Why being grumpy can be good for you
It may take more muscles to frown than to smile – but being grumpy is better for you.
A new study into behavioural health has discovered people who are always crabbit are less gullible and better at decision making.
Psychology expert Professor Joseph Forgas revealed his startling results in this month’s Australian Medical Journal.
His findings show even the most negative emotions, such as sadness and grumpiness, can prove more valuable than happiness and other positive feelings.
But if being like Victor Meldrew can be better for you when it comes to making decisions, what can other emotions or behaviour do for you?
GRUMPINESS
According to Prof Forgas, grumpy people make better eye witnesses, are harder to fool and will make better judgment calls than cheerier people.
He believes that a negative mood “triggers more attentive, careful thinking and we pay greater attention to the external world”.
SADNESS
Another part of Prof Forgas’ study compared the benefits of being sad to being happy. He found that a sad person can cope with demanding situations better than a happy person because of the way mood affects the brain’s information processing systems.
One of the many tests Prof Forgas used to prove his theories involved asking happy and sad people to judge the merits of urban myths spouted in movies, and found that the sad ones were less likely to be conned.
SWEARING
It might not be big, clever, politically correct or polite but, according to scientists, unleashing a four-letter word outburst can be very good for your health.
A study at Keele University found that swearing helps us deal with pain and that potty-mouthed people can endure pain for 50 per cent longer than non-swearers.
FLIRTING
A cheeky nod or wink can be good for your health – it’s official. Studies have shown an inoffensive flirt, even if you are not looking to follow it up, can be a great way to build confidence and reduce stress.
And as long as it is not intended or perceived as sexual harassment, studies have also shown it can improve office morale and camaraderie in stressful times.
GIGGLES
Laughter can be the best medicine and since 1995 a form of laughter yoga has been taught around the world to encourage the giggles. It helps with heart health and is also effective in pain management, stress reduction and fighting depression.
GRINNING
A big cheesy grin may be quite off-putting to some but the widest kind of smile is also good for you, with some incredible benefits.
These include a drop in blood pressure, a boosted immune system and a reduction in stress. It also helps produce endorphins, which relax the body, as well as the happy hormone serotonin.
CRYING
Letting go and having a good blub can be one of the best things for you. Tears include a powerful hormone, leucine enkephalin, which regulates pain and other hormones which regulate stress. So tears could be a physiological way for the body to reduce stress.
SHOUTING
A good scream is not only a good workout for the lungs but it is also good for the soul. Primal Scream therapy, popularised in the 1970s and enjoyed by people such as John Lennon, uses shouting to connect to subconscious stresses and issues and get them out.
LAZINESS
People who get up early and busy themselves all day long are heading for an early grave, says public health expert Professor Peter Axt.
He believes lazing about is the key to a long life and an antidote to professional stress, provided people are otherwise healthy.
He says: “People who would rather take a midday nap instead of playing squash have a better chance of living into old age.”
ANNOYING THE NEIGHBOURS
Blasting out loud music is the best way to upset your neighbours but it can boost your brain power.
According to researchers at Manchester University music fans are stimulating part of the inner ear known as the sacculus, which responds to the beat in music.
This gives the brain pleasure and makes us feel good – during the music and afterwards.
FIDGETING
A fidgety work colleague can drive you mad but fidgets are actually keeping themselves slim.
A study in America found that people who constantly tap their fingers or twitch and stretch are using up an extra 350 calories a day.
Endocrinologist James Levine, who led the research, said: “There are huge differences in the amount of fidgeting between people who are lean and those who are obese.”
BEING UNTIDY
An unmade bed may appear to be the height of laziness but it could help prevent asthma.
Scientists at Kingston University found house dust mites – which can bring on an asthma attack – cannot survive in the dry exposed conditions found in an unmade bed.
Nov 4 2009 Brian McIver
The 80-storey “Dynamic Tower,”
will be a shifting skyscraper of luxury apartments on spinning floors, which will be attached to a central column.
Plans for the project were unveiled in New York by Italian architect David Fisher, who said: “This building will have endless different shapes”.
The 420-meter (1,378-foot) building features 80 apartments that spin a full 360 degrees around a central column by means of 79 power-generating wind turbines located between each floor.
The apartments will take between one and three hours to make a complete rotation, and at 30,000 dollars (£15,254) per square meters, will cost between 3.7 million (£1.8 million) to 36 million dollars (£18 million).
Mr Fisher said the skyscraper, which would be energy self sufficient and cost about 700 million dollars (£355 million) to build, was due to be completed in Dubai by 2010.
The Mirax group plans to build a similar, 70-story skyscraper in Moscow. “We look forward to build a third one in New York and maybe in other cities,” said Fisher.
“These buildings will open our vision all around, to a new life,” he added.
Success
“I call people ’successful’ not because they have money or their business is doing well but because, as human beings, they have a fully developed sense of being alive and are engaged in a lifetime task of collaboration with other human beings – their mothers and fathers, their family, their friends, their loved ones, the friends who are dying, the friends who are being born.
Success? Don’t you know it is all about being able to extend love to people? Really. Not in a big, capital-letter sense but in the everyday.Little by little, task by task, gesture by gesture, word by word.”
Ralph Fiennes, b.1962 Oscar-nominated British Actor
7 Great Life Lessons
7 Great Life Lessons
John Wesley of Pick the Brain published recently an article called 7 Life Lessons I Learned Playing Halo where he gives seven great advices that can change your life significantly and for better. I found them very inspiring maybe because I’ve learned most of them the hard way trying to break walls with my head. They are not easy to accomplish but they definitely are worth trying.
I don’t play Halo or similar games so I will only comment on the life implications of these lessons.
- Hesitation is death. No matter if you are playing combat games or you live the real life. Nothing is more destructive to your life than hesitation and doubt. You may be wrong in your plans, you may reach insuperable obstacles but you will never know how to deal with them unless you try. I was hesitating to start my own business for 13 years and now I regret it. I’ve been suffering all this time that I could do the things better but I never had the courage to make it. Don’t hesitate! Don’t be afraid that you might fall because when you fall you will know how much it hurts. Otherwise you will be afraid of the pain much more than it really hurts.
- Success requires experience. Well, we’ve all heard about successful teenage businessmen but they are just an exception. If you want to succeed in business you need to learn the basics of the profession and to practice it repeatedly. It’s not enough just to try once. It’s necessary to try it many times. To fall and to stand up again until you realize the internal power that you have and until you learn how to use it effectively.
- You can’t win without teamwork. In the real life no one succeeds by doing things by himself. The lonely runners are not the successful ones. To be successful you must beat your ego and sacrifice your personal glory. You need to take care about your buddies as they take care of you. When you learn to trust your team and to count on their skills you will get to success.
- Anticipation is the key to victory. Always try to change your point of view and loof from the eyes of the others. Try to put yourself in the other people’s shoes and to understand their problems, their desires and their hopes – this way you will be able to better serve your customers and outgo you competition.
- Leverage your strengths. Everyone is unique in some way. If you want to succeed you must know your unique qualities – your strengths which you must leverage and improve, and your weaknesses which you should keep low.
- Winning comes in streaks. Some days you are full of energy and you can do a lot of work and some days you just can’t concentrate as well as others. To be successful, you need to recognize your streaks so you can weather the bad ones and make the most of the good ones.
- The Devil’s in the details. As John says “[in Halo] the difference between life and death can be as small as the angle of a grenade toss or the decision to reload. The same is true in real life. You need to pay attention to all the tiny details that contribute to success or failure.” Nothing more to add.
Requirements List Deliverable & Sample
To formally define the requirements that will be addressed by the project in a formal list of requirements statements that are feasible, testable, consistent with each other, and clearly and properly stated.
Description
Multiple page listing with each requirement separately itemized.
Sample
Sample Requirements List:
Requirements List Deliverable & Sample
Craig Borysowich (Chief Technology Tactician)
Team Motivation: How to Motivate Team members?
Trust by this time , you got a solution. This is a pertinent problem, one will face in any project. The PM should be aware of this. Be proactive, talk to the people who are prone to be negative, understand their concerns. Try to address them in a honest way. Be positive and sow an open culture, where every one is respected as an individual. This is at times difficult to maintain and still you may observe some negative trends. Have a discussion with them individually, give them more responsibility and makee them accountable for their actions. Even after this, there is NO change, then involve HR and initiate necessary corrective action, before it spreads to the other team members.
sheikh hamdan named crown prince of dubai
Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (born on November 14, 1982) was named Crown Prince of Dubai by his father, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. The announcement was made on February 1, 2008.
Sheikh Hamdan, 25, is head of the emirate’s Executive Council. He is also holding current positions as Head of the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid center for Young Business Leaders and the President of Dubai Sports Council.
Sheikh Hamdan was schooled in Dubai and then countinued his studies in Sandhurst military academy in UK.
Alongside his announcement was also the appointment of his brother
Sheikh Maktoum, 24, as Dubai Deputy Ruler.
21 rules of negotiation
The Critical Rules
Rule 1: No free gifts! Seek a trade-off (“OK, if . . .”) for each concession you make.
Rule 2: Start high.
Rule 3: Follow a dramatic initial concession with sharply diminishing concessions.
Rule 4: Krunch early and often.
Rule 5: Never settle issues individually. Settle all issues as a package—only as a package—at the end.
Rule 6: Conclude with a nibble.
Rule 7: Keep looking for creative (high value–low cost) concessions to trade.
7. The Important but Obvious Rules
Rule 8: Do your homework.
Rule 9: Keep the climate positive.
Rule 10: Never assume that an issue is non-negotiable just because the other side says it is. In reality, almost everything is negotiable.
Rule 11: Never accept the other side’s first offer.
8. The Nice to Do Rules
Rule 12: Start slowly.
Rule 13: Set a complete agenda.
Rule 14: Discuss the small things first.
Rule 15: Be patient.
Rule 16: Use/beware the power of legitimacy.
Rule 17: Keep your authority limited. Try to negotiate against people with higher authority.
Rule 18: Consider using good guy–bad guy.
Rule 19: Try to have the other side make the first offer.
Rule 20: Keep your team small and under control.
Rule 21: Try to have the other side travel to you.
Project Team Training Plan
The speed of the boss is the speed of the team. – Lee Iacocca
Improved deliverable! Training your project team in the application, business environment, project development techniques and other pertinent subjects is important to the success of your project. Use this training plan and schedule template to prepare your team to hit the ground running and get the just-in-time skills training they need to do the job.
Purpose
The Training Plan describes all training necessary for each Team Member on the project. This allows the Project Manager to provide the team with timely training at different points in the project, and plan for the training hours in the work plan.
Project Name
<Project Name>
Types of Training
List the types of training to be provided, such as training in the application(s), techniques to be used in the project development, customer enterprise business policy training, etc.
Identify the courses and course details for each type of training to be provided. Fill in a separate table for each course.
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Component |
Instructions |
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Course Name |
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Training Category |
Training category (e.g., application, technique, business policy) to which the course applies |
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Course Description |
Brief summary of the course (overview) |
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Estimated Course Duration |
Estimated duration of the course in days or hours |
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Course Audience |
Estimated number of individuals, categorized by team roles, who require the training. |
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Course Objectives |
Desired outcome of the training |
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Course Outline |
Topics to be covered in the training session (Attach separate sheet) |
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Prerequisite Skills |
Prerequisite skills necessary for each team role attending the training |
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Supporting Materials |
Facilities, presentation materials, student materials, and supporting technology necessary for delivering the training (Indicate which will be provided by customer) |
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Instructor Qualifications |
Specific skills required by the instructor and potential sources of instructors, identified by position title (if internal) or by vendor (if training is to be provided by an external source) |
Fill in the following table when the course is ready to be delivered.
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Component |
Instructions |
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Schedule |
Date, time (including duration) and place when/where the course will be delivered |
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Instructor Name |
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Attendees |
Names and phone numbers of team members who will attend |
