(토요모임) [05. Jan. 2019] Saturday meeting topic

[Scarlet]

Howdy ! 

It's me Scarlett !   

This week we will talk about the 'DIRECTIONS : Change Management & Social Justice Achievement for Year 2019'. Do not be obsessed with all the articles too much. Just pick some articles what you have interests and prepare your opinions related to those articles. :) 

Hope you enjoy the topics. 

◈ Social Justice Achievement 

-------- State Street takes the bull by the horns on gender diversity

-------- We have built an unequal world. Here’s how we can change it

-------- Here are 10 ways to fight corruption

◈ Change Management

-------- HOW TO DEAL WITH CHANGE - WHO MOVED MY CHEESE BY SPENCER JOHNSON | Animated Video Audio Book Summary

-------- Today is the 20th anniversary of ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ Why does it still move us?

◈ Individual Directions of 2019

-------- The World’s Most-Spoken Languages In A Single Infographic

-------- Become An Independent Person In 7 Simple Steps

-------- 8 tips to help you become more resilient

With luv 

Scarlett 

------------------------------------------

< Overview of Topics >

State Street takes the bull by the horns on gender diversity

------------------------------------------

HOW TO DEAL WITH CHANGE - WHO MOVED MY CHEESE BY SPENCER JOHNSON | Animated Video Audio Book Summary

------------------------------------------

Here are 10 ways to fight corruption

--------------------------------------------------------

State Street takes the bull by the horns on gender diversity 

08 March 2017

State Street has placed a bronze statue of a daring young girl staring down Wall Street's iconic raging bull to celebrate International Women's Day.

The fund manager commissioned artist Kristen Visbal to create the statue, which will remain in place for one month, as part of a campaign to pressure companies to put more women in the boardroom.

Jill Mavro, head of strategic relationship group at State Street Global Advisors, says: "It’s time to improve gender diversity in corporate America. Promoting leadership opportunities for women in financial services, and all industries, provides companies with new perspectives and approaches that may lead to better business results."

She points to a recent MSCI study which showed that companies with strong female leadership generated a return on equity of 10.1% per year versus 7.4% for those without a critical mass of women at the top, a 36.4% increase of average return on equity. Other data shows that one out of every four Russell 3000 companies do not have even one woman on their board. And nearly 60% have fewer than 15% of their boards composed of women directors.

As part of the campaign, State Street is sending a letter to 3500 corporations calling for more gender diversity in the upper echelons of management, amid warnings that it will vote against boards that fail to take steps to push women up the leadership ladder. 

Article source : https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/30241/state-street-takes-the-bull-by-the-horns-on-gender-diversity

------------------------------------------

Take the Bull By the Horns

[예문]

This threat isn’t going away by itself. We are going to take the Bull By the Horns and settle this matter once and for all.
이 문장에서 호랑이를 잡으려면 호랑이 굴에 들어가야 한다에 해당하는 영어속담은 Take the Bull By the Horns 입니다. Take the Bull By the Horns, Take는 잡다, 쥐다를 뜻하고 Bull 은 황소를 뜻합니다. By 는 기본적으로 .. 무엇에 의하여를 뜻하는 전치사입니다. 그리고 Horns는 소나 사슴 같은 동물의 뿔을 말하는 Horn의 복수형입니다.
그러니까 Take the Bull By the Horns는 단어 그대로 황소를 뿔을 잡고 데리고 가다라는 말입니다. 이 말은 황소를 뿔을 잡고 끌고가는 일은 대단히 어렵기 때문에 어려운 일을 하려면 과감하게 해야 한다, 용감하게 난국에 맞선다는 뜻으로 호랑이를 잡으려면 호랑이 굴에 들어가야 한다는 한국 속담에 해당하는 표현입니다.
Take the Bull By the Horns, 문장을 해석해 봅니다.
This threat 이 위협은,
by itself 저절로,
isn’t going away 사라지지 않습니다.
We 우리는,
are going to take the Bull By the Horns 호랑이를 잡으려면 호랑이 굴에 들어가야 하듯이 과감히 맞서서,
and settle this matter once and for all. 이 위협을 단호하게 끝장내야 합니다.
참고로 Take the Bull By the Horns의 Take 대신에 Seize 또는 Pull을 써서 Seize the Bull By the Horns, Pull the Bull By the Horns라고 해도 같은 뜻입니다.

Source : https://www.voakorea.com/a/a-35-2006-07-25-voa1-91210929/1297835.html

--------------------------------------------------------

We have built an unequal world. Here’s how we can change it
22 Jan 2018/ Winnie Byanyima/ Executive Director, Oxfam International

Here’s something we’re rarely told growing up: our world rewards wealth, not hard work or talent.
It would pain me to tell our young girls and boys that they are already losing. The injustice of it would be too ugly and too hard to explain.
But that’s the world that we have built. A world where 82% of the wealth created last year went to the richest 1% of the population.

Meanwhile, the 3.7 billion people who make up the poorest half of the world saw no increase in their wealth last year. Nothing. Zero.

The world belongs to the wealthy and nowhere is this injustice more apparent than in the workplace.

Corporations are driving down wages and working conditions across the globe to maximize returns for their shareholders. They use their power and influence to ensure the rules align with their interests – no matter the cost.

Many of our governments don’t just let this happen, they actively facilitate it. In a frenzied drive for GDP growth, they slash corporate taxes and strip away the rights and protections of workers.

The result? Women in hot, overcrowded garment factories in Bangladesh paid poverty wages to stitch clothes for us to buy cheaply. Hotel housekeepers cleaning luxury rooms afraid to report sexual harassment for fear of losing their jobs. Poultry workers in the US - the richest country in the world – forced to wear nappies because they are denied toilet breaks.

But in boardrooms, far removed from this suffering and indignity, things are better than ever. Shareholders and corporate bosses are enjoying record profits.

The world’s political and business elites are meeting in Davos, Switzerland, for four days this week. In that span of time, the world’s billionaires will see their fortunes swell by an estimated $8 billion.

Breaking it down another way. While nine out of every 10 billionaires is a man, it is women who are most often found in the poorest paid and least secure jobs.

That’s the reality of “prosperity” in our world today. It’s built on the backs of workers around the world.

We don’t want to tell young girls and boys that the odds are stacked against them from the start. Instead, we could tell them that with passion, conviction, and determination we can build a better future.

This future is possible by redesigning our economy to truly reward hard work, rather than wealth.

The World Inequality Report published last month by the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics proves government action can significantly reduce inequality. Forward-thinking politicians around the globe are already showing what is possible.

Just a few weeks ago, Iceland introduced a law making it illegal for firms to pay women less than men as part of government plans to eradicate the gender wage gap by 2020.

In 2010 Ecuador introduced a minimum ‘dignity wage’ that covers the basic costs of living. This has benefited hundreds of thousands of workers and debunked the myth that there is a trade-off between decent wages and jobs. Ecuador has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Latin America.

Meanwhile, South Africa has introduced progressive tax policies to raise funds to expand public services such as healthcare and education.

In the UK, we have seen examples of how governments can ensure workers’ rights are protected in the technological revolution when a court ruled that drivers working for the taxi-hailing app Uber are employees – not self-employed – and must be entitled to holiday pay, paid rest breaks and the national minimum wage.

These examples, among others, show there is no shortage of solutions. What is lacking is political will to put these into action.

We also need business leaders who see the benefits of a well-paid workforce and a well-functioning society. Decades ago, Henry Ford recognized that the long-term health of his businesses was best served by paying his workers enough to afford the cars they built.

At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2018, I will be urging political leaders to limit rewards to shareholders and senior executives, introduce a statutory living wage, build fairer tax systems, invest in healthcare and education, and shepherd in a technological revolution that works for all. I will be calling on business leaders to stop paying huge share dividends and awarding bumper pay packages to top executives until they can guarantee that all of their workers are getting a living wage and that their suppliers in their supply chains are being paid fair prices.

I’m sure every political and business leader I speak to in Davos will echo my concerns about the inequality crisis. But I, like hundreds of millions of people, am growing impatient waiting for them to act.

Oxfam's report, Reward Work, Not Wealth, is available here.

Article source : https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/01/we-have-built-an-unequal-world-heres-how-we-can-change-it

--------------------------------------------------------

Here are 10 ways to fight corruption

Submitted by Robert Hunja On Tue, 12/08/2015 

1. Corruption is not only about bribes: People especially the poor get hurt when resources are wasted. That’s why it is so important to understand the different kinds of corruption to develop smart responses.
2. Power of the people: Create pathways that give citizens relevant tools to engage and participate in their governments – identify priorities,  problems and find solutions.
3. Cut the red tape: Bring together formal and informal processes (this means working with the government as well as  non-governmental groups) to change behavior and monitor progress.

4. It’s not 1999: Use the power of technology to build dynamic and continuous exchanges between key stakeholders: government, citizens, business, civil society groups, media, academia etc.

5. Deliver the goods: Invest in institutions and policy – sustainable improvement in how a government delivers services is only possible if the people in these institutions endorse sensible rules and practices that allow for change while making the best use of tested traditions and legacies – imported models often do not work.
6. Get incentives right: Align anti-corruption measures with market, behavioral, and social forces. Adopting integrity standards is a smart business decision, especially for companies interested in doing business with the World Bank Group and other development partners.
7. Sanctions matter: Punishing corruption is a vital component of any effective anti-corruption effort.
8. Act globally and locally: Keep citizens engaged on corruption at local, national, international and global levels – in line with the scale and scope of corruption. Make use of the architecture that has been developed and the platforms that exist for engagement.
9. Build capacity for those who need it most: Countries that  suffer from chronic fragility, conflict and violence– are often the ones that have the fewest internal resources to combat corruption. Identify ways to leverage international resources to support and sustain good governance.
10. Learn by doing: Any good  strategy must be continually monitored  and eval‎uated to make sure it can be easily adapted as  situations on the ground change.

What are other ways we could fight corruption? Tell us in the comments. 

Article source : http://blogs.worldbank.org/governance/here-are-10-ways-fight-corruption

-------------------------------------------------------

<Questions> 

Q1. What are the noticable changes which are causing risks in your society?  

Q2. What is social justice and how can we achieve it?

*** Social justice

“Social justice” is an evocative term, as it should be. After all, a society committed to justice and egalitarianism should react emotionally at perceived injustices. Agreeing upon what constitutes injustice, however, is a different matter. ... For a society, justice is a social consciousness that makes a society good.2017. 2. 21.

Source : www.kcumb.edu/blog/students/social-justice-foremost-requires-empathy

Q3. Do you live in a society with social justice?

Q4. State Street has placed a bronze statue of a daring young girl staring down Wall Street's iconic raging bull to celebrate International Women's Day. What do you think about this statuse?

Q5. Do you think most women are fully satisfy with their only happy family life without acheiving their own self-realization desire? If you have a daughter would you recommend or educate her to live like that?  

Q6. One of above article suggests that wealth distribution system of society lead unbalance economic growth in our society. For instance, most corporations are driving down wages and working conditions across the globe to maximize returns for their shareholders. So they urge political leaders to limit rewards to shareholders and senior executives, introduce a statutory living wage. How do you think about this idea? Do you agree or disagree with above idea? 

Q7. If you were a woman, would you satisfied with sacrifying yourself for your happy fmaily without pursuing your own life goals?

Q8. Do we have glass cealing for women?

Q9. What is better option to be successful in our economic system between having wealth or having ability ?

Q10. What is your response when you face the obvious corruption in your work place? What was the response of each stakeholder to your action? Did you find any progress in your society?

Q11. What is the most important action to fight with corruption among below 10 items? 

1. Corruption is not only about bribes
2. Power of the people
3. Cut the red tape
4. It’s not 1999
5. Deliver the goods
6. Get incentives right
7. Sanctions matter
8. Act globally and locally
9. Build capacity for those who need it most
10. Learn by doing

--------------------------------------------------------

Today is the 20th anniversary of ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’

Why does it still move us?

By Ron Charles/ Critic, Book World/ September 6, 2018

Two decades ago, only one man understood the transformative power of his parable about industrious mice. Now the world knows.

Sept. 8 marks the 20th anniversary of Spencer Johnson’s “Who Moved My Cheese?,” one of the most unlikely bestsellers in American publishing. Since 1998, when it first appeared in print, this brief self-help title has sold almost 30 million copies, and its sales are still Gouda. Johnson, a physician who turned to writing early in his career, required his American publisher to keep his masterpiece always in hardback — never paperback — so that readers would take it seriously. And they do.

In the world of business books, the “Cheese” stands alone.
Johnson’s big-print fable captured the imagination of a whole generation of managers, but the question of what moved “Who Moved My Cheese?” remains something of a mystery. Its phenomenal success exceeded the expectations of almost everyone involved at the beginning. After all, the title sounded silly, and years had passed since Johnson had co-written “The One Minute Manager” with Kenneth Blanchard. So when early sales of “Who Moved My Cheese?” languished, no one was particularly shocked. One former publishing executive recalls that the book looked all but dead.

But then, several months later, orders started pouring in — not just from bookstores but from businesses, too. Johnson was on the road, delivering motivational and management talks; word of mouth began to spread. Fortune magazine reported that executives at Procter & Gamble, General Electric and Hewlett-Packard were recommending the book. Southwest Airlines ordered copies for all its 27,000 employees.

Praised, imitated and satirized, “Who Moved My Cheese?” became a fixture on the bestseller list. Snobs claimed to be lactose intolerant to Johnson’s wisdom, but millions of fans kept recommending the book to others.

Why?
In fewer than 60 pages, Johnson tells the story of “four little characters who ran through a Maze looking for cheese to nourish them and make them happy.” Every day, they find their prize in a corridor called “Cheese Station C.” But then one morning the cheese isn’t there, and it isn’t ever coming back to that spot. The two mice, Sniff and Scurry, immediately head off to find more cheese elsewhere. But the two little people, Hem and Haw, are devastated. “Who moved my Cheese?” Hem hollers.

Their struggles are the essence of Johnson’s moral: Hem continues to whine that he can’t have his whey, but Haw eventually realizes that he’s got to change. If he hopes to survive, he must let go of the past and discover new cheese.
 
If newspaper publishers, travel agents and switchboard operators ignored that message, it wasn’t for lack of clarity. Johnson’s tale develops with leaden deliberateness, punctuated by full-page slogans printed over wedges of cheese, e.g. “If You Do Not Change, You Can Become Extinct.” Imagine Mister Rogers as a Scientologist who works in HR.

At the very end of the book, after the fable, we find a cheesy story about several old friends who have come to Chicago for a high school reunion. They gather in a hotel lounge and talk about how meaningful they find the story of the missing cheese, which is enough to keep me from ever attending another high school reunion. “Maybe that’s the whole point,” one of the friends says. “Change happens to all of us.”

This is not a particularly fresh observation. Long before Johnson’s harried mice, people referred to modern life as a “rat-race.” In 1900, Henry Adams stood transfixed before an enormous generator at the Paris Exposition and saw a vision of our manic future: “At the rate of progress since 1800, every American who lived into the year 2000,” he wrote, “would think in complexities unimaginable to an earlier mind. He would deal with problems altogether beyond the range of earlier society.”

Johnson is no Adams, but a lot more people are reading “Who Moved My Cheese?” than have ever read “The Education of Henry Adams,” which has everything to do with the elementary manner of Johnson’s presentation. Johnson, who died last year at the age of 78, writes in a style that’s the literary equivalent of plastic-wrapped slices of American cheese. He practiced that tone in the 1970s, when he published a children’s series of “Valuetale” biographies that celebrated, say, the courage of Jackie Robinson or the curiosity of Christopher Columbus. In Johnson’s work, the staples of modern literature — irony, ambiguity, complexity — are noticeable only in their absence, like the holes in a chunk of Swiss cheese.

That’s not a flaw; it’s what allowed Johnson’s fable to age so well.

Adrian Zackheim, the founder and publisher of Portfolio, a business book imprint at Penguin Random House, met Johnson in 1981 and worked with him right up until the time he died. “Spencer had this really absolutely unique talent for telling a story in a way that it stuck to people’s memories,” Zackheim says. “It was just uncanny, and he crossed national boundaries with apparent ease. Consider that ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ was a huge bestseller . . . in China, where in most parts of China nobody even knows what cheese is exactly.”

But Mitch Horowitz, a historian of alternative spirituality, sees something essentially American in “Who Moved My Cheese?” He calls it “the consummate American self-help book.” “Many of the most popular self-help books in American history either have a religious inflection or are written, however subtly, from a perspective of faith,” Horowitz says. He places Johnson’s book in the ethereal realm of such bestsellers as “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” “The Power of Positive Thinking,” “A Purpose-Driven Life,” “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and even “The Secret.”

“Who Moved My Cheese?” has all the requisite qualities of these other self-help bestsellers: extravagant claims to universal application, great profundity nested in numbing simplicity, catchphrases designed for infinite repetition.

It’s a method that has impressed even the most hardcore academic business professors. John Kotter spent decades teaching at the Harvard Business School and knew Johnson for years. When Johnson showed him an early copy of “Who Moved My Cheese?,” Kotter didn’t think much of it, but he eventually came to appreciate the story’s message.

“I’m sure there are some people who put Spencer in a category and think very cynically about . . . motivational speakers and these writers of these trashed books that say, ‘Here are the three things that will make you rich or three things that will make you happy.’ But the Spencer that I knew was not a cynical guy. He derived much more personal satisfaction from knowing or hoping, at least, that his works were actually making a difference in people’s lives.”

For Kotter, Johnson’s essential message isn’t about learning to live with constant change but daring to live without crippling fear. The question, he says, that everyone remembers from “Who Moved My Cheese?” is “What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?”

“It is very easy to mock,” Kotter admits. “But if you could get him in a reflective mood, Spencer would say something along the lines of, ‘If it helps a million, isn’t that a worthy endeavor?’ ”

Johnson died while editing “Out of the Maze,” a sequel to his most famous book. It will be published in a joint venture between Putnam and Portfolio on Nov. 13. Zackheim says, “It puts you under a spell in the same way that ‘Cheese’ does, and then it reveals an idea set that’s both simple and very challenging.”

Take that, cheese snobs.

Ron Charles writes about books for The Washington Post and hosts TotallyHipVideoBookReview.com.

Article source : https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/who-moved-my-cheese-became-a-monster-hit-twenty-years-later-were-still-wondering-why/2018/09/05/89a6e9aa-ac5e-11e8-8a0c-70b618c98d3c_story.html?utm_term=.2f94d2b71871

--------------------------------------------------------

How to Assess the Risk of a Change with 5 Simple Questions

By Joe the IT Guy | December 5, 2018

One day real soon, machine learning and other forms of artificial intelligence (AI) will deliver on what they promise and truly help IT service management (ITSM) pros to better analyze and assess the risk of making a change. Until then, we still need to rely upon good old personal and peer experience.
This experience includes how best to assess the inherent risk in each change request, and right-size the necessary checks and balances required to make sure that the risk is documented and properly allocated.
Please read on to learn the five simple risk assessment questions that will help with this.

■ Change and Risk Assessment
A change manager should reflect on, and communicate, the risks they identify to those involved in sponsoring, supporting, and putting a change into effect. There are many questions they could ask to collect contextual information about the circumstances surrounding a change, and the risk, but five of the simplest, and some might say the most effective, include:

1. How many teams within the organization are involved in implementing the change?
2. Has this type of change been attempted before, and with what degree of success?
3. How extensively has the change been tested and what evidence exists to back this up?
4. Is a service outage required to put the change into effect, if so for how long?
5. If the change fails, what’s the length of any service outage to reverse (back out) the change?

Let me unpack each of these questions to better explain how they help. And as I do this, I’ll also include a range of possible responses, and a points system to arrive at some form of overall score of the risk.

■ The Scoring System
The scoring system can start very simply, where each response has five possible answers. Starting at 2 for the best possible scenario and answer, and increasing in increments of 2 to 10 for the worst. The scores for each question are then totaled to arrive at a final ‘total risk factor’ score.

Q1. The Number of Teams
The number of teams involved (in a change) can suggest complexity, and difficulty, from the perspective of the tasks involved, the challenge of maintaining communications, and coordinating the collaborative effort. Thus, the more teams involved, the greater the risk that one of these facets may fail. The range can be straightforward.
In terms of possible scoring ranges, an example is that one team involved scores just 2 points. If there are two teams involved it’s 4 points, and so on until five or more teams involved equates to a score of 10 points. Such that the score increases as the number of teams involved, and thus the associated risks, increase.
This example can be visualized as:

Q2. The Prior Experience
As an example here, if the type of change has been performed before, successfully, it scores a 2. Previously successful after encountering issues, 4 points. Unsuccessful after issues, 6 points, through to 10 points for no previous experience. You might also wish to expand on these levels.
This example can be visualized as:

Q3. The Level of Testing
Testing is of course a major factor in success/failure, but sometimes circumstances mean that a change must progress absent of any serious chance to test. An example scoring mechanism is that an untested change scores 10 points. Only unit tested, 8 points. Unit tested and quality assured, 6 points, and one that is unit, quality assured, and user-acceptance tested, 2 points. Again, extra levels (and possible scores) can be added to suit your organization.
This example can be visualized as:

Q4. The Expected Service Outage
It’s always worth asking whether a service outage is required to implement a change, or whether it can be implemented without interruption.
In the example scoring system, no outage scores best at just 2 points. Less than 2 hours, 4 points. Between 2 and 3 hours, 6 points. Between 3 to 5 hours, 8 points, and more than 5 hours scores the maximum of 10 points.
This example can be visualized as:

Q5. The Reversal Time
Finally, for now, can the change be reversed out (backed out) should issues arise? When asking about this, it’s also important to check how long any backout effort might last.
An example scoring system is: No outage and less than an hour to back out scores the minimum 2 points – which is good. No outage but more than an hour to reverse the change scores 4 points. An outage of less than one hour scores 6 points. An outage of more than one hour score 8 points, and no back out option scores the maximum 10 points.
This example can be visualized as:

■ A Worked Example
So, a change that involves two teams (4 points), has been successfully completed previously (2 points), is fully tested (2 points), but will require a service outage of between 2 to 3 hours (6 points), and an outage of more than an hour with significant reversal time (8 points), scores a total of 22 points.
While this is in no way an exact science, and something that needs to be tweaked over time, this allows you to quickly understand the potential risks of your changes and to react accordingly.

■ Understanding Your Organization’s Risk-Point Range
How much risk, and how many risk points your organization can handle in any available change slot (i.e. a time when a change can be applied), can vary. The total score can be matched to differing levels of change management assistance and scrutiny. Such that a total score of less than 15 might be subject to a low risk procedure, 15 to 25 moderate, thereafter – up to say 40 might – be high, and a greater score very high.

■ Consider Weighting Each Response
For the bolder among us, they could also add a weighting factor to each of the questions and use these weights to add bias to any question. For example, past results may have indicated the testing question is especially important for the application affected, so we apply a 1.5 load to its score. This means multiplying whatever it scored by 1.5.
Of course, your organization could use more questions than these five, or trade one for another. For example, it might be important to ask if the change requires vendor involvement and assistance, and to what extent. Or perhaps if it will affect any one of your more critical business applications.

These five questions will help your organization to apply an appropriate level of governance to any requested change – the higher the score, the more that is needed. They will also provide it with a rationale for follow up questions, and for requiring additional checks and balances, approvals, and so on for any change request.

Article source : https://www.joetheitguy.com/2018/12/05/how-to-assess-the-risk-of-a-change-with-5-simple-questions/

--------------------------------------------------------

<Questions> 

Q1. Have you ever read the book 'Who moved my cheese?' written by Spencer johnson? Did you get any lessons from this book? What was it?

Q2. In this book, there are 4 characters who are two mice named ‘Sniff’ and ‘Scurry’ and two Littlepeople named ‘Hem’ and ‘Haw.’ Johnson tells the story of “four little characters who ran through a Maze looking for cheese to nourish them and make them happy.” In terms of change management, which character do you resemble the most?

Q3. How do you deal with the risks? What kinds of risks do you find individually, organizaionally or socially?

Q4. Are you a risk taker or do you like to stay away from risks? Please share your specific experiences.

Q5. How do you recognize when you need to change? 

Q6. Do you have a change manager in your organization? Do you have a ability as a change manager for dealing with your own risk ?

--------------------------------------------------------

The World’s Most-Spoken Languages In A Single Infographic

This fascinating infographic elegantly breaks down the world’s most popular languages and the countries in which they are spoken. 

Specifically, the circle represents the 4.1 billion people around the world who speak one of 23 of the world’s most-spoken languages as their native tongue – the numbers of people speaking an actual language in any given country may actually be higher. It was created for the South China Morning Post by Alberto Lucas Lopez, an infographic journalist. Be sure to view the full-sized version to get all the details!

Source : http://www.boredpanda.com/world-languages-infographic-design-alberto-lucas-lopez/

--------------------------------------------------------

Become An Independent Person In 7 Simple Steps
Guest Writer

On the fourth day of every July, Americans celebrate our independence. Freedom is one of those things that is hard to explain, but it’s easy to notice the lack thereof. Anybody can be a follower – in fact, it’s hard not to find people looking for followers. One must only exist to be dependent, but these steps are necessary to become independent.

1. Fake It Till You Make It
You don’t have to be successful to act like it. As long as you are confident and friendly, people will generally accept you are who you say you are (provided, of course, you can back it up when necessary). As a matter of fact, I’m writing this piece from Denver, CO, where I’m attending the Cannabis Cup as a journalist. I didn’t have a press pass when I showed up, but I have one now, because I acted like I belonged. Now I do.

2. Create A Plan
If you’re independent without a plan, you’re not independent – you’re actually just blind to how dependent you actually are. This drives your friends and family absolutely crazy, so stop it. Get yourself a plan, and make it a good one. Sticking to your own plan is how you avoid following or obstructing others.

3. Form Habits
Now that you have plans, turn those plans into habits by making a conscious effort to continue following them. Every time you follow through with your plan, you’re one step closer to making it a habit. Habits are much easier to follow, as they’re ingrained in your very nature. You become unconsciously drawn to these actions to the point that it actually takes effort to stop. This is when you know you have made it.

4. Make Decisions
As you become more and more comfortable in your independence, it’s vital to exercise your freedom. It’s in exercising your freedoms that they become stronger. Deciding is the easiest way to exercise your freedoms. By deciding, you’re creating your path, your way. Start deciding what you want and learn to get it.

5. Learn Your Role
Remember you are never isolated. You’re always in a world surrounded by other people, and it’s important to be compassionate to those around you. Just because you’re independent doesn’t make you an automatic CEO, nor will you be treated as one. Learn where you really fit in and play your cards to the best of your ability instead of wishing for a new hand.

6. Take Chances
The only way you can survive independently is to take chances. Even if you have the best plans in the world, there will always be someone ready, willing and able to stop you. You’d be naïve to think you’re the one exception, so be willing to take risks. When these risks pay off, you’ll be a success, and if they fail, you at least have a great story.

7. Think Independently
If people are agreeing with you, you’re not disrupting enough to be independent. This isn’t to say you need to be an obnoxious jerk, but you do need to shake things up. Anyone can be agreeable up to a point, but if you’re always agreeing with people, you’re following them. Think for yourself and play devil’s advocate every so often, just to keep everyone on their toes.

Our forefathers fought and died in the name of freedom. In July 1776, they drafted our Declaration of Independence to provide guidelines to preserve the independence of each and every one of us. In order to honor their sacrifices it’s important for each of us to become independent. Get started right now… because I said so…

Article source : https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/become-independent-person-7-simple-steps.html

--------------------------------------------------------

8 tips to help you become more resilient

Jan 5, 2018 / Meg Jay

Clinical psychologist Meg Jay shares practical ways to overcome whatever life throws your way.
Clinical psychologist Meg Jay (TED Talk: Why 30 is not the new 20) doesn’t like the idea of bouncing back from adversity. “People do not feel understood when someone says, ‘Wow, you really bounced back from that.’ They don’t feel seen in all of their complexity, in terms of how hard it can be,’” she says. Instead, Jay likes to describe resilience as a heroic struggle. “It’s really a battle, not a bounce,” she says — an ongoing process that can last for years.

Jay has spent close to two decades studying adult development and listening to the stories of people in her clinical practice. Along the way, she’s learned important lessons about resilience, which she shared in her new book, Supernormal, and in a Facebook Live at TED’s NYC Headquarters in November. One key takeaway? “Resilience is not a trait. It’s not something you’re born with. It’s not something you just have,” she says. We’ve distilled her essential tips for how you can become more resilient.

1. First, recognize that your struggle is valid, no matter what you’re struggling with.
Don’t be ashamed of what makes you stressed. “A lot of people say, ‘Well, I wasn’t in a war…’ They have to learn what the most common adversities are and see those as being legitimate chronic stressors.”

2. Then realize the ways you’re already resilient.
“You may not have alcoholism or drug abuse in your home, but I’m guessing you’ve been through something. Think about, ‘What were the three toughest times in my life? How did I get through those things?’ You probably already know something about being resilient.”

3. Don’t wait for the situation to fix itself.
“Resilient people tend to be active copers. They say, ‘What am I going to do about this?’ versus, ‘When will I be released from this?’ It may not be solved overnight, but every problem can be approached somehow.”

4. Know your strengths and use them.
“In general, resilient people tend to use the strengths they have. For different people, those are different. Some people have a great personality. For other people, it’s smarts or some sort of talent or a real work ethic. They use that to grab onto, to get through whatever’s in front of them.”

5. Don’t try to do it alone…
“One of the biggest predictors of faring well after an adversity is having people who cared. One thing that resilient people do is they seek support. It doesn’t have to be a therapist; it could be a best friend or an aunt or a partner. Resilient people actually use other people — rather than not let themselves need them.”

6. …but know that it’s okay not to tell everyone.
“Increase the number and quality of your relationships however you see fit. For some people, that will be, ‘There are two people in the world who know all of what there is to know about me.’ For other people, they’ll want to be known by a bigger community. Love is very powerful, and love is love. The brain doesn’t know one kind of love versus another. It just processes when it has a positive experience with another person. Get out there and feel like there are people who see you and understand you and who care – that’s it. It doesn’t matter where you’re getting that.”

7. Find your favorite way to take a mental break.
“Many people use fantasy or books, or dive into their hobbies, or hang out with their friends to take a mental break from a situation that they cannot solve overnight. You may not be able to fix that problem, but you can protect yourself from feeling overwhelmed by it. As an adult, you can do the same: read a book, pick up your Frisbee, hang out with your friends, turn off the news alerts on your phone. There’s a lot in the world right now that feels overwhelming. Resilient [people] fight back where they can, but they also learn to take a mental break.”

8. Be compassionate with yourself and realize all the ways adversity has made you strong.
“People who face some adversity in their lives become stronger. Of course, it depends on a lot of other factors — how big is the adversity, how much support do they have, how did they cope — but by learning to cope with stress and having that experience, we gain confidence and we gain preparation. I think sometimes we forget that. You see how you’re broken rather than how you’re strong. Focus on the resilience and see yourself as someone who is even better prepared for life than the average person because you’ve already lived so much of it.”

Article source : https://ideas.ted.com/8-tips-to-help-you-become-more-resilient/?utm_campaign=social&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_content=ideas-blog&utm_term=social-science&fbclid=IwAR2SxfvntaQ-bRjeFMI0T-atNiWjh_kvJJmdL6-UVBVYGvQDdst-FXBtfg4

--------------------------------------------------------

<Questions>

Q1. How many languages do you speak ? Please name all the languages that you can speak?

Q2. Among the 23 of the world’s most-spoken languages, which language would you like to learn more ? And why ? 

Q3. What are the advantages of multilingual ability? 

Q4. What is the reason for learning other languages? 

Q5. Learning new language is the one of the process to get to know about other countries' cultural backgrounds. In this perspective, what is the most intriguing language for you?

Q6. Are you resilient enough to deal with your risks in terms of changing environment?