Lost Pages

Travis Bradberry gives six things having the phone with you in a meeting communicates about you:  1. Lack of respect. It says you consider your phone to be more important than the conversation or topic at hand.  2. Lack of attention. It communicates that you are unable to stay focused on one thing at a time. 3. Lack of listening. You are not practicing active listening when you are with your phone. So no one around you feels heard.  4. Lack of power. You are like a modern-day Pavlovian dog who responds to the whims of others through the buzz of your phone.  5. Lack of self-awareness.  You don't understand how ridiculous your behavior looks to other people.  6. Lack of social awareness. You don't understand how your behavior affects those around you. From an article written by Travis Bradberry ( Linkedin Pulse ). Apparently researchers conducted a USA nationwide survey of 554 full-time working professionals earning above $30K and wor...

He is the image of the invisible God I have long been fascinated by the challenge of invisibility. One of the things people say when you discuss with the question of God with them is that there’s no evidence for God. Usually what they mean is that God is not physically obvious to them. God is not something that they can feel and touch so they struggle to accept that he exists.

Barack Obama on the importance of routine: You need to remove from your life the day-to-day problems that absorb most people for meaningful parts of their day… You’ll see I wear only grey or blue suits. I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make. You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia. ( Source : Vanity Fair) This is great advice on how to ensure that we keep our focus on things that matter and reduce the level of stress in our lives. Much of stress in our lives derives from having to make countless small decisions about things that have minimal importance. These things should at best be routine to reduce inefficient use of time.

1. Never sit on work - delegate it as a soon as possible. The later you leave it to delegate to someone else, the more disruption you are causing to the rest of his or her work. 2. Allow a buffer when setting a deadline. Always allow a suffient buffer to give you time to chase the work if it late without throwing you into emergency situation 3. Be specific. Always be quite clear about what you want done and by when. Make it clear that you expect the deadline to be met. 4. Give intermediate deadlines. Intermediate deadlines increase the likelihood of a project being completed on time, It also increases the quality of the finished work. 5. Remind before a deadline. A day or so before an intermediate or final deadline, issue a reminder that you are expecting the work back on the deadline. 6. Follow up immediately. If the person misses the deadline, you must follow up immediately. If they don't hear from you they may think it doesn't matter. 7. Don't...

The debate around global regulation has reached something of crescendo in the last year or so. While the financial crisis again demonstrated the integrated nature of the global economic system and the nations’ dependency on global players to coordinate meaningful action, the outcome of the Copenhagen summit showed the difficulty of delivering global outcomes that are favourable to all. It is therefore timely and welcome that Mattli and Woods have undertaken to edit The Politics of Global Regulation. The editors bring together a range of experts to discuss the political nature of global regulation, centred on a conceptual framework that analyses how changes in global regulation occur and what drives them. The basic thrust of the framework is that global regulation is an outworking of global supply and demand forces for regulation. How these forces interact to reach equilibrium determines on whether the regulatory shift from the status quo benefits vested interests or achieves a wider pu...

For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life —is not from the Father but is from the world . I  recent came across the story of a British woman who died during cosmetic surgery at a clinic in Thailand. The 24-year-old was said to have been undergoing a procedure by an allegedly uncertified surgeon in Bangkok before her death. The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons said, “This tragic case highlights how, if lured by the prospect of what is essentially ‘cheap surgery’, patients can be left vulnerable.”

I am currently working my way through the famous hymn "There is a fountain filled with blood" by William Cowper, as sung to the English tune which has grown on me ever since I learnt it at a local church: There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins; and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. In plain english, the first verse says there is a natural spring filled with blood (not water) that is constantly flowing from the Messiah's veins. Any sinners that are bathed in this blood instantly lose their moral guilty before God, without fail. The fountain never stops flowing. It is so overwhelming that it has become a flood where your whole body can be totally immensed. Once the person is plunged totally beneath this flood all guilty stains are removed.

Who are the greedy? Those who are not satisfied with what suffices for their own needs. Who are the robbers? Those who take for themselves what rightfully belongs to everyone. And you, are you not greedy? Are you not a robber? The things you received in trust as a stewardship, have you not appropriated them for yourself? Is not the person who strips another of clothing called a thief? And those who do not clothe the naked when they have the power to do so, should they not be called the same?  BASIL THE GREAT  (On Social Justice)

In a factory building, there are wheels and gearings, There are cranks, pulleys, belts either tight or slack Some are whirling swiftly, some are turning slowly, Some are thrusting forward, some are pulling back; Some are smooth and silent, some are rough and noisy, Pounding, rattling, clanking, moving with a jerk; In a wild confusion in a seeming chaos, Lifting, pushing, driving but they do their work. From the mightiest lever to the smallest cog or gear, All things move together for the purpose planned; And behind the working is a mind controlling, And a force directing, and a guiding hand. So all things are working for the Lord’s beloved; Some things might be hurtful if alone they stood; Some might seem to hinder; some might draw us backward; But they work together, and they work for good, All the thwarted longings, all the stern denials, All the contradictions, hard to understand. And the force that holds them...

In 1871, Horatio Spafford lived in the Lake View suburb of Chicago. He was a young lawyer with a wife, Anna, and fourlittle girls. In October of that year, the whole center of the city was devastated by fire. No one is certain how the fire started, but it killed hundreds of people and destroyed whole sections of the city. All across town, people were wandering homeless and hungry. The Spaffords were deeply involved in doing what they could to help families in distress. But it was no short- term ministry. Two years later, exhausted from their work, they planned a trip to Europe for rest. But at the last minute, business kept Horatio in town. Anna and the four girls boarded a ship and left the harbor. Late one night during the voyage, another ship rammed the steamer, which sank within twenty minutes. One of only forty- seven who were rescued, Anna was pulled from the water, unconscious and floating on a piece of debris. But the four Spafford girls perished. Anna sent a telegram...