Top 10 Principles for Positive Business Ethics
June 30, 2007
This morning, I read about a company using on-line auctions to defraud customers. Last week, I consulted on an ethics complaint where a business coach betrayed a client’s confidentiality. And, recently a Physician was convicted of insider trading based on information from a patient, a violation of both business ethics and her professional ethics.
Business ethics are the key to profits. If clients and customers don’t trust you, and your business ethics, they will not do business with you. Would you buy from a company you didn’t trust? Of course not!
Business ethics have become a hot-button topic. There are often ethical conflicts between making money, and doing what is right. There can be dilemmas about doing what is best for your employer, what’s best for your own career, and what’s best for the customer. Business ethics is about negotiating these mine-fields. Here are my Top 10 Principles for Positive Business Ethics:
1. Business Ethics are built on Personal Ethics. There is no real separation between doing what is right in business, and playing fair, telling the truth and being ethical in your personal life.
10 Easy Ways You Can Feel Happier, Be Healthier and Live Longer Starting NOW!
June 29, 2007
Let’s just say? first thing when you popped out of bed this morning, you woke up and found a little yellow post-it note stuck on the bathroom mirror that could transform your life. You smiled, instantly recognizing this very familiar word.
And on the back were instructions on how to incorporate more of it in your life so you’d feel less stress, pain and tension? more carefree, fun and energetic.
Even without the handy-dandy instructions (you think to yourself)? adding a little more is no big thing. After all, you’ve done it every single day of your life without even thinking about it. It comes as natural to you as blinking. It’s as much fun as a long overdue chat with one of your dearest friends, as cheap as an afternoon daydream, as good for you as a 15 minute workout, yet as vital as the air you breathe. You glance again? it says L-A-U-G-H-T-E-R.
Laughter is the no cost, no effort, super simple, fabulously fun, overnight solution to happier, healthier, better living. American scientific and medical journals have cited the medical and psychological benefits of laughter. This is no laughing matter.
Learn Chinese Language Tips and Techniques
June 29, 2007
There’s no doubt learning any foreign language requires effort, time and commitment. This holds true even more, especially when there’s a big difference between one’s native tongue and learning a new language.
On the other side, knowing the tips and techniques of learning a new language can make all the difference on how effective and successful you can achieve.
Based on personal learning experiences, along with others(either online or offline), here are some of the learning Chinese language tips and techniques on becoming successful in mastering the Chinese language.
By using one, or a combination of these tips and techniques, will maximize your effectiveness, minimize your time, and at the same time, make your learning fun and enjoyable.
Step I - Where to start?
Start from learning the Chinese pronunciation.
Learning Chinese Pinyin should be the first step of learning Chinese language. Pinyin contains all the Chinese phonetic alphabets where they are used in the pronunciation of Chinese characters. To distinguish the different tones, pay close attention to the four types by reading the Pinyin letters, initials, finals, and all possible combinations.
Mystery, not Myth: Jesus Christ is real!
June 28, 2007
In the children’s section of any bookstore, books on the birth of Jesus stand next to Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk. The same parents who describe Santa Claus so convincingly also tell their children of Another who knows if they’ve been “naughty or nice.” No wonder many children cast aside the Father and the Son at about the time they give up their belief in the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.
But the Gospel Story is not myth or fairy tale. It is history–as solidly believable as Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus. Look at any calendar. The prefixes Sept-, Oct-, Nov-, and Dec- should designate months 7, 8, 9, and 10, not 9, 10, 11, and 12. Why are they off by two digits? Because in their egotism two powerful men, namely Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus, inserted months to honor themselves, pushing the succeeding months back in the year. The calendar’s misnamed months testify to the two rulers’ historicity.
The same is true with regard to the year on the calendar. Each passing year recalls the blessed moment when “The Word became flesh and pitched a tent among us” (John 1:14). And every stock market report and checkbook entry, every video camera’s electronic brain and every letter’s postmark, whisper in unison, "He actually lived, truly and literally, in real space and time!”
A Partnership With God
June 27, 2007
Hey, God is trying to partner with you! He wants you, to invite Him, into your life. God says: Draw nearer to me; and I will draw nearer to you (James 4:8). However, you’ve chosen to operate as a soul proprietor. God is willing to take all your worries, all your cares and all your problems. In return, He is offering eternal life, a perfect peace, unconditional love and riches in your house. The contract further stipulates that God will always protect and take care of you. It is agreed that the Power belongs to God (Psalms 62:11), but is yours for the asking. God hereby designates that He will provide all your needs and give you joy, unspeakable.
I really don’t think it gets any better than this. I mean, who really succeeds in anything alone? Many of us often wonder: Why can’t I get ahead? Is it possible that we can’t get ahead because we keep leaving God, behind? When we partner with God, we trust, whole-heartedly that He can and will take care of us. We live our lives knowing that God has everything in control. Whereas, when we choose to operate as a soul proprietor, we tell God that we are in control and that He is not invited to be a part of our lives. This illustrates a lack of trust and a lack of knowing. How can we ever be successful under these conditions?
How to Find True Happiness!
June 26, 2007
To maintain an unchangeable sweetness of disposition, to think only thoughts that are pure and gentle, and to be happy under all circumstances, such blessed conditions and such beauty of character and life should be the aim of all, and particularly so of those who wish to lessen the misery of the world. If anyone has failed to lift himself above ungentleness, impurity, and unhappiness, he is greatly deluded if he imagines he can make the world happier by the propagation of any theory or theology. He who is daily living in harshness, impurity, or unhappiness is day by day adding to the sum of the world’s misery; whereas he who continually lives in goodwill, and does not depart from happiness, is day by day increasing the sum of the world’s happiness, and this independently of any religious beliefs which these may or may not hold.
He who has not learned how to be gentle, or giving, loving and happy, has learned very little, great though his book learning and profound his acquaintance which the letter of Scripture may be, for it is in the process of becoming gentle, pure, and happy that the deep, real and enduring lessons of life are learned. Unbroken sweetness of conduct in the face of all outward antagonism is the infallible indication of a self-conquered soul, the witness of wisdom, and the proof of the possession of Truth.
A Call to Action
June 25, 2007
Over the last week I have received dozens of heart-rending and thought-provoking responses to my latest article, and I am thankful for each of them. Personally, I believe the tsunami and its aftermath is the most serious issue now facing humankind. The "war on terror" in Iraq and Afghanistan looks like child’s play in comparison. We need to talk about it and share with one another so that it can continue to shake us-and bring us together. If you have lost a friend or relative, or if you have friends who lost loved ones, I am especially eager to hear from you. The story of each human being, rich or poor, tourist or native, survivor or victim, must concern us.
The question, "What about the dead?" is burning in many of my readers, and probably in millions of people. One woman who wrote said, "The teachings of Christ make it very clear that one must put one’s faith in him to go to the Father in heaven." That may be so. But what about those who do not express faith in Him? Can they still be saved, or will they be condemned?
Game Theory - What Do Game Theory and Improv Theater Have in Common?
June 24, 2007
"Game" Theory
This article was inspired by Mick Napier’s book ?Improvise: scene from the inside out" in which he draws comparisons between Physics and Improvisation. It made me think ? I know a little bit about game theory (I majored in it) and it has the word "game" in it, so chances are it’ll have something in common with improvising, which is really nothing else but playing games. And, not so surprisingly, there are some rather powerful parallels:
? To make everybody look good, you have to have cooperation. You have probably heard of the prisoner’s dilemma. It is about two suspects, who are separated and each asked to confess. If one confesses and the other denies, the first gets off easy, the other gets 10 years. Being a snitch pays off. If both confess they each get 5 years. If both deny just 1. So, obviously the best solution is for both to deny. But if this expected, they will deviate and confess. Actually, it is always better to confess! So if there are no other means of cooperation then both will confess and get 5 years, which is far from the best outcome where both get 1 year. This debunks effectively the notion that individual selfishness maximizes common welfare!
The Tsunami: A Wake-up Call
June 24, 2007
In looking back on the year that has just ended-a year filled with the horrors of war and of natural disasters such as last fall’s hurricanes-one would have to be callous not to mention the earthquake and tsunamis. The devastation seems to get worse every hour as new reports, images, and statistics come in. Yet from the moment it happened the day after Christmas, one felt that in spite of the tremendous destruction that was unleashed, God was and is at work, even if his plan has not yet been revealed to us.
The sheer magnitude of this event cannot be comprehended by the human mind. So let us not get caught up in the number of the dead, the injured, the missing and the homeless. We need to become quiet in order to really take in what has happened; we need to ask ourselves, "What is it that God is saying to the whole world?"
The tsunamis show us that we are not in control of our lives, though God is. Death snatched away rich and poor, tourist and native, with no respect for who they were. There was no time for final goodbyes.
Happiness is Yours for the Taking
June 23, 2007
Happiness. The pursuit of so many. In fact, we are known in America as those who live for “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’
But so many seem without happiness. Why is this? Is happiness truly elusive or do we simply not know how to take hold of it? It is my contention that happiness is yours for the taking. That is, anyone can be happy if the choose to be… and if they know how to get it.
So what does it take to bring us to a state of happiness? Here are a few thoughts to get you on your way:
Do not try to control circumstances.
One of the biggest “happiness busters” I see is in the frustration people experience (and wallow in) because circumstances have gone awry. This is because their mind-set, whether they know it or not, is that they should be somehow able to control circumstances. But let’s get this straight: You can’t! So the first thing you can do to give yourself happiness is to stop trying to control, or taking responsibility for circumstances that are outside of your control! Understand that you can only control yourself.
