The Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational 

once again invited readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.Here  are the  winners:

1.  CASHtration (n.): The act of buying a house,  which renders the subject financially impotent …for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus:  A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxicaton:  Euphoria at  getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize  it was your money to start with.

4. ReinTarnation:  Coming back to  life as a hillbilly.

5. ‘BOZONE’ (n.):  The substance  surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately,  shows little sign of ever breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy:  Any  misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid 

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

8. Sar-chasm:  The enormous GULF  between the author of sarcastic wit …and the person who doesn’t get it.

9. Inoculatte:  To take coffee intravenously when one is running  late.

10.  Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.  (This one got extra credit!)

11. ‘Karma’geddon:  It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s kinda like, a real serious bummer, huh?

12. Decafalon  (n):The  grueling event of getting through the day consuming  only things that are good for you.

13. ‘Glibido’:  All talk and no action.

14. DOPEler  Effect: The  tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they are fired at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic  Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug  (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast  out.

17. Caterpallor (n.):  The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.

+++The WashingtonPost has also  published the winning submissions to its yearly  contest, in which readers are asked to supply  alternate meanings for common words.

And the  winners are:

1. Coffee, n.  The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted,  adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained. 

3.  Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade, v.  To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly, adj.  Impotent. 

6.  Negligent, adj. Absent mindedly answering  the door when wearing only a  nightgown.

7. Lymph, v.  To walk with a  lisp.  (I think this one might imply that “lymphatic” would be to dance with an obsessive lisp??)

8. Gargoyle, n.  Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence, n.  Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over  by a steamroller.

10. BALDERdash,  n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. TES Ticle, n.  A humorous question on an exam.

12. RECtitude, n.  The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists. 

13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist. 

14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his  conversation with Yiddishisms. 

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof …and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of  boxer shorts worn by Jewish  men.

(Courtesy of William P. Chiles)

Learning to “hear offers” like an improviser can turn obstacles into opportunities.

Inc.|

• Cathy Salit (getpocket.com)

Photo from Getty Images.

Most of the leaders I work with as a coach and trainer already know they need to be better listeners — they’ve read the articles about the central role listening plays in building teams, managing change, achieving strategic buy-in, etc. They’ve seen the research that correlates effective listening with a broad range of leadership attributes and business success, and they’ve taken Lee Iacocca’s famous frustration to heart.

So how can you turn listening from a shortcoming to a superpower?

Let’s start with what listening is not (though in my experience this covers much of what passes for listening in business). Listening is not transactional; listening is not passive; listening is not waiting your turn to talk.

Superpower listening is different — it’s active, it’s curious, it’s creative, and it’s collaborative. And most importantly, it’s a performance.

And performing as a listener has everything to do with improvisation. If you’ve ever seen improv comedy, you’ve experienced the kind of magic that takes place as people perform what looks and sounds like a very funny, well-rehearsed script. But there is no script. No rehearsal. No plan.

Improvisers can create theater without a script for one reason: They are awesome listeners. Improvisers perform listening in a very particular way. They listen to build with others. They listen to create with others. They listen to collaborate with others. Improvisers are open and willing to say yes to their co-performers, follow them anywhere, and co-create with everything they are given. I call this act of listening hearing offers.

And in every conversation, you’re presented with all kinds of offers. Even if the opposite appears to be the case. A colleague ignoring your question is an offer. Your team getting the research that you asked for done early is an offer. A client saying he’s not interested in whatever you have to sell is an offer. A laugh at your joke is an offer. Your boss not looking up at you when you come into her office is an offer. All of this — the good, the bad, and the to-be-determined — they’re all offers that you can create with, if you hear them.

But most of us ignore many of the offers that are right there in front of us, for countless reasons. Maybe you’re afraid you don’t know what to say, or you don’t really understand, so you just soldier on even as the conversation crumbles. Or you disagree, and put all your energy into arguing. Or you get attached to the locomotive of your agenda and can’t get off that train. Or you’re worried you’ll sound stupid, say the wrong thing, or just plain run out of time.

All of the above have probably been true for everyone, at least some of the time. But armed with the improviser’s superpowers of performing as a listener (by hearing offers and building with them), you can overcome the multitude of obstacles and turn listening into an act of co-creation with other people.

Try these exercises to warm up your listening superpowers:

1. Pick an upcoming meeting or a one-on-one conversation and experiment with making listening your first priority. Don’t listen for anything. Instead, notice how many offers come your way (remember, they’re not always positive). Pause longer than you normally would before you respond, and when you do, pick an offer, acknowledge that you heard it, and then build on it.

2. Take special notice of body language offers. How someone sits, their facial expressions, their walk, what they’re looking at, and more. Listen, see, and respond to those offers.

3. Perform curiosity: Do you have a friend or colleague you disagree with about something? Have a conversation in which (for once) you don’t try to convince them that they’re wrong, but instead find out everything you can about how they see the topic or issue.

4. Ask a colleague or friend to tell you a story about him or herself that you’ve never heard. Sit back, and listen.

This article was originally published on June 5, 2017, by Inc., and is republished here with permission.

Scorpio | Oct. 23 to Nov. 21

Everyone wants to live forever, but in your case, it would just mean more time being chased by an angry swarm of bees.

Sagittarius | Nov. 22 to Dec. 21

Your extremely trying week will not be improved by your decision to deal with all problems by leaning on the horn.

Capricorn | Dec. 22 to Jan. 19

Nobody likes a know-it-all, but then, you probably knew that already, you smug jerk.

Aquarius | Jan. 20 to Feb. 18

You should have more folding chairs around. If wrestlers come over and can’t find one, they’ll use something else.

Pisces | Feb. 19 to March 20

Success is often difficult to define, though for you, it pretty much boils down to filling that cup with clean urine.

Aries | March 21 to April 19

The throbbing inside your skull will finally come to a stop this week, signaling the end of the trematode’s gestation period.

Taurus | April 20 to May 20

The stars foresee a second job promotion in the days to come, though they should probably be telling Dave about it instead of you.

Gemini | May 21 to June 20

You’ll soon possess the courage of 10 men, and the sexually transmitted diseases of about 50.

Cancer | June 21 to July 22

The hounds of hell will be at your door this week, clawing furiously to be let out and use the bathroom.

Leo | July 23 to Aug. 22

Despite the offer of a brand-new car, an all-expenses-paid trip to Greece, and a four-piece living room set, you’ll once again go for the box with the question mark on it.

Virgo | Aug. 23 to Sept. 22

You’ll die a little bit on the inside this week, and a whole heck of a lot on the outside.

Libra | Sept. 23 to Oct. 22

It’ll be a nuisance wearing the Nielsen box on your head all week, but at least you’ll find out that your viewership goes up when you’re fighting or having sex.

“The man who works and is never bored is never old.”

Brain Pickings|

• Maria Popova (getpocket.com)

Long before there was Yo-Yo Ma, there was Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor Pablo Casals (December 29, 1876–October 22, 1973), regarded by many as the greatest cellist of all time. The recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the U.N. Peace Medal for his unflinching dedication to justice and his lifelong stance against oppression and dictatorship, Casals was as much an extraordinary artist as he was an extraordinary human being — a generous and kind man of uncommon compassion and goodness of heart, a passionate spirit in love with life, and an unflinching idealist.

And yet, like many exceptional people, he cultivated his character through an early brush with suffering. In his late teenage years, already a celebrated prodigy, he underwent an anguishing spiritual crisis of the kind Tolstoy faced in his later years and came close to suicide. But with the loving support of his mother, he regained his center and went on to become a man of great talent, great accomplishment, and great vitality.

To mark his ninetieth birthday, Casals began a collaboration with photojournalist Albert E. Kahn that would eventually become the 1970 autobiography-of-sorts Joys and Sorrows (public library) — one of the most magnificent perspectives of the creative life ever committed to words.

Straight from the opening, Casals cracks open the essence of his extraordinary character and the source of his exuberant life-energy with a beautiful case for how purposeful work is the true fountain of youth:

On my last birthday I was ninety-three years old. That is not young, of course. In fact, it is older than ninety. But age is a relative matter. If you continue to work and to absorb the beauty in the world about you, you find that age does not necessarily mean getting old. At least, not in the ordinary sense. I feel many things more intensely than ever before, and for me life grows more fascinating.

Recounting being at once delighted and unsurprised by an article in the London Sunday Times about an orchestra in the Caucasus composed of musicians older than a hundred, he considers the spring of their vitality:

In spite of their age, those musicians have not lost their zest for life. How does one explain this? I do not think the answer lies simply in their physical constitutions or in something unique about the climate in which they live. It has to do with their attitude toward life; and I believe that their ability to work is due in no small measure to the fact that they do work. Work helps prevent one from getting old. I, for one, cannot dream of retiring. Not now or ever. Retire? The word is alien and the idea inconceivable to me. I don’t believe in retirement for anyone in my type of work, not while the spirit remains. My work is my life. I cannot think of one without the other. To “retire” means to me to begin to die. The man who works and is never bored is never old. Work and interest in worthwhile things are the best remedy for age. Each day I am reborn. Each day I must begin again.

For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner.

With great elegance, he contrasts the dullness of mindless routine with the exhilaration of mindful ritual — something many great artists engineer into their days. In a sentiment Henry Miller would come to echo only two years later in his own memorable meditation on the secret of remaining forever young, Casals writes of his daily practice:

It is not a mechanical routine but something essential to my daily life. I go to the piano, and I play two preludes and fugues of Bach. I cannot think of doing otherwise. It is a sort of benediction on the house. But that is not its only meaning for me. It is a rediscovery of the world of which I have the joy of being a part. It fills me with awareness of the wonder of life, with a feeling of the incredible marvel of being a human being. The music is never the same for me, never. Each day is something new, fantastic, unbelievable. That is Bach, like nature, a miracle!

Casals, indeed, finds great vitalization in bearing witness to nature’s mastery of the self-renewal so essential for the human spirit over the long run:

I do not think a day passes in my life in which I fail to look with fresh amazement at the miracle of nature. It is there on every side. It can be simply a shadow on a mountainside, or a spider’s web gleaming with dew, or sunlight on the leaves of a tree. I have always especially loved the sea. Whenever possible, I have lived by the sea… It has long been a custom of mine to walk along the beach each morning before I start to work. True, my walks are shorter than they used to be, but that does not lessen the wonder of the sea. How mysterious and beautiful is the sea! how infinitely variable! It is never the same, never, not from one moment to the next, always in the process of change, always becoming something different and new.

In the same way, Casals argues, we renew ourselves through purposeful work. But he adds an admonition about the complacency of talent, echoing Jack Kerouac’s fantastic distinction between talent and genius. Casals offers aspiring artists of all stripes a word of advice on humility and hard work as the surest path to self-actualization:

I see no particular merit in the fact that I was an artist at the age of eleven. I was born with an ability, with music in me, that is all. No special credit was due me. The only credit we can claim is for the use we make of the talent we are given. That is why I urge young musicians: “Don’t be vain because you happen to have talent. You are not responsible for that; it was not of your doing. What you do with your talent is what matters. You must cherish this gift. Do not demean or waste what you have been given. Work — work constantly and nourish it.”

Of course the gift to be cherished most of all is that of life itself. One’s work should be a salute to life.

Hence Ray Bradbury’s famous proclamation that he never worked a day in his life — further testament to the magic made possible by discerning your vocation.

Casals lived and worked for another four years, dying eight weeks before his ninety-seventh birthday. Joys and Sorrows remains an invigorating read — a rare glimpse into the source of this creative and spiritual vitality of unparalleled proportions.

This article was originally published on December 3, 2014, by Brain Pickings, and is republished here with permission.