» Happy Oak Apple Day

… from emotional intelligence at work

Newsletter 70 : 29 may 2012

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Greetings

Welcome to our newsletter. As ever, we like to offer a change from other newsletters which can demand an awful lot of reading.
(29 may is Oak apple day in England)

Strengths survey of the week

Positive psychology is a very useful way of enabling people to develop their strengths. As Marcus Buckingham has pointed out, why spend time and resources making a weakness slightly less a weakness when you could fly on your strengths? (I paraphrase.) This survey is quite long (but then would it have any value if it were shorter?) but produces some interesting conclusions about you.
(Don’t be put off by the requirement to register.)

Feline philosophical video if the week

It clearly needs a cat to articulate the existential angst we all feel from time to time. Brilliant. I love the facial expressions. (dur 2:06)

Birthday quotations of the week

—The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word “crisis”. One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger—but recognize the opportunity.
[this analysis of the two ideograms (not brush strokes) is not actually correct, but it is a telling image]

—Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, b 29 May 1917, the 35th president of the United States

Mathematical oddity of the week

I think I can be acknowledged for keeping my background as a mathematician in check round here, but I couldn’t resist pointing out that 1/998001 in decimal generates all the three digit numbers from 000 to 999 in order. That is, 1/998001
= 0.000001002003004005006007008009010011012013014015… (you get the picture).
Oh, except 998. Slightly confusing explanation (dur 9:47)

Emotional video of the week

In When I die, Philip Gould shares his thoughts and insights as he confronts his impending death (two weeks hence) from oesophageal cancer. The extent to which each of us doesn’t want to watch this video is probably the extent that we need to. How do we approach death whilst embracing life? (dur 8:51)

Relaxing music and sounds of the week

Hours of endless fun to be had programming this simple application to deliver soothing sounds. I recommend setting the volume just at the threshold of audibility to accompany all that deskwork.

All contributions welcome
(Thanks this week to Nicholas Lee of NBS Financial Planning)
If you have been, thank you for reading.

Jeremy