Flipkart Big Billion Day Offers, Coupons & Deals Up to 90%, 80%, Flat 70% Sale (2015)

Finally, Flipkart’s a lot of anticipated “big billion day” for the year 2015 is declared. This year, it's slated to be from thirteenth(13^th) to seventeenth(17^th) Oct. It's about to be attention-grabbing considering 2 e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart would roll out offers throughout constant timeline. You can explore massive Billion Day offers and coupons to get max of whatever offered at Flipkart.

Big Billion Day 2015 Offers and Coupons

Last year, the massive billion day sale from Flipkart raised eyebrows and users were umbrageous concerning the frequent crashes. That shocked the corporate and as a result, its founders offered associate degree apology to the purchasers. This year, Flipkart is claimed to own scaled up everything to handle high traffic flow, and at this significant juncture, it's in no mood to loose against its chief rival Amazon, that has been learning steady and creating forays into the Indian client base.

Flipkart Big Billion Day – This year it is only through app

Yes! You got it right, this year, Flipkart has confined the sale to the app. This sale would not be extended to the stuff you buy from the website, therefore to take advantage of the big billion day sale 2015, you need to install Flipkart mobile app, which is available on all platforms.

Why has Flipkart kept it app only sale?

There are several reasons for it, and one is the long-standing desire of the company to switch over to an app only portal like Myntra. Earlier many pundits said that Flipkart would switch to an app only model from October onwards, but it was a claim that was never materialized. But with this sale, both Flipkart and its chief rival Amazon have proved that they are strongly leaning towards app only model and are prepared to incentivize users who are ready to do so. Of course, it is a long term strategy, but Flipkart seems to be taking baby step towards the grand strategy.

Things you can expect in Big Billion Day Sale 2015

While Flipkart keep such things classified there are quite a number of things that you can expect from the big billion day sale. Discounts on big items, like television, laptops and other electronic and utility items. Not only they are expected to give up discounts, but would also improve the delivery time frame, so don’t be surprised if you either see a regular time frame for delivery or an expedited delivery at low rates. Smartphones, flash drives, hard drives etc. It would also include low prices on tablets and other gadgets. LED Bulbs, books, and media are likely to be discounted in this edition of sale. Home and furniture discounts could range to 10-15% lower than what it is now. Products in all other categories might be discounted by 10%. Cashback on certain cards, especially HDFC, CityBank, Standard Charted, SBI and Axis bank is expected.

This time SELLERS are prepared

Flipkart has worked overtime to ensure that sellers are prepared and have backup plan for everything – including handling high volume of orders, coordinating with logistics etc., and has not kept a stone unturned to make sure that it wins customer loyalty this time around.

One important thing that Flipkart has done this time is that it is imparting a special four-hour training to the sellers to educate their sellers about how to manage inventory during the peak demand.
It is said that Flipkart has reached out to 6000 of its sellers to ensure that customers get a flawless ordering experience.

Explained in steps: How you can take advantage of the sale

• Step 1 – Download the Flipkart mobile app, it is available on both Apple and Android platforms.
• Step 2 – Have a wish list ready even before the sale, Remember everyone would just get onto Flipkart to buy, and although the steps taken by Flipkart are reassuring, it doesn’t guarantee that it wouldn’t happen again.
• Step 3 – Save your personal information, both your address and funding source, because last year, the products were reported out of stock by the time users proceeded to check out. To save you from disappointment, save it all so that you are all set on the sale day.
• Step 4 – If you have multiple credit cards, put them all, because often such sales are complemented with generous cash back offers from the bank, so make sure that you are set, and on the sale day, choose card that gives you best cashback offer.

Download FlipKart APP

If you run into any problem

• 1. Contact customer service, through facebook, twitter or through the app.
• 2. Be patient, there can be a delay considering that they have a huge user base to manage. And lots of sales means lots of complaints.
• 3. Be considerate and provide details as the support guys request you. Companies do run on customer service and it is very unlikely that any company would want to lose customers due to bad customer service.

Word of caution for Flipkart

Last time, there was a hue and cry over the failure of big billion day sale, many complaints were lodged, and there was a considered damage to the brand value. Although Flipkart has acted to allay the fears of the users, they need to treat everything with great sensitivity, because Indian customers may forgive a one-time error, but repetitive mistakes would lead to even more damage to the brand.

Big Billion Day 2015 is a great arena for two e-commerce giants to fight for the top slot, while Flipkart has an edge over amazon in terms of user base, Amazon is steadily picking up by putting up discounts and complementing it with great customer service.

Download FlipKart APP

Courtesy :- www.techicy.com

LG announces L90, L70, L40 mid-range smartphones

Expanding its smartphone portfolio, LG has announced that it will be unveiling the third generation of its L-series smartphones at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2014.
All L Series III models - L90, L70, L40 - will come with Android 4.4 KitKat. The L90 has a 4.7-inch display, 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, 8 megapixel camera and 1GB of RAM. The phone has an internal storage of 8GB.
The LG L70 has a 4.5-inch IPS display and a 1.2GHz dual-core processor. The phone will either come with an 8 megapixel or 5 megapixel camera - depending on market.

All L Series III models - L90, L70, L40 - will come with Android 4.4 KitKat.

The L40 features a 3.5-inch display, but quite like the L70, it also comes powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core processor. It has 512MB of RAM and 3 megapixel camera.
There will be Quick Window smart covers available for these phones. Quick Window, which comes in three vibrant colours, is the first cover from LG to be designed specifically for a mid-range smartphone.
According to LG, Quick Window offers functional benefits beyond just protection from drops and bumps, as the see-through window allows one to see who's calling and check the time without opening the cover.
The company is yet to announce their pricing and availability.
L90 Key Specifications:
- Processor: 1.2 GHz Quad-Core
- Display: 4.7-inch IPS (960 x 540) qHD
- Memory: 8GB / 1GB RAM
- Camera: 8.0MP / 1.3MP
- Battery: 2,540mAh (removable)
- Operating System: Android 4.4 KitKat
- Size: 131.6 x 66.0 x 9.7mm
- Network: 3G (HSPA+21Mbps)

See the Price and Full Spec.


L70 Key Specifications:
- Processor: 1.2 GHz Dual-Core
- Display: 4.5-inch IPS (800 x 400)
- Memory: 4GB / 1GB RAM
- Camera: 8.0MP or 5.0MP / VGA - depends on market
- Battery: 2,100mAh (removable)
- Operating System: Android 4.4 KitKat
- Size: 127.2 x 66.8 x 9.5mm
- Network: 3G (HSPA+21Mbps)

See the Price and Full Spec.

L40 Key Specifications:
- Processor: 1.2 GHz Dual-Core
- Display: 3.5-inch (480 x 320)
- Memory: 4GB / 512MB RAM
- Camera: 3.0MP
- Battery: 1,700mAh or 1,540mAh (removable) - depends on market
- Operating System: Android 4.4 KitKat
- Size: 109.4 x 59.0 x 11.9mm
- Network: 3G (HSDPA+14.4Mbps)

You can visit the below blogs for more details.

Rya Fashion

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3 Steps To Make a Man Love You

Start Earning Money In As little As One Hour

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Facebook is testing out a new button

It seems like Facebook is just testing out a whole bunch of new features, and it doesn’t look like it has any intention of stopping anytime soon. Today, it was discovered that Facebook is testing out a new button on the desktop version of its service. The new button appears on the top right of your Facebook page, right next to your profile link. The button pops up the “How are you feeling” post-a-status screen.
The button was first discovered by Mashable’s Alex Fitzpatrick. The button appears to be rolling out to a small test group, and it’s still up in the air about whether or not this button will be rolled out to the rest of Facebook’s users. It allows users to update their status no matter which page they’re on. So if you’re on your friend’s Facebook page, and you just thought of something you want to send to the entirety of your Facebook friends list, you can just click the button to update your status.

Many people are speculating that Facebook is borrowing its features from Twitter. The button looks awfully similar to Twitter’s “Compose a tweet” button, especially with the pop-up button over a faded background. Facebook also renamed its “subscribers” to “followers”, and is planning on implementing a hashtag feature in its service soon, a feature that was popularized by Twitter.

Alongside the upcoming addition of the “post-a-status” button, Facebook has also added an update to Facebook Events. Event planners, as well as event attendees, will now be able to see the weather conditions for their upcoming events. Facebook is also rolling out a new feature to Facebook Pages that organizes comments in more simple, threaded conversations. Facebook has been constantly testing out new features this month, so it’ll be interesting what else will pop out in the next few days.
[via Mashable]

Story Timeline

• Facebook implements conversation threads into Pages
• Facebook brings ads straight to your newsfeed
• Facebook game developers made $2.8B in 2012
• Facebook improves mobile app install ads for developers
• Facebook says paying gamers surge by 24%
• Facebook event to reveal 'real' Android app (not a phone)
• HTC 'Facebook phone' Android software integration tipped
• Facebook gets approval to build a low-key second campus

First boss : Few companies today would have hired Steve Jobs

SAN FRANCISCO: When Steve Jobs adopted "think different" as Apple's mantra in the late 1990s, the company's ads featured Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Amelia Earhart and a constellation of other starry-eyed oddballs who reshaped society.

Nolan Bushnell never appeared in those tributes, even though Apple was riffing on an iconoclastic philosophy he embraced while running video game pioneer Atari in the early 1970s. Atari's refusal to be corralled by the status quo was one of the reasons Jobs went to work there in 1974 as an unkempt, contemptuous 19-year-old. Bushnell says Jobs offended some Atari employees so much that Bushnell eventually told Jobs to work nights when one else was around.

Bushnell, though, says he always saw something special in Jobs, who evidently came to appreciate his eccentric boss, too. The two remained in touch until shortly before Jobs died in October 2011 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

That bond inspired Bushnell to write a book about the unorthodox thinking that fosters the kinds of breakthroughs that became Jobs' hallmark as the co-founder and CEO of Apple. Apple built its first personal computers with some of the parts from Atari's early video game machines. After Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple in 1976, Apple also adopted parts of an Atari culture that strived to make work seem like play. That included pizza-and-beer parties and company retreats to the beach.

"I have always been pretty proud about that connection," Bushnell said in an interview. "I know Steve was always trying to take ideas and turn them upside down, just like I did."

Bushnell, now 70, could have reaped even more from his relationship with Jobs if he hadn't turned down an offer from his former employee to invest $50,000 in Apple during its formative stages. Had he seized that opportunity, Bushnell would have owned one-third of Apple, which is now worth about $425 billion - more than any other company in the world.

Bushnell's newly released book, 'Finding The Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Hire, Keep and Nurture Creative Talent', is the latest chapter in a diverse career that spans more than 20 different start-ups that he either launched on his own or groomed at Catalyst Technologies, a business incubator that he once ran.

He has often pursued ideas before the technology needed to support them was advanced enough to create a mass market. Bushnell financed Etak, an automobile mapping system created in 1983 by the navigator of his yacht and later sold to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Bushnell also dabbled in electronic commerce during the 1980s by launching ByVideo, which took online orders through kiosks set up in airports and other locations.

In his most costly mistake, Bushnell lost nearly all of a $28 million investment in Androbot, another 1980s-era start-up. It developed three foot tall robots that were supposed to serve the dual role of companion and butler. (Bushnell relied on Apple's computers to control the early models.)

Bushnell's best-known accomplishments came at Atari, which helped launch the modern video game industry with the 1972 release of 'Pong', and at the Chuck E Cheese restaurant chain, which specialises in pizza, arcade entertainment and musical performances by animatronic animals. It's an odyssey that led actor Leonardo DiCaprio to obtain the film rights to Bushnell's life for a possible movie starring DiCaprio in the lead role.

While at Atari, Bushnell began to break the corporate mold, creating a template that is now common through much of Silicon Valley. He allowed employees to turn Atari's lobby into a cross between a video game arcade and the Amazon jungle. He started holding keg parties and hiring live bands to play for his employees after work. He encouraged workers to nap during their shifts, reasoning that a short rest would stimulate more creativity when they were awake. He also promised a summer sabbatical every seven years.

He advertised job openings at Atari with taglines such as, 'Confusing work with play every day' and 'Work harder at having fun than ever before'. When job applicants came in for interviews, he would ask brain-teasing questions such as: "What is a mole?"; "Why do tracks run counter-clockwise?" and "What is the order of these numbers: 8, 5, 4, 9, 1, 7, 6, 3, 2?"

Bushnell hadn't been attracting much attention in recent years until Walter Isaacson's best-selling biography on Jobs came out in 2011, just after Jobs' death. It reminded readers of Bushnell's early ties to the man behind the Macintosh computer, iPod, iPhone and iPad.

Suddenly, everyone was asking Bushnell about what it was like to be Jobs' first boss. Publisher Tim Sanders of Net Minds persuaded him to write a book linked to Jobs, even though Bushnell had already finished writing a science fiction novel about a video game hatched through nanotechnology in 2071.

"The idea is to become a best-selling author first and then the rest of my books will be slam dunks," Bushnell said. To get his literary career rolling, Bushnell relied on veteran ghostwriter Gene Stone, who also has written other books, including 'Forks Over Knives', under his own name.

Bushnell's book doesn't provide intimate details about what Jobs was like after he dropped out of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and went to work as a technician in 1974 at Atari in Los Gatos, California. He had two stints there, sandwiched around a trip to India. During his second stint at Atari, in 1975, Jobs worked on a 'Pong' knock-off called 'Breakout' with the help of his longtime friend Wozniak, who did most of the engineering work on the video game, even though he wasn't being paid by Atari. Jobs left Atari for good in 1976 when he co-founded Apple with Wozniak, who had been designing engineering calculators at Hewlett-Packard.

Jobs and Bushnell kept in touch. They would periodically meet over tea or during walks to hash out business ideas. After Bushnell moved to Los Angeles with his family 13 years ago, he didn't talk to Jobs as frequently, though he made a final visit about six months before he died.

There are only a few anecdotes about Bushnell's interaction with Jobs at Atari and about those meetings around Silicon Valley.

The book instead serves as a primer on how to ensure a company doesn't turn into a mind-numbing bureaucracy that smothers existing employees and scares off rule-bending innovators such as Jobs.

Bushnell dispenses his advice in vignettes that hammer on a few points. The basics: Make work fun; weed out the naysayers; celebrate failure, and then learn from it; allow employees to take short naps during the day; and don't shy away from hiring talented people just because they look sloppy or lack college credentials.

Many of these principles have become tenets in Silicon Valley's laid-back, risk-taking atmosphere, but Bushnell believes they remain alien concepts in most of corporate America.

"The truth is that very few companies would hire Steve, even today," Bushnell writes in his book. "Why? Because he was an outlier. To most potential employers, he'd just seem like a jerk in bad clothing."

Bushnell says he is worried that Apple is starting to lose the magic touch that Jobs brought to the company. It's a concern shared by many investors, who have been bailing out of Apple's stock amid tougher competition for the iPhone and the iPad and the lack of a new product line since Tim Cook became the company's CEO shortly before Jobs' death. Apple's market value has dropped by 36 percent, or about $235 billion, from its all-time high reached last September.

The incremental steps that Apple has been taking with the iPod, iPhone and iPad have been fine, Bushnell says, but not enough to prove the company is still thinking differently.

"To really maintain the cutting edge that they live on, they will have to do some radical things that resonate," Bushnell said. "They probably have three more years before they really have to do something big. I hope they are working on it right now."

Bushnell is still keeping busy himself. When he isn't writing, he is running his latest start-up, Brainrush, which is trying to turn the process of learning into a game-like experience. He says he hopes to fix an educational system that he believes is "incorrect, inefficient and bureaucratic - all the things you don't want to see in your workforce of the future."

Best Advice: You Can Do Anything You Choose

 

The best advice I’ve ever received was from my father when I was 12 years old and willing to listen. He told me that with my personal characteristics, I could, if I set my mind to it, do anything I chose. This advice instilled in me a great sense of confidence, and despite the fact that sometimes I was a little nervous, I stepped out and did what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. I think it really often is up to the parents to help build confidence in their children. It is a very necessary part of growing up.

When I look back on the years when I was exploring career choices and discovering my true entrepreneurial spirit, my choices seem rather eclectic. I was barely in my teens when I began taking a bus from my hometown in Nutley, New Jersey, to New York City, where I worked as a model. This work was fun and lucrative. It demanded a certain optimism and a drive that not everyone possesses. Still, by the time I married and finished my college studies in history and architectural history, I was tired of modeling. I wanted to build a career, and I longed to do something more intellectually stimulating.

Armed mainly with my father’s encouragement that I could do anything I put my mind to, I considered my options. I had no capital to start my own business. I did, however, have a great desire to work hard and learn. So I went to Wall Street and joined a small brokerage house where I learned to be a stockbroker. It was an outstanding education in business and often was very exciting, but I never developed a passion for it. I loved houses and landscaping and decorating, so I thought real estate might be a good career for me — but I left the business without ever hosting an open house or buying a single property! However, even my brief time in real estate held an important lesson — I learned that the true work of any job may be much different than what you imagine.

Even before I found my entrepreneurial spirit, one thing I did know was that I enjoyed cooking and focusing on the home. I began baking pies and selling them at a local market. I opened a small gourmet food market called the Marketbasket where I sold my own foodstuffs as well as those I commissioned from local women. Then I took a bigger step: I started a catering business. From the first event, I knew immediately that I had found an enterprise that combined several of my talents, my interests, and some of my business experience.

Catering paved the way for me to find my true passion. If you want to begin the journey to discover your entrepreneurial passion, you must first analyze your own interests, strengths, weaknesses, and desires; and then you must consider carefully how hard you want to work. I have always found it extremely difficult to differentiate between what others might consider my life and my business. For me they are inextricably intertwined. That is because I have the same passion for both. Simply stated, my life is my work and my work is my life. As a result, I consider myself one of the lucky ones because I am excited every day: I love waking up; I love getting to work; I love focusing on a new initiative. There are many, many people who have inspired, taught, influenced, and supported me during the years that I have been visualizing, creating, building, and managing my own entrepreneurial venture — but I’ll never forget the favor my father did me when he instilled in me the tenacity I needed to build a career based on what I love most.

Photo: Courtesy of Martha Stewart

The Six Deadly Sins of Leadership

By Jack and Suzy Welch
Being a leader is perhaps the hardest challenge any of us will ever face. No matter how long we work at it, practicing the right behaviors is a never-ending task. Knowing – and avoiding – the wrong ones is too. Thus, we offer the following six common leadership pitfalls:

1. Not Giving Self-Confidence its Due.

Self-confidence is the lifeblood of success. When people have it, they’re bold. They try new things, offer ideas, exude positive energy, and cooperate with their colleagues instead of surreptitiously attempting to bring them down. When they lack self-confidence, it’s just the opposite. People cower. They plod. And they spread negativity with every word and gesture.
But all too often leaders ignore (or neglect) this very basic fact of the human condition. Why is anyone’s guess. Perhaps they just don’t understand that it is part of their job to instill self-confidence in their people. It may even be said that it’s their first job. You cannot unleash the creative power of individuals who doubt themselves.

Fortunately, some people seem to be born with self-confidence. Others gain it from life and work experience and come to a company fully loaded. Regardless, leaders can never stop pouring self-confidence into their teams. The ways to do so are myriad. Make sure goals are challenging – but achievable. Give effusive positive feedback. Remind your direct reports of what they do right.

We’re not saying that leaders should blindly extol and exalt. People know when they’re being gamed. But good leaders work relentlessly to find ways to instill self-confidence in those around them. They know it’s the gift that never stops giving.

2. Muzzling Voice.

Perhaps the most frustrating way that leaders underperform is by over-talking. That is, they act like know-it-alls. They can tell you how the world works, what corporate is thinking, how it will backfire if you try this or that, and why you can’t possibly change the product one iota. Sometimes such blowhards get their swagger from a few positive experiences, but usually they’re just victims of their own destructive personalities.

Ultimately, the company ends up being a victim too, because know-it-alls aren’t just insufferable, they’re dangerous. They don’t listen, and that deafness makes it very hard for new ideas to get debated, expanded upon, or improved. No single person, no matter how smart, can take a business to its apex. For that, you need every voice to be heard.

3. Acting Phony.

Can you spot a phony? Of course you can – and so can your people. Indeed, if there is one widespread human capability, it is sniffing out someone who is putting on airs, pretending to be who they’re not, or just keeping their real self hidden. Yet too many leaders spend way too much time creating personas that put a wall between them and their employees. What a waste.

Because authenticity is what makes people love you. Visibly grappling with tough problems, sweating the details, laughing, and caring – those are the activities that make people respond and feel engaged with what you’re saying. Sure, some people will tell you that being mysterious grants you power as a leader. In reality, all it generates is fear. And who wants to motivate that way?

Now, obviously, authenticity is unattractive if it’s coupled with immaturity or an overdose of informality. And organizations generally don’t like people who are too emotionally unbounded – i.e. so real that all their feelings are exposed. They tend to tamp that kind of intensity down a bit. And that’s not a bad thing, as work is work and, more than at home, allows us to maintain some privacy.

But don’t let convention wring all the authenticity out of you, especially as you climb the ladder. In time, humanity always wins. Your team and bosses come to know who you are in your soul, what kind of people you attract and what kind of performance you want from everyone. Your realness will make you accessible; you will connect and you will inspire. You will lead.

4. Lacking the Guts to Differentiate.

You only have to be in business a few weeks to know that not all investment opportunities are created equal. But some leaders can’t face that reality, and so they sprinkle their resources like cheese on a pizza, a little bit everywhere.

As a result, promising growth opportunities too often don’t get the outsized infusions of cash and people they need. If they did, someone might get offended during the resource allocation process. Someone – as in the manager of a weak business or the sponsor of a dubious investment proposal.

But leaders who don’t differentiate do the most damage when it comes to people. Unwilling to deliver candid, rigorous performance reviews, they give every employee the same kind of bland, mushy, “nice job” sign-off. Then, when rewards are doled out, they give star performers little more than the laggards. Now, you can call this egalitarian approach kind, or fair – as these lousy leaders usually do – but it’s really just weakness. And when it comes to building a thriving organization where people have the chance to grow and succeed, weakness just doesn’t cut it.


5. Fixation on Results at the Expense of Values.

Everyone knows that leaders deliver. Oratory and inspiration without results equal…well, a whole lot of nothing. But leaders are committing a real dereliction of duties if all they care about are the numbers. They also have to care about how those numbers came to be. Were the right behaviors practiced? Was the company’s culture of integrity honored? Were people taken care of properly? Was the law obeyed, in both letter and spirit?
Values are a funny thing in business. Companies love to talk about them. They love to hang them up on plaques in the lobby and boast about them to potential hires and customers. But they’re meaningless if leaders don’t live and breathe them. Sometimes that can take courage. It can mean letting go of a top performer who’s a brute to his colleagues, or not promoting a star who doesn’t share her best ideas with the team. That’s hard.

And yet if you’re a leader, this is a sin you cannot squint away. When you nail your results, make sure you can also report back to a crowded room: We did this the right way, according to our values.

6. Skipping the Fun Part

What is it about celebrating that makes managers so nervous? Maybe throwing a party doesn’t seem professional, or it makes people worry that they won’t look serious to the powers that be, or that, if things get too happy in the office, people will stop working their tails off.

Whatever the reason, too many leaders don’t celebrate enough. To be clear here, we do not define celebrating as conducting one of those stilted little company-orchestrated events that everyone hates, in which the whole team is marched out to a local restaurant for an evening of forced merriment when they’d rather be home. We’re talking about sending a team to Disney World with their families, or giving each team member tickets to a show or a movie, or handing each member of the team a new iPod.

What a lost opportunity. Celebrating makes people feel like winners and creates an atmosphere of recognition and positive energy. Imagine a team winning the World Series without champagne spraying everywhere. You can’t! And yet companies win all the time and let it go without so much as a high-five.

Work is too much a part of life not to recognize the moments of achievement. Grab as many as you can. Make a big deal out of them.

That’s part of a leader’s job too – the fun part.

This content was originally presented as a lecture at the Jack Welch Management Institute.
Jack Welch is Founder and Distinguished Professor at the Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University. Through its executive education and Welch Way management training programs, the Jack Welch Management Institute provides students and organizations with the proven methodologies, immediately actionable practices, and respected credentials needed to win in the most demanding global business environments.
Suzy Welch is a best-selling author, popular television commentator, and noted business journalist. Her New York Times bestselling book, 10-10-10: A Life Transforming Idea, presents a powerful decision-making strategy for success at work and in parenting, love and friendship. Together with her husband Jack Welch, Suzy is also co-author of the #1 international bestseller Winning, and its companion volume, Winning: The Answers. Since 2005, they have written business columns for several publications, including Business Week magazine, Thomson Reuters digital platforms, Fortune magazine, and the New York Times syndicate.
Photo credit: fongfong/Shutterstock.com

Help for Quitting Smoking

Whether you're a teen smoker or a lifetime pack-a-day smoker, quitting can be tough. But with the right game plan tailored to your needs, you can replace your smoking habits, manage your cravings, and join the millions of people who have kicked the habit for good

Smoking tobacco is both a psychological habit and a physical addiction. The act of smoking is ingrained as a daily ritual and, at the same time, the nicotine from cigarettes provides a temporary, and addictive, high. Eliminating that regular fix of nicotine will cause your body to experience physical withdrawal symptoms and cravings. To successfully quit smoking, you’ll need to address both the habit and the addiction by changing your behavior and dealing with nicotine withdrawal symptoms.

Relieving unpleasant and overwhelming feelings without cigarettes

Managing unpleasant feelings such as stress, depression, loneliness, fear, and anxiety are some of the most common reasons why adults smoke. When you have a bad day, it can seem like cigarettes are your only friend. Smoking can temporarily make feelings such as sadness, stress, anxiety, depression, and boredom evaporate into thin air. As much comfort as cigarettes provide, though, it’s important to remember that there are healthier (and more effective) ways to keep unpleasant feelings in check. These may include exercising, meditating, using sensory relaxation strategies, and practicing simple breathing exercises. 
For many people, an important aspect of quitting smoking is to find alternate ways to handle these difficult feelings without smoking. Even when cigarettes are no longer a part of your life, the painful and unpleasant feelings that may have prompted you to smoke in the past will still remain. So, it’s worth spending some time thinking about the different ways you intend to deal with stressful situations and the daily irritations that would normally have you reaching for a cigarette.

Ways to create your personal stop smoking plan

Designing your personal game plan

Tailoring a personal game plan to your specific needs and desires can be a big help. List the reasons why you want to quit and then keep copies of the list in the places where you’d normally keep your cigarettes, such as in your jacket, purse, or car. Your reasons for quitting smoking might include:

• I will feel healthier and have more energy, whiter teeth, and fresher breath.
• I will lower my risk for cancer, heart attacks, strokes, early death, cataracts, and skin wrinkling.
• I will make myself and my partner, friends, and family proud of me.
• I will no longer expose my children and others to the dangers of my second-hand smoke.
• I will have a healthier baby (If you or your partner is pregnant).
• I will have more money to spend.
• I won't have to worry: "When will I get to smoke next?"

Source: Smokefree.gov Online Quit Guide

Questions to ask yourself

To successfully detach from smoking, you will need to identify and address your smoking habits, the true nature of your dependency, and the techniques that work for you. These types of questions can help:

• Do you feel the need to smoke at every meal?
• Are you more of a social smoker?
• Is it a very bad addiction (more than a pack a day)? Or would a simple nicotine patch do the job?
• Is your cigarette smoking linked to other addictions, such as alcohol or gambling?
• Are you open to hypnotherapy and/or acupuncture?
• Are you someone who is open to talking about your addiction with a therapist or counselor?
• Are you interested in getting into a fitness program?

Take the time to think of what kind of smoker you are, which moments of your life call for a cigarette, and why. This will help you to identify which tips, techniques or therapies may be most beneficial for you.    

Start your stop smoking plan with START

S = Set a quit date.
T = Tell family, friends, and co-workers that you plan to quit.
A = Anticipate and plan for the challenges you'll face while quitting.
R = Remove cigarettes and other tobacco products from your home, car, and work.
T = Talk to your doctor about getting help to quit.

How to quit smoking and manage cravings

After quitting, you may feel dizzy, restless, or even have strong headaches because you’re lacking the immediate release of sugar that comes from nicotine. You may also have a bigger appetite. These sugar-related cravings should only last a few days until your body adjusts so keep your sugar levels a bit higher than usual on those days by drinking plenty of juice (unless you’re a diabetic). It will help prevent the craving symptoms and help your body re-adjust back to normal.

Tips for managing other cigarette cravings

Cravings associated with meals
For some smokers, ending a meal means lighting up, and the prospect of giving that up may appear daunting. TIP: replace that moment after a meal with something such as a piece of fruit, a (healthy) dessert, a square of chocolate, or a stick of gum.
Alcohol and cigarettes
Many people have a habit of smoking when they have an alcoholic drink. TIP: try non-alcoholic drinks, or try drinking only in places where smoking inside is prohibited. Or try snacking on nuts and chips, or chewing on a straw or cocktail stick.
Cravings associated with social smoking
When friends, family, and co-workers smoke around you, it is doubly difficult to quit or avoid relapse. TIP: Your social circles need to know that you are changing your habits so talk about your decision to quit. Let them know they won’t be able to smoke when you’re in the car with them or taking a coffee break together.  
In your workplace, don’t take all your coffee breaks with smokers only, do something else instead, or find non-smokers to have your breaks with.

Additional tips to deal with cravings and withdrawal symptoms

• Stay active: Keep yourself distracted and occupied, go for walks.
• Keep your hands/fingers busy: Squeeze balls, pencils, or paper clips are good substitutes to satisfy that need for tactile stimulation.
• Keep your mind busy: Read a book or magazine, listen to some music you love.
• Find an oral substitute: Keep other things around to pop in your mouth when you’re craving a cigarette.
• Good choices include mints, hard candy, carrot or celery sticks, gum, and sunflower seeds.
• Drink lots of water: Flushing toxins from your body minimizes withdrawal symptoms and helps cravings pass faster.

Keep a craving journal

For the first week or so of quitting, make entries into a log book to monitor your daily progress. Note the moments in your life when you crave a cigarette as these are your triggers to smoking. Are there certain people or environments that trigger your cravings? If you smoke, how does it make you feel? Jot down some other things you can do to feel the same way. Later, when you’re having a bad day, you’ll be able to look back at the comments you wrote in week one to get perspective on how far you’ve come.

Get support from others

Let your friends and family in on your plan to quit smoking and tell them you need their support and encouragement to stop. Look for a quit buddy who wants to stop smoking as well. You can help each other get through the rough times. 

Keep the pounds off   

Weight gain is a common concern when quitting smoking. While it’s true that many smokers put on weight when they stop smoking, the gain is usually small, on average 3-5 pounds. Weight gain occurs because the oral gratification of smoking is replaced by the self-soothing mechanism of eating. To maintain a healthy weight, it’s important to find other, healthy ways to deal with stress and other unpleasant feelings rather than mindless eating. Eating a healthy diet and staying active can help you maintain your current weight.

Manage changes in mood

Mood changes are common after quitting smoking as a result of nicotine withdrawal. They will be especially pronounced if you have been using cigarettes to manage your moods and relieve stress, depression, or anxiety, for example. After quitting, you may be more irritable, frustrated, restless, angry, or despondent than usual. You may also experience headaches, trouble sleeping, and difficulty in concentrating. However, these changes usually get better in 1 or 2 weeks as the toxins are flushed from your body and you find other, healthy ways to manage your moods. Let your friends and family know that you won’t be your usual self and ask for their understanding.

Finding the resources and support to quit smoking

There are many different methods that have successfully helped people to quit smoking, including:

• Quitting smoking cold turkey.
• Systematically decreasing the number of cigarettes you smoke.
• Reducing your intake of nicotine gradually over time.
• Using nicotine replacement therapy or non-nicotine medications to reduce withdrawal symptoms.
• Utilizing nicotine support groups.
• Trying hypnosis, acupuncture, or counseling using cognitive behavioral techniques.

You may be successful with the first method you try. More likely, you’ll have to try a number of different methods or a combination of treatments to find the ones that work best for you.

Medication therapy

Smoking cessation medications can ease withdrawal symptoms and reduce cravings, and are most effective when used as part of a comprehensive stop smoking program monitored by your physician. Talk to your doctor about your options and whether an anti-smoking medication is right for you. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved options are: 
Nicotine Replacement Therapy
Nicotine replacement therapy involves "replacing" cigarettes with other nicotine substitutes, such as nicotine gum or a nicotine patch. It works by delivering small and steady doses of nicotine into the body to relieve some of the withdrawal symptoms without the tars and poisonous gases found in cigarettes. This type of treatment helps smokers focus on breaking their psychological addiction and makes it easier to concentrate on learning new behaviors and coping skills.
Non-Nicotine Medication
These medications help you stop smoking by reducing cravings and withdrawal symptoms without the use of nicotine. Medications such as bupropion (Zyban) and varenicline (Chantix) are intended for short-term use only.

Non-medication therapies

There are several things you can do to stop smoking that don’t involve nicotine replacement therapy or prescription medications: Ask your doctor for a referral or see Resources and References below for help finding qualified professionals in each area.
Hypnosis
A popular option that has produced good results. Forget anything you may have seen from stage hypnotists, hypnosis works by getting you into a deeply relaxed state where you are open to suggestions that strengthen your resolve to quit smoking and increase your negative feelings toward cigarettes.
Acupuncture
One of the oldest known medical techniques, acupuncture is believed to work by triggering the release of endorphins (natural pain relievers) that allow the body to relax. As a smoking cessation aid, acupuncture can be helpful in managing smoking withdrawal symptoms.
Behavioral Therapy
Nicotine addiction is related to the habitual behaviors (the “rituals”) involved in smoking. Behavior therapy focuses on learning new coping skills and breaking those habits.
Motivational Therapies
Self-help books and websites can provide a number of ways to motivate yourself to quit smoking. One well known example is calculating the monetary savings. Some people have been able to find the motivation to quit just by calculating how much money they will save. It may be enough to pay for a summer vacation.

Helping a family member quit smoking

It’s important to remember that you cannot make a friend or loved one quit smoking; the decision has to be theirs. But if they do make the decision to stop smoking, you can offer support and encouragement and try to ease the stress of quitting. Investigate the different treatment options available and talk them through with the smoker; just be careful never to preach or judge. You can also help a smoker overcome cravings by pursuing other activities with him or her, and by keeping smoking substitutes, such as gum and candy, on hand.
If a loved one slips or relapses, don’t make them feel guilty. Congratulate them on the time they went without smoking and encourage them to try again. Most smokers require several attempts to successfully quit for good.

Parents of teen smokers

Most smokers try their first cigarette around the age of 11, and many are addicted by the time they turn 14. This can be worrying parents or guardians, but it’s important to appreciate the unique challenges and peer pressure teens face when it comes to quitting smoking. While the decision to quit has to come from the teen smoker him- or herself, there are still plenty of ways for you to help.

Tips for parents of teen smokers

• Try to avoid threats and ultimatums. Find out why your teen is smoking; he or she may want to be accepted by a peer group, or want your attention. Talk about what changes can be made in his or her life to help them stop smoking.
• Be patient and supportive as your child goes through the quitting process.
• Set a good example for your kids by not smoking yourself. Parents who smoke are more likely to have children who smoke.  
• Know if your children have friends that smoke. Talk with your kids about ways to refuse a cigarette.
• Explain the health dangers, as well as the unpleasant physical aspects of smoking (such as bad breath, discolored teeth and nails).
• Establish a smoke-free policy in your home. Don't allow anyone to smoke indoors at any time.

Source: American Lung Association

Smokeless or spit tobacco is NOT a healthy alternative to smoking cigarettes

Smokeless tobacco, otherwise known as spit tobacco, is not a safe alternative to smoking cigarettes. It contains the same addictive chemical, nicotine, contained in cigarettes. In fact, the amount of nicotine absorbed from smokeless tobacco can be 3 to 4 times the amount delivered by a cigarette.

What to do if you relapse

Quitting smoking didn’t work, now what to do?

Having a small setback doesn’t mean you’re a smoker again. Most people try to quit smoking several times before they kick the habit for good. Identify the triggers or trouble spots you ran into and learn from your mistakes.  

• You’re not a failure if you slip up. It doesn't mean you can't quit for good.
• Don’t let a slip become a mudslide. Throw out the rest of the pack. It's important to get back on the non-smoking track now.
• Look back at your quit log and feel good about the time you went without smoking.
• Find the trigger. Exactly what was it that made you smoke again? Decide how you will cope with that issue the next time it comes up.
• Learn from your experience. What has been most helpful? What didn’t work? 
• Are you using a medicine to help you quit? Call your doctor if you start smoking again. Some medicines cannot be used if you are smoking at the same time.

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