The benefits of being an independent business are truly great. Beyond the rewarding nature of owning something truly unique, small businesses have the edge over their big business counterparts in many areas. Consider the importance of being independent and how that independence can help drive your business.

    To some, having fewer customers simply means less cash flow; however, having a smaller base also allows you to focus more on customer satisfaction.

    Companies are always searching for ways to improve customer service and have more of their business. Whether through paying special attention to who comes through your door or monitoring your customers through the social network, it's less of trouble to make sure your customers' needs are being met when there's a smaller sample to deal with. In addition, it becomes much easier to create a personal connection with buyers when you have enough time and attention to show them some love.

    Small businesses have an inherent advantage over their big box competitors in the sense that they can offer something different. People want to see the independent businesses that offer unique products and flavor to their communities. Your business can be the difference when it comes to what customers want.

    Of course, big box companies will almost always beat you down when it comes to price. Consider, however, that if you can offer a truly unique product or experience, price becomes much less of an issue.

    People like the idea of supporting local independent businesses versus “the big guys”. So, what businesses are booming due to the rise of independence?

Craft Beer(精酿啤酒) —- The craft beer movement in the United States is supported so widely that big breweries have taken to creating their own competing “craft beer” brands in an attempt to follow the trend. While Anheuser Busch represents nearly half of America's breweries, craft beer has seen a huge jump in sales in recent years.

Video Games —- Whether through PCs, traditional consoles or mobile games, independent developers are supported by enthusiastic fans and micro-transactions in an industry that was formerly dominated by bigger developers.

Musicians —- The modern web offers immense opportunities to musicians, resulting in more economic and artistic freedom. A surprising number of mainstream artists have seen great success from their independent releases, such as Macklemore's The Heist, which has sold over one million copies in the United States alone.

    Some small businesses don't want to be small businesses forever. Regardless, consider what independence does for you and your company. If you offer something out of the ordinary, you can build an audience that respects your individuality and supports your cause.

    Put a group of strangers in a room together, and they'll probably start a conversation. "Hot today, isn't it?" one might say. "You said it." another replies.

Why do we talk so much about the weather? When we meet new people, we don't begin by telling them our life story. We start with small talk, a polite conversation about something like traffic or weather.

    Research suggests that small talk can build new friendships. When we begin conversations with new people, we want to feel comfortable, and so do they. We use small talk to find common interests. Once we have a common interest, a friendship can begin.

    Small talk even helps people get hired. In order to impress at a job interview, you need to bond with the interviewer right away. Proper small talk can make that first impression get you the job.

    So, how can you make small talk lead to a new friendship or job? First off, find common ground. Select something around you that you share with the other person.

    Next, keep the conversation going. Compliment (赞美) the other person to make him or her feel comfortable, and ask questions to show interest.

    Third, keep eye contact (接触). When you look people in the eye, they feel you appreciate what they are saying. It makes you appear honest and builds trust.

    Naturally, shy people might not have enough confidence to start up conversations with strangers. Talking to someone you don't know is not the easiest thing to do! Some experts say with more practice, small talk does get easier.

    Some people avoid small talk because they dislike discussing things like traffic or weather. For them, they are just too small. However, when you think about it, small talk is anything but small. In fact, it is actually a very big deal!

    If you want to make a great first impression—and why wouldn't you—you know there are basic steps you can take: you should smile, make eye contact, talk less than the other person, and ask questions about him or her. Anyone can do those things.

    But what you might not know is that if you think other people are going to like you, they usually will. As research shows, interpersonal warmth explains the scene: study participants who expected to be accepted were sensed as more likable. (when you think other people will like you, you act in a more natural way—which then makes people like you more since we tend to like warm, friendly people.)

    All of which sounds great, but when you're shy or insecure, you might believe that other people will like you. When you're not familiar with the setting or do not feel comfortable, it's a lot easier to believe people don't like you.

    So how can you convince yourself that people will like you? Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and commit to taking a few steps that ensure almost anyone will like you.

    ⒈Give a sincere compliment(称赞).

    Everyone loves praise, especially since no one gets enough praise. Show interest by asking questions. But go past, "What do you do?" Ask what it's like to do what the person does. Ask what's hard about it. Ask what the person loves about it. You'll soon find things to compliment.

    ⒉Focus on letting people talk about themselves.

    People love to talk about themselves.

    Research shows approximately 40 percent of everyday speech is spent telling other people what we think or feel—basically, talking about our subjective experiences.

    By helping people talk about themselves, you're seen as a great conversationalist. In fact, you say very little. Even if you haven't succeeded in making people fully understand you, it is OK. And in the process, you also make other people feel better about themselves, and that makes them like you.

    That's another win-win.

    ⒊Change one word.

    Think about the difference in these statements:

    I had to go to a meeting.

    I got to meet with some great people.

    I have to interview some candidates for a job.

    I get to select a great person to join our team.

    No big deal, right? Wrong. We like to be around the people who have enthusiasm and motivation.

    Keep in mind choosing the right words also affects how you feel. Don't say, "I have to go to the gym." Say, "I want to go to the gym."

    ⒋Show a little weakness.

    Great teams are often led by people willing to admit weaknesses and failings.

    Want to make a great first impression? Don't try to impress. Instead, be humble. Admit your mistakes. Laugh at yourself.

    When you do, other people won't laugh at you. They'll laugh with you.

    And they'll immediately like you, and want to be around you more.

Guilt, a positive use for a negative emotion

    Guilt is one the most painful emotions that humans experience but also one of the most common. Nobody enjoys feeling guilty, but this emotion serves an important purpose: it alerts a person when he or she has done something wrong. This makes it possible for the person to make amends and it can also motivate people to avoid making similar mistakes later.

    Nevertheless, guilt can be destructive if not dealt with in the right way. It can cause people to avoid others because they are too embarrassed to apologize for their actions or inaction. Some try to avoid the pain of guilt by turning to other worse habits. Others try to cover up their guilt by blaming others or becoming angry.

    What makes it more complicated is that sometimes people feel guilty about things that they can't control. One example of this is survivors' guilt, when people who survived a disaster feel guilty because they escaped death while others didn't. Other people experience false guilt because of too high expectations for themselves.

    The proper response to guilt depends on what kind of guilt you're dealing with. For false guilt, it's important to recognize that guilt does not reflect an actual ethical failure. For example, some false guilt focuses on failing to meet expectations you had for yourself. In this case, it's important to remind yourself that you have limits. No one is perfect, and no one can do everything, so admitting your limits is actually a sign of humility.

    It's also important to acknowledge what you are feeling. Even when you don't need to feel guilty, these feelings are real and normal. Try to balance them with positive thoughts, but realize that it often takes time for feelings to change.

    It's possible that you feel guilty because you actually did something wrong—or didn't do something you should have .If so, don't try to hide it. Apologize and ask for forgiveness, working to heal relationships that were damaged by your actions, which will make your guilty feelings fade.

    Guilt is painful, but it can serve a good purpose if you use it well.

Just as team members today have assigned doing roles, there should also be thinking roles. By knowing how other members of your learn and organization think—and by others knowing how you think—everyone can be more productive. So how should you evaluate how you and your team think? After a lot of trial-and-error, we developed a three-step method that delivers practical and meaningful results.

    Focus. Do you tend to pay the most attention to ideas, process, action, or relationships? For example, in the morning do you think about the problems you need to solve, the plans you need to make, the actions you need to take, or the people you need to see? This isn't about picking one to the exclusion(排除)of the other. It's about where your focus naturally lands.

    Orientation(方向). A good way to identify your orientation is thinking about what tends to bother you in meetings. Are you more likely to complain about getting dragged into the weeds or about things being too general and not specific enough? These dimensions are complementary(补充的)to personality, skills, and traditional roles.

Combination. By combing these two dimensions you can know about the thinking style at work in whatever context or setting you chose. When you know your thinking style, you know what naturally energizes you, why certain type of problems are challenging or boring, and what you can do to improve in areas that are important to reaching your goals. Once you know your style, it helps to share it with others, and have others share theirs with you. In this way, your thinking style becomes a useful tool—a kind of social currency—for the team. Imaging you put together a team to work on a new initiative(行动). Wouldn't you like to know who is energized by big-picture strategy discussions and who finds them frustrating? Who likes to work on the details of the execution? And who is energized by managing the team dynamics?

    The landscape of business is changing rapidly, and we have to find new and better ways to connect and communicate. We all want to work better together, the challenge is actually making it happen. Understanding collaboration(合作)through the way of thinking rather than doing is a practical and powerful step forward.

Is Cash Becoming Outdated?

    When he rolls into a gas station to fill his tank, Barkhad Dahir doesn't get out of his car. He pushes a few buttons on his cellphone and within seconds he has paid for the fuel. With the same quick pushes on his phone, he pays for virtually everything he needs: groceries at the supermarket, a few oranges from a market stall, or a cup of sweet milky tea from a café. Mr. Dahir boasts, "Even lying in bed, you can be paying your bills."

    Electronic payments offer consumers convenience, provide revenue for banks, credit card companies and payment processors, and offer merchants improved cash flow and convenience. "I don't even carry money any more," says Adan Abokor, a democracy activist. "I haven't seen cash for a long time. Almost every merchant, even hawker (小贩) on the street, accepts payment by cellphone. There's no waiting for it and no counting of cash."

    The system is impressively simple and secure. Purchases are made by dialing a three-digit number, entering a four-digit PIN, and then entering the retailer's payment number and the amount of money. Both customers and merchants receive text messages to confirm the payment.

    Clearing up cash payments has several advantages as well. The printing and handling of money is expensive. Cash payments can be anonymous and hard to track criminal activities to be conducted in secret. Many governments favor reducing cash dealings in order to better monitor and understand the activities of their citizens. The Swedish government has been discussing the removing of cash since 2010.

    However, some people doubt what members of a cashless society do when the power goes off. Do they choose to barter (物物交换) and rob? Do they sit at home and wait? What happens to people who rely on their cellphones to process money dealings when cell service and the Internet are interrupted? A world affected by terrorism and increasingly violent weather may not yet be ready to abandon currency. "Ironically, the day after the largest bank in Norway, DNB, proposed ending all cash dealings, I went to my local grocery store and when I tried to pay by phone, I was told that I needed to go to the ATM to get cash because the system was broken." said an interviewee.

    Other people fear that electronic payments may create security and fraud risks and enable dealings to be tracked and reported. Privacy, security and convenience are all important factors in the adoption of electronic payment technology. New technologies which balance and address these factors may enable people to remove cash.