There are over 6,000 languages in the world. Some are more important than others, not better or more advanced, just more important. Why? Because they are spoken by more people, in more countries. That does not mean that Finnish is not important to the Finns, and Maori is not important to the Maoris. It is just that these languages are not so important to the rest of us.

On the other hand, Mandarin Chinese is spoken by over one billion people. Chinese origin words account for 60% of Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese vocabulary. Knowing Chinese will help you learn these languages too. It helped me. Chinese culture has influenced the world for thousands of years with its art, philosophy, technology, food, medicine and performing arts. Today China’s economy is booming. Chinese seems well worth learning.

Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese are essentially dialects of the same language. If you learn one, you can learn the others. I did. If you learn Spanish, you open the door to the culture, music, history and possible business dealings with 800 million people in 60 countries, including the US and Canada.
If you get ambitious you could try Russian, as I have been doing for the last two years. Once you have Russian you can probably communicate with other Slav speakers.

But hold it here! Before getting carried away, let’s look at the present situation of language teaching. According to one Canadian survey, after 12 years of daily French classes, only one high school graduate out of 147 (0.68%) achieved “intermediate” proficiency. Another survey of immigrants learning English in the US showed that “classroom instructional hours” had little impact on progress.

If we cannot teach our own official languages in North America, what hope is there for other languages like Chinese or Spanish, let alone Russian, Arabic or Hindi?

As a speaker of 10 languages I know the benefits of speaking more than one language. We simply have to change the way we go about teaching languages. To start with we need to dispel seven common misconceptions about language learning.
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“Do what you love”. I’m sure you have heard this piece of career advice at some point in your life. After all, it is great advice. If you do what you love for a living you are sure to be happier, healthier and probably even wealthier in the long run.

My question today is: are you doing what you love for a living? If so, what are you doing and how did you get to that place? If not, what is it you would love to do? Please share your story in the comments section below to be in the running to win a copy of the following book.

Book Giveaway

We have 10 copies of Sway by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman to giveaway courtesy of DoubleDay. This book looks at the hidden psychological influences that can derail our decision-making. The authors not only uncover rational explanations for a wide variety of irrational behaviors, they also highlight ways to avoid succumbing to their pull.

If you would like to learn more about the book, you can read the review Amazon reviews here.

The foundation of any relationship, whether it be with a business associate, spouse, parent, client or, friend, is trust. Trust is not something that can be built with quick fix techniques. Rather, it is something that is cultivated through consistent habits in your interactions. The following are twelve patterns of behavior that increase trust in your relationships.

1. Be transparent

Do not try to hide things from others. Refuse to have any hidden agendas. You might think you can pull a fast one on someone else. You can’t. Most people have good intuition and even though they may not be able to consciously determine that you are hiding something, they very likely will have an uneasy feeling around you. If they don`t feel comfortable around you, they won`t be able to trust you.

Another sinister aspect of having hidden agenda is that it erodes your ability to trust others. You will assume that if you aren’t fully forthcoming, other people aren’t either. When you are trustworthy, however, you will see others as more trustworthy too.

2. Be sincere

This is similar to the previous point. Only say what you mean. Be impeccably honest with your words. Refuse to try and craft your words to manipulate others. Don`t give fake compliments, patronize others or say something just because you think you are supposed to. Again, people have good BS detectors. When others know that you only speak genuinely, it increases their capacity to trust you. Everyone loves authenticity.

3. Focus on adding value

In any relationship, always have the best interest of others at heart. Work hard to give as much or more than you get. When you consistently add value to someone`s life, they not only feel like you are on their side, they also have the urge to reciprocate. In business relationships, this means always under-promise and over-deliver. In personal relationships, focusing on meeting the needs of the other person instead of taking in order to get your own needs met.

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Everyone has things they hate to do, but need to do anyway. Sometimes it is doing basic chores that need to be done. In other cases, it’s the boring part of an otherwise interesting project. People who get things finished (as opposed to people who just get things started) have mastered the ability to push through the things they hate doing, to work on the things they love.

Getting over activities you hate means combating a special type of procrastination. Everyone procrastinates. Even on things that they normally enjoy doing. I occasionally procrastinate with writing, even though it is one of my favorite things to do.

While a few minutes or an hour of procrastination for a neutral task happens occasionally, you can procrastinate for years on the jobs you really hate. If there are things on your to-do list that never make it to the top, you probably know which jobs these are.

Stomaching Unappetizing Work

There are a few strategies you can use to make bad tasting tasks a little more pleasant. The first is simply to focus on it. You might have noticed that you chew a lot more when you don’t like the food in your mouth. This is probably an instinctive reaction to force you to carefully examine what you’re going to eat before you swallow.
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