11 Worst Body Language Mistakes Professionals make

Language determines how people perceive you.

Excellent nonverbal communication skills tell your audience that you're confident, energetic, engaged, and honest, says Tonya Reiman, author of "The Power of Body Language.”

Someone with poor nonverbal skills, however, may give off an impression of low self-esteem and a lack of interest, she says. “Is this 100% fair? Not necessarily. But it is how humans are programmed.”

When dealing with the business world, it’s especially important that you’re aware of your body language. Your nonverbal cues and gestures can make or break relationships, and may have a significant impact on your success.

Here are 11 common body language mistakes employees make:

Poor posture. How we feel affects how we stand. In order to be perceived as confident, you must stand tall, with your neck elongated, ears and shoulders aligned, chest slightly protruding, and legs slightly apart, distributing weight evenly, Reiman says. “This does several things. It changes the chemicals in our brain to make us feel stronger and more confident, and it gives the outward appearance of credibility, strength, and vitality.”

People often slump their shoulders either due to bad backs, fatigue, lack of confidence, or general disregard. “This will give others the impression of insecurity, laziness, and a general sense of unhappiness.”

Not being in sync. When we like someone, we naturally match and mirror their voice, tone, tempo, body posture, and movements, says Patti Wood, a body language expert and author of “SNAP: Making the Most of First Impressions Body Language and Charisma.” “If you were to watch the conversation on a video, it might look like you’re dancing with the other person. If you don’t ‘dance’ with your teammates it can make you look you're not interested in what they are saying, you are not a good team player, or, in the extreme cases, that you are lying.” 

Fidgeting and “big” hand movements. In business, small gestures tend to demonstrate the biggest points. “It is rare to see the alpha of the group wildly flailing about,” Reiman says. “Powerful business people tend to use smaller, more subtle hand gestures to demonstrate their point with authority.”

However, so many people in the workplace today make big hand gestures or fidget with their hands, phone, or hair. “This demonstrates weakness and a lack of confidence.”

Giving no physical feedback or facial expression. A big mistake a lot of employees make that can be detrimental to their success: They show no empathy or interest in what their colleagues are saying. “We often express interest through raised eyebrows, smiles, head nods, vocal utterances (like ‘uh-huh’), and leaning forward,” Wood says. “If you don’t give feedback physically, people think you don’t care, that you’re stuck up, and host of other negative attributes.”

No eye contact. "Cultural respective eye contact is one of the main components of nonverbal communication," Reiman explains. The ability to gaze at another while speaking denotes authority, confidence, and presence. “Studies suggest that holding eye contact while speaking has an enormous impact on your ability to persuade. Lack of eye contact often implies deception,” she says. When breaking eye contact, it is better to break off to the left or to the right, as looking down suggests insecurity.

Bad handshake. Ideally, your handshake should be firm, but not overbearing. “The secret to a great handshake is palm-to-palm contact,” Wood says. You want to slide your hand down into the web of theirs, and make palm-to-palm contact. Lock thumbs, and apply an equal amount of pressure. 

Mismatching verbal and nonverbal messages. Making facial expressions that appear to show the opposite emotional reaction to what you are saying is another common mistake, Wood says. For example: You say, “that sounds great” in a monotone voice, while you cross your arms and roll your eyes. “I believe this is the worst mistake any communicator can make,” she says. “Some people do it as a passive aggressive way of getting their message across.”

Failing to smile. “The smile is accompanied by increased activity in the left pre-frontal cortex — the seat of positive emotions,” Reiman says. Smiling demonstrates confidence, openness, warmth, and energy. It also sets off the mirror neurons in your listener instructing them to smile back, she says. Without the smile, an individual is often seen as grim or aloof. 

“Of course, worse than the ‘non-smiler’ is the ‘permagrinner,’ who smiles too often and is perceived as insincere and misleading,” Reiman adds.

Eye rolling. Eye rolling is a sign of contempt, frustration, exasperation, and aggression, Reiman says. "While for some it's a habit, it is a completely conscious act that can be avoided with self-awareness." Eye rolling signals to your listener that you don’t appreciate or respect them or what they are saying. "This is such a strong signal that researchers have proven that rolling your eyes after a spouse has spoken is a strong predictor of divorce," she says.

Keeping a cell phone out. Employees sometimes place their cell phone between themselves and the person they’re speaking to. “It says, symbolically, that this object is more important than they are, and that the phone is what you’d prefer to interact with.”

Crossing their arms defensively. Look around in a meeting and you’ll likely notice a few colleagues crossing their arms. “You should always keep your hands in view when you are talking,” Wood explains. “When a listener can’t see your hands, they wonder what you are hiding.” To look honest and credible, show your hands.

A Norwegian Town's Dark Days...sun behind hills for 6 months!!

Yearning for sunlight has been a part of life in this quaint old factory town in central Norway for as long as anyone can remember. Here, the sun disappears behind a mountain for six months of the year.

It is worse for newcomers, of course, like Martin Andersen, a conceptual artist who arrived here 12 years ago and would find himself walking and walking, searching for any last puddle of sunshine to stand in. It was on one of these walks that he had the idea of slapping some huge mirrors up against the mountain to the north of town and bouncing some rays down on Rjukan.

The town eventually agreed to try, and last fall, three solar- and wind-powered mirrors that move in concert with the sun started training a beam of sunlight into the town square. Thousands of people turned out for the opening event, wearing sunglasses and dragging out their beach chairs. And afterward, many residents say, life changed.

The town became more social. Leaving church on Sundays, people would linger in the square, talking, laughing and drinking in the sun, trying not to look up directly into the mountain mirrors. On a recent morning, Anette Oien had taken a seat on newly installed benches in the square, her eyes closed, her face turned up. She was waiting for her partner to run an errand, and sitting in the light seemed much nicer than sitting in a car. “It’s been a great contribution to life here,” she said.

But the sun, pale and weak, did not last long. In fact, during the almost three months from Dec. 25 to March 15, the skies were so cloudy that the mirrors produced just 17 hours of sunlight on the square, bolstering the arguments of those who call the project a waste of money.

Most days, in fact, the square just looks like the parking lot it once was. A bone-chilling wind sweeps through it, and there is often the sting of swirling sand that was once put down on snowy roads, but which now drifts over the dreary blacktop.

There has been so little sunlight, in fact, that the solar mechanisms that power the mirror stopped working and the beam disappeared completely for a while. A generator and fuel had to be hauled up the mountain by snowmobile to get things going again.

But most residents do not seem to dwell on such setbacks. Certainly, the mayor, Steinar Bergsland, is not much concerned. Refusing to accept life in the shadows, he said, has brought all kinds of attention to Rjukan, a town built by an industrialist who opened the world’s first large-scale fertilizer plant here between 1905 and 1916.

In the decades that followed, the industrialist, Samuel Eyde, known here as Uncle Sam, built just about everything that stands in Rjukan today. Managers got the houses with the most sunlight. Workers got apartments deeper in the valley. But all the housing was cutting edge for its day. There was indoor plumbing for everyone.

Mr. Eyde understood the yearning for sun, too. Back in 1913, one of his bookkeepers wrote to the local paper suggesting that a giant mirror might work. But instead, Mr. Eyde, who settled here because a waterfall nearby provided an easy means of generating electricity, built a cable car so his employees could go up the mountain to get some sunshine in the winter. The cable car still exists.

But the mirror enthusiasts wanted more. “We were a high-tech town 100 years ago,” Mr. Bergsland said, “and now we are using high tech to get some sun into our valley.

“Of course there were people here who said this is crazy,” he continued, “but a lot of people really liked the idea.”

And tourists have begun to trickle in, including from Oslo, about a three-hour drive away. Many of the businesses here report an uptick in income. If Rjukan becomes one of Unesco’s World Heritage sites next year, as it hopes, that should help, too.

And tourists have begun to trickle in, including from Oslo, about a three-hour drive away. Many of the businesses here report an uptick in income. If Rjukan becomes one of Unesco’s World Heritage sites next year, as it hopes, that should help,                                                           too.

Still, not everyone has embraced the mirrors. In this town of about 6,000 people, some 1,300 signed a petition to block the project. Some opponents, like Robert Jenbergsen, who is studying to become a teacher, have changed their minds. “I thought it would be a waste because we have a lot of bad weather here,” he said. “But when we got the sun, you could see the happiness it brought. We had never seen anything like that before. So, now I think it is great.”

Others, however, have not been impressed. Annar Torresvold, 77, and his wife, Anne-Lise Odegaard, 70, still think that the 5 million kroner, or roughly $840,000, spent on the mirrors might have been better spent elsewhere. They worry about a possible closing of the hospital, the quality of the schools and health care for seniors.

When they want sunshine, they drive to the next town. Or up the mountain to the ski resorts.

“It’s a very costly little spot of sun,” said Mr. Torresvold, who moved to Rjukan after he retired from working in a paper producing plant. “It was very clear what common people thought, and they thought it was a waste of money.”

And Mr. Torresvold thinks the town will end up spending more to keep the mirrors working. “I can’t see this having a long-term effect on things here,” he said. “It’s just a flash in the pan.”

It took nearly a decade for the mirrors to go up. Mr. Andersen began the project, researching the technical aspects and drawing up projects that included rounded mirrors. But once he assured town officials that it could be done, they turned it over to engineers.

Eventually, the mirrors, each measuring 17 square meters, or about 183 square feet, were flown in by helicopter and installed 450 meters, or about 492 yards, above the town square, where their movements are controlled by computers.

These days Rjukan is focused on fixing up the town square. Perhaps a fountain is needed. “You can’t just have a sun mirror shining on a parking lot,” said Mr. Bergsland, the mayor.

Mr. Andersen, who has generally made a living off odd jobs (he is currently a lifeguard at the municipal pool) grumbles a bit that the mirrors are square and that little was done to make the site aesthetically pleasing if someone were to walk into the area on the mountain, as he would have done.

For his next project, he would like to paint a Jules Verne quote — “Look with all your eyes, look!” — in giant letters across the road leading into town. Mr. Verne once visited Rjukan in 1861, Mr. Andersen said. But he is not optimistic.

“It is a simple project, cheap,” he said, sounding a bit annoyed. “But the town has already turned me down. They would not consider it.”

In India... If u Want your rights? Repeal the laws

India’s obsession with passing new laws to get rights really annoys me. Is it really tough to understand that we as humans already have rights? We don’t need state’s approval to have food or education. We don’t need a new law to practice our rights as long as we’re not hurting some other person’s rights. If I want to get educated or get food without hurting some other person’s rights, I can just go ahead and do it! Every time a new law is enacted, it is projected as if it is giving Indians some new “right to food” or “right to education” or “right to sell stuff on streets”. However, in reality it only takes away the rights of others in some manner. Let me discuss two recent laws which annoy me the most.

1.   “Right to Food Act”

Really? Do you see the name used to popularize the act among people? It is actually named “National Food Security Act, 2013”. In reality, neither does this bill give you a “right to food” nor does it “secure food for the nation”. If we read the bill we will see clearly that it subsidizes food for 75% of rural and 50% of urban population. Who comprises that is left for the government to decide. Nevertheless, let us remind ourselves that government does not have any money of its own which it uses to subsidize things. It acquires most of its funds through indirect taxes. Indirect taxes suck up a higher percentage of an economically poorer person’s income when compared to an economically richer person. So in short, this law taxes the poorer and subsidizes the food for the richer. It is increasing the income disparity among the rich and poor under the pretext of the famous “reducing the gap between rich and poor”. Also, the cost at which rice, wheat and millet is being promised under the act is far less than the actual market cost of these foods. So, producing these costs more than what selling them costs and the whole country is bearing the loss. Oh! And do not say its subsidized, coz as mentioned above; you now know how subsidy works. With proposed reforms in the Public Distribution System (PDS) and formation of the State Food Commissions to ensure that the act is implemented, the cost of implementation of this act on paper is estimated to be $22 Billion (1.25 lac crore rupees). Well, that’s what is ‘on paper’. We all know how things work in India. There is one system which is intended to be and then there is another which actually is.

2.  “Right to Education Act”

“Yay! So now we have a ‘right’ to education.” Period! This act is actually named “The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act”. Firstly, what can be ‘free’ and ‘compulsory’? By ‘free’ it surely does not mean that children are free to opt or not opt for it, it means without money. If you continue to believe in the word ‘free’ education, ‘free’ health care etc. after reading above how subsidies work in India, please spare me and do not read this article any further. The education under this act is not only ‘subsidized’ but also ‘compulsory’! So you might be put behind bars if you opt out of it! You have to get your children educated. This reminds me of a case I heard from a friend where a Russian who was detained by the Soviet Union was released years later when he grew old and the reason for his release was that he no longer can work and contribute to the country so he is no more the property of Soviet Union. I see the same principle applied here. So, people are the property of the state? A state who can force compulsory education on them on the pretext that they cannot decide what is good for them. We all know a government is not made of some super intelligent experienced people who have all the good intentions to work for people. They’re rather people like you and me who desire a living and have a family to feed. The only difference being that those men are power hungry. And does that make them eligible enough so that they can leave no room for choice by poor people and impose what they feel is right? As far as child labor is concerned, it is worthy to note how child labor came to an end in America. It is a flawed analogy that if we force children to go to school, they won’t be able to work and thus we reduce child labor. Rather, children who have to work will anyways work, now, in poorer conditions in hiding with threat to their and their parent’s lives and with bribing for survival. Conditions for them are now worse! Well, that was my rant over just the title of the bill. Now let’s look within. The act makes it mandatory for the private schools to reserve 25% seats for ‘disadvantaged’ children. Although constitutionality of this clause is being debated in the Supreme Court but I have little faith on it being removed as the Solicitor General and the Additional Solicitor general argue in favor of this clause saying that this is in line with the basic structure of the socialist scheme of the constitution. When lawyers advocate socialism in courts, how much of individual freedom can we expect from the system? I don’t understand how lawyers employed by the government are expected to fight for justice even though it maybe against the government. Will you fight a case against your employer? Or, if you want to, will you continue to be in employment? Isn’t this simple logic? Anyway, why is 25% reservation is private schools a problem? They have such high fee after all! For people who don’t know, in India you can’t run a school or a College ‘for profit’. At least, legally! Also of course if a class which had 100 students paying for the education, now has only 75 students paying with rest 25 free loader students. So who do you think is going to pay for those 25 kids’ education? Charity is good but is it moral enough to mandate charity on people even if they don’t wish to do it? Let me make one more thing really very clear here and now. Since I’m against forcing people paying for some unknown kids’ education, it does not mean that I want those kids to remain uneducated for life. Please see the difference here, I only mean that this is not the right way to get them education. Most people who are ‘for’ such education welfare schemes are actually ‘for’ it because they think the poorer children should also have an opportunity to get educated. I too think so. But the “Right to Education” Bill closes other doors of such opportunity for these kids. When I say “private school”, most people imagine the big expensive private schools with huge fields and classrooms equipped with the most modern technologies. Very few would know that there are “small budget private schools” in our country and under our “right to education” laws these schools are illegal. These schools are illegal because they cannot meet the standards which a private school should have under government laws. So, our fantastic education laws first prohibit small budget schools from operating, then mandate big expensive private schools to have 25% reservation or the poorer kids. Not only that, most poorer kids who want to get educated can avail education only in the Government schools of their locality which might be having the standard playing grounds, numbers of tables and chairs but definitely not so good teachers, in fact, let me say that clearly, bad teachers. What I don’t get is people’s obsession with passing new laws. New laws are not the solution. Repealing the old ones is. If you want a right, see what is prohibiting it and just get rid of it. I think almost every Bollywood fan would have hummed this song from Rockstar but did you ever actually get into the ] lyrics where it says:

“Marzi se jeene ki bhi main
Kya tum sabko arzi dun
Matab ki tum sabka mujhpe
Mujhse bhi zada haq hai”

Come on people, you can’t deny the fact that you own yourselves coz you do and you know it. As long as you are peacefully living your life, no one has the right to decide things for you and similarly you do not have the right to decide things for others. As far as making mistakes in life is concerned, everyone does that. When you or I make a wrong decision if affects our lives. But when a politician or a policy makes a wrong decision and imposes it on others, it ruins many lives. People in the government are like you and me and they too make mistakes. It’d be smarter to let individuals take decisions for themselves and make mistakes which affect them rather than trying to protect them and giving power to one person (who we call representative) to make mistake on all of us’ behalf. Remember your teenage and remind yourselves.

“There is no freedom if you do not have the freedom to make mistakes.”

the Pre election effects on Indian market

Since early February, the BSE Sensex has risen by more than 11 per cent level, taking an already inflated index to record highs. The Bombay Stock Exchange that experienced one rally between August-end last year and January-end this year (which delivered a 19 per cent rise in the Sensex), has witnessed another bull run (Chart 1). Given the nature of this market, it does not taken rocket science to establish that the surge in the index is because of a spike in investor demand for the limited amount of actively traded stocks.

If financial investors are seen as even vaguely rational, this would be surprising. Rising equity values imply that investors are expecting the returns from the underlying assets to rise sharply. But all other indicators point to flagging demand, a deceleration in growth and a profit squeeze. Once again, with a vengeance, the stock market seems to be daring the real economy to go against its predictions and take a turn for the worse from its already sagging levels.

As is normal, in search of explanations for these contrary trends in the “markets”, on the one hand, and the real economy, on the other, analysts have been grabbing at straws. The weakest of them is the argument that expectations that a stable government with a business friendly Prime Minister will be delivered by the elections in April and May, is driving investors to grab stocks of firms that would profit from the coming boom.

Underlying even this explanation is the presumption that the bull run the market is experiencing is driven by speculation. Speculation about the outcome of the election. Speculation about the nature of the next government. And speculation that when that government does what it is expected to do, profits would rise enough to warrant the high valuations. Despite these extremely tenuous grounds, the explanation of why the ‘market’ is behaving as it is implicitly justifies its irrational exuberance.

There are many reasons why the final outcome, let alone the sequence of events leading up to it, may not coincide with expectations. To start with, though the psephologists are near unanimous in predicting a one-sided result, the election outcome may be more divided, throwing up another government that cannot wantonly reward Indian business as markets expect it to do. Second, even if a government with a comfortable majority is formed, the task of addressing the current stagflationary tendencies in the economy is unlikely to prove easy. Pushing growth with government spending and transfers to the private sector could aggravate inflation. On the other hand, attempts to rein in inflation may dampen growth further. Finally, there is no evidence that any government that is likely to come to power will deviate from the UPA’s neoliberal economic agenda, which does seem to have generated the current growth slow down and the associated cost-push inflation. So reversing the downturn would require more than just ‘any’ change in government.

If expectations are belied, a collapse of the current bubble is inevitable. As noted earlier, the current spike in markets began from index levels that were already high, which is why it took just a few days for the index to cross its previous record high. Clearly there are many investors rushing into the market believing that the boom would last long enough for the to book profits. That could prove true for some time. But, when the euphoria is shown to be what it is, the market can experience a sudden and sharp downturn as it has often in the past.

What then is the real cause for the current irrational rally. One is that India is a beneficiary of a continuing search for speculative profits on the part of international finance. In the month of March 2014, for example, net FII inflows totalled more than Rs.20,000 crore, which was close to the Rs.22,168 crore in May 2013, and well above the previous peak of Rs.15,706 crore in October 2013. But it was clearly not just FIIs who were rushing into the market, and driving the index. The band of domestic investors too included a fair share of speculators. The herd instinct keeps them all going.

However, there is one difference between the current trend and what was witnessed during much of the period when “Quantitative easing” in the US and elsewhere was injecting large volumes of cheap liquidity into internal markets. During those years, most emerging markets (barring those with special problems) were recipients of cross-border capital flows and experienced buoyancy in their equity markets. This time around, with the Federal Reserve’s decision to taper its easy money policy having reduced liquidity injection and threatening to raise interest rates, investors seem more selective. In Asia, Thailand and South Korea (besides India) are experiencing buoyancy in markets (Chart 2), whereas Malaysia is not. Elsewhere, the US S&P 500 has gained more than 25 per cent since December, whereas Brazil’s Bovespa and Russia’s Micex have experienced large losses. With less liquidity around investors are targeting particular countries, but can shift attention on the flimsiest grounds. That makes the speculative bubble fragile.

It needs noting that gains in India’s markets have been significantly larger than in other “successful” emerging markets. This may not be unrelated to the elections. Not because the hope of a stable government the election holds enthuses investors. Rather, funds for financing elections could indeed be transferred to some recipients through purchases of shares at inflated prices. It could be possible that “illicit” money being brought back to the country to fund election expenses is being routed through the market. There is no evidence or proof of this. But if true, it imparts some rationality to market behaviour. 

Now the banking goes social with Kotak Jifi. sign up using facebook

                                        

Kotak Mahindra Bank has launched Jifi, a fully-integrated social bank account with youth as the target segment. Jifi transcends digital banking by seamlessly incorporating social networking platforms such as Twitter and Facebook with mainstream banking, the bank said.

Jifi is a zero-interest current account with no minimum balance conditions, and can be opened with an initial payment of Rs 5,000. All balances over Rs 25,000 automatically move into term deposits at applicable interest rates.

top 5 ways for balancing your career and your relationship.

No one ever said managing a career was easy. Throw a relationship into the mix and you've got career suicide, right? Wrong. While we'd all love to forgo a day of work in exchange for a fun-filled day with our significant other, having a strong relationship doesn't mean your occupational goals have to suffer. It's quite the opposite!

The different flavors of KISS

 Ah, kissing! Who doesn't love to kiss? The feel of someone else's lips on your mouth, your neck, your ear… A kiss can be dirty, interrogative, or chaste; it can be placed anywhere on your body; it can last for less than a second or several hundred seconds. Kissing is one of the most universal acts of love—almost everyone does it at some point .But you would not be knowing about the various flavors of kiss that one can do.