Continual Vigilance

We all know a Weasel. You know, that person that threatens to take down your organization by using every sleazy tactic in the book to advance their careers regardless of how it effects others. Warriors, Workers, Whiners, and Weasels: The 4 Personality Types in Business and How to Manage Them to Your Advantage by entrepreneur Tim O’Leary takes a refreshing look at the different personalities we encounter and how to handle them.

The premise of the book is that essentially everyone fits into one of four personality groups - Warrior, Worker, Whiner, or Weasel. O’Leary defines each as the following:

Warriors, who confront change, see possibilities, innovate and manage to win!

Workers, who deal with the ups, downs and challenges of everyday corporate life dependably, and who can reliably implement the change and direction established by the Warriors.

Whiners, who get through life by complaining about everything they do, who profess negativism and dissatisfaction wherever they go, and blaming others for their own shortcomings.

Weasels, who lurk everywhere and threaten your career and life-goals through their own deception and insecurity and who spread these feelings quickly throughout the organization.

The book is designed to help you recognize what group you fit into, give you the necessary tools to get to the group you want to be in, and learn how to effectively deal with people in each group. The book really does a great job of forcing you to truthfully analyze yourself. O’Leary warns you that you might not like what you find, but also is quick to point reinforce that you are in control and that you can make the changes in your life to fit into the group that you desire.

Even more interesting (and fun) is visualizing the people you know and placing them into their appropriate categories. We have all encountered a Whiner or Weasel and it helps to know what makes them tick and how to effectively deal with them so that they don’t negatively impact your life. O’Leary uses the analogy to the common cold - you can’t completely eliminate Weasels from your life but you can take precautions to limit the frequency in which they enter your life and the damage that they do while they’re a part of it.

O’Leary uses a mixes light-hearted humor with a fiercely intense attitude to combine a business book and a self-help book in an exciting fashion. One chapter might focus on a self-analysis, the next might be about personal stories from O’Leary’s experiences, and the next about management. The book is well over 200 pages but reads at the speed of a book that’s half that. I often found myself reading several chapters in a sitting, which is a testament to the writers’ ability to hold readers interest. If there’s a downside (and it’s not much of one), it’s that O’Leary is so brutally honest that it may rub some people wrong, especially those who fall into the Whiner and Weasel groups.

Warriors, Workers, Whiners, and Weasels: The 4 Personality Types in Business and How to Manage Them to Your Advantage by Tim O’Leary is a must read for every entrepreneur, business owner, manager, and worker wishing to learn more about themselves, take advantage of their best traits, and protect themselves from those who could sabotage their career.

Adam McFarland owns iPrioritize - the efficient way to get organized. iPrioritize is the next evolution of list making. We take your pen and paper list and turn it into a live list that can be edited at any time from any place in the world. We make it easy for you to email and print your list, subscribe to your list via RSS, share your list with others, and check your list on your mobile phone.

Can you encounter the number of times where a
Credit Card Sale was generated, only to receive
a “Refund Notification” from your contracted
e-commerce processor on behalf the “customer”?

Welcome to the electronic world of “cyber-shoplifting”.

Unscrupulous surfers, disguised as potential
“customers”, systematically opt to ordering goods
(using credit cards) in electronic form of delivery,
only to request a refund minutes or days later after
receiving the product.

The “cyber thieves” consent the well-known
“loophole” of specific e-commerce processors
who deploy a “no questions asked” refund policy.

Some… might concur to the predicament that a
“liberal refund policy” boosts sales, but it is
statistically verified that these claims are
unthinkingly based gross sales figures,
where refunds are *not* accumulated to
extract the “net profit” (minus refunds).

In numerous cases, the cyber thieves
(or else called freebie hunters) automate
their thievery, by using pre-made templates
to ask for a refund, in order to save time
and reap as many digital products as possible,
for gratis.

A portion of cyber thieves, download a
digital product, whether ebook or software,
only to illegally sell it online at eBay or
sell it in “warez sites”.

Optimistically, these unprincipled pinches are
either prosecuted to the fullest extend of the
law, for infringement of copyrights, or face
imprisonment along with heavy fines.

So if you want to avoid getting targeted
by cyber thieves (and losing thousands),
the wisest approach is to conduct business
with an e-commerce processor who will protect
you against dodgy “freebie hunters”
(see http://traffic-engine.net/stormpay
for a genuine payment processor).

After all, it is *your duty* to forming your
own “refunds policy”, not your processor’s.

George Papazoglou is the author behind http://cyber-software.com
This article may be freely distributed / republished, as long as it contains the author’s credits and the precise entirety of the provided article, titled: “How to Eliminate Credit Card Refunds from ‘Digital Thieves’”.

“The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” is a sequel to “Prince Caspian”, taking place a few years after the events in the prior book. It is structured around a sea voyage of young King Caspian to the easternmost reaches of his realm.

Once again, magic pulls Edmund and Lucy into the world of Narnia, though this time their older siblings Peter and Susan are absent (having become too old for Narnia, it seems). Instead, they are joined by their cousin Eustace, a thoroughly disagreeable character, who will undergo a major change during this book.

The journey of the ship “Dawn Treader” to a group of islands in the East advances the plot. On each island, the companions encounter new dangers and temptations, be it slave traders, a greedy dragon or a well containing secret and evil magic. As they progress, they also find traces of the seven Narnian lords who traveled to the islands in the time of Miraz, who had usurped the throne during Caspian’s youth.

Another quest is that of Reepicheep, the corageous mouse, who follows a prophecy made at his birth that he would reach the true East and find Aslan’s country. And indeed, he will eventually find the edge of the world… and Aslan, of course.

While “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” contains memorable scenes, such as the attack of a giant sea serpent on the ship, or the description of the eerie Island of Dreams, it feels rather slight compared to the earlier novels. It mainly serves as a transitional book between the early and the late titles in the Chronicles of Narnia.

Pamela Bruce lives in Austin, TX. She is the owner of Love Beads Unlimited and sells the sterling silver and Swarovski crystal bead jewelry she designs and creates both in her eBay store (http://stores.ebay.com/LOVE-BEADS-UNLIMITED) and on her website at http://www.lovebeadsunlimited.com, where you can also download the free e-book “A Consumer’s Guide to Buying Bead Jewelry Online”.