We've all had to perform in front of an audience for one reason or another: to give a speech, offer a toast, or present a business . If you are an entrepreneur, then you will have to persuade partners and investors and, of course, sell your product or service.

Speaking in public is one of the most persistent fears and phobias, and not without reason: the survival instinct takes control of our body and our mind when we feel insecure, threatened or under stress, and the threat of social cost is one of the more pressing. Just as we know that almost everyone suffers from some level of stage fright, we also know that it can be educated and controlled to deliver powerful, effective, and humane speeches.

Get a head start on employee retention during your recruiting efforts.

A little work on the front end can help you get the right crew aboard and set them up for success as they get underway. These tips can help boost your retention rates:

Download the PDF now.

Gov. Bill Lee has championed startup support and small businesses, but he is failing these same communities by eliminating a program for tech-based small businesses in his proposed budget for the second straight year. State legislators who support small business and startups in Tennessee should restore Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Matching Fund awards, which incentivize small businesses and talent to stay and grow in Tennessee.

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — In a months-long study during the height of the pandemic in 2020, Johns Hopkins researchers discovered that the majority of Americans support measures that could stop the spread of COVID-19. Researchers say the efforts that have high support from many Americans include social distancing, mask-wearing and contact tracing.

But researchers also found that despite overwhelming support from many Americans, some groups continued to resist safety measures.

Image: https://baltimore.cbslocal.com - From Video

Angel investors are private individuals who invest in early-stage startups, thereby providing financial support. They are usually wealthy investors, who have entrepreneurial experience themselves or specific industry knowledge that is shared with the company they are investing in. These people offer various forms of funding including shares and other securities representing shares or ownership interests in an organization such as equity, debt, and variations of these instruments.

In a Stansberry Investor Exclusive, our Daniela Cambone speaks with Gerard Barron, CEO of The Metals Company, formerly called Deep Green Metals, and billionaire philanthropist Frank Giustra, a strategic advisor on the project. The company is looking to scour the ocean floor for battery metals found in nodules created by mother nature. Over the next thirty years, the global population is set to expand dramatically and will put a huge strain on mineral resources extracted from the ground, especially nickel manganese copper and cobalt. All such minerals are needed for a transition to clean energy, but currently what’s on the land is not sufficient.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=ZI5AulS82Ds

Although the Universe is a large place, and all the stuff in it may seem just flung everywhere higgledy-piggledy, there's rather more structure than we can see.

According to our models of the Universe, and mounting evidence, filaments of dark matter connect massive objects such as galaxies and galaxy clusters in a vast, cosmic web.

It's along these filaments that hydrogen flows, feeding into the galaxies, but they're not so easy to see - among all the brightly glowing stars and galaxies and galactic nuclei, the faint emission from diffuse hydrogen in intergalactic space is hard to see, never mind map.

Image: Hydrogen filaments (in blue). (Roland Bacon/David Mary/ESO/NASA)  

More than a year ago now, I left the Bay Area for Austin, Texas. It wasn't an easy decision. I've spent three-plus decades embedded in Silicon Valley, investing in some of the region's top tech companies. With its entrepreneurial culture, top-tier academic institutions and countless tech success stories, there wasn't a better place in the world than the Bay Area to be an investor.

On June 1, 2015, I told my employees that we were going to try something different that summer: a 5-hour workday. At the time, there were only seven people on my team. We all knew each other well, and I was aware that they were all highly productive hard workers. If I needed proof, we were ranked #239 on the Inc. 500 list of America’s Fastest-Growing Companies that year. I was looking for a way to reward my team while still incentivizing high-performance behavior. I felt like I had found it in the 5-hour workday.

Working hunched over a desk or a kitchen table or reclined on a couch is probably ruining your posture. So is staring at your phone for prolonged periods of time or walking with your head down.

But what if you could wear something that made you sit just a little taller during the day? A company called Formewear (previously called IFGfit Labs) has created shirts, leggings, and sports bras that physically help people shift their shoulders backward and better align their spines. The clothing not only helps relieve back problems—it also improves a person’s ability to breathe.

Image: courtesy of Formewear

Californians escaping high taxes dominate the real estate news. Yes it is true, leaving California because of high city, county and state income tax for Dallas and Texas, with no income tax, is a motivation, but last on my list of seven reasons why people are moving from Los Angeles to Dallas. People will pay more to live where they like living, whether that means higher taxes, higher home prices or higher cost of living. People will leave a place they do not enjoy if they can afford to. This is the case with Angelenos. Residents have found Los Angeles increasingly unpleasant.

Image: http://www.newgeography.com

WASHINGTON, MARCH 19, 2021 – This week, U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), both members of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Senate Competitiveness Caucus, reintroduced the Innovation Centers Acceleration Act, a bill which would expand research and development (R&D), targeted to reach a broader portion of the country. The legislation would complement a nationwide effort to compete with China economically by placing renewed emphasis on sectors key to economic resiliency and productivity, including biomedical technology, advanced manufacturing, and more.

Cross-border flows plummeted in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic swept the world, reinforcing doubts about the future of globalization. As we move into 2021, the latest data paint a clearer — and more hopeful — picture. Global business is not going away, but the landscape is shifting, with important implications for strategy and management.

Entrepreneurship is challenging. Some days, it's downright exhausting. For many entrepreneurs, there comes a "last straw" breaking point where the conditions are too stressful or too overwhelming to continue.

But for most others, the eventual loss of passion for entrepreneurship — better known as burnout — is something slower and more gradual. It's a creeping feeling that grows from day to day and eventually begins to affect your work performance.

Jason Gardner was sitting at his desk last year when he was handed a printout of a Bloomberg article.

Gardner, the CEO of burgeoning fintech startup Marqeta, read the note scrawled across the front: It contained the phone number and email address of Rudy Cline-Thomas, who was known for connecting athletes like Andre Iguodala and Steph Curry with Silicon Valley startups looking for investors. 

The old-school, snail-mail approach intrigued Gardner. He decided to reach out. 

The enormity of the student debt crisis is staggering. The Federal Reserve has reported a record-breaking $1.7 trillion in federal and private student loan debt, which is currently held by more than 44 million Americans.

As the investment numbers begin to come in from the first quarter of 2021, we can see the surprising growth and tailwind that happened during the past pandemic year. From my vantage point in San Diego, for instance, venture capital and angel investor data showed an uptick from 2019 to 2020 — in some cases, three times as much as the year before. These numbers seem like a shock amidst a pandemic year and economic crisis, but I believe they’re an excellent indicator of how the investment ecosystem adapted to change and how we’ll continue to see shifts in 2021.

Another day of SXSW 2021 has concluded, and just like the first day, Houston innovators logged on to discuss technology and innovation that's taking off in town.

The second of the two days of programming focused on the development of the Houston innovation ecosystem — including how the city is factoring in diversity and inclusion into development — with interviews hosted by me, Natalie Harms, editor of InnovationMap. Missed out on the fun? Catch up with a few overheard moments from Houston House or stream the full interviews below.

Image: https://houston.innovationmap.com

As COVID-19 became a growing concern around the world early last year, Lauren Gardner tapped into her research expertise as an infectious disease modeler. Gardner, director of the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, along with her Ph.D. student, were motivated to create a dashboard to track the spread of the novel coronavirus. During a panel Tuesday at this year's virtual South by Southwest conference, she shared how the journey unfolded. 

Image: https://www.cnet.com

JobsOhio, the state's private economic development organization, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary in 2021.

As a nonprofit corporation that is not publicly funded, JobsOhio is unique in its ability to drive job creation and new capital investment in the state. While other states' economic development groups are funded by tax dollars, JobsOhio relies on profits from an independent, private source — the JobsOhio Beverage System liquor enterprise.

Image: Ohio Governor Mike DeWine - VIVMCCLAINPHOTO.COM