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The typical workday is long enough as it is, and technology is making it even longer. When you do finally get home from a full day at the office, your mobile phone rings off the hook, and emails drop into your inbox from people who expect immediate responses.

While most people claim to disconnect as soon as they get home, recent research says otherwise. A study conducted by the American Psychological Association found that more than 50% of us check work email before and after work hours, throughout the weekend, and even when we’re sick. Even worse, 44% of us check work email while on vacation.

A Northern Illinois University study that came out this summer shows just how bad this level of connection really is. The study found that the expectation that people need to respond to emails during off-work hours produces a prolonged stress response, which the researchers named telepressure.

On the surface, many companies that have been deemed part of the sharing economy seem to have much in common: They attempt to disrupt incumbents by going direct to consumers with an offering that is more convenient, more flexible, and often less expensive than what their traditional rivals offer. They have created a new wave of micro-entrepreneurs able to create value by unlocking underutilized resources, such as extra space for lodging and idle automobiles. Others let customers hire someone to do small jobs, rent a bicycle from a neighbor, or borrow money. They have filled unmet market needs.

Kids get a ton of press for stressing out their working parents. Work-life balance is incredibly hard, screams one survey. You need to be a productivity ninja to squeeze it all in, implies another blog post.

And after having a baby last year, I can see why. From broken sleep to incredible amounts of laundry (babies are so small, how do they produce so much?) and a million other responsibilities, kids are a huge if happy time suck. But just because they demand a ton of effort, does that mean children end up being a net drain on your professional productivity?

There are three skills you need to be financially successful: making money, keeping money, growing money. James Altucher is mostly only good at making money.

"I’ve had several instances where I’ve started a business, sold it, made a lot of money, and then basically lost everything I made, whether it was $50 million or $5 million or whatever," he tells Fast Company. "I always have a tendency to lose everything I made."

There are some simple rules, like drink coffee first thing in the morning and 20 minutes before you write so that it "sets your brain on fire, makes you go to the bathroom, cleans your body out before you set your heart on fire." Then, there’s his 30% rule, which basically says that everyone should cut or rewrite at least 30% of their masterpiece after they think they’ve finished it.

Sometimes, stress can seem like a full-time job. Many of us try to avoid it or, failing that, manage or mitigate it. But, Kelly McGonigal, a lecturer at Stanford University and author of The Upside of Stress, makes the case for embracing the stress in your life.

"We have this story about stress that says when stress is present, there’s something wrong with me or something wrong with my life," she says. But the reality is that there’s no stress-free version of your life available to you—it’s always going to be there.

Often, the reason we have stress in our lives is because we’re leading rich lives and something we care about is at stake, she says. Constantly avoiding or reducing stress could mean not striving for certain goals or taking risks that could lead to great rewards, such as a new job or relationship.

Instead, McGonigal advocates changing our attitudes about stress and embracing it. That’s easier said than done, but following several steps can help.

Whether it's in the business world or in personal relations, there is one thing that we all need to get along and be successful: trust. We all strive to have people trust us, but the truth is that trust is often hard to build. Luckily, there are some steps you can take to instantly appear more trustworthy. Here are five body language secrets to help you earn people's trust.

1. The eyes have it.

The first thing you want to remember when building trust is to keep eye contact. Eye contact is one of those things we subconsciously take note of every time we meet a person. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a person who was constantly shuffling around and looking in different directions? Sporadic eye contact communicates a lack of interest, distraction, and even dishonesty. Whenever you're speaking, be sure to keep good, steady eye contact.

Although many factors contribute to a negative employee culture, including poor management, lack of advancement opportunity, low pay, and other factors, there is another strong correlation: how well people are trained to do their jobs. It turns out, if people feel well-prepared and well-equipped to succeed in their roles, that feeling improves their morale.

The problem? Companies select and hire people, but then underinvest in or significantly underestimate-;the amount of professional development training necessary to help employees develop their personal skills and exhibit the organization’s desired behaviors. The impact can be felt in two major ways:

Here are fives ways these experts suggest reshaping your career envy into something good.

1. Never Assume Luck

Everyone’s acting as their own best public relations specialist. Just because their star seems to rise effortlessly, doesn’t mean their path was devoid of sacrifices.

Reaching out to someone you admire--and yes, envy a little--is empowering and enlightening for both sides (and chances are, they never saw themselves as someone to envy!). Find out their process, and what unique challenges they had to face on their way to where they are. They likely made their own luck, or had a mentor that changed everything.

2. Ask Yourself Why You’re Envious

In simple terms, gamification means applying some of the features we enjoy in video games to businesses, or indeed to any non-game-related area. The rationale is that people love playing games; they lose themselves in them for hours on end.

So what makes games so appealing and how could we use this for business? What games offer people, and many real world situations don’t, is this intense competitive environment with constant challenges of trying to move to a new level and complete the next mission, where players get instant feedback, reward, collect points and badges, move up rankings, and see their status increase.

While many leaders rely on proven past methods (often learned in B-school), others are taking new approaches that help them transcend what they already know. These fresh methods help them handle the day-to-day, while becoming responsive to other things that matter.

One of these “new” methods is a coaching approach that has been used with individuals, now making its way into the C-suite.

“The ‘coach approach’ asks leaders to define who they want to be at this moment and in the future,” says Jennifer Antolak, president of Learning Journeys, a life coaching academy. “And it’s about helping others understand that we support their choices.”

Want to change your mood around the office? It all starts with your actions.

Smile when you walk in the door and people will know you are ready to get things done. Look down at the floor and smirk at people waiting for that morning meeting and you're giving them the message that you'll be hiding in your cubicle all day. Sometimes, seemingly trivial facial expressions, minor activities, and routine habits can reveal your mood. But these habits can do more than just reveal your mood; they can also dictate your mood.

The best way to change your attitude, experience more joy in your work life, and spread a little of that happiness around the office is to adopt habits that foster a better mood. Sure, we all get a little cranky about the Starbucks barista who scoffed at the stain on our shirt or the taxi driver who smelled like yesterday's pizza. No worries. Try a few of these activities and develop habits to increase your happiness during the day.

Imagine you could go back in time and give your 20-year-old self a bit of advice on investing in the creative process, coming up with new ideas, and producing good, fun work.

What would you say?

I’ve thought a bit about this topic lately, as I reflect on how I’ve changed from the person I was in my twenties to the person I’ve become in my thirties. Creativity has become more and more important to me, both at work and at play. And the lessons I’ve learned along the way (and the ones I’m still learning) seem like something 20-year-old me would have liked to know.

Most of us spend some amount of time--sometimes a lot!--online. Instead of chasing after provocative headlines and weird old tricks, why not spend time on sites that will make you smarter in life, shrewder in business, and wiser in leadership?

Here are 30 of the best sites for professional and personal development. Learn as an individual or connect your team.

Google knows that people don’t leave companies; they leave bosses. But unlike most companies, who wait around hoping for the right bosses to come along, Google builds each Googler the boss of their dreams.

When I ask audiences to describe the best and worst boss they have ever worked for, people inevitably ignore innate characteristics (intelligence, extraversion, attractiveness, and so on) and instead focus on qualities that are completely under the boss’s control, such as passion, insight, and honesty.

1. Great bosses are passionate. Few things are more demotivating than a boss who is bored with his or her life and job. If the boss doesn’t care, why should anybody else? Unforgettable bosses are passionate about what they do. They believe in what they’re trying to accomplish, and they have fun doing it. This makes everyone else want to join the ride.

2. They stand in front of the bus. Some bosses will throw their people under the bus without a second thought; great bosses pull their people from the bus’s path before they’re in danger. They coach, and they move obstacles out of the way, even if their people put those obstacles there in the first place. Sometimes, they clean up messes their people never even knew they made. And, if they can’t stop the bus, they’ll jump out in front of it and take the hit themselves.

Some people, regardless of what they lack—money, looks, or social connections—always radiate with energy and confidence. Even the most skeptical individuals find themselves enamored with these charming personalities.

These people are the life of every party. They’re the ones you turn to for help, advice, and companionship.

You just can’t get enough of them, and they leave you asking yourself, “What do they have that I don’t? What makes them so irresistible?”

The difference? Their sense of self-worth comes from within.

It's easy to let even a simple meeting get out of hand. Maintaining control is important; the room can sense when you are flustered, you easily forget your train of thought and control over the outcome.

I used some of the following techniques to maintain control over the meeting and bring the team back to a successful conclusion:

Slow It Down

It is common to increase your speech when you are nervous. To truly connect with your audience, you must slow down instead and control the speed of the discussion.

The foundation of Sinek's work is his examination of the why, an exploration of who we are and what inspires or compels us to act. His early experience in advertising and his innate curiosity about the divide between successful and unsuccessful marketing campaigns led him to develop his own theory. This theory, which was developed out of his own struggle to comprehend his greater purpose, led him to the answer.

“I lost my passion for what I was doing,” he told me. “The reason I was in my malaise was because I knew what I did and how I did it, but I didn’t know why.” Human psychology is complex, and we are driven by competing, even contradictory, impulses of fear, desire, ambition, envy, and the need to connect. Why posits a clearing of the decks, a stripping down that sharpens our focus and helps us achieve a greater self-realization. “It was a tool that explained me,” he says.

We’d all love our brains to process information faster and have better memory recall. While you might think doing crossword puzzles, math puzzles like Sudoku, or brain-training apps will keep your brain in top shape, Dr. Jennifer Jones, a psychologist and expert in the science of success, says there’s no real proof that these can improve your mental acuity. She offers some daily practices that can truly grow your brain:

Brain Growth Habit #1: Rise With The Sun And Go To Sleep Not Long After Sunset.

Moving in your circadian rhythm is the best way to improve your brain power, according to Jones. When our sleep cycle is disrupted, our brain’s ability to process information and consolidate stress is inhibited. "Our cognitive abilities don’t work the way they should," says Jones.

Very few founders, startup CEOs, board members, investors, and others supporting the entrepreneurial community actively pursue and advocate disciplined, professional leadership development. This is an enormous missed opportunity.

Entrepreneurs, especially founders and startup CEOs, need not wait to be encouraged to do this work. They should not consider their own development as a nice-to-have, an indulgence, or an unnecessary expense. They certainly should not delay until their jobs are threatened by their poor performance. 

Here are seven reasons (among many) that every founder and entrepreneurial CEO should actively develop their leadership, and a question about each.

Friedman profiles luminaries including Michelle Obama, Bruce Springsteen, and Sheryl Sandberg in his book and shows how they gradually became leaders. He shows the skills they exercised and how they integrate different parts of their life together.

Friedman says he chose subjects who possess what he calls the three principles of total leadership: "Being real, acting with authenticity and knowing your values and vision; being whole, respecting the whole person and knowing there are different parts of your work, community, and personal lives that affect each other; and being innovative, constantly learning and experimenting in new ways to get things done."

Be Ruthless

“Quite candidly, I’m really ruthless in terms of doing only those things which are absolutely essential. I’m saying no to a lot, both in work and life. I see a lot of working moms who think they have to be 110% at work, and then volunteer to run the school auction. We’ve become so awful at saying no. I try hard to become incredibly selective about those things I engage with, so I can be really present for the stuff that I’m doing, and be really engaged with my kids in a meaningful way. People are trying to accomplish too much, and they’re killing themselves in the process.”

Corporate culture is not static; it grows and changes with the people in it. As a business owner, I like to think that the business has a lot to do with me, but I have realized it has just as much to do with the people who work with me and how they feel about the business.

We spend a lot of time before we hire getting to know prospective employees and making sure they fit the team. I also do employee surveys once a year to gauge where things are. I am far from being the perfect manager, so I am grateful to my employees who have taught me how to improve.

I ask employees what they like about their jobs, what they hate about their jobs, and what they think we should be doing differently. Many of my innovations come from employees' suggestions. But be careful not to ask a question that may yield an answer you will not be ready for.

Much like most people, I've faced multiple instances where there was nothing keeping me at a job, but bills and responsibilities meant quitting wasn't an option either. In such cases, it's difficult to show up, let alone do your work to your best ability. But a few strategies have helped.

Stop Blaming Yourself, But Take Responsibility

Motivation is intrinsic. While external factors affect it, your reaction to those factors is what ultimately leaves you demotivated. But there's a difference between taking responsibility for this and blaming yourself for this—and far too often, we do the latter.