Learn the Art of Kissing...

All men want to be master kissers; only a few actually manage to be one.
No man will accept the fact that he isn’t a good enough kisser and needs to work on his ability to kiss. But secretly, all men at one point in their lives have browsed articles that tell them more about how to kiss amazingly well. We believe that even the best one’s can do better, which is why we present to you, tips that will help you Learn the Art of Kissing.

1. Hold, Don’t Grab

When your girlfriend is standing/sitting very close to you, just close enough to allow you to kiss her, hold her gently. Most men make the common error of latching on to their girlfriends. Such a movement makes most women feel unsafe and uncomfortable. So, hold her tender and allow the mood to set in.

2. Lips & lick

Hold her face in your hand and kiss her lips first. Then tongue them. Please don’t shove your tongue down her throat right away. It will be the most unpleasant thing to do. Allow your tongue to feel the smoothness of her lips and allow her to feel yours. It is very important that you work your lips. Don't just leave your mouth open as if you were breathing in air. Move it and give your jaw muscles some much needed exercise. Play it slow and let the tempo build.

3. Tongue-play

Do it like the French! Play with your tongues: tongue kiss, kiss her tongue and even suck on it. Use the tongue as your foremost weapon and play with it. Along with this, engage in kissing and biting (gentle), and you are bound to get her excited and aroused. However, the most important thing here is not to smear her face & lips with saliva. Eeeeks! Let that happen, and you can be sure this would be your last kiss with her.

4. Full throttle

Once you have spent enough time kissing and tonguing and gone through with the above subtle steps, you can now completely tongue her. But again, don’t be hasty. Do it gradually and with the flow.
Armed with the knowledge of the ultimate art of kissing, you can kiss your intimacy nightmares good bye: at least till you don't jump into the next step without proper guidance from us.

Five Free Ways To De-Stress

I’ve started to notice something about my spending habits, and maybe you can relate. When I’m sad, stressed, or emotional, I often justify expenses by telling myself “I deserve it.”

Before I wised up financially, my self-rewards were expensive. Spa services, new clothes, beauty products I didn’t want or need. I’d wander into a store, or maybe online, and buy something to cheer myself up. Although the gifts to myself have become more reasonable — a magazine, a smoothie, a bar of gourmet dark chocolate — the habit stuck.I don’t think the small purchases are a problem. I’m living within my means, I’m saving money, and a $8 smoothie isn’t concerning. Maybe if I bought one every day it’d make a dent, but this is an every-once-in-awhile purchase we’re talking about.

What does bother me, however, is that “cheering myself up” tends to mean buying something.

Buying relaxation
Fortunately I don’t have much stress in my life right now, but last week was different. After one particularly stressful morning I found myself wandering around Whole Foods and feeling this intense need to buy something comforting. A bar of soap that smelled like pumpkin spice or a snack or a cooking magazine — I didn’t know what I wanted, I just wanted something. I felt overwhelmed and left the store. Once I was in the parking lot, I remembered that a few years ago one of my friends was in the same kind of situation I was dealing with. I sent her a message telling her about my day.

Instead of replying with a message, she picked up the phone, and her call picked me up off the floor. Nothing I could buy at Whole Foods would have reduced my stress as much that one phone call. (Before we hung up, she told me to treat myself to something nice. Do we think alike or what?)

As I drove away, I started to think about the relationship between spending money and de-stressing. There are numerous studies that show how stress can lead to serious problems like heart attacks, strokes, depression,sleeplessness, decreased immunity, and substance abuse. It’s important that we find a way to relax, but it doesn’t have to involve buying something. In my experience, that only gives a temporary high — eventually you’re back at square one, plus you’ve spent money on something you might not have really wanted.

De-stress for free
Obviously there are better ways to relax when life gets stressful, but unless you have a general idea of how you’ll handle stress before it hits, you’ll probably fall back on old habits. (In my case, I knew why I was feeling the compulsion to buy, but I didn’t know what to do instead. Treating myself is my coping mechanism, even though it’s not very effective.)

The subject of de-stressing also is particularly relevant during the holiday season, a time when many people find themselves extra-frazzled by gift shopping, juggling family plans, meeting work commitments, and fruitcake (What? Don’t dreadful baked goods stress out everyone?). The next time you need to relax, consider the following ways to lower your stress level, free of charge:

1. Practice makes perfect. Psychologist and author Daniel Goleman did research at Harvard on relaxation methods to reduce stress and found that people who practice a relaxation method for 15 to 20 minutes reacted better to stress and recovered more quickly. The more months and years of daily practice, the quicker the stress recovery. According to recent findings, regular relaxation practice“tones” the vagal nerve, which regulates our reactions to stress.
2. Take six seconds to slow down. Psychologist Robin S. Rosenberg suggests the following six-step, six-second relaxation method to lower stress:
   1. Recognize that you’re stressed. Rosenberg writes, “…like a fish who doesn’t realize that it’s in water, if your feeling of being stressed lasts for more than a couple of minutes (particularly if you feel swamped), after a while you may stop being aware that you are stressed.”
   2. Find some humor. Think about something funny that happened recently (or take more than six seconds and search YouTube for funny animal videos — those never get old).
   3. Take a deep breath, inhaling through the nose.
   4. Breathe out slowly through the mouth.
   5. Say a word out loud that’s relaxing, such as “calm” or “peaceful.”
   6. Shake out any muscles that feel tense. Usually you know where your body gets tense — my right shoulder and neck are still talking to me.
3. Walk it off! Even 20 minutes of walking can reduce stress and improve your mood. Hit the gym, go for a hike, or play with the kids — find a form of physical activity that you enjoy and get moving.
4. Find your flow. Do you have a hobby that helps you relax? What about listening to music, reading, or writing? Identify the activities that you often lose yourself in and try doing them the next time you need to de-stress.
5. Cultivate your real-life social network. Online friends are great, but real-life friends are the ones that meet you for coffee, go for a run with you when you need to blow off steam, and call you in the middle of the day because they know you need to talk. Whether you’re the type of person who has few close friends or the type that volunteers and is a member of several organizations, support from other people is priceless.

In addition to curbing impulse buying, de-stressing in these positive ways can reduce stress-related health problems. Give one or more of these a try the next time your stress hormones are on the rise.

Do you have any bad habits when it comes to coping with stress? What are some other positive ways to relax?

5 Ways To Spot A Bad Boss In An Interview

A boss can literally, make or break your career. Here are five ways to spot the bad ones before they become yours.

A great boss can make you feel engaged and empowered at work, will keep you out of unnecessary office politics, and can identify and grow your strengths. But a bad boss can make the most impressive job on paper (and salary) quickly unbearable. Not only will a bad boss make you dislike at least 80% of your week, your relationships might suffer, too. A recent study conducted at Baylor University found that stress and tension caused by an abusive boss “affects the marital relationship and subsequently, the employee’s entire family.” Supervisor abuse isn’t always as blatant as a screaming temper tantrum; it can include taking personal anger out on you for no reason, dismissing your ideas in a meeting, or simply, being rude and critical of your work, while offering no constructive ways to improve it.  Whatever the exhibition of bad boss behavior, your work and personal life will suffer. Merideth Ferguson, PH.D., co-author of the study and assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship at Baylor explains that “it may be that as supervisor abuse heightens tension in the relationship, the employee is less motivated or able to engage in positive interactions with the partner and other family members.”

There are many ways to try and combat the effects of a bad boss, including confronting him or her directly to work towards a productive solution, suggesting that you report to another supervisor, or soliciting the help of human resources.  But none of those tactics gurantee improvement, and quite often, they’ll lead to more stress. The best solution is to spot a bad boss—before they become yours! Here are five ways to tell whether your interviewer is a future bad boss.

1. Pronoun usage. Performance consultant John Brubaker says that the top verbal tell a boss gives is in pronoun choice and the context it is used. If your interviewer uses the term “you” in communicating negative information ( such as, “you will deal with a lot of ambiguity”), don’t expect the boss to be a mentor.  If the boss chooses the word “I” to describe the department’s success—that’s a red flag.  If the interviewer says “we” in regards to a particular challenge the team or company faced, it may indicate that he or she deflects responsibility and places blame.

2. Concern with your hobbies. There is a fine line between genuine relationship building, and fishing for information, so use your discretion on this one. If you have an overall good impression of the potential boss it may be that he or she is truly interested in the fact that you are heavily involved in charity work, and is simply getting to know you. On the other hand, the interviewer may be trying to determine whether you have too many commitments outside of work. The interviewer can’t legally ask if you are married, or have kids, so digging into your personal life can be a clever way to understand just how available you are.

3. They’re distracted. The era of email, BlackBerrys and smartphones have made it “okay” for people to develop disrespectful communication habits in the name of work. Particularly in a frenzied workplace, reading email while a person is speaking, multi-tasking on conference calls and checking the message behind that blinking BlackBerry mid-conversation has become the norm of business communications. But, regardless of his or her role in the company, the interviewer should be striving to make a good impression—which includes shutting down tech tools to give you undivided attention. If your interviewer is glancing at emails while you’re speaking, taking phone calls, or late to the interview, don’t expect a boss who will make time for you.

4. They can’t give you a straight answer. Caren Goldberg, Ph.D. is an HR professor at the Kogod School of Business at American University. She says a key “tell” is vague answers to your questions. Listen for pauses, awkwardness, or overly-generic responses when you inquire what happened to the person who held the position you are interviewing for, and/or what has created the need to hire. (For example, if you are told the person was a “bad fit,” it may indicate that the workplace doesn’t spend much time on employee-development, and blames them when things don’t work out).

You should also question turnover rates, how long people stay in given roles, and what their career path has been. All of these answers can indicate not only if the boss is one people want to work for, but whether pay is competitive, and employees are given a career growth plan.

5. They’ve got a record. Ask the potential boss how long he or she has been at the company, in the role, and where he or she worked before coming to it to get a feel for his or management style, and whether it’s what you respond to.  For example, bosses making a switch from a large corporation to a small company may lead with formality. On the other hand, entrepreneurs tend to be passionately involved in business, which can be a help or a hindrance, depending on your workstyle.

Goldberg also recommends searching the site eBossWatch, where you read reviews that former employees have given to a boss. If you’re serious about the position, she also suggests reaching to the former employee whose spot you are interviewing for, and asking for their take on the workplace. (LinkedIn makes this task easy to do). The former employee’s recount may not necessarily reflect your potential experience, but it can help you to determine whether his or her description of the job and company “jibes” with what the potential boss said.

Five New Management Metrics You Need To Know

This is a guest post from James Slavet of venture firm Greylock Partners, which invested in Facebook, LinkedIn, Groupon, Pandora, Redfin and One Kings Lane. Slavet’s investments include Groupon, Redfin and One Kings Lane.

After years of leading teams and then, at Greylock, watching some of the best startup CEOs in the world, I’ve learned that the most important metrics are often ones you never read about on the income statement or in the financial press.

“If you can measure it, you can manage it” is a business saying that goes way back. Maybe it was Henry Ford who said that, or Peter Drucker? Regardless, most managers only measure outputs, not inputs, which is like telling a Little League team to score more runs, rather than actually explaining how to swing a bat and make contact with the ball. Similarly, most companies measure traffic, revenue or earnings, without considering how to improve the company at an atomic level: how to make a meeting better, or an engineer more productive. Here are five metrics that great teams should measure:

Metric 1: Flow State Percentage

Jobs that require a lot of brainpower—software programming for instance—also demand deep concentration. You know that feeling when you’re “in the zone,” cranking on something. That is flow. Unfortunately, most of us are constantly interrupted during the day with meetings, emails, texts, or colleagues who want to talk about stuff. These interruptions that move us out of “flow state” increase R&D cycle times and costs dramatically. Studies have shown that each time flow state is disrupted it takes fifteen minutes to get back into flow, if you can get back at all. And programmers who work in the top quartile of proper (ie uninterrupted) work environments are several times more productive than those who don’t.

Ideally programmers and other knowledge workers can spend 30% – 50% of their day in uninterrupted concentration. Most office environments don’t even come close. To get started, ask your engineers to track for a few days their personal flow state percentages: how many hours each day are they in flow, divided by the number of total hours they’re at the office. And then brainstorm ways that the team can move this number up. For example, perhaps there’s a little paper sign at each person’s desk that says “Go Away, I’m Cranking.” Or maybe you have a day where no meetings are allowed. Tom Demarco has written insightfully on the topic of flow.

Metric 2: The Anxiety-Boredom Continuum

Years ago, back when I was younger and cooler, I took a salsa class with my wife-to-be where the instructor said something that really stuck with me. He said that his goal was to keep all of his students in the pocket between boredom and anxiety – but closer to anxiety. In other words, we shouldn’t be so overwhelmed that we break down and give up, but we also shouldn’t be coasting either. He kept the rhythm fast enough so that we were challenged, but not so difficult that we lost the steps completely. And he kept tuning the difficulty level of the class to stretch but not break us.

This same anxiety-to-boredom continuum also applies to managing people. Star performers can get bored easily, and often function best when they’re expected to rise to great challenges. You want expectations to be high, but not completely overwhelming. With this in mind, check in with your employees periodically about where they are on this continuum, while also keeping an eye out for signs of where they stand. If they have low energy, or are showing up late and leaving early, they may be bored. If they’re responding to small setbacks with anger or frustration, or getting sick a lot, they may be pushing too hard.

Metric 3: Meeting Promoter Score

Most meetings suck. And they’re expensive: a one-hour meeting of six software engineers costs $1,000 at least. People who don’t have the authority to buy paperclips are allowed to call meetings every day that cost far more than that. Nobody tracks whether meetings are useful, or how they could get better. And all you have to do is ask. In the last minute of a meeting, ask the participants to each rate from 1 to 10 how effective the meeting was, with one suggestion for making the meeting better. It can be on a scrap of paper, or a simple web form. Verne Harnish has some good ideas about running better meetings.

Metric 4: Compound Weekly Learning Rate

My three year old son just asked me what the word “expert” means. When I answered, he nodded and asked “so am I an expert about superheroes yet?” The best leaders hold on to this relentless curiosity. Joi Ito wrote recently about “neotony”, the retention of childlike attributes in adulthood. This ability to learn is like the compounding interest on an investment: after two or three years, a relentless learner stands head and shoulders above his peers. Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, referred me to Joi’s posting. Jeff is one of the most relentless learners I know, and this quality is an essential element of his success and the success of his teams. So try asking your team this question: how did you get 1% better this week? Did you learn something valuable from our customers, or make a change to our product that drove better results? As your team gets into a learning rhythm, you can review this as a group. 1% per week adds up.

Metric 5: Positive Feedback Ratio

 You can learn as much from John Gottman as you can from John F. Kennedy about being a great communicator. Gottman, a psychologist, is the author of “Why Marriages Succeed or Fail”.

In his research, he found that marriages that succeed tend to have five times as many positive interactions as negative ones. And when a couple falls below that ratio, their relationship falls down too.

The same is true at the office, where you’re often connected for years in relationships with people who can either become wary of your criticisms or eager to give you their best effort. Catch people doing good things. Never miss a chance to say something nice, even if you feel a little silly. Then when you have feedback on areas to improve, they‘ll really listen. It may be hard to manage to the 5:1 ratio at the office, but you should be mindful of the balance.

So, there you have it, 5 metrics that will never show up in the best companies’ financial statements or a Wall Street Journal article, but are the kinds of reasons those companies succeed. Tracking these five metrics isn’t glamorous. But it’s something everyone can do. And it really works.

9 Things That Motivate Employees More Than Money

Don't show 'em the money (even if you have it). Here are nine better ways to boost morale.

The ability to motivate employees is one of the greatest skills an entrepreneur can possess. Two years ago, I realized I didn’t have this skill. So I hired a CEO who did.

Josh had 12 years in the corporate world, which included running a major department at Comcast. I knew he was seasoned, but I was still skeptical at first. We were going through some tough growing pains, and I thought that a lack of cash would make it extremely difficult to improve the company morale.

I was wrong.

With his help and the help of the great team leaders he put in place, Josh not only rebuilt the culture, but also created a passionate, hard-working team that is as committed to growing and improving the company as I am. 

Here are nine things I learned from him:

1. Be generous with praise. Everyone wants it and it’s one of the easiest things to give. Plus, praise from the CEO goes a lot farther than you might think. Praise every improvement that you see your team members make. Once you’re comfortable delivering praise one-on-one to an employee, try praising them in front of others.  
2. Get rid of the managers. Projects without project managers? That doesn’t seem right! Try it. Removing the project lead or supervisor and empowering your staff to work together as a team rather then everyone reporting to one individual can do wonders. Think about it. What’s worse than letting your supervisor down? Letting your team down! Allowing people to work together as a team, on an equal level with their co-workers, will often produce better projects faster. People will come in early, stay late, and devote more of their energy to solving problems.  
3. Make your ideas theirs. People hate being told what to do. Instead of telling people what you want done; ask them in a way that will make them feel like they came up with the idea. “I’d like you to do it this way” turns into “Do you think it’s a good idea if we do it this way?”  
4. Never criticize or correct. No one, and I mean no one, wants to hear that they did something wrong. If you’re looking for a de-motivator, this is it. Try an indirect approach to get people to improve, learn from their mistakes, and fix them. Ask, “Was that the best way to approach the problem? Why not? Have any ideas on what you could have done differently?” Then you’re having a conversation and talking through solutions, not pointing a finger.  
5. Make everyone a leader. Highlight your top performers’ strengths and let them know that because of their excellence, you want them to be the example for others. You’ll set the bar high and they’ll be motivated to live up to their reputation as a leader.  
6. Take an employee to lunch once a week. Surprise them. Don’t make an announcement that you’re establishing a new policy. Literally walk up to one of your employees, and invite them to lunch with you. It’s an easy way to remind them that you notice and appreciate their work.  
7. Give recognition and small rewards. These two things come in many forms: Give a shout out to someone in a company meeting for what she has accomplished. Run contests or internal games and keep track of the results on a whiteboard that everyone can see. Tangible awards that don’t break the bank can work too. Try things like dinner, trophies, spa services, and plaques. 
8. Throw company parties. Doing things as a group can go a long way. Have a company picnic. Organize birthday parties. Hold a happy hour. Don’t just wait until the holidays to do a company activity; organize events throughout the year to remind your staff that you’re all in it together. 
9. Share the rewards—and the pain. When your company does well, celebrate. This is the best time to let everyone know that you’re thankful for their hard work. Go out of your way to show how far you will go when people help your company succeed. If there are disappointments, share those too. If you expect high performance, your team deserves to know where the company stands. Be honest and transparent.