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Introduction

Being weird is not actually a liability. You can be weird and be successful with ease. There are many famous and well-known people who have embraced weirdness and have made it their own with great results. This is the power of being weird and being happy with your weird self.

If you want to be sure that you are being weird with all of your heart, you need to be fine with knowing that you will be different from the other people that you engage with on a daily basis. There are many people who are weird and just use it as fuel for their personal growth and you need to try and be this person for your mental health on a daily basis.

If you are looking for ways to inspire your journey into acceptance of your weirdness, you need to check out these stories of people who were weird and made it the reason for their success in life.

1. Milton Hershey

If you were told about someone who owned a candy company, you would automatically assume that they were not weird at all and were insanely happy just eating chocolate all day. This was not the case for Milton Hershey, who was actually a bit different and who did not always get along with people with whom he interacted. His unique vision for candy-making was not met with a lot of positive reactions and he had to return to his family farm and work on his recipe alone to get it right.

This journey into embracing his own unique vision made him a success and he was able to craft the candy that would be the backbone for a vastly successful, multi-million-dollar company that is still around today. Being weird is not always a problem when you are a creative person and letting other people ruin your creative vision through doubt can just harm you in the long run. The story of how the Hershey Company came to be should show you how much you can benefit from sticking to your own personal goals and dreams in the face of derision and criticism.

Creators who make new products and craft items that they are told cannot be made are almost always people who are considered to be weird. There is something in the social fabric that we weave that makes us want to identify people who go against the grain of the expectations of others as being odd or offbeat in dangerous ways. Being willing to struggle to create something that you can envision is a skill that weird people often have in spades and their fortitude over the years has led to hugely successful careers and the formation of wildly successful companies that are still around today.

If you have been worried about being weird or different and how it might impact your ability to get a job you love or open a business, you need only look at the story of Milton Hershey and how he managed to overcome criticism and a lack of support to found one of the biggest companies that have ever made candy in the world.

2. Mark Zuckerberg

While famous for many reasons these days, Mark Zuckerberg was a great example of a nerd who just could not quite fit in. While smart and successful in school, he was odd and not liked by his classmates overall. He struggled to make friends and get dates and his original idea for Facebook was to make sure that he could connect romantically with girls. He later expanded his idea to make sure that others who were socially awkward like him could find dates and connect in an easy way with girls that they struggled to talk to at school.

The vast success of Facebook could be considered an accident, but he was at the center of the development process of the site all along and has made critical decisions along the way that indicate that he knows how the social structure of online life works rather well. Being a unique thinker who was not engaging successfully socially with others in his age group, he managed to make a website that would launch many people into social health in ways that they could never have managed without his help.

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INTRODUCTORY

Distance running is already becoming a popular form of exercise. However, there are a few very important things that have to be considered before one decides to join in on all the fun.

Running, like any other exercise, has to be approved by a doctor first. Those who have a personal physician may consult their doctors on the kind of exercise regimen they’re suited to before starting one. One must be checked out thoroughly.

This is to ensure that the exercise will not aggravate existing heart conditions. For those who think they are fit and healthy, it does not hurt to actually make sure that is the case. Feeling fit and knowing you actually are fit are not exactly the same. Remember the three men who died of heart attacks last 2007 while competing in different running races?

One of them in particular, Mike Banner, was said to have been unaware that he had a very rare heart condition. This caused his arteries to get clogged during the race, leading to a fatal the heart attack. Another one, Ryan Shay, died at 28 while running the U.S. men’s marathon Olympic Trials had an enlarged heart.

However, he knew about his condition and used it to his advantage. Unfortunately, this advantage was what ultimately turned on him and led to his early death.

These are simply a few of the examples. Measures have also been taken to remind runners to drink while running. A substantial number of runners, however, are not really keen on guzzling down water while on the run. And who can blame them? After all, it breaks the concentration.

And when in a race to the finish line, drinking water may not exactly be the first thought that most athletes find themselves entertaining.

However, information from the USATF states that a person must take his/ her weight before and after a workout and the resulting difference between the two is that person’s “sweat rate.” Since the standard practice is to drink sixteen ounces of fluid for each pound one has lost, knowing one’s sweat rate allows a person to determine it to a per hour or perhaps a per mile or whichever rate that one wishes to suit personal needs and preferences.

This way, athletes can also avoid succumbing to hypotremia, a condition that is basically the exact opposite of suffering from dehydrated. Meaning, one is overhydrated. This happens when athletes, after a long race without drink or fluid, fiercely guzzle down water. It is an extremely bad habit.

The body, specifically the kidney, is not made to withstand the consumption of huge volumes of water at just one time. There has to be intervals. Otherwise, water intoxication happens or what is commonly termed by doctors as hypotremia.

This is why it is important to start an exercise regimen that is recommended by a doctor. It makes sense to seek the medical opinion of a physician before doing anything that involves one’s body. One may not know that by unhealthy practices, one may already be putting one’s health—and life—at risk.

One must then make sure a taking on an exercise like distance running is accompanied by medical check-ups. That way, one is sure to be healthy and fit. After all, it is not enough that one feels healthy. One must know it too.

CHAPTER 1: GETTING SET FOR DISTANCE RUNNING

Training is an essential part of every athlete’s life. It dictates how he will perform on the grand stage of the sporting event he has chosen.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a ball player or a budding swimmer you have to pay your dues in training in order for your body to be readily equipped when the game proper is on. Distance running is an event that has been sweeping the globe in years. Many people have to come to love its events. Let’s take a look at how you can shoot your way into getting set for distance running.

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Influencer marketing means that one or more people are deployed to influence the behavior of a target group. Well-known influencers usually have many followers on social media, and in particular on the app Instagram. By posting specific content that is align with your content strategy they can “influence” their followers.

So, what is an influencer? The definition of an influencer is someone who has the power to influence / affect the purchasing decisions of others. There are several reasons why someone has the power to influence others, amongst them are authority, knowledge or because they are seen as experts. Furthermore some of them have a strong relationship with their followers, their followers feel as connected to the influencer as to their inner circle. Whenever they recommends a certain product / service they are very open to this recommendation. Note: authenticity is key!

Anyone who thinks millennials don’t do that much and are lazy has probably never met a social media influencer. This actually also applies to anyone who thinks that social doesn’t play a crucial role in a business. Influencers are and will continue to be the future of advertising.

Old-fashioned advertising campaigns via TV, radio and banners on the internet are making way for the popular millennial that (usually) advertises brands on social media platforms, mainly Instagram. Influencers replace the billboard and TV commercial. And this strategy works for businesses where old-fashioned marketing doesn’t, scientists say.

Nowadays they belong to the fixed mix of marketing methods of many major brands. Influencers are a great, new way for businesses to bring brand awareness to people in a more authentic and sincere way.

Before you start, it is important to ask yourself what industry your interested in. Find something that your passionate about and enjoy doing in your free time.

Whether its makeup, fashion, cooking, etc, this step will help you identify want audience your trying to reach and from there you can now create your brand.

The tricky part of finding a niche is that, well, there aren’t necessarily a lot of them left to grab. Just think back to those 8 million mummy bloggers – and there are probably equally vast numbers of people sharing their views on fashion, beauty, fitness, travel and food.

But don’t worry. You don’t need to create an entirely new specialism to be a success as a social media influencer. And if you did become a unique social authority on, say, monkey haircuts, then it sort of limits your appeal to most brands.

The reality is that to be an authentic and engaging social media influencer, your subject needs to be something you can speak about in an intelligent and inspiring way. In other words, you don’t really find your niche as a social media influencer – your niche finds you.

The key is to make sure you specialise. If you have a passion for hill running, but you’re also really into omelettes and woolly hats, then it’s important to focus on your most influential topic – or at least only supplement it with related and relevant topics.

That’s not to say your Instagram should be filled with post after post of omelettes/woolly hats.

It’s just making sure that you are developing a clear identity for yourself in your channels.

Typically, when deciding on how to become an influencer, you can choose one of the following categories:

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INTRODUCTION

Fit exercise into your busy schedule? That’s as absurd as saying that there are eight days in a week. First, you’ve never exercised before or regularly played a sport. Second, you’ve never been into the fitness crowd and third, you’re far too busy to even think about exercise. In other words, You're just not into it.

Of course your friends talk about it and rave about the latest fitness craze, but you’ve seen it too often, some of them are on the “on-again-off-again” treadmill / stair master mania, and you wonder why they haven’t shed the fat that they’re desperately still trying to hide. Seeing what your friends go through and not seeing any results, you cling to the notion that your total lack of interest is justified.

You’re not the least bit inclined to engage in these circus-like contortions or do those mindless freestyle strokes in the water. That would only encroach into your already busy schedule of juggling family, home and career. These three combined – husband/children/work are your exercise.

Before tackling the idea of fitting exercise into your busy schedule, it might be better if we start with the concept of self-assessment and then familiarize ourselves with the disease-prevention aspect of exercise.

Once you’ve accepted the fact that exercise is good for your health, then you can consider some of the ways you can include it into your life.

SECTION 1: ASSESSING PHYSICAL DAMAGE AND ACCEPTING THE IMPORTANCE OF EXERCISE

Lifespan and Physical Appearance

The average life span is 80 years, give or take a few years. The truth is, a significant number of people look and feel 80 before their time. They have:

sagging dry skin unsightly posture an uneven and unsteady walk aching joints

If their outward appearance is bad, imagine what the inside machinery is like. Most likely, it’s even worse:

clogged blood vessels heart problems mounds of sugar and fat parked in or around vital organs Conditions such as diabetes, nervous tension, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease that are silently brewing.

If fitness authorities had it their way, they’d create legislation to make exercise mandatory as soon as a baby leaves the cradle, not during the teenage years when obesity is likely to strike.

But fitness shouldn’t be associated with any age. You can start at 10 or at 30 – even at 50 or 60. Fitness should not be seen as the cure for an illness you already have, but as preventative maintenance. Assessing Your Fitness Level

Brad King and Dr. Michael Schmidt in “Bio Age, Ten Steps to a Younger You” have devised a questionnaire for assessing physical damage to a body as a result of no exercise. We will borrow some of their guidelines:

Start with the question, “How do I look?” Do any of these answers apply to you?

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Normal, cognitive changes as you age are completely normal. This may include mild cognitive impairment, which is quite common in humans after midlife.

Usually this "dulling of the mind" starts around middle age. Since the average person lives to about 80 years old, this means that if you’re 40, you are middle age. Even if you are nowhere near 40 right now, this age comes sooner than you think because time passes very fast while you’re living it.

Working on keeping your mind sharp as you age can and should start from a young age. The younger you start, the better. However, even if you’re over middle age right now, and even if you feel as if you have less mental dexterity than when you were younger, you can still implement what you will read in the pages that follow. If you do, you may avoid suffering too much decline, keeping your mind as sharp as possible and even improving where you can.

THE IMPORTANCE OF KEEPING YOUR MIND SHARP AS YOU AGE

It’s normal to experience changes in your brain throughout your life. As you go through middle age and beyond, your brain will slowly shrink.

This is all completely normal and while it sounds frightening, you don’t have to be scared. With the right plan, you can - if you work on it - actually grow your brain even if it’s already started shrinking.

Keep Your Independence Longer

If you can take care of yourself and remember to pay your bills, turn off the stove, and that type of thing, you will be able to be independent a lot longer than if you can’t do those things.

Working on improving your memory and brain function now, even if you have no mental or cognitive decline at all, will ensure that you will put it off even longer.

Ward off Dementia

Even though a large percentage of people over 70 have some form of dementia, you can certainly lessen the effects by working on your mental and physical health. Eating right, keeping your mind sharp by reading, doing new things, and living an active life is your best defense against any illness and costs less than medical intervention.

Improve Your Memory

Being able to remember to take your meds, or even remember what day it is, is an important factor in being able to live on your own. If you cannot remember what day it is, it’s hard to remember to pay your light bill or buy the right amount of food to eat. Don’t worry, though; even if you have a hard time remembering things now, you can learn methods to make it easier.

Experience Better Health in General

Taking care of your brain health will naturally rub off into creating a situation where your entire body is healthier. The main reason is that the same thing that keeps your brain healthy will maintain your general health. Eating right, drinking plenty of water, getting exercise, resting, and reducing stress are good for you all the way around.

Enjoy Your Retirement More

When you can be independent, remember your scheduled evening out with friends, and remember to pay your bills, you will obviously enjoy your retirement more. It's more pleasurable if you’re healthy and your mind is sharp. You’ll have a lot more fun because you will be free of other worries once you retire, and you’re likely to earn more money longer due to having a sharp mind.

Keeping your mind sharp pays off in more than one way. Being independent as long as humanly possible is also a massive benefit to the rest of your family. The less your family worries about you, the more independent you can be, for longer. It’s a lot less expensive for you to stay independent.

So, let's move on to look at things you can do to make your life better and to keep your mind sharp as you age.

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Introduction

In our modern world, networking is different than ever before. Many people are working from home or remote locations because it is less expensive and more convenient for the type of work that they need to get done. This is also a big way for companies to entice the right people to work with them.

Because so many people are not coming to the office all the time, the way that we network is changing too. You need to find new and exciting ways to network and meet with other people, and doing it in a virtual manner is an effective way to make this work.

There are countless ways that you can meet with others virtually. And when it is done well, it can be even more effective than meeting others in-person like in the past. However, you need to do it in the right way. Avoiding some of the common virtual networking mistakes is one of the best ways to be as effective and fruitful when it comes to some of the people you can meet while expanding your network from anywhere. Some of the top virtual networking mistakes that you need to avoid include:

Being Unprofessional Because You are At Home

Since you work at home all day, it is easy to get a little lack about your appearance and how you portray yourself. You may sit behind a computer and have no one see you all day long so you will be comfortable and not look at professional. This has to change if you are doing an interview or another type of meet and great where others can see you.

Don’t let the unprofessionalism take over when you do Skype or Zoom. Pretend that you are in the office. Check that the volume and the lighting look good before you even try to begin and be aware of some of the background that is behind you. Clean up the area around you, or the whole office preferably, to ensure that no one is going to see a big mess when they look at the screen.

The outfit that you wear is going to be important too. You need to take off the sweatpants and bad shirts that you are wearing and put on something professional. It is fine if you dress down to do your work most of the time since no one is going to see you. But with a networking event, others will see you, and you need to make sure they are impressed. In networking, first impressions are going to be a big deal so make sure you dress up like you are showing up to the office for those video calls.

Before any meeting, take the time to look around the room. Notice if there is any mess behind you that you need to worry about. It is best to clean up the whole room if possible just in case you need to move the computer screen around at all. Look for anything that is embarrassing, unprofessional, or just a big mess. If you are short on time, then you can consider just cleaning up the area that is immediately around you and then be careful not to move around a lot while you are talking to some of your contacts.

Then it is time to move on to some of the clothes that you wear. It may be acceptable to show up in your pajamas when you work remotely, but this is not going to look good for some of your contacts when networking. Bring out a nice shirt and pants and look like you are going to an interview along the way. This gives off a better impression and makes it look like you are more of a professional while you network.

Networking is Not Just About You

The next mistake that people will make with all sorts of networking, whether they are doing it in-person or virtually, is that they forget that it is not just about them. Networking is something that needs to prove beneficial to both parties and not just to you. The second that it becomes all about you is the second that contact is going to lose interest and will decide not to work with you on it at all.

This is a new relationship that needs to be beneficial to both parties. It is easy to get caught up a bit in the self-promotion, which makes it easy to forget all about the true meaning of networking. In networking, you want to focus on helping one another out. But it is easy to forget this, which makes it harder to form some of the long lasting connections that you want along the way.

Forgetting Your Existing Contacts

It is exciting when it comes to networking to see how many people you can gather up into the network that you want to form. You want to meet new people, make some new connections, and see how all of this can go. And that is an admirable trait to have. But you need to remember some of your current contacts as well, or you may find that your list gets smaller and smaller all the time.