Weekly Newsletter for The Freelancers: Here is the latest newsletter of the week starting on 7th of May 2018.
What is emotional intelligence? If you are like me you will want to refresh your memory of what it actually means. This is what I found when I looked it up on Psychology Today. The article summed it in four words: being smart about feelings!
When you started out as a freelancer, whether moonlighting or full-time, you may have thought that this would not matter, but it does because as a freelancer you are constantly dealing with people whether it is across the road or across the world.
If you want a more detailed explanation as to why emotional intelligence matters to you as a freelancer because you are, after all, in business an article by Elizabeth Dukes will interest you. Elizabeth’s article What’s your EQ? Why emotional intelligence matters in business. appears in Inc.com and you can read it here.
Emotional intelligence is an interesting subject that can have a significant impact on your success as a freelancer. If you would like to measure your existing emotional intelligence you can do so with Psychology Today by clicking here.
If you would like to learn more about how to improve your emotional intelligence at work and in relationships click on the icon below and look inside the book:
Motivate Yourself!
“There is an amazing power getting to know your inner self and learning how to use it and not fight with the world. If you know what makes you happy, your personality, interests and capabilities, just use them, and everything else flows beautifully.”
– Juhi Chawla
Is your personality suited to the freelancing life and why you need to find out!
There is a good reason that the Facebook page for the PsychologyToday.com has over 7 million followers. The reason is that many people want to understand themselves to make their lives more enjoyable by managing life better.
It seems pretty obvious, but millennials need to have a lot of self- knowledge because they are under more psychological pressure than previous generations. This is not just a perception.
Kevin Loria has written about the research: It’s official: millennials are the most stressed-out generation. Kevin has written his article for Businessinsider.com.au and you can read it here
Psychology Today aims to help millennials understand themselves so that they can produce better life strategies and that is why you should be motivated to follow their articles. Whether you are suited for the freelancing life is something that needs to be understood.
Amy Rosenberg has written Earnings and yearnings: the freelance personality for Psychologytoday.com and you can read her article here.
One absolute certainty is that Psychologytoday.com will help you with is the stress. Rob Kendall has written What you can do to combat stress which you can read here
We monitor the articles from many sources globally and where there are articles from Psychology Today.com relevant to freelancers we will bring them to you through this newsletter.
Productivity Tip of the Week
Freelancers need to know that depression lowers productivity and what to do about it.
Freelancers need to know that depression lowers productivity and what to do about it.
There is no shortage of studies showing the incredible cost of depression in the workplace and to economies, but if you are a freelancer it matters because the cost of lost productivity is your income!
There is a study from the London School of Economics showing that across 8 countries the cost was $246 billion per year. You can watch Dr. Sara Evans-Lacko’s video report on this study here.
Our goal in this article is to show you at a personal level why this lost productivity occurs and what you can do about it to stop it costing you money.
Jimmy Rohampton has written 5 causes of depression and how they’re killing your productivity for Evancarmichael.com which you can read here.
Shannon Byrne has written 10 ways to beat freelance anxiety and depression for Cloudpeeps.com blog and you can read it here.
Work-Life Balance Tip of the Week
Is there is a work-life balance formula or is there another way?
Recently Amazon Prime global membership passed 100 million. It does not matter what the demographics of the membership is. What matters is that Amazon Prime is very successful today because it makes life easier.
It would appear that people who are working are attracted by not only the fact that it can save them time and money, but that membership will help with work-life balance.
It is difficult for millennials because technology also blurs the line between work and family life whether they are freelancers or in a corporate 9 to 5 job.
Andy Molinsky from Psychologytoday.com thinks that if we Want to be happier? Ditch the work-life balance metaphor which you can read here. The following articles explain why Andy has written this, what is your view?
Kaytie Zimmerman has written Work-life balance is becoming unattainable goal for millennials for the Forbes.com and you can read her article here.
Joshua Kraus writing for Sitepoint.com 6 Ways Freelancers Can Separate Their Work & Personal Lives which you can read here.
This is one of the great social issues of our time with the rise of the freelancers, remote and unaffiliated workers because of technology.
Amazon has seen this marketing opportunity to provide goods and services to them and it would be a strong contributing reason that they now have passed 100 million members.
Financial Tip of the Week
Will smart home devices save you time and money?
For freelancers, time is money, and anything that saves you time should make you more productive!
With the advent of smart devices, artificial intelligence and the coming of the internet of things to consumers’ homes what do consumers think about the financial benefits?
This is the issue that Lauren Barack has written about for Gearbrain.com with her article entitled Majority of U.S. consumers say smart home devices will change their lives which you can read here.
You will notice the proviso of the consumers’ opinions: “but only if they work together”.
Getting smart devices and digital assistants to work together is the main issue because that is where the potential is to save consumers’ time and money.
Amazon realizes this and according to Avery Hartman’s article Amazon is so dedicated to echo it has 5,000 people working on new Alexa products. Avery wrote his article for Businessinsider.com.au and you can read it here.
Amazon is leading in the race to help people save time and money with smart homes. I believe that freelancers would also be smart to follow the developments carefully because it will make their lives easier and more productive which means increased income.
This Smartcompany.com article The Real Reasons That Amazon’s Alexa May Become The Go-To AI For The Home by Mark Sullivan agrees and you can read it here.
Amazon Associates Website Case Study and Amazon News
Amazon Web Services’ 4th quarter results for 2017 were USD 5.11 billion according to Jordan Novet’s article for Cnbc.com entitled Amazon cloud revenue jumps 45 percent in fourth quarter which you can read here.
Image Source: cnbc.com
This may not be of particular interest to many freelancers, but those who are thinking of becoming AWS freelancers to business this is of particular interest.
This is the weekly AWS news video link to acloud.guru here. They are the leading trainers globally for AWS freelancers.
We have had a response from Amazon regarding an innovation to be added to their global Amazon Prime Program service offering. It is being considered by their Business Development Team.
The history of the Case Study can be read at links to the previous newsletter issues. There is no change for this week as we are adjusting our articles to take into account their new offering of Amazon Home Services (AHS). Details of AHS can be read here..
We have stopped showing the links for new articles as we have discovered that it could be having adverse impacts on the search engine optimization of the website Best Sellers Hourly. We will advise you when new articles are added. They are currently being worked on.
Freelancers And Cyber Security
We have gained approval from Robert Siciliano to bring you extracts from his books related to cyber security for freelancers. Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert and consultant. He also gives self defense and personal safety seminars. Robert provides safety and identity theft fraud prevention tips and advice on multimedia channels in the United States. We have his approval to bring you weekly extracts from his books:
What is Account Takeover Fraud? (Part-3)
