» Christmas crackers

…from emotional intelligence at work

Newsletter 26 : 16 december 2009

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Greetings
Welcome to our newsletter. We wish you a festive Christmas and a rewarding new year.

Quotations of the week

In my beginning is my end
TS Eliot, East Coker

Play is the beginning of knowledge
George Dorsey, politician

Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom
unknown

Video of the week

A searing exposé of the latest Christmas shock horror : here

Course of the week

Too much stuffing? We’re delighted to announce our new course Escape from the Christmas Turkey. Please contact one of us for more details.

Festive service of the week

Use this service to commission Santa to send a message to your favourite people

Art site of the week

All your favourite Christmas album covers (they really need to be savoured one at a time) : here

Emotional intelligence principle of the week

True giving is giving without any expectations

Giving in order to get is experienced as a hidden demand and ultimately leads to burnout. Often when we give, whether it is a referral to a business person, or a sweet to a child, we have an expectation that we will get something back – whether a referral in return, or the love of the child. Often, that expectation is unconscious and, because it is unconscious, we are not only unaware of it, we actually deny it is there. However, expectations – unconscious or not – are experienced as demands, and people don’t like demands being made of them. So they don’t reciprocate and the giver ends up frustrated and empty handed.

Poem of the week

n
OthI
n
g can
s
urPas
s
the m
y
SteR
y
of
s
tilLnes
s

EE Cummings

Music of the week

From Olivier Messiaen’s wonderful set of meditations on the birth of Jesus, La nativité du Seigneur : here
And, from the same, for those that like spectacular ends – or is it a beginning? : here

Contributions always gratefully received.
Thanks this week to ‘Blueknowz’.

If you have been, thank you for reading.
Kay and Jeremy