1. Enthusiasm, as any manager knows, not only can't be taught, but it also can make up for a lack of other qualities (product knowledge, etc). If you aren't enthusiastic about your pursuits, find another pursuit that you are enthusiastic about. You'll enjoy it more, and be better at it. If it just happens to be your job, even better.

2. Keep this in mind when dealing with powerful people: Nobody can intimidate you unless you allow them to. You have to actually put effort into thinking about your deficiencies, emotional scars, etc., and compare them to that individual's strengths. Don't do it! Instead, even the playing field. Everybody has strengths, weaknesses, and varying personality traits. Focus on your own strengths, on those things about yourself that you are proud of, and you'll never be intimidated again.

3. Keep in mind that the words you use carry powerful connotations, even if you are unaware of them. For example, saying "I hate people that…" is much different than saying "I hate it when people act like this..." The former implies a distaste for the entire person, the latter an anger with individuals' behaviors.

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Some words that I've added to my vocabulary in 2008 that may be of benefit to you in improving your lexicon:

• Vitiate: to spoil or impair the quality or efficiency of.
• Perspicacious: discerning, shrewd, perceptive.
• Perfidy: treachery, deceit, betrayal.
• Potable: safe to drink; drinkable
• Seraph: an angelic being of the highest order
• Torpor: a state of physical or emotional inactivity; lethargy.
• Sentient: capable of feeling; conscious, aware.

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I was headed to my graduate class that I teach and the traffic was particularly heavy. I had avoided taking my usual route, having been informed ahead of time that there was a nasty accident blocking two lanes, and so I was surprised to come across more traffic.

Fifteen minutes and one mile later, I realized the cause of the traffic. There had been another accident, on the other side of the divided, four-lane highway. Once I passed the accident, I was able to resume my regular speed and move along to my class in a timely fashion. I did, however, take time to think about this phenomenon, which is called rubbernecking.

Here's the thing: The accident wasn't even on our side of the highway, and yet, traffic was slowed to a crawl by those drivers who were more interested in viewing the accident than driving their own car. This not only increased the chance of causing an accident on our side of the highway, but it also served no pragmatic purpose, other than to scratch a morbid curiosity itch. Ever happened to you? I'm guessing so, because it's happened to me also. More appropriately, though, rubbernecking occurs in several contexts outside of traffic, and is just as potentially harmful.

How many of us spend most or portions of our lives watching others live theirs? How many of us have secretly delighted at the misfortune of the rich and famous? How many of us discount the worries and life issues of top athletes, simply because of their celebrity?

Rubbernecking may be genetic, I don't know. It is, however, a complete waste of time, since time doesn't stop to allow us to partake in it. When we focus on others' lives, by default we neglect our own. When we spend more energy on watching others' toil, we fail to put that energy into our own fight.

Get my drift?

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