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Business writing

Career self-sabotage

Career self-sabotage There are 10 common ways we can self-sabotage our career, and only one involves weaponry. Walking the tightrope at work between individual professionalism and being a team-player (which every company says it wants but most don’t really value that highly) can be tricky. Here’s 10 areas of corporate life you may want to pay a…

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Business writing Nonverbal

Colour your communication––what colours really ‘mean’ to your communication’s audience

Colours are powerful communicators. Colours in our communications can affect our moods and our understanding. Knowing what colours represent to our viewers helps us understand why fast-food chains use lively oranges, yellow, and reds, and why the cool, tranquilizing blues and greens and the earth tones of navy, burgundy and chocolate are in airlines.  Research…

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Business writing Nonverbal

The Online Disinhibition Effect

My erudite colleague in Washington DC, Andrea Weckerle (pronounced, on good authority, as ‘weck-err-lee’), almost psychically taps into something that has been concerning me this week — the ability for what might ordinarily be wise, gentle and considerate souls to put fingers to keyboard before the brain has fully engaged and thence launch into invective and…

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Business writing

“I saw it in the papers/on Facebook/on tv”

The number of people whose attitude is expressed in the phrase “I never believe a thing I read in the papers/I see on Facebook/I see on the tv” is far smaller than the number of people whose attitude is expressed in the phrase “I read on Facebook this morning/saw on tv last night that…” This…

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Business writing Nonverbal

Prestige and personal appearance

Successful marketers and advertisers understand very well how easily people can be influenced by prestige appeal. That is why most political candidates take pains with their appearance before they come on to the platform, why a number of them wear, for example, an expensive designer suit. A designer suit is accepted quite unthinkingly by many…

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Business writing Nonverbal

The Schopenhauer method

Use of false humility Another trick of suggestion that is frequently abused is false humility. This trick can be most readily practised with greater success by those who, rightly or wrongly, have achieved some sort of reputation. With my eldest daughter’s last stressful year at high school still a vivid memory in our family, we…

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Business writing Creative Writing

Unicorn Snot 2

“My wife and I love unicorn snot. Her eczema has cleared up and my ‘personal bedroom problems’ have fixed themselves. Her Ying has never looked shinier and my Yang is now well-balanced and has a healthy colour. And with a SPF factor of 30, we bask in the knowledge that we are also protected from the…

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Business writing Creative Writing

Unicorn Snot 1

“Unicorn snot is my secret ingredient. Once I wake up in the morning, the first thing I reach for on my bedside table is my tube of unicorn snot. It refreshes my face and elbows, and help balance my yang. As an influencer, its important that I believe in the products I talk about, and…

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Business writing Nonverbal

Presentation structure for maximum effect

As featured at EzineArticles.com It is well established that what we actually say when we present our ideas is of a lesser importance to our audience that how we say it. Integral to ‘how we say it’ is how we structure our presentation — the more organised and logical, the more easily remembered. That is not to say that…