Some of the rules of Englishness do not require years of participant observation research to discover. The privacy rules, for example, are so obvious that you could spot them from a helicopter, without even setting foot in the country. Hover above any English town for a few minutes, and you will see that the residential areas consist almost entirely of rows and rows of small boxes, each with its tiny patch of green. In some parts of the country, the boxes will be a greyish colour; in others, a sort of reddish-brown. In more affluent areas, the boxes will be spaced further apart, and the patches of green attached to them will be larger. But the principle will be clear: the English all want to live in their own private little box with their own private little green bit.

For a conversation to be stimulating and sustained, the participants must be active talkers as well as active listeners. Be sure to do both in conversation. Make a point of throwing the conversational ball to the other person after you have presented your ideas in an abridged form. Some people feel (that) they have to give long-winded explanations of their views. This is usually unnecessary, confusing, and even boring to your partner. It's better to paint the big picture first, and if your partner wants to know more, you can always fill in with details. Keep your comments and questions focused on big ideas rather than extraneous details, and you'll keep to the point. (In) This way you won't confuse or bore your listener.

Most people don't realize it, but one of the strongest predictors of how much you like something - or someone - is simply familiarity. People just naturally like things that they have seen before. This kind of process is largely unconscious, so you don't have to be aware of the fact that you've seen something before in order to like it more. For instance, in one study researchers varied the number of times a particular student attended different lecture courses as a visitor. At the end of the semester, the students in the different classes were shown a picture of the visitor and were asked how likable the person seemed. The students rated her as significantly more likable when she had attended their class only five or fewer times - even though none of the students consciously recalled ever having seen her in class.

Brands can be associated with positive emotions such as love, joy, pride, and elation as well as with negative emotions such as guilt, hate, fear, anxiety, anger, sadness, shame and greed. These emotions can be recalled to play a central role in the decision process, particularly when consumers perceive them as relevant to the offering. This affective processing is frequently experience-based. In other words, consumers select an option based on their recall of past experiences and the associated feelings. When consumers choose among brands in memory, they must work harder to process information, so their feelings carry considerable weight. In contrast, when they choose among brands based on information in ads or other external stimuli, they can focus more on the offering's attributes and (they can focus) less on their feelings.

Business journals often say that the higher your job title, the less real work you do; your primary function is to get work done by other people. You might think, then, that the higher the position, the better the people skills. It appears that the opposite is true. Too many leadersare promoted because of what they know or how long they have worked, rather than for their skill in managing others. Once they reach the top, they actually spend less time interacting with staff. Yet among executives, those with the highest emotional intelligence scores are the best performers. We've found that emotional intelligence skills are more important to job performance than any other leadership skill. The same holds true for every job title: those with the highest emotional intelligence scores within any position outperform their peers.

One day, while attending a Mass at the Cathedral of Pisa, Galileo noticed a chandelier swaying overhead, moving to and fro like a pendulum. Air currents kept jostling it, and Galileo observed that it always took the same time to complete its swing whether it traversed a wide arc or a small one. That surprised him. How could a big swing and a little swing take the same amount of time? But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. When the chandelier made a big swing, it traveled farther but it also moved faster. Maybe the two effects balanced out. To test this idea, Galileo timed the swinging chandelier with his pulse. Sure enough, every swing lasted the same number of heartbeats.

Everyone was a critic in Florence in 1504. After young Michelangelo unveiled his latest statue of ― Biblical hero David ― local artists complained that there were flaws: the right hand was a touch too big, the neck was a little long, the left shin was oversized, and something about the left buttock was not quite right. Piero Soderini, head of the powerful Florentine Republic, informed Michelangelo that David's nose was too large. The irascible artist nodded and climbed back up his ladder with marble dust hidden in his hand. He then appeared to chisel on the offending proboscis. However, in reality, he was simply letting the dust fall to the ground. Soderini examined the unchanged nose and announced it was much improved and far more life-like.

Health and physical activities were traditionally extremely important in Native American life. Survival itself depended on the ability to be mobile, vigorous, and strong, and running had numerous traditional purposes among the varied tribes of North and South America. Communication was one of the most important (purposes). Runners, sometimes as part of relay systems, carried messages quickly between communities. Running was also an important element of war, trade, and hunting. In some places the activity has long been incorporated into ceremonies and cultural events. For example, each year the Jicarilla Apache people of New Mexico reenact a ceremonial race that, according to traditional belief, occurred long ago between the sun and the moon. Sun and Moon had raced to establish appropriate seasons for all the different kinds of plant and animal foods.