Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Monday, December 31, 2007
It's that time of the year ... again!
It's that reflective time of the year, when we assess our priorities, set goals, and make wishes for our family and friends. I would like to pass on to a collection of suggestions for the upcoming 2008:
- Understand work/life balance and adopt one activity that is unrelated to the office. Driven leaders get energized from work and often find it fun, but it is equally important to discover something away from your desk that excites you.
- Find new ways to keep your team connected and motivated. Competition can be good, but celebrating each other's successes is better. Create interdependence and strong working relationships and the power of many will be greater than the will of one.
- Mourn the loss but learn the lessons. The mistakes that cost you the big deal can be fuel to help land the next one.
- Strengthen your empathy muscles. Understanding the perspective of a family member, customer, employee, boss or colleague will bring you untold rewards.
- Measure the stress against "how important is it?" Never forget that health, love, compassion and joy come before money, power and prestige.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Vita est Laborem: Procrastination revisited
Have you ever managed to find the time to visit a seminar on time-management? Have you found an empty space in your life which you filled with reading a book on a similar subject? Please, please, please let me know that it was not worth its while, just for my comfort ;-) Until then I can only agree with my good old mate Father Guido Sarducci: Life is a job!
You may possible be looking for a review on the mini challenge weekend, after all it was announced with the last post some weeks ago. Stand by; I will post something on that eventually.
Did you notice who left a comment on my last post on preference reversal? I am thrilled! Someone claiming to be ‘the man of procrastination’ himself: the right honourable Prof. Piers Steel. Wow! To all the hoaxers out their, just let me continue to believe that.
Here’s the valuable part of today’s blog. I am reading a book, once again recommended to me by my dad, he’s my personal literature critic: ‘Instead of wasting your time with what you would normally be doing, read this.’ ;-)
You will have to stick around to find out more on the book, because I intend to share some of the delightful vocabulary and writing styles with you. To make it just a ‘little’ challenge to you, OK call it a ‘mini’ challenge if you wish, here’s my contest: The first person to post the title of the book with the author’s name in a comment to this blog will receive a complementary issue from me. Go for it!
Here’s the vocabulary for today:
‘These vicarious second-order believers are often more zealous than the real thing, …’
vicarious
/vikairi ss/
• adjective 1 experienced in the imagination through the feelings or actions of another person. 2 acting or done for another.
- DERIVATIVES vicariously adverb.
- ORIGIN from Latin vicarius ‘substitute’.
zealous
/zell ss/
• adjective having or showing zeal.
— DERIVATIVES zealously adverb zealousness noun.
zeal
/zeel/
• noun great energy or enthusiasm for a cause or objective.
— ORIGIN Greek zelos.
***
You may possible be looking for a review on the mini challenge weekend, after all it was announced with the last post some weeks ago. Stand by; I will post something on that eventually.
Did you notice who left a comment on my last post on preference reversal? I am thrilled! Someone claiming to be ‘the man of procrastination’ himself: the right honourable Prof. Piers Steel. Wow! To all the hoaxers out their, just let me continue to believe that.
Here’s the valuable part of today’s blog. I am reading a book, once again recommended to me by my dad, he’s my personal literature critic: ‘Instead of wasting your time with what you would normally be doing, read this.’ ;-)
You will have to stick around to find out more on the book, because I intend to share some of the delightful vocabulary and writing styles with you. To make it just a ‘little’ challenge to you, OK call it a ‘mini’ challenge if you wish, here’s my contest: The first person to post the title of the book with the author’s name in a comment to this blog will receive a complementary issue from me. Go for it!
Here’s the vocabulary for today:
‘These vicarious second-order believers are often more zealous than the real thing, …’
vicarious
/vikairi ss/
• adjective 1 experienced in the imagination through the feelings or actions of another person. 2 acting or done for another.
- DERIVATIVES vicariously adverb.
- ORIGIN from Latin vicarius ‘substitute’.
zealous
/zell ss/
• adjective having or showing zeal.
— DERIVATIVES zealously adverb zealousness noun.
zeal
/zeel/
• noun great energy or enthusiasm for a cause or objective.
— ORIGIN Greek zelos.
***
Friday, September 28, 2007
"Preference Reversal"
In scientific terms, a person's intention alone is not enough to see anything through - a condition called preference reversal.
In his article about procrastination Professor Piers Steel from the University of Calgary said that putting things off continuously can be blamed on three basic human traits: confidence, values and impulsiveness.
It's off to Munich and Salzburg this weekend, no longer giving in to procrastination, but rather some impulsive accelleration at the Salzburgring featuring the final heat of the Mini Challenge live 2007 . That’s the 210 horsepower thing on the right side of the reversal visualisation guys!
I’ll let you know how it was and maybe you’ll check your ‘E x V / (Gamma) x D’ in terms of getting me my first response on this blog effort.
***
In his article about procrastination Professor Piers Steel from the University of Calgary said that putting things off continuously can be blamed on three basic human traits: confidence, values and impulsiveness.
It's off to Munich and Salzburg this weekend, no longer giving in to procrastination, but rather some impulsive accelleration at the Salzburgring featuring the final heat of the Mini Challenge live 2007 . That’s the 210 horsepower thing on the right side of the reversal visualisation guys!
I’ll let you know how it was and maybe you’ll check your ‘E x V / (Gamma) x D’ in terms of getting me my first response on this blog effort.
***
Thursday, September 06, 2007
English for Runaways #273
The misuse of “I” and “myself” for “me” is caused by nervousness about “me.” Educated people know that “Jim and me is goin’ down to slop the hogs,” is not elegant speech, not “correct.” It should be “Jim and I” because if I were slopping the hogs alone I would never say “Me is going. . . .” If you refer to yourself first, the same rule applies: It’s not “Me and Jim are going” but “I and Jim are going.”
So far so good. But the notion that there is something wrong with “me” leads people to overcorrect and avoid it where it is perfectly appropriate. People will say “The document had to be signed by both Susan and I” when the correct statement would be, “The document had to be signed by both Susan and me.” Trying even harder to avoid the lowly “me,” many people will substitute “myself,” as in “The suspect uttered epithets at Officer O’Leary and myself.”
“Myself” is no better than “I” as an object. “Myself” is not a sort of all-purpose intensive form of “me” or “I.” Use “myself” only when you have used “I” earlier in the same sentence: “I am not particularly fond of goat cheese myself.” “I kept half the loot for myself.” All this confusion can easily be avoided if you just remove the second party from the sentences where you feel tempted to use “myself” as an object or feel nervous about “me.” You wouldn’t say, “The IRS sent the refund check to I,” so you shouldn’t say “The IRS sent the refund check to my wife and I” either. And you shouldn’t say “to my wife and myself.” The only correct way to say this is, “The IRS sent the refund check to my wife and me.” Still sounds too casual? Get over it.
On a related point, those who continue to announce “It is I” have traditional grammatical correctness on their side, but they are vastly outnumbered by those who proudly boast “it’s me!” There’s not much that can be done about this now. Similarly, if a caller asks for Susan and Susan answers “This is she,” her somewhat antiquated correctness is likely to startle the questioner into confusion.
More errors from Paul Brians can be found here
***
So far so good. But the notion that there is something wrong with “me” leads people to overcorrect and avoid it where it is perfectly appropriate. People will say “The document had to be signed by both Susan and I” when the correct statement would be, “The document had to be signed by both Susan and me.” Trying even harder to avoid the lowly “me,” many people will substitute “myself,” as in “The suspect uttered epithets at Officer O’Leary and myself.”
“Myself” is no better than “I” as an object. “Myself” is not a sort of all-purpose intensive form of “me” or “I.” Use “myself” only when you have used “I” earlier in the same sentence: “I am not particularly fond of goat cheese myself.” “I kept half the loot for myself.” All this confusion can easily be avoided if you just remove the second party from the sentences where you feel tempted to use “myself” as an object or feel nervous about “me.” You wouldn’t say, “The IRS sent the refund check to I,” so you shouldn’t say “The IRS sent the refund check to my wife and I” either. And you shouldn’t say “to my wife and myself.” The only correct way to say this is, “The IRS sent the refund check to my wife and me.” Still sounds too casual? Get over it.
On a related point, those who continue to announce “It is I” have traditional grammatical correctness on their side, but they are vastly outnumbered by those who proudly boast “it’s me!” There’s not much that can be done about this now. Similarly, if a caller asks for Susan and Susan answers “This is she,” her somewhat antiquated correctness is likely to startle the questioner into confusion.
More errors from Paul Brians can be found here
***
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Elignsh for Ryawnuas #272
Tihs is not new, but it's aaylws fun, jsut rgnardieg the apcest of slinlpeg, I gesus the gmmarar's crecort ;-)
cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
***
cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
***
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