the persuasive language of selling strategies | sales management | ESL & ELT Activity

Sales Strategy: The Ultimate Guide

ESL & ELT Activities: to correct your activities, visit: https://brainperks4u.wordpress.com/2021/06/23/the-persuasive-language-of-selling-strategies-sales-management-esl-elt-activity-answer-key-2/

1- Vocabulary Acquisition.

First of all, let’s start by giving a definition of sales, selling, prospect, supplier, pitch, leads, strategy, techniques and tactics.

You can use a monolingual dictionary to help you understand the similarities and differences among these words but you have to elaborate the 3 definitions with your own words.

Make it clear (easy to understand & catchy), simple & short !

2- Vocabulary Acquisition: Idioms.

Idioms are phrases established by common use to have a meaning not immediately deducible from the words themselves. When we say that your colleague “let the cat out of the bag” for example, we do not (in most offices) literally mean that she had released a wild ginger tomcat from her purse but that she had spilled some secret or spoiled some surprise – comparative to a bygone era when cats actually were put in sacks of potatoes to surprise unsuspecting consumers.

Aside from making languages much harder to learn, idioms provide wonderful sales tools. They provide a way of saying something precise without being overly technical. They tend to be informal, social language, and their use helps to warm up social situations, since both people are both “in” on the coded meaning.

Read the following idioms, try understanding their meaning, then write it down so as to be able to explain their meaning to a person who does not know them, never has heard of them, and has a low intermediate level of English. Remember the 3 rules for effective communication: make it simple, clear & short !

1. Play It By Ear

2. Start the Ball Rolling

3. Put the Cat Among the Pigeons

4. Hit the Ground Running

5. Bend Over Backward

6. Hit the Nail on the Head

7. Elvis Has Left the Building

3- SALES TACTICS. Reading Skills: Comprehension, Vocab by context & Predictions.

a) Read the following 9 sales principles, try to understand the main idea that each of them transmits and prepare a short piece of writing to explain each principle to another person.

b) Then decide which one/s are the most useful for you, your context, your company or business and fundament your answer.

In this guide, we’ll help you build the foundations of a strong sales strategy so that you can generate more leads and win more deals

By establishing a strategy based on these proven sales principles, you’ll create a culture that values efficiency and empowers reps to do their best work. It will help provide your customers with value at every step of the customer journey.

You’ll also learn the sales activities and elements to include in order to create a well-oiled system.

Setting goals at each sales stage
Create benchmarks based on past performance
Collect qualitative insights and customer data-points
Get clear with your core differentiator
Adopt a consultative selling approach
Target a specific market segment
Implement a robust qualification system
Automate your follow-up processes
Speed up the process with cold calling

4- Listening Skills: improve your listening comprehension, pronunciation and fluency.

Watch the following video and take notes to identify the most important ideas. Then write a 2-minute speech to summarize the video contents.

1-Setting goals at each sales stage

By using data to drive decision making, you can set reasonable and attainable goals at every stage of the sales pipeline.

Each stage requires a different approach, messaging, content and, most importantly, unique sales activities. The objections and obstacles you’ll come across will also vary, which is why setting goals for every deal stage is key.

The desired outcome for one stage of the sales process is different from the next. Let’s take a look at some of the most common pipeline sales stages:

Prospecting
Qualification
Appointment/meeting/discovery call
Needs defined
Proposal/presentation/offer
Negotiation
Deal won

2-Create benchmarks based on past performance

Sales process mapping is about understanding the activities required to close a deal. But how do you measure those activities and create accurate performance benchmarks?

The first step to setting benchmarks is, of course, measuring the right metrics. The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you measure will depend on the activity. Here, we’ll run through a simple, three-step process to developing sales performance benchmarks for your sales strategy.

Step 1: Collect the right metrics

Step 2: Calculate your benchmarks

Step 3: Implement benchmarks into your sales training

Finally, use these benchmarks to set more ambitious goals. Couple these benchmarks with the opportunities you uncovered when mapping your sales process earlier.

Ask questions like “how can you double the rate of growth by focusing on this opportunity?” This is how sales can stimulate explosive growth for their organizations.

3-Collect qualitative insights and customer data-points

While this sales tactic is often seen as an activity reserved for marketing, collecting and sharing your own data about leads and customers will not only help you close more deals, but help the entire organization expand and improve.

Collecting customer insights has several benefits.

Record frequent pain-points.

Listening is one of the best soft skills a salesperson can have.

Every single conversation you have is an opportunity to learn more about their common pain-points, challenges, desires and the things that keep them up at night.

As a leader, how can you create a process that allows your reps to collect these insights? (make a list of possible actions)

Scour publications for research.

Use data to make an argument (anecdotes & stories are not enough).

4-Get clear with your core differentiator

This is another activity that’s often up to marketing to figure out. But just like customer pain points, you’re in a unique position to uncover gaps left open by your competitors.

There are two stages in your sales conversations where you can collect insights on competitors and uncover gaps in the market:

The initial conversation, asking the prospect which supplier they currently use
During objection handling, where inevitably they’ll measure you against other vendors

Can you imagine and explain these two stages (approaches) ? Use your own experience as seller or as buyer to explain them or try remembering what the last seller did when trying to make you buy their services or products.

Approach 1: The initial conversation

Approach 2: Objection handling

5-Adopt a consultative selling approach

What’s the best way to build long-lasting business relationships based on trust? Consultative selling.

As per our definitive guide on the subject, consultative selling is “a philosophy rooted in building a relationship between you and your prospects. A salesperson who practices consultative selling develops a holistic and nuanced understanding of the buyer’s needs, and then they try to fulfill those needs with a customized solution.”

What can you do to build authority and position yourself as an expert? Write some tips.

Create a bespoke solution

With the right information, you can begin to craft a solution specific to their needs. This can be as simple as tying software features to specific challenges, or as complex as building a bespoke done-for-you service to help them achieve a big project or goal.

When crafting a bespoke solution for your prospect … what steps are important to follow ? Enumerate them according to your experience or opinion.

6-Target a specific market segment

For salespeople, a strong position in the market can often make the job ten times easier. But not every salesperson works for a recognized market-leading business, and for those who do, taking this stance can be difficult—especially when you don’t truly understand your customer.

Which is why, especially in today’s competitive climate, targeting a specific segment of the market can help you get the attention of those who operate in it.

Identify market segments and their needs.

Collect customer data.
Interviews.

Evaluate commercial viability: Market size | Differences | Accessibility | Profitability |Unique benefits

Establish your position
With these questions answered, you can now move on to establish your position in the market. Positioning maps is an easy way to do this. For example, here’s what a positioning map looks like:

The variables used here are “price” and “quality.” It maps where each brand sits along these two variables, giving a clearer view of their position in the market.

Which other common position variables can you mention?

7-Implement a robust qualification system

For sales organizations dealing with a large volume of leads, unqualified opportunities are a huge time-suck. An effective sales strategy includes a reliable qualification system that targets leads in a meaningful way.

A strong qualification process should be positioned at the beginning of your sales process:

Define what makes a qualified lead.

Write some qualifying questions you can use during your next sale.

Using the BANT framework. What does BANT stand for?

While every customer and client is different, the opportunities that lead to won deals will share various qualities. You can use the BANT framework to measure an opportunity against these qualities.

8-Automate your follow-up processes

A great sales strategy incorporates effective solutions that save valuable time. One of the easiest ways to reclaim time is to streamline your processes with automation tools.

Without a doubt, following up on leads and opportunities can take up the bulk of a salesperson’s day. From making calls to sending emails (“touching base”), there’s a lot to be done when nurturing a potential customer.

But this doesn’t always have to be the case. By using the right technology and processes, you can automate many steps of the follow-up process.

A study conducted by Drift found that, out of 433 companies, only 7% responded to new leads within the first five minutes. This presents a huge opportunity for organizations looking to improve their follow-up processes.

Let’s look at how to empower your reps to close more sales while saving time.

Start with your CRM. What is CRM ? Explain it in simple words.

A good CRM platform should free you from common administrative tasks, not simply get you to perform them in different ways. If you’re evaluating different CRM vendors, what items would you tick in a list as important?

Know when to automate

With the right technology in place, it’s time to automate! But not so fast. First, you must identify the tasks that don’t need you to execute them.

For example, when following up on a proposal, the trigger and action might look like this:

Trigger: Proposal email sent five days ago
Action: Send email template
Get the timing right

Sometimes, your emails might get lost during a time when the prospect has other priorities, or something has come up in their personal lives. Not getting a response doesn’t always mean rejection.

Therefore, your follow-up sequence should have multiple touch-points. Take all eventualities into consideration. Perhaps they are indeed busy, or they don’t trust you enough just yet and need more convincing.

What factors should you take into account when crafting your follow-up emails?

Set reminders and use personalization.

9-Speed up the process with cold calling

Email is the centrepiece of modern communication. But let’s not forget about the trusty telephone. Indeed, there’s no better way to build rapport and dig deep on prospect motivations than talking to them directly.

In every sales strategy template calling scripts can help reps engage leads. Let’s look at some effective ways to apply cold calling to your sales strategy, and how your sales reps can connect with prospects on a deeper level.

Research your prospect

Build an outline

Collect early stage objections

It’s all about timing

Conclusion
To build an effective sales strategy, you must first truly understand your ideal customer !!!

to correct your activities, visit: https://brainperks4u.wordpress.com/2021/06/23/the-persuasive-language-of-selling-strategies-sales-management-esl-elt-activity-answer-key-2/

sources https://www.pipedrive.com/en/blog/sales-strategy | training industry

sleep disorders gaining more & more adepts | mental health, psychiatry, psychology, neurology & neuroscience

Sleep Disorders

29 Jun 2016 | medskl.com is a global, free open access medical education (FOAMEd) project covering the fundamentals of clinical medicine with animations, lectures and concise summaries. medskl.com is working with over 170 award-winning medical school professors to provide content in 200+ clinical presentations for use in the classroom and for physician CME.

Unlike traditional psychiatry, which rarely looks at the brain, Amen Clinics uses brain imaging technology to identify underlying issues that may be associated with sleep problems.

What are Sleep Disorders?

The importance of quality sleep for the brain and body cannot be overstated. For optimal brain function, emotional well-being, and physical health, adults need 7-9 hours of sleep, teens need 8-10 hours, and younger children need even more. A single sleepless night can lead to fatigue, anxiety, bad moods, and brain fog. People who suffer from insomnia or other sleep disorders (such as sleep apnea) may also struggle with anxiety, depression, addictions, memory problems, dementia, pain, obesity, cardiovascular problems, diabetes, hyperactivity, low sex drive, gastrointestinal problems, and more.

Who is Affected by Sleep Disorders?

An estimated 50-70 million Americans suffer from some form of sleep disorder. Nearly one-third of us suffer from short-term bouts of insomnia, the most common sleep disorder. And chronic insomnia affects approximately 1 in 10 people. The rates are even higher among people with psychiatric disorders. In fact, over 50% of the time, insomnia is tied to stress, anxiety, or depression. Research shows that about 75% of people with depression also have insomnia. From 69 to 99% of people with bipolar disorder experience insomnia or feel a reduced need for sleep during manic episodes. Over half of the people with anxiety have trouble sleeping. And children with ADHD are more likely to experience sleep disorders than kids without the condition.

10 Nov 2016 | UCLA neurologist Alon Avidan, MD, discusses common sleep disorders, including insomnia, hypersomnia, sleep apnea, restless legs, circadian rhythm disorders, narcolepsy, and parasomnia. He also explores the consequences of poor sleep and ways to help you achieve a healthy night’s sleep.

What are the Symptoms of Sleep Disorders?

Signs of sleep disorders include having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, experiencing daytime fatigue, or feeling like you need to take a nap during the day. Other symptoms include anger, irritability, anxiety, depression, lack of concentration, and brain fog.

24 Oct 2020 | You might have heard of insomnia or hypersomnia from symptoms of depression. But have you heard about the other following sleep disorders? Here’s a list of what we cover: sleep related eating disorder, nocturnal driving disorder, somniloquy, sexsomnia, REM sleep behaviour disorder, exploding head syndrome, Kleine-leving syndrome, narcolepsy, nightmare disorder, and restless legs syndrome. Which of these have you personally experienced? Sleep disorders, also known as parasomnias, happen when people are waking up, falling asleep, or sleeping. These disorders vary between people and most don’t remember what they did when they wake up. Sleep disorders can occur during different sleep stages, in all sexes, and in all ages Disclaimer: Do not use this video to self diagnose. If you are experiencing any of these, know that you are not alone.

What Causes Sleep Disorders?

Many things can contribute to occasional sleep disturbances, such as chronic pain, restless leg syndrome, jet lag, medications, hormonal imbalances, depression, exposure to blue light, substance use, aging, and variety of other potential reasons.

Over time, sleep problems can lead to a higher risk of:

• Depression
• ADD/ADHD
• Panic Attacks
• Brain Fog
• Memory Problems
• Dementia
• Traumatic Brain Injury
• Suicidal thoughts and behaviours

NPD Narcissistic Personality Disorder | mental health

inflated grandiose image or vulnerable ?

20 Sept 2020 | Narcissistic Personality Disorder, otherwise known as NPD is a personality disorder characterized by grandiosity. We may see it in people who have inflated self-esteem with little regard for others. It is important to note that NPD is a psychiatric condition and is more complex than simply being arrogant. The condition causes much distress to the people with it and to the people around them. In this video, we hope to shed some light on the condition, and signs that a person should seek help. Disclaimer: Please do not self-diagnose nor use this to diagnose others. This video is not medical advice, rather, it is for informative purposes only. Please talk to a doctor or mental health professional if you feel you have NPD or any personality disorder.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Unlike traditional psychiatry, which rarely looks at the brain, Amen Clinics uses brain imaging technology to identify brain patterns associated with narcissistic personality disorder and related conditions.

What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is considered a type of personality disorder and is characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. Narcissists tend to have grandiose ideas and feel like they superior beings or that they deserve special treatment. Due to their lack of empathy, they can also be manipulative, demanding, and arrogant. The narcissist’s self-centered attitude, sense of entitlement, and inability to understand other people’s feelings leads to trouble at work, at school, and in relationships.

Who Has NPD?

It is estimated that narcissistic personality disorder affects up to 6.2% of the population, and experts suggest the number of narcissists is rising. Approximately 50-75% of those with the disorder are male, and symptoms and signs often emerge during a person’s teens or in young adulthood.

What are the Core Symptoms?

Narcissists may appear to have ample amounts of confidence and high self-esteem, but inside, they may feel insecure or inadequate. In spite of their extreme outward confidence, individuals with NPD often have trouble handling anything perceived as criticism or failure. Narcissistic personality disorder is associated with a wide variety of signs and symptoms, including:

• An exaggerated sense of self-importance
• A need for excessive and constant admiration
• A lack of empathy
• Being preoccupied with grandiose fantasies of unlimited success, money, or power
• A need to be recognized as superior or special
• A sense of entitlement to special treatment
• A tendency to exaggerate talents
• Manipulation or exploitation of others
• A belief that others are envious of them, while deep down being envious of others
• An arrogant, haughty, or demanding attitude

June 1 is World Narcissistic Abuse awareness day. Unlike physical abuse, narcissistic abuse leaves emotional and psychological scars. Do you suspect that someone might be a narcissist? Perhaps, a narcissistic friend, narcissistic boyfriend or girlfriend, or even a narcissistic parent. If you suspect that you yourself or someone you know might be narcissist, here are some signs to watch out for. The vision of psych2go is to bring awareness to our own behaviour and behaviours of others so that we can all grow together. If you suspect that you might be a narcissist or someone close to you is, you can use the insights from these videos to help them or yourself. Also as a disclaimer: A narcissist is not the same as someone diagnosed with Narcissistic personality disorder. Someone with NPD would have to be officially diagnosed by a professional whereas a narcissist is more a layperson term for someone who shows the behaviour and tendency of someone who may or may not suffer from NPD. Also, do not use this video to completely diagnose yourself or others. Use it for insights only.

What Causes It?

Narcissistic personality disorder is actually a brain disorder. Brain imaging completely changes the way we think about personality. It is easy to label people as arrogant, demanding, manipulative, or uncaring. And diagnosing someone with a personality disorder, such as NPD, suggests their personality or character is a problem. But what is the organ of personality? It’s the brain. If someone has an unstable personality, their brain may be the cause.

People with NPD frequently have co-existing mental health disorders, such as:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Bipolar disorder
• Eating disorders
• Abusive behaviours
• Substance abuse
• Attention deficit disorder
• Suicidal thoughts and behaviour

23 Feb 2016

Narcissism isn’t just a personality type that shows up in advice columns; it’s actually a set of traits classified and studied by psychologists. But what causes it?

And can narcissists improve on their negative traits? W. Keith Campbell describes the psychology behind the elevated and sometimes detrimental self-involvement of narcissists.

what is clutter? and to de-clutter? | deco trends & lifestyles

is your home decluttered ?

Aug 28, 2016

Fumio Sasaki used to live a hoarder’s life full of clutter. Today, he owns barely 20 pieces of clothing (including socks). Long before Marie Kondo, here’s why Japanese like him have been converting to a minimalist lifestyle.

Meet Fumio Sasaki and learn about Japanese minimalism | trendy fashion & culture

Are you a minimalist ?

Apr 8, 2019

Sasaki Fumio is an author of “Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism” and is one of the most famous minimalists living in Japan. ASIAN BOSS sat down with him to find out more about minimalism.

Amazon pathogens could spark the next pandemic | science

Protect the Amazon… Let’s take care of our planet asap !!!

In a lab set up in a Manaus, Brazil, rainforest park, Aline Ramos (center) and colleagues collect samples for a biobank from a pied tamarin monkey. Dado Galdieri/Hilaea Media

Scientists scour the Amazon for pathogens that could spark the next pandemic

By Daniel Grossman Apr. 29, 2021 , 2:00 PM

Photography and reporting from Manaus, Brazil, by Dado Galdieri of Hilaea Media.

This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.

When Marcelo Gordo opens the picnic cooler, the stench is suffocating. Three dead pied tamarin monkeys, their cream-and-caramel-colored coats visible through plastic wrap, are curled up inside. Gordo, a biologist at the Federal University of Amazonas, Manaus, explains that a student accidentally unplugged the freezer where he’d stored the monkeys, which had been killed on the road and given to him by city officials. Despite the decay, they are worth investigating.

Inside the spartan necropsy room at a veterinary school here, veterinarian Alessandra Nava and two graduate students pull on goggles, N95 masks, and blue nitrile gloves and begin to cut bits of tissue and collect bodily fluids from the monkeys. They pack the samples into vials to be transported to the Fiocruz Amazônia Biobank, a pathogen research collection that Nava helps oversee at the Amazonian regional office of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, a branch of Brazil’s Ministry of Health more commonly known as Fiocruz. There, she and others will test the samples for parasitic worms, viruses, and other infectious agents.

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Nava and her colleagues are on the front lines of the search for animal diseases that could spill over and infect humans—and perhaps cause the next pandemic. New diseases can come from anywhere: Severe acute respiratory syndrome and COVID-19 both originated in China, for instance. Another recent coronavirus disease, Middle East respiratory syndrome, was first found in Saudi Arabia. But many researchers suspect tropical rainforests, with their staggering biodiversity, are the most likely cradle of dangerous new pathogens.

When human populations encroach on rainforests, the risk of spillover skyrockets. Manaus, Brazil, a city of 2.2 million people in the Amazon rainforest, is just such a place. The jungle that stretches for hundreds of kilometers in every direction has long threatened inhabitants with infections circulating in wildlife. Some 12% of the word’s 1400 bat species—known to host a bewildering range of viruses—flit through the Amazon forest. Its monkeys and rodents carry plenty of potential threats as well.

Pied tamarins living within the city of Manaus, Brazil, could be a disease risk for humans, but human infections such as Zika may threaten the monkeys, which are in decline. Dado Galdieri/Hilaea Media

Urban growth, highway expansion, hydroelectric dam construction, mining for gold, and deforestation for cattle ranches and small farms erode the jungle and bring humans and wildlife into ever closer contact. In Brazil, the pro-business policies of President Jair Bolsonaro have only boosted that risk. By monitoring local animal populations and human patients, researchers at Fiocruz hope to head off zoonoses—diseases that leap from animals to humans—before they spiral out of control. Their work highlights the importance of curbing human activities that boost the risk of spillover. It could also guide surveillance for new and rare diseases in hospitals, which would enable health workers to respond fast if a rainforest pathogen became a wider threat.

Ironically, Fiocruz’s work has been stymied by one such disease. Manaus has experienced two brutal waves of COVID-19, a disease thought to have originated in bats. The city’s cumulative death toll, roughly 9000, is among the world’s highest per capita. Nava’s team has not captured animals at field sites in a year, partly out of concern that the researchers themselves might infect wild animals with the coronavirus. And the labs at Fiocruz Amazônia that process her samples have been commandeered for coronavirus research.

For Felipe Naveca, the lab’s vice director of research and innovation, the upheaval has been personal as well as professional. COVID-19 killed his father and may have contributed to the death of his grandmother. In the lab, Naveca led one of the first genetic studies of the new P.1 coronavirus variant that has emerged from Manaus and appears to be especially dangerous because it is more transmissible and evades immunity. He is proud that his team has processed 18,000 COVID-19 tests for local health authorities. “Helping to save someone’s life was much more rewarding than publishing a scientific article,” he says. But like his colleagues, Naveca is anxious to get back to the lab’s core mission. “We must keep searching for those emergent threats.”

Roundworms infested a monkey that was examined at a wildlife rescue center in Manaus. Dado Galdieri/Hilaea Media

The office of Fiocruz Amazônia occupies a former military hotel in downtown Manaus, nestled between a small church and a luxury condominium high-rise. Several rooms with softly humming freezers and refrigerators house the biobank: a collection of feces, blood, and other tissues and fluids from more than 100 rainforest animals. Forty species are represented; the majority are monkeys, bats, and rodents, the mammals thought most likely to transmit disease to people. Other collections in the building include insects that torment these animals and could serve as vectors for ferrying pathogens to humans.

The Fiocruz Amazônia Biobank was partly modeled on the $200 million PREDICT early warning program. Launched in 2009 by the U.S. Agency for International Development, PREDICT identified nearly 1000 previously unknown animal viruses with zoonotic potential before the Trump administration canceled it in 2020. Whereas PREDICT was global, Nava and her colleagues do the same kind of work at a regional level. They’re searching for animal reservoirs of known viral and parasitic diseases, including obscure viral fevers and filariasis, a parasitic worm infection that can cause the horribly disfiguring syndrome elephantiasis. They’re also using DNA sequencers to scour samples from animals for pathogens that have yet to emerge.

“What they are doing is brilliant and important,” says Andrew Dobson, a biologist at Princeton University who studies the ecology of wildlife diseases. “It shows that even in countries with limited resources and a very negative governmental attitude towards science, it is possible to set up a monitoring scheme for novel viruses.”

Veteran disease hunter Dennis Carroll, who founded and ran PREDICT, agrees. “Amazonia is one of the richest, most ecologically diverse regions of the world,” he adds. “So getting any insight into that region is really important.”

Urban jungle

Manaus, Brazil, with more than 2 million people, lies at the heart of the world’s largest rainforest, making it a good spot for tracking the forest’s pathogens—as well as a potential spillover point. Atlantic Ocean Amazon rainforest Manaus AmazonRiver 0 km 500 BRAZIL NegroRiver AmazonRiver Manaus 0 km 5 N. Desai/Science

A black-and-white photograph in a second-floor foyer of Fiocruz Amazônia depicts one inspiration for this work: Brazil’s legendary doctor and disease sleuth, Carlos Chagas. Attired for an expedition in a white suit and knee-high boots, Chagas stands in a canoe surrounded by his oarsmen. In 1909, Chagas discovered the cause of the disease that now bears his name. Using a simple microscope, he identified the culprit as a protozoan (now called Trypanosoma cruzi) and showed that it is transmitted by the bite of triatomine bugs, often called kissing bugs. Chagas disease, whose symptoms range from fever to heart failure decades later, still kills hundreds of thousands of people a year in Latin America.

Naveca is doing similar detective work with the more sophisticated tools of modern genetics. One pathogen that concerns him is the little-studied Oropouche virus, which is spread primarily by a species of midge, Culicoides paraensis. Oropouche, which causes fever, headache, and joint pain, has sparked at least 30 outbreaks and sickened more than 500,000 people since it was first identified in 1955. Its range has gradually expanded to include Panama, six South American countries, and Trinidad and Tobago, where it first appeared. The midge itself, however, lives as far away as the northern United States, where it and related insects are called no-see-ums, suggesting the virus could spread beyond South America. The southern house mosquito (Culex quinquefasciatus), a carrier of West Nile and Saint Louis encephalitis viruses, can also transmit Oropouche, though not very efficiently, and its range throughout the tropics raises the possibility of Oropouche outbreaks in Africa, southeast Asia, and Australia.

Naveca and his colleagues hope to find out which animal or animals are the primary natural reservoirs for this virus. There are plenty of candidates: Oropouche has been identified in sloths, marmosets, finches, and several other birds and mammals. The team recently reported using the polymerase chain reaction to identify the virus’ genetic material in urine and saliva—as opposed to blood—which could make the hunt for its animal reservoir easier and aid diagnosis in patients.

Naveca is also worried about another little-studied virus that is rapidly expanding in South America: the Mayaro virus, which causes flulike symptoms, making it hard to distinguish from more common tropical diseases such as chikungunya and dengue fever. As with Oropouche, he’s hoping to pinpoint the virus’ natural reservoirs and investigate whether cases of it are going undiagnosed.

Mayaro is a likely candidate for the next large-scale outbreak of an animal virus in Brazil or beyond, Naveca and other scientists warn. Its primary vector, the mosquito Haemagogus janthinomys, is a forest dweller restricted to Central America and northern South America, but laboratory experiments show the yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti) and the Asian tiger mosquito (A. albopictus)—two species widely distributed in tropical and subtropical areas—can also transmit the disease. A. aegypti is especially well adapted to breeding in cities.

Illegal construction encroaches on rainforest near Manaus, turning people and animals into intimate neighbors. Dado Galdieri/Hilaea Media

To Naveca, the Zika virus is a case study in the value of tracking obscure pathogens. First identified in Africa in 1947, where it spilled over from monkeys, it circulated largely unnoticed and with few casualties for decades. Then, it caused an outbreak in Oceania in 2013 and, 18 months later, a massive epidemic in Latin America. Researchers suddenly discovered a disturbing consequence of the disease—microcephaly and other birth defects in infants born to infected mothers. “Zika was a virus that nobody was paying attention to until 10 years ago,” Naveca says. “We can fight better the enemies we know better.”

Naveca now hopes to carry on Chagas’s disease-hunting tradition with a deal he’s negotiating to procure a 25-meter, flat-bottomed boat that has been outfitted to be a floating laboratory. Preserving perishable human and animal samples at remote field sites has been a critical obstacle, and the vessel would bring the lab to the biological materials, rather than the other way around. Naveca hopes to join its maiden research voyage, possibly later this year, to remote Amazon villages, where he and colleagues plan to trap bats, rodents, primates, and insects, and bring a trove of specimens back to Fiocruz Amazônia.

In a fragment of Amazon rainforest within the city of Manaus, Brazil, parasitologist Aline Ramos holds samples of feces, bodily fluids, and tissue collected from pied tamarin monkeys. Dado Galdieri/Hilaea Media

Even within Manaus, there are lots of opportunities for fieldwork. When Science visited last year, Gordo had set up an improvised lab inside a classroom at Sumaúma State Park, a tiny patch of uncut rainforest in the middle of the city, wedged between a busy highway and an upscale mall. Using cages baited with ripe bananas, he and his assistants trapped nine pied tamarins and injected them with a sedative, then swabbed their oral and anal cavities, clipped locks of hair, and drew blood. Then they set the animals free.

It’s peculiar and sometimes dangerous work. Monkeys have bitten and sneezed on Gordo, and on this trip a syringe broke as he squeezed the plunger, spraying monkey blood on his face shield. He says his wife complains when he stashes monkey carcasses in their home fridge.

Manaus’s Yoda-faced pied tamarins live all over the city. Like North American squirrels and raccoons, they don’t respect property lines and make urban gardens their pantries and playgrounds. There’s no evidence so far that Manaus’s urban monkeys are a human health threat, and Gordo, worried about “unreasonable killings or deforestation,” is reluctant to discuss that possibility. But he and others are investigating whether monkeys carry parasites, such as the nematodes that cause filariasis, or viruses such as Zika and chikungunya.

For Gordo, an equal concern is spillback—infections passed from humans to wildlife. Zika, for example, appears to have traveled from humans back to wild monkeys during Brazil’s epidemic. Fears that the virus might harm wildlife rose when researchers showed that a pregnant monkey native to Brazil had a spontaneous abortion after it was exposed to Zika. The fetus had birth defects similar to those seen in humans.

So far, Gordo has not found the virus in Manaus’s monkeys, but they may be at risk: A study he co-authored last year found mosquitoes from two species thought to carry Zika, Haemagogus janthinomys and Sabethes chloropterus, in both monkey and human habitats in a forest reserve on the edge of the city. The pied tamarins are already critically endangered, found nowhere else but in and around Manaus. Their population is expected to decline by 80% within the next 16 years. A virus outbreak could push them over the edge.

Students wait to sample animals while veterinarian Alessandra Nava stores specimens in liquid nitrogen (right). Dado Galdieri/Hilaea Media

Humans are at risk from spillback as well. In Europe and the United States, scientists worry about COVID-19 outbreaks on mink farms, for example, because such events give the virus more opportunities to evolve and jump back into people. Likewise, primate populations infected with Zika could reignite human outbreaks. This happened with yellow fever: Brought to South America centuries ago with the slave trade, the virus has been impossible to eliminate from Brazil because it established itself in wild monkey populations, which occasionally pass it back to people.

After trapping monkeys for a day in the Sumaúma park, Gordo went home and bottle-fed an infant pale-throated sloth only slightly larger than his cupped hands. A friend had found it untended on the ground in a forest fragment not far from his university office. Despite everything he’s learned about zoonotic diseases, Gordo said he was “not too worried.” The sloth pup looked healthy. But several weeks later it got sick and died, possibly from pneumonia.

Nava believes the Fiocruz center’s work is only becoming more urgent with changing land use patterns in the Amazon. Deforestation has soared since Bolsonaro came to power in 2019—transforming habitat in ways that could make viral hosts and vectors more dangerous and increasing the likelihood of spillover.

In 2016, she and colleagues reported that 9% of bats in small clearings around settlements in Brazil’s coastal Atlantic Forest had active infections of one or more of 16 viruses, including coronaviruses and hantavirus. In less-disturbed forests nearby, fewer than half as many bats were infected, and with only six different viruses. The findings fit a widely debated hypothesis known as the dilution effect, which holds that in forests with greater biodiversity, mosquitoes and other vectors have more targets and end up biting animals not capable of incubating a given virus, thereby slowing its spread. Reducing biodiversity by clearing land can do the opposite, and it also pushes humans into closer proximity to wildlife. Bats are a particular concern, Nava says, because they often roost in buildings.

It all underscores the need to stop destroying rainforest, she says—although she acknowledges that Brazil’s policies are unlikely to change under Bolsonaro, who has nearly 2 years left in his term. In the meantime, Nava says, disease fighters must keep monitoring the jungle for dangerous diseases. “We have no power to reduce deforestation,” she says. But, she adds, “We have the power to search for new viruses.”

doi:10.1126/science.abj2091

Daniel Grossman

Daniel Grossman is a science journalist specializing in climate change, in collaboration with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Carl Jung’s Quotes ! | ESL & ELT activities: Writing & Speaking Skills

“thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge”

“what irritates you about others can help you understand yourself”

“we are NOT what happens to us, but what we choose to become”

3 Feb 2021

ELT & ESL activities: Listening, Reading, Speaking & Writing Skills

1. Listen to the video.
2. Prepare simple, clear and short definitions in English for these words: self-worth, misery, achievements, equate, outcomes, unconscious, conscious, meaning, purpose, challenges. Use a monolingual dictionary to help you, if necessary.
3. Explain 5 of the quotes by Jung below.
4. Which one is your favourite? Why?

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.“
– Carl Jung

The sad reality of most human beings is just that… Most people DO believe they are what happened to them.

Most people equate self-worth with their past, with their achievements, with how OTHER PEOPLE view them. But we are none of those things… we are, as Jung puts it who we “CHOOSE to become”.

We are always only ONE DECISION away from a completely different life.

What happens to us is NEVER a choice… but how we choose to FEEL about what happens is ALWAYS our choice.

How we choose to RESPOND to life circumstances is A CHOICE.

 Who we decide to be in EVERY moment, including adversities, will determine the quality of our life.

Leave your past behind, and decide, today… NOW… WHO YOU WILL BE… from this moment forward.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.“
– Carl Jung“

Why do bad things keep happening to me?” Some say… 

“Why do the same (negative) kind of people keep appearing in my life?”…

The unconscious, or rather sub-conscious controls almost all human behaviour. 

It has been said that almost all brain activity happens on a subconscious level… the problem is, most people do not understand this basic principle, and therefor are running their life on autopilot, repeating the same reactions and responses, and often repeating the same problems, over and over again in a figure 8 loop.

Einstein said: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Until you CHANGE the reactions, responses and actions you’ve conditioned into yourself unconsciously, you won’t see different OUTCOMES in your life.

Until you learn WHY you are acting in a certain way, you’ll never be able to act better.

Until we learn WHY we FEEL a certain way, on a consistent basis, we will not be able to consistently feel better, in any way.

You need to step back and examine your life… examine YOU.

What feelings, behaviours, habits and actions are running on autopilot?

What can you bring forward to the light, into your conscious, into your PRESENCE… if you can manage that, you can start changing those habits – consciously.

With repetition you can reprogram these new habits, feelings and behaviours into your NEW subconscious program.

Better habits. Better reactions. Better outcomes.

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.“
– Carl Jung

“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.” – Carl Jung



“The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.“
– Carl Jung

Without the contrast of sadness, happiness does not exist.

Without dark, there is no light.

A happy life then, is not one without sadness, or misery, or failures, or problems. A happy life… A FULL LIFE… is a life with MEANING.

 If you had in your possession every penny on earth, and all the material possessions you desire, it would still give you no guarantees of happiness, and certainly no meaning. 

You don’t need THINGS, money or possessions to have meaning – but meaning does make for a RICH LIFE. 

With MEANING and PURPOSE in your life you can face the inevitable challenges of life without fear… With MEANING and PURPOSE in your life you can LET GO of the past, because there is always a brighter to work toward, to believe in… tomorrow.

MEANING and PURPOSE give you reason to get up in the morning… enthusiasm to go about your day, PURPOSE for living…Kindle a light in the darkness of your being. Discover who you are, develop a life of meaning and purpose, and accept every inevitable challenge that comes your way.

“It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.“
– Carl Jung

Whatever happens in your life is NOT reality, but rather your interpretation of it.

 Let me repeat, whatever happens is NOT REALITY, but your interpretation of reality.

On one of your best days, a challenge appears, and you deal with it, with presence, with confidence, with competence… Then, the challenge disappears, perhaps even turns into a blessing… a new understanding. On one of your worst days, the same challenge appears, you react angrily, unconsciously, the challenge turns into a bigger issue, a larger problem and consequently affects your life and others in a much bigger, not so pleasant way. What happened? It was the same challenge? It depends how you look at it.

We’ve all experienced moments like this. Problems that escalated due to our reaction. Challenges that disappeared due to our reaction. It is not how things are, but how we see them.

We can see BEAUTY in anything and UGLINESS in anything… The real question is, what do you CHOOSE to see?

“Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.“
– Carl Jung

We have to step back and catch ourselves judging… and this is not easy, because we all want to think of ourselves as good human beings… and you may well be… but you must take ownership for your judging, as much as the next person. Judging people, judging things, judging circumstances… How do you judge? Who do you judge?

Has there ever been a moment in your life where you’ve judged a person, or a situation… and then realized you were completely wrong? I think we’ve all had this experience. We should never judge a person or a situation where there are no facts. If we don’t KNOW… we must accept we don’t know… and expect the best.

We really do CHOOSE how we see everything, and anything can be seen through a positive, optimistic lens if that is our intention. Make it your intention. Less judgment, more optimism. Less negativity, more positivity. Less despair, more wonder.

“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.“
– Carl Jung

Those who look outside, at others, to society for an indication of how they should act or fit into the world… are lost in a dream… perhaps a nightmare. A life lived, not authentically, but how they perceive will be most acceptable by the standards of society. To awaken is to look within. To look within your own heart. To trust your intuition and to be brave enough to live life on YOUR TERMS. Not caring for others opinions and judgements. Only focused on the life that lights you up. The authentic you… living your authentic life. That is the awakened life. The REAL YOU… living with freedom of all outside expectations and opinions.

“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.” – Carl Jung

When we understand, from a place of true humility, that we are all capable of the “darkness”… and that darkness is within us ALL, we can then have empathy for the way others act. Understanding that everyone is doing the best with the life circumstances they were presented. As Maya Angelou said, “if they knew better, they’d do better”

We’ve all made mistakes… and for most of us, when we stuffed up… we knew better, so we did better. We no longer wanted to hurt others, or ourselves through our behaviour… we learned the lesson, and we moved on. For most people, the darkness doesn’t hang around for long… but it should give us some compassion for others, knowing that even we have made mistakes, no one is perfect… and perhaps with the same life circumstances we would not do any better than the other. Perhaps if we went through what they went through, we would not have the tools to do any better than they are doing. It does not mean condoning any type of behaviour – it is an understanding that no baby was born evil, or with bad intentions.

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.“ – Carl Jung

Anything that irritates you in another is likely within you, or within your shadow. They are the things we are most afraid will come out of ourselves. It’s like a mirror for your own personality. What irritates you in others can teach you important things about yourself. Pay attention to those things in others that irritate you, perhaps there is something you can work on too.

“Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.”
– Carl Jung

And how badly do we need MORE LOVE and LESS POWER in the world today. The endless seeking of power and control is due to a lack of love… a lack of connection and empathy for others.

Ask yourself how you can let go of your own need for power and control… even a little… and how you can bring more LOVE, compassion, understanding and giving in your own world.

“If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.
– Carl Jung

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.”
– Carl Jung

“The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.”
– Carl Jung

“We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.”
– Carl Jung

“You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”
– Carl Jung

We do live in this kind of world, where many people talk too much, and act too little. As Jung says, you are what YOU DO… not what you SAY you will do.

You do not need to tell the world, or tell anyone what your plans are… you can show them with your ACTIONS… with your RESULTS.

That is ultimately how we are all judged anyway… on how we show up everyday… WHO WE ARE… WHAT WE DO… never what who we SAY WE ARE or what we’re going to do. Less talk. More action.

Leaving the need for validation behind and BEING who we intend do be… DOING what we want to do… and letting the right people show up because of those choices.

Carl Jung, Wisdom, Quotes and meaning behind the quotes. https://www.fearlessmotivation.com/20…

Einstein’s quotes ! | ESL & ELT activities | Writing & Speaking Skills

” great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds “

10 Dec 2020

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” – Albert Einstein

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” – Albert Einstein

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” – Albert Einstein

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

“He who can no longer pause to wonder… and stand rapt in awe… is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.” – Albert Einstein

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” – Albert Einstein

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” – Albert Einstein

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” – Albert Einstein

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” – Albert Einstein

ESL & ELT activities: Speaking & Writing

1- Give definitions of these words in English. Use a monolingual dictionary (if necessary) to prepare this vocabulary. Be simple, short and clear.

quote | questioning | value | success | curious | intelligence | knowledge | imagination | miracle | mistake | hope | wonder | awe

2- Explain 5 of the quotes above. Be simple, short and clear.

3- Which quote is your favourite? Why ?

kaleidoscope meditation | positive & peaceful mind

neuro-linguistics: positive affirmations for your subconscious mind

dedicated to our beloved Nick 🙂

Affirmations help our brain to focus on what we want to achieve. Write and say the words or phrases you need aloud as many times as possible. Visualize them. The more vivid you recreate them in your mind, the better.

Meditation is a tool to guide our brain and to feed our subconscious part of the brain and to command our body. Meditation will keep your mind focused, attentive and powerful.

These are fabulous techniques & tools to add to your daily life to re-programme your behaviour, change habits, to feel better or to collaborate and work together with traditional medicine but NOT to replace it.

Always visit your certified medical doctor and take the medicine suggested by them, nothing will replace this completely !

Use this 30 minute “Blessed One” Chant meditaion to help find inner peace and help answering quetions that trouble you.

Watch this video mind movie to enter Alpha/Theta brain wave state.

What is a Mind Movie?

How to use a Mind Movie?

This is the process I have been following. Keep in mind that you are free to use the mind movie any ways you like. The key is about repetition. Humans learn by repetition. Watch it as often as possible. I like to meditate first thing in the morning then watch the mind movies. For best result, use a noise cancelling headset. Eliminating as many exterior sensory signals is important to achieve a better immersion.

Why is theta brain waves important?

Our brain naturally achieve theta brain waves in deep state of sleep or REM. Theta brain waves range from 4-8Hz. It is when the subconscious is most creative and when we enter a deep state of meditation. In order to reprogram our subconscious, we need to be in theta wave.

kaleidoscope meditation | positive mind & success

neuro-linguistics: positive affirmations for your subconscious mind

Affirmations help our brain to focus on what we want to achieve. Write and say the words or phrases you need aloud as many times as possible. Visualize them. The more vivid you recreate them in your mind, the better.

Meditation is a tool to guide our brain and to feed our subconscious part of the brain and to command our body. Meditation will keep your mind focused, attentive and powerful.

These are fabulous techniques & tools to add to your daily life to re-programme your behaviour, change habits, to feel better or to collaborate and work together with traditional medicine but NOT to replace it.

Always visit your certified medical doctor and take the medicine suggested by them, nothing will replace this completely !