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Do you have your eyes on a new title? Have you realized your passion and are ready to pursue your dream job? While updating your resume and refreshing yourself on common interview questions are no doubt important, there is another crucial factor that applicants often overlook: their smile. To learn four ways an attractive smile can help your career, read on!

Better Smile, Better Confidence
Confidence is key when it comes to making career moves. If crooked, misshapen, and discolored teeth are holding you back, then it’s time to visit a skilled, experienced, and compassionate cosmetic dentist. From there, they can review your treatment options – from veneers to teeth whitening – and determine the best course of action. In as little as one or two appointments, you can achieve the healthy, happy, and beautiful smile you’ve been missing, boosting your confidence in personal and professional settings alike.

Make a Positive First Impression
Research indicates that first impressions are forming quicker and quicker, potentially in as little as half a second. As a result, the person interviewing you may have already formed an initial opinion of you before you’ve even had a chance to shake their hand! Fortunately, your smile is one of the first features people notice and a beautiful one can be seen from across the room. With a gorgeous grin, you’ll be radiating trustworthiness and likeability before the interview officially starts.

Break the Ice
Even if you’re extremely extroverted, breaking the ice can be difficult. The good news is that it’s not always about what you say. Body language, like smiling, helps others feel safe around you by laying the groundwork for future relationships. Plus, a “small” act like this will communicate to others that you have a positive outlook, which will help boost morale in the process!

Fewer Sick Days
Whether it’s from cold and flu season or lack of a proper work-life balance, getting sick happens. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any more pleasant to deal with. The good news is that a healthy smile positively impacts the immune system, reducing the chances of you getting ill. So, you’ll take fewer sick days and have more time to work on your next career move!

Your smile may not be the only factor in the success of your career, but it’s still an important one! If you’re struggling to smile confidently due to dental imperfections like stains and chips, then don’t wait – schedule a consultation.

In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle and lose sight of the present moment. This is where mindfulness comes in – the practice of paying attention to the present moment in a non-judgmental way. Mindfulness has been shown to have a number of benefits, including reduced stress and increased focus and productivity.

One way to incorporate mindfulness into your daily routine is through the use of specialty coffee. N10Coffee, a London-based specialty coffee roaster, offers a range of high-quality beans and blends that can help you stay focused and present throughout the day.

One of the key benefits of specialty coffee is its unique and complex flavours. Taking a moment to savour each sip and pay attention to the taste and aroma of the coffee can help bring you into the present moment and away from any stress or distractions. The ritual of brewing and enjoying a cup of coffee can also be a form of mindfulness in itself, as it allows you to take a break and focus on the task at hand.

In addition to its taste and aroma, specialty coffee can also provide a boost of energy to help you stay focused and productive throughout the day. Whether you’re working on a long-term project or tackling a busy day at the office, a cup of high-quality coffee can help keep you going.

N10Coffee’s commitment to sustainability is another factor that sets it apart as a mindfulness-friendly choice. The company sources its beans ethically and sustainably, ensuring that the farmers who grow them are fairly compensated and that the environment is protected. This ethical sourcing can help bring a sense of mindfulness and awareness to your coffee consumption.

Overall, N10Coffee is a great choice for those looking to incorporate mindfulness into their daily routine and boost their performance at work. Whether you’re looking for a unique and complex flavour profile, a boost of energy, or an ethical and sustainable choice, N10Coffee has something for everyone.

Mental health is not something we think about. We are too busy thinking about our physical health and wellbeing, and then life in general, that we rarely stop to think about exercising our mental health.

It’s just as important to look after our mental health, as it is our physical health. So why don’t we take more time looking after our own mental health?

Health, according to the World Health Organization, is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being……”.

Mental health is a big factor towards your overall health and wellbeing. We all understand we need to eat well and exercise to maintain our physical health, however when it comes to mental health do we really understand what it means (unless you work in the mental health industry)?

I know that I didn’t really think of it, let alone truly understand the meaning behind it. Sure, I knew about mental illness, I knew it affected people in different ways, though I didn’t fully comprehend just how important exercising our mental health actually is.

What does mental health mean exactly? According to the World Health Organization, “Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community. It is an integral component of health and well-being that underpins our individual and collective abilities to make decisions, build relationships and shape the world we live in”.

So mental health affects how we think, feel, act, within our everyday life, such as work, relationships and study. When we’re feeling mentally healthy we can be fully present with our family, friends, work colleagues and community.

So how do we stay mentally healthy? Here are a few things that are good for our mental health:

Having supportive people in our lives

Maintaining good physical health through healthy eating and exercise

Getting enough sleep

Taking time out to do activities we enjoy

Doing work that is meaningful and enjoyable

Volunteering in our community

Having good coping strategies for times when our mental health is not so good

Having work-life balance

Financial security

Feeling confident in our ability to manage day-to-day life

Living and working in a society that is fair, just, tolerant and equitable.

So we know what helps with our mental health, now let’s see what isn’t so good for our mental health:

Unsupportive relationships, or few supportive relationships in our lives

Times when we are physically ill

Practicing poor health habits, e.g. not getting enough sleep or exercise, not maintaining physical hygiene

Chronic stress

Not having time to do activities we enjoy or not being able to take time out to relax and care for ourselves

Being in work that is not engaging, fulfilling or secure

Practicing unhelpful coping strategies when stressed, such as drinking too much alcohol

Lacking stability, certainty or control in our lives

Limited opportunities for career or educational advancement

Bullying, discrimination or harassment

Living and working in a society that is unjust, intolerant or inequitable.

Does that mean that if we stay in good mental health that we’ll never experience mental unhealth? Short answer is no. Though it certainly helps, that’s for sure.

Did you know that approximately 20% of Australian adults, in any 12-month period, experience a common mental illness (based on the most recent National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing). A person will vary between being mentally healthy, and experiencing some form of mental illness at different points in their life. Only a small minority have ongoing mental health problems.

Interesting statistics aren’t they? And the most common mental illness is anxiety, depression, and substance use. What’s even more interesting is that marginally more Australian females aged 18-85 will have, at some stage, anxiety and/or depression in any one year. And more Australian males will have substance use in any one year.

As long as we are aware of our own mental health, and can see signs/changes in ourselves then we can get the right help and support. It’s also about noticing when your friends, family, work colleagues are exhibiting changes to their usual way, and asking them if they are OK. Being there to listen to them, without blame or judgment in any way. They just need to feel that they are being heard and understood.

So what are some of the signs? Generally you may notice certain behaviors or physical signs that yourself or others are portraying. You also may not notice these changes in yourself as they may start off as little things at first. It’s very important that your friends and family also notice the signs, changes in your behaviors, how you act and react in social situations.

Some behaviors exhibited may include:

Appearing worried, sad, angry, irritable, distracted or nervous

Withdrawing from social or work activities

Conflict with the people around them, e.g. friends, family, colleagues

Problems with memory, attention or concentration

Appearing indecisive or confused

Not getting things done

Loss of motivation and interest in activities they used to enjoy

Loss of confidence or increase in self-criticism

Saying they feel helpless or hopeless

Unplanned absences from work or study

Increased errors or accidents

Behaving in ways that are out of character, e.g. developing unusual routines or odd ideas

Increased use of caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes or sedatives.

Some physical signs you may notice include:

Being tired all the time

Feeling sick and run down

Headaches

Unexplained or persistent muscle aches and pains

Increased reaction times

Changes in appetite or sleep patterns

Weight loss or gain

Disheveled appearance

Gastro-intestinal issues

Appearing to have more or less energy than usual

Nervous behaviors, tremors or shaking.

I’m sure you read that and think to yourself, am I exhibiting these behaviors? Remember the meaning of good mental health, a state of wellbeing in which a person is able to: cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively, relate to others, and make choices that are positive.

So if you are acting as you normally would, feeling happy, healthy, alive, then that’s a great sign. We can also wake up and not feel the best some days, be in a bad mood, get angry at our kids, the traffic, be fed up with work. They are normal feelings, we can’t always be 100% happy can we? You’d be a saint if you could!

Recognising that something isn’t quite right can save someone, and help them get better quicker than if it goes unnoticed. It’s important if you see a family member, friend, work colleague exhibit the behaviors and physical signs, to support them fully. You may think they are just being weak, lazy, selfish, uncooperative, attention seeking, instead of being mentally unhealthy.

We cannot fully understand what someone is going through, unless we have gone through it ourselves. Let me explain in a different way – It’s like having a baby, you think you might know the pain you go through with labor, and what it’s like feeding, and not having enough sleep. However, the reality is that unless you have experienced having a baby yourself, you don’t actually know what it’s like. Same with being mentally unhealthy, unless you have been there, you don’t know what they are or have experienced.

It’s best to be supportive, and to talk to them about seeking help (as they need to take that first step themselves, all we can do is be encouraging and be there for them).

Who do you turn to for help? There are a lot of people who are versed with helping people with mental unhealth; GP’s, psychologists, psychiatrists, mental health nurses, occupational therapists and social workers, counselors and coaches (for milder types of mental health problems).

Mental health is very important, make sure that you stay mentally healthy and vigilant for those that you love. Recognize the signs. Take action; stand up to say you need help, or support others to find their way back to mental health.

Our personal development in general is how we really grow up, and ignoring that fact is a luxury that we cannot afford because in this world, anything that stops growing starts to decompose; it is a natural law; and with no doubt, we are not an exception to that. However, committing and achieving personal development became just a new fashion nowadays, a new way to impress friends, bosses, and life mates or partners.

People became more interested in the bold expressions of personal development and less concerned with the real content; and the whole story became just a commercial process.

In fact, the concept of personal development had been distorted in the recent few years by the business-wise mentality, and it became hard to find good sources to satisfy our needs for real personal development.

A lot of personal development spokesmen and authors gave us an impression that personal development is just an injection, or even a tablet that we would swallow, and then everything would be fine. They inject a lot of positive feelings and energy in our veins. They give us those unbelievable enormous hopes of our ability to do the impossible; according to them, each one of us is a special, unique, and with an exceptional great future. Finally, they feed us with a lot of soft skills and NLP[1] . Then, that is it, this is the science of personal development, and we just believe it!

All of that is just a tiny part of a bigger, deeper, and much more serious process. Personal development is the science and art of trying to make you the new one, and it gives you a new life where there are no conflicts between being ethical and being both happy and successful. In other words, where there is the right equilibrium between your ethics, your happiness, and your success.

“The real Personal Development is neither an injection nor a tablet that we will swallow, and then everything will be okay. It is a long trip that is worth it and needs hard efforts.”

The real personal development is somehow a science with laws and rules; however, it is also an art, which requires a high sense and taste.

If you really have a deep wish to commit some serious personal development, then you have to become that self-engineer who understands the codes of the process. Also, you have to be the artist who will use those codes to shape and paint the new person you wish to become, and be sure that one day you will be what you chose to be.

“We shape our ideas, models, and stereotypes; thereafter, they shape us. So, it is all up to you, and only you, to decide who you are.”

We should realize that personal development is a process that examines the questions of how to achieve real human development. How to make real, internal, and deep changes of individuals. How to enhance and transcend the man spiritually, mentally, and intellectually. How to do all of that without omitting the need for enhancing the behavioral skills.

The personal development major target is to produce the ones who are able to participate in changing the world, which sinks in materialism and makes it a better place for humans to live like real humans.

One day Henry Miller[2] wrote, “A new world is not made simply by trying to forget the old. A new world is made with a new spirit, with new values.”[3]

We live in a decaying civilization where the real good values do not belong anymore. For irony, we call it “a modern life”.

Personal development should always be a tool to bring the lost real humans back to life. The real humans who know that they are not just pre-programmed machines act as a replaceable part of a crazy system, which in turn brings the benefits for the very few and drives the rest to be unmercifully burned.

That is what I believe the real personal development should be all about. But unfortunately, we were prevented from reaching our real personal development, we were intentionally misled; and in order to realize the real concept of our personal development, it is important to understand first how and why this false perspective has been formed; because unfortunately, there is some kind of deception happening here.

The roots of this false perspective in fact originate from a deeper problem in the modern culture itself that became the sacred mentality over the past few decades. This modern culture is based on materialism, maximizing the individuals’ benefits and pleasures, and maximizing the consumption; and it is being supported by vague and misleading justifications and holy slogans such as: The era of speed, competition and lack of resources, personal freedom, personal greatness, stardom, globalization… and so on.

The explosion of both the media and social media made it much easier for this culture to spread all over the world like a cancer. I do not think that I will sound dramatic if I said that this modern culture creates a flow of negative ethics that hit our souls with no mercy and forms one of the worst tsunamis that had ever hit humanity since Noah’s Flood.

A major result of this culture is the domination of the business-wise (or the business-centered) mentality, accompanied by the takeaway culture, which in turn is based on fast food, fast cures, partial solutions, and painkillers. And here comes one of the tributaries where this false perspective of personal development stems from: Take fast food and fast cure for your own soul, exactly as you do with your own body. Addict those moments of pleasure you feel when I give you this big dose of hope and big dreams, and come back later and ask me for more and more because I want to earn much more and more. Simply, our souls are being fed these fast foods, and we feel like being filled without a real feeding; our ego is being inflated, and our souls begin to gain unhealthy fatness.

However, this is not the whole story yet…

Preventing people from achieving their own true personal development is a game that has been played by the power-holders since the old times of history. Wherever you go, there will be those whales who hold the power, running the markets, controlling the economy, leading the media, and influencing the politics. The souls of those whales are fully saturated with this modern culture, and they embrace it to the bones. This culture is very beneficial for them, and they do everything they can to spread it in order to maximize their own profits in the first place, and justify it as they are participating in building a “brave new world”[4] !

Those whales encourage this false perspective of personal development directly and indirectly because for them it is a good chance for their employees to learn the effective skills needed to serve in the business entities they run. Also, it forms great integration with the malfunctioned and poorly structured educational systems being worshiped by the modern culture. These systems were structured to serve what the business needs in the first place, not the science as we were meant to believe. These systems, with great help from the media and the false personal development, all form together the individual’s mentality to be ready to embrace the role that the whales hope he will play, and unfortunately, most of us play the role with no objections!

When you play that role, it means that your mind is being molded to act according to the consumption model, and you are being tied by your own dreams of being able to have more and more luxurious things. Your primary target in this life becomes to try as hard as possible to survive, and to adapt with the corruption and inhumanity provided by this modern culture. You become ready to be just another replaceable piece within the corrupted systems or irresponsible organizations where the basic faith originates from worshiping the Dollar and embracing jungle law.

Playing that role also means that you become ready to serve in such places with no hesitation in using your own personal skills to please your masters or “Bosses”, regardless of what your own beliefs are; and regardless of the ethical legitimacy of these requests. You would be ready to do anything; you would use your skills to make anyone believe anything, and it would not matter whether it was right or wrong, as long as it is “legal” and you will not serve time in prison for it; and all of that is just for the sake of harvesting more Dollars.

In other words, we are being misled to embrace a false perspective of personal development… A perspective that focuses on enhancing the required skills for the successful transformation from being a human into being a replaceable machine that uses its own skills for individual selfish benefits while serving the masters of business.

The irony here is that we are being changed into replaceable units under the sacred motto of being special and unique!

Anyway, more things still need to be addressed here. The major problem here is that those whales hate nothing more than seeing us achieving our real personal development, and they have their own reasons for that. They are more than happy with that perfect stupid consumer who pays them endlessly, with a smile on his face, and he still believes that he got a great deal.

It is obvious that such a perfect consumer will not be found anymore when people have increased awareness and foresight, which unfortunately, is one of the side effects of the real personal development.

So, whether we embraced that false perspective, or we just got disappointed and gave up the whole idea of personal development, in both cases, they are just fine with it… as long as we are not going to pursue our real personal development.

Well, then what do they do to stop us before we dare to commit that crime?

Whether it was direct or indirect, intentional or unintentional, they all participate in the real crime of maximizing our narcissistic tendencies through this false perspective of personal development, and more dangerously through the media, which has wider and deeper effects. Media shapes perfect dreams, gives orders, and makes you feel guilty for not doing whatever they want you to do. “Be a star”, “You are the best”, “You deserve it”, “You are the greatest”; endless repetition of such phrases and other similar ones is one of the simplest ways that the media uses intentionally to evoke our narcissistic tendencies, where the “I” becomes more worshipped. Deep emotional broadcast over the waves of inflating the ego and the dreams of being future stars is intentionally being implied in most media broadcasts.

But what do they gain from evoking such hateful tendencies?

Firstly, the more narcissistic behavior means more tendencies for the consumption of luxuries, more dominance of the consumption culture, and endless profits for the manufacturers.

However, the most dangerous thing here is the inverse relation between narcissism on one side, and the perception and awareness on the other side. More of the narcissistic mentality means less perception and awareness, which in turn means that the flock culture becomes easier to be formed. One of the easiest ways to convince someone with an idea is to play over the chords of his own ego. Once you did it, it will be easy to drive him into embracing whatever idea you wish, whether it was political, cultural, religious or obviously a commercial one.

So they just play that sensitive chord and push you to be shallower and less interested in your real deep development. The relation between awareness and real personal development is a direct two-way relation, so the less awareness you have, the less you become interested in your real personal development and in gaining more awareness and vice versa.

In simple words, our real personal development is being assassinated. Our personal development is being intentionally misled with a false perspective and narcissistic temptations because having a real personal development will give us more awareness; and then we will not submit to the consumption culture anymore, and will not accept to be used endlessly.