Source: WENN

When seemingly unbreakable Hollywood couples are discussed, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith are a pair that often come to mind. We’ve watched their 17-year relationship blossom before our eyes and it appears to grow stronger each day. Will recently discussed love, marriage, and the importance of striving to be better for your partner, during a recent appearance in Philly, reports Necole Bitchie. Check out a bit of what he had to say.

On the importance of being the best possible person for your partner:

“When we got started, we both truly connected on wanting to be better. That’s where it all started. There were other people that we were dating and other people that we were attracted to, but there was a commitment to constantly be better that was what we connected on. Our whole world and relationship was that, “Hey, I know that I may not be all of that today but what I’m not going to do is lay around and not keep working to be better to deserve you.”

“I would say that concept is very central to having any success in this game of love at all.  The central idea of love is not even a relationship commitment, the first thing is a personal commitment to be the best version of yourself with or without that person that you’re with. You have to every single day, mind, body, and spirit, wake up with a commitment to be better. Don’t make that same mistake tomorrow that you made today.”

On why “deal breakers” are a contradiction of love:

“The idea is that you are two people together, but in that process, the marriage cannot be a prison. There has to be a freedom that allows a person to grow. A person has to be allowed to make mistakes, and a person has to be allowed to become and grow without the threat of punishment. I think that in the concept of our marriages because of our own insecurities, we lay it out in a way like, ‘Hey, that’s a deal breaker.’ I hear people talk about the concept of the deal breakers and it’s really in conflict with loving somebody.”

On addressing insecurities:

“When I think about my relationship with Jada, when it comes to love, as soon as you put yourself in a love relationship, you’ve got to check your insecurities. When you love somebody, and you feel yourself slipping,  you will fight, scratch, and claw, to not be in that uncomfortable space. You have traumas that happen with your mother and father, or an old girlfriend, or an old boyfriend, that you’ve got to address personally if you want to truly be able to love somebody. Our traumas keep us away from being able to truly love someone unconditionally.”

“In this world, there are difficulties with just getting out of the bed everyday. Trying to love on top of that is excruciating. It is absolutely not something to be taken lightly or easy when you say you’re going to marry somebody, you have to be willing to go through hell. You have to be willing to collide with the weakest parts of yourself…”

On how being married to Jada has changed him for the better:

“Jada has made me a better person than anyone on earth could have every done. There is nobody on Earth at this point that in my life and in my career with the successes and the things that I’ve done, there is nobody on Earth that I would still try to be better for. [...] Jada is a beast. Just her passion,  power, and relentless unwillingness to let me lay down at night when I’ve only done 92 percent of what I was supposed to do that day, holds me to a higher standard.”

Will and Jada appear to have a beautiful relationship and he’s dishing out some pretty sound advice.

What are your thoughts on his outlook on love, commitment and relationships?

http://thiscannotbemylife.wordpress.com

You’re counting down the months, days, hours, minutes until you get that advancement at your company that officially carries you away from the dreaded “entry-level” title. Instead of dwelling on the ‘bib and pacifier’ that comes along with being the baby on the job, due to a change in career or just starting out from college, try to look at the advantages of working your way up.

Upper-level execs look for employees who are willing to work their way from the bottom to the top, and know every aspect of the company while getting there. Isn’t it better to watch an employee grow internally then to have to go through the hassle of outsourcing someone with the required experience? Why go to the store for flowers when you can pick them from your own garden??

Treat your entry-level job now as the first step to your corner office, and follow these five steps to get there in no time.

Attending the best school so you can snag the best job, so you can bring home tons of bacon is what most of us dream about before we set off for college, and it’s what we keep pressing for as we graduate, land our first job, and strive to make increasingly more money throughout our careers. But then what? Once we achieve all that will we be truly happy? Science says no.

Timothy Judge, professor of management at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, just completed research on 717 high-ability individuals who have been followed over seven decades. Using multiple criteria, Judge measured participants’ ambition during several periods of their lives from childhood to young adults just beginning their careers. The participants’ education ranged from Ivy League universities like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern, Berkeley, Oxford, and Notre Dame, to more modest educations, including high school diplomas and community college degrees. What Judge found was this:

“Ambitious kids had higher educational attainment, attended highly esteemed universities, worked in more prestigious occupations, and earned more, so it would seem that they are poised to ‘have it all.’ However, we determined that ambition has a much weaker effect on life satisfaction and actually a slightly negative impact on longevity. So, yes, ambitious people do achieve more successful careers, but that doesn’t seem to translate into leading happier or healthier lives.”

For all the positive perks that come with being overly ambitious, Judge emphasizes that a high level of professional success is not without cost to not only ones personal relationships but also their own mental and physical health. “Ambitious people are only slightly happier than their less- ambitious counterparts, and they actually live somewhat shorter lives,” he said.

Right now, Judge doesn’t know the underlying causes of the shorter lifespan for these individuals, but he does have a theory:

“Perhaps the investments they make in their careers come at the expense of the things we know affect longevity: healthy behaviors, stable relationships, and deep social networks.”

While this study obviously isn’t encouraging people to give up on pursuing their goals, the takeaway message is that balance is necessary in order to be successful professionally, personally, and physically.

Do you notice other areas of your life lacking while you try to climb the professional ladder?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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Source: Rihanna.com

Rihanna is the artist of now. Nielsen Soundscan recently crowned her the biggest-selling digital artist of all time with 47.5 million digital downloads sold since 2004. As impressive a feat as that is, the time of the digital artist has been relatively short. Rihanna may be a pop queen now, but it is still questionable whether she will have a long career. Rihanna has cultivated an image that is so of the moment, it is hard to picture what she will be doing next year, let alone ten years from now. Does she have what it takes to have longevity in the music industry?

Rihanna has all the makings of diva. But she hasn’t shown the vision needed to maintain a lasting career. With all the tattoos, Twitter rants, and blunt-smoking paparazzi shots, you get the feeling she’s focused on living in the now – just like any other 24 year old. But, if she wants the longevity of pop divas before her, she needs to decide what she will be remembered for. Otherwise, she will fade from our memory just like any other trend.

If there were a template for Rihanna to follow to last in pop music it would have to be Madonna – a pop dance diva with a constantly evolving image and a penchant for the daring. When Madonna first came on the scene, no one expected her to last. But, once Madonna had our attention, she simply refused to give it up. If Rihanna’s raucous Twitter feed is any indication of her temperament, we can assume she won’t fade away quietly either. She would do well to take a few lessons from a veteran if she intends to stick around.

Rihanna doesn’t shy away from controversy. Both Rihanna and Madonna have been popular targets for organizations dedicated to preserving the country’s morality. But Madonna’s risks usually had higher stakes. No one is encouraging Rihanna to make out with Black Jesus and dance in front of burning crosses in her video. But, she could try to make risky artistic choices that aren’t dictated by the latest trend.

Rihanna shares Madonna’s talent for reinvention. She debuted as a dancehall teenybopper (“Music of the Sun”), matured gracefully into a hip-hop, pop diva (“Good Girl Gone Bad”), and seamlessly shifted into a harder rock star image (“Hard”) before becoming the colorful club kid meets sex goddess we know her as today. Each of her albums features perfectly crafted pop songs and expert imaging that reflect the musical and style trends of the day. But Rihanna isn’t known for originating trends so much as catching them early and executing them really well.

Madonna is able to transcend the trends she takes on even when she jumps on the bandwagon late. She has a point of view, something Rihanna is lacking. Rihanna embodies different images so thoroughly that she gets lost in them. Critics have often complained that she comes off as icy and blank. But, lately it seems Rihanna has opened up. She has been decidedly less styled to perfection and her brash, risque interviews may be signs that she is relaxing her filter for the public. Or pretty rebel may just be her latest incarnation. Time will tell.

Cortney Cleveland is a public relations practitioner and freelance culture & business writer working in New York City. You can follow her on Twitter @CleveInTheCity.

“Wonder Woman Files” is a weekly career column on Madame Noire. Stay tuned for more topics, comment or write us at editors@madamenoire.com if you have suggestions!

When we saw the trailer for “For Colored Girls,” we had many thoughts.  First: is Tyler Perry going to give us a decent film? But a close second: some of our favorite actresses are in this film and many of them have been around for a while, yet we never get tired of them.

Looking at Phylicia Rashad and Loretta Devine still getting top billing, it is absolutely evident that there is something to be said for putting in consistent work and sticking to your craft.  And while we’re still not sure that Whoopie can really pull playing a serious nun after three installments of ‘Sister Act,’ there’s a good reason why longevity will always pays the bills.

As Mesdames, we know the value of hard work.  It’s who we are what we do.  But in a world that reveres moving on up and fast track promotions, it can seem like we’re the tortoise and the hares are hopping past here, there and everywhere.  But don’t stress: good old fashioned hard work is never out of style.  And as a general rule of thumb, the flashes in the pan never get critical acclaim.

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