when feasible) to show up and meet interesting people as a means of identifying opportunities, striking partnerships, connecting, and learning new things. But I believe that how you show up is just as important as the act of showing up itself. You can't expect every meet-and-greet to be as simple as driving down to your local coffee shop, so I'm adamant about immersing myself in their world as well: catching a plane, meeting them in their office, [or] driving to their home. I've been fortunate enough to start and invest in numerous successful businesses because I showed up to meet someone, many of whom I was meeting for the very first time. Ultimately, relationships are what drive businesses forward, and there is no better substitute when developing a relationship than to show up."

– Adam Jiwan, founder, CEO and Chairman at Spring Labs.

[ read more ]

In 2006, I was 50—and I was falling apart. Until then, I had always known exactly who I was: an exceptionally fortunate and happy woman, full of irrational exuberance and everyday joy.

I knew who I was professionally. When I was 16, I’d discovered cognitive science and analytic philosophy, and knew at once that I wanted the tough-minded, rigorous, intellectual life they could offer me. I’d gotten my doctorate at 25 and had gone on to become a professor of psychology and philosophy at UC Berkeley.

I knew who I was personally, too. For one thing, I liked men. I was never pretty, but the heterosexual dance of attraction and flirtation had always been an important part of my life, a background thrum that brightened and sharpened all the rest. My closest friends and colleagues had all been men.

More than anything, though, I was a mother. I’d had a son at 23, and then two more in the years that followed. For me, raising children had been the most intellectually interesting and morally profound of experiences, and the happiest. I’d had a long marriage, with a good man who was as involved with our children as I was. Our youngest son was on his way to college.

I’d been able to combine these different roles, another piece of good fortune. My life’s work had been to demonstrate the scientific and philosophical importance of children, and I kept a playpen in my office long after my children had outgrown it. Children had been the center of my life and my work—the foundation of my identity... [ read more ]

Some people can walk into a room and instantly put everyone at ease. Others seem to make teeth clench and eyes roll no matter what they do. A small body of psychology research supports the idea that the way a person tends to make others feel is a consistent and measurable part of his personality. Researchers call it “affective presence.”

This concept was first described nearly 10 years ago in a study by Noah Eisenkraft and Hillary Anger Elfenbein. They put business-school students into groups, had them enroll in all the same classes for a semester, and do every group project together. Then the members of each group rated how much every other member made them feel eight different emotions: stressed, bored, angry, sad, calm, relaxed, happy, and enthusiastic. The researchers found that a significant portion of group members’ emotions could be accounted for by the affective presence of their peers... [ read more ]

Why did the busiest person in the world, former president Barack Obama, read an hour a day while in office?

Why has the best investor in history, Warren Buffett, invested 80% of his time in reading and thinking throughout his career?

Why has the world’s richest person, Bill Gates, read a book a week during his career? And why has he taken a yearly two-week reading vacation throughout his entire career?

Why do the world’s smartest and busiest people find one hour a day for deliberate learning (the 5-hour rule), while others make excuses about how busy they are?

What do they see that others don’t?

The answer is simple: Learning is the single best investment of our time that we can make. Or as Benjamin Franklin said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” [...read more]

We all know our political system is “broken” — but what if that’s not true? Some say the Republicans and Democrats constitute a wildly successful industry that has colluded to kill off competition, stifle reform, and drive the country apart. So what are you going to do about it?

Imagine a gigantic industry that’s being dominated by just one or two companies. Actually, you don’t have to imagine. Google has more than 90 percent of the global search-engine market. So, not quite a monopoly, but pretty close. Such cases are rare; but not so rare is the duopoly: when two firms dominate an industry. Like Intel and AMD in computer processors. Boeing and Airbus in jet airliners... [read more]