on 18-Jan-2017 (Wed)

The next time you’re given a compliment, the following steps will help you skillfully handle the moment: 1. Stop. 2. Absorb the compliment. Enjoy it if you can. 3. Let that second of absorption show on your face. Show the person that they’ve had an impact. 4. Thank them. Saying “Thank you very much” is enough, but you can take it a step further by thanking them for their thoughtfulness or telling them that they’ve made your day

Clinton is known to make everyone he’s speaking to feel as if they were the most important person in the room. How can you make people feel this way? First, think about how you would behave if you were indeed speaking to the most important person in the room.

One great trick is to imagine that the person you’re speaking with is the main star in a movie you’re watching right now. This will help you find them more interesting, and there’s even a chance that you’ll make them feel like a movie star, too.

Don’t try to impress people. Let them impress you, and they will love you for it. Believe it or not, you don’t need to sound smart. You just need to make them feel smart

Whenever you can, choose to speak in pictures. You’ll have a much greater impact, and your message will be far more memorable.

triage: helping those with the best chances of survival and ignoring the rest.

When you tell someone, “No problem,” “Don’t worry,” or “Don’t hesitate to call,” for example, there’s a chance their brain will remember “problem,” “worry,” or “hesitate” instead of your desire to support them. To counter this negative effect, use phrases like “We’ll take care of it” or “Please feel free to call anytime.”

henever people are asked to expend any of their scarce resources, you can bet that they are (at least subconsciously) measuring the return on their investment. You can deliver value to others in multiple ways: Entertainment: Make your e-mail or meeting enjoyable. Information: Give interesting or informative content that they can use. Good feelings: Find ways to make them feel important or good about themselves.

In fact, aiming to deliver high value for low effort brings together all the points we’ve covered in this section. When you speak or write, use few words and lots of pictures, and strive to make your communications useful, enjoyable, and even entertaining

ncreasing voice fluctuation means making your voice vary in any of the following ways: pitch (high or low), volume (loud or quiet), tone (resonant or hollow), tempo (fast or slow), or rhythm (fluid or staccato)

You can gain great insights into your own voice fluctuation by practicing sentences with a tape recorder. Repeat a sentence several times with as wide a variation in emotions as you can. Try to say it with authority, with anger, with sorrow, with empathetic care and concern, with warmth, and with enthusiasm.

If your goal is to communicate power, set the pitch, tone, volume, and tempo of your voice in the following ways: Pitch and tone: The lower, more resonant, and more baritone your voice, the more impact it will have. Volume: One of the first things an actor learns to do on stage is to project his voice, which means gaining the ability to modulate its volume and aim it in such a targeted way that specific portions of the audience can hear it, even from afar. One classic exercise to hone your projection skills is to imagine that your words are arrows. As you speak, aim them at different groups of listeners. Tempo: A slow, measured tempo with frequent pauses conveys confidence.

The guidelines below will help you broadcast power through your voice. 1. Speak slowly. Visualize the contrast between a nervous, squeaky teenager speaking at high speed and the slow, emphatic tone of a judge delivering a verdict. 2. Pause. People who broadcast confidence often pause while speaking. They will pause for a second or two between sentences or even in the middle of a sentence. This conveys the feeling that they’re so confident in their power, they trust that people won’t interrupt. 3. Drop intonation. You know how a voice rises at the end of a question? Just reread the last sentence and hear your voice go up at the end. Now imagine an assertion: a judge saying “This case is closed.” Feel how the intonation of the word closed drops. Lowering the intonation of your voice at the end of a sentence broadcasts power. When you want to sound superconfident, you can even lower your intonation midsentence. 4. Check your breathing. Make sure you’re breathing deeply into your belly and inhale and exhale through your nose rather than your mouth. Breathing through your mouth can make you sound breathless and anxious.

There’s only one thing you need to do in order to project more warmth in your voice: smile.

What about cases in which you don’t necessarily want to smile? The good news is that you don’t need to actually smile: often, just thinking about smiling is enough to give your voice more warmth

here’s an effective visual to simultaneously convey power and warmth. Imagine that you’re a preacher exhorting your congregation. Think of the rich, rolling, resonant voice of a preacher; he cares about his people (warmth), and, in addition, he feels he has the might of God behind him (power, authority, confidence)

The posterior distribution also shows the uncertainty in that estimated slope, because the distribution shows the relative credibility of values across the continuum.

One way to summarize the uncertainty is by marking the span of values that are most credible and cover 95% of the distribution. This is called the highest density inter val (HDI) and is marked by the black bar on the floor of the distribution in Figure 2.5.

There is no single, unique way to ascertain whether the model predictions systematically and meaningfully deviate from the data, because there are innumerable ways in which to define systematic deviation.

One situation in which it might appear that parameterized models are not used is with so-called nonparametric models. But these models are confusingly named because they actually do have parameters; in fact they have a potentially infinite number of parameters

One case of trying to make inferences from data without using a model is a method from NHST called resampling or bootstrapping. These methods compute p values to make decisions, and p values have fundamental logical problems that will be discussed in Chapter 11. These methods also have very limited ability to express degrees of certainty about characteristics of the data, whereas Bayesian methods put expression of uncertainty front and center

This article should help you plan your learning and better understand your lifetime capacity for learning new things. Most of the figures and formulas have been theoretically derived. However, over the last ten years, these theoretical constructs have been confirmed many times by exact measurements taken during an actual learning process

Exhibit 13 shows an example of how total, average, and marginal costs are derived. Total costs are calculated by summing total fixed cost and total variable cost. Marginal cost is derived by taking the change in total costs as the quantity variable changes. Exhibit 14 graphically displays the data for total costs, total variable cost, and total fixed cost from the table in Exhibit 13.

Exhibit 13. Total, Average, Marginal, Fixed, and Variable Costs

Quantity (Q)	Total Fixed Costa(TFC)	Average Fixed Cost (AFC)	Total Variable Cost (TVC)	Average Variable Cost (AVC)	Total Costs (TC)	Average Total Cost (ATC)	Marginal Cost (MC)
0	100	—	0	—	100	—	—
1	100	100.0	50	50.0	150	150.0	50
2	100	50.0	75	37.5	175	87.5	25
3	100	33.3	125	41.7	225	75.0	50
4	100	25.0	210	52.5	310	77.5	85
5	100	20.0	300	60.0	400	80.0	90
6	100	16.7	450	75.0	550	91.7	150
7	100	14.3	650	92.9	750	107.1	200
8	100	12.5	900	112.5	1,000	125.0	250
9	100	11.1	1,200	133.3	1,300	144.4	300
10	100	10.0	1,550	155.0	1,650	165.0	350

^a Includes all opportunity costs.

The rate of increase in total costs declines up to a certain output level and, thereafter, accelerates as the firm gets closer to full utilization of capacity.

The rate of change in total costs mirrors the rate of change in total variable cost.

In Exhibit 13, TC at 5 units is 400—of which 300 is variable cost and 100 is fixed cost. At 10 units, total costs are 1,650, which is the sum of 1,550 in variable cost and 100 in fixed cost.

Quasi-fixed cost examples would be certain utilities and administrative salaries that could be avoided or be lower when output is zero but would assume higher constant values over different production ranges. Normal profit is considered to be a fixed cost because it is a return required by investors on their equity capital regardless of output level. At zero output, total costs are always equal to the amount of total fixed cost that is incurred at this production point. In Exhibit 13, total fixed cost remains at 100 throughout the entire production range.

Other fixed costs evolve primarily from investments in such fixed assets as real estate, production facilities, and equipment. As a firm grows in size, fixed asset expansion occurs along with a related increase in fixed cost. However, fixed cost cannot be arbitrarily cut when production declines. Regardless of the volume of output, an investment in a given level of fixed assets locks the firm into a certain amount of fixed cost that is used to finance the physical capital base, technology, and other capital assets. When a firm downsizes, the last expense to be cut is usually fixed cost.

Total fixed cost (TFC) can be a sunk or unavoidable cost that a firm has to cover whether it produces anything or not, or it can be a cost that stays the same over a range of production but can change to another constant level when production moves outside of that range.

Total fixed cost (TFC) can be a cost that stays the same over a range of production but can change to another constant level when production moves outside of that range.

A quasi-fixed cost is a cost that stays the same over a range of production but can change to another constant level when production moves outside of that range.

Quasi-fixed cost examples would be certain utilities and administrative salaries that could be avoided or be lower when output is zero but would assume higher constant values over different production ranges. Normal profit is considered to be a fixed cost because it is a return required by investors on their equity capital regardless of output level. At zero output, total costs are always equal to the amount of total fixed cost that is incurred at this production point. In Exhibit 13, total fixed cost remains at 100 throughout the entire production range.

Other fixed costs evolve primarily from investments in such fixed assets as real estate, production facilities, and equipment. As a firm grows in size, fixed asset expansion occurs along with a related increase in fixed cost. However, fixed cost cannot be arbitrarily cut when production declines. Regardless of the volume of output, an investment in a given level of fixed assets locks the firm into a certain amount of fixed cost that is used to finance the physical capital base, technology, and other capital assets. When a firm downsizes, the last expense to be cut is usually fixed cost.

Normal profit is considered to be a fixed cost because it is a return required by investors on their equity capital regardless of output level. At zero output, total costs are always equal to the amount of total fixed cost that is incurred at this production point. In Exhibit 13, total fixed cost remains at 100 throughout the entire production range.

Regardless of the volume of output, an investment in a given level of fixed assets locks the firm into a certain amount of fixed cost that is used to finance the physical capital base, technology, and other capital assets. When a firm downsizes, the last expense to be cut is usually fixed cost.

Regardless of the volume of output, an investment in a given level of fixed assets locks the firm into a certain amount of fixed cost that is used to finance the physical capital base, technology, and other capital assets.

When a firm downsizes, the last expense to be cut is usually fixed cost.

Total variable cost (TVC), which is the summation of all variable expenses, has a direct relationship with quantity. When quantity increases, total variable cost increases; total variable cost declines when quantity decreases. At zero production, total variable cost is always zero. Variable cost examples are payments for labor, raw materials, and supplies. As indicated above, total costs mirror total variable cost, with the difference being a constant fixed cost. The change in total variable cost (which defines marginal cost) declines up to a certain output point and then increases as production approaches capacity limits. In Exhibit 13, total variable cost increases with an increase in quantity. However, the change from 1 to 2 units is 25, calculated as (75 – 50); the change from 9 to 10 units is 350, calculated as (1,550 – 1,200).

Another approach to calculating total variable cost is to determine the variable cost per unit of output and multiply this cost figure by the number of production units. Per unit variable cost is the cost of producing each unit exclusive of any fixed cost allocation to production units. One can assign variable cost individually to units or derive an average variable cost per unit.

Whenever a firm initiates a downsizing, retrenchment, or defensive strategy, variable cost is the first to be considered for reduction given its variability with output. However, variable cost is reducible only so far because all firms have to maintain a minimum amount of labor and other variable resources to function effectively.

Total variable cost (TVC), which is the summation of all variable expenses, has a direct relationship with quantity. When quantity increases, total variable cost increases; total variable cost declines when quantity decreases. At zero production, total variable cost is always zero. Variable cost examples are payments for labor, raw materials, and supplies. As indicated above, total costs mirror total variable cost, with the difference being a constant fixed cost. The change in total variable cost (which defines marginal cost) declines up to a certain output point and then increases as production approaches capacity limits. In Exhibit 13, total variable cost increases with an increase in quantity. However, the change from 1 to 2 units is 25, calculated as (75 – 50); the change from 9 to 10 units is 350, calculated as (1,550 – 1,200).

Total variable cost (TVC), which is the summation of all variable expenses, has a direct relationship with quantity.

When quantity increases, total variable cost increases; total variable cost declines when quantity decreases.

Variable cost examples are payments for labor, raw materials, and supplies.

Total costs mirror total variable cost, with the difference being a constant fixed cost.

The change in total variable cost (which defines marginal cost) declines up to a certain output point and then increases as production approaches capacity limits.

Another approach to calculating total variable cost is to determine the variable cost per unit of output and multiply this cost figure by the number of production units. Per unit variable cost is the cost of producing each unit exclusive of any fixed cost allocation to production units. One can assign variable cost individually to units or derive an average variable cost per unit.

Per unit variable cost is the cost of producing each unit exclusive of any fixed cost allocation to production units.

One can assign variable cost individually to units or derive an average variable cost per unit.

Whenever a firm initiates a downsizing, retrenchment, or defensive strategy, variable cost is the first to be considered for reduction given its variability with output. However, variable cost is reducible only so far because all firms have to maintain a minimum amount of labor and other variable resources to function effectively.