June 18, 2009

The 20 Most Difficult People



The following is a list of the 19 most well-known types of difficult people and a mysterious 20th type - The Most Difficult Person of All.

Keep in mind, some difficult people fall into more than one category.
  1. The Gloom and Doomer
  2. The Intimidator
  3. The Energy Thief
  4. Mr Obnoxious
  5. The Criticizer
  6. The Judge
  7. The Trash Man
  8. The Persister
  9. The Moaner and Groaner
  10. The Moocher
  11. The Demander
  12. Touchy Touchy
  13. The Know-It-All
  14. Mr Bossy
  15. Mr Inward
  16. The Blabber
  17. The Activist
  18. The Excuse Machine
  19. The Kibitzer
  20. The Most Difficult Person of All
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Question : Have I been wasting my time all these years trying to figure out why my mother-in-law is the way she is - always criticizing me - when i should have been trying to figure out why it bothers me so much?
Answer : My dear lady, the reason she criticizes you is because you didn't marry her son sooner! She'd been trying to get rid of him for years! After living with him for awhile, can't you see why she wanted to lose him earlier?
Seriously, the thing is that we have an inner criticizer who don't leave us alone. And because we listen to that voice inside us, we also listen to the person outside. We have to see clearly that this is the case. When we do see it fully, both criticizers will cease to have any effect on us. Who we really are has no connection with either one.
[Source : The How to Easily Handle Difficult People Handbook - Everything Problem People Don't Want You To Know by Murray Oxman]

June 09, 2009

Basic Reading Strategies



1) Intensive Reading
2) Scanning
  • Used when you look through reference material or directories to quickly find small pieces of information.
  • A skill that most people understand, but do not use nearly enough.
  • Many individuals could increase their reading speed simply by using index pages of books to find the information they want.
3) Skimming
  • When the index/contents page fails, then you will be forced to skim. To skim a book, you read it in the following order:
(3a) The Contents Page
(3b) The Conclusion/Introduction
(3c) For Each Relevant Chapter:
  • Summary
  • First paragraph
  • First and last sentence of other paragraphs
(3d) Intensively Read Key Information
  • By doing this, you can gain an overview of a book and from there you can decide if it is going to be useful.
4) Referencing
5) Searching
[Source: X-Treme Speed Reading by James Abela]