Tausi Insider

Alfred E. Neuman, the legendary figurehead for Mad Magazine, was best known for his phrase, “What, me worry?” You may want to adopt that motto. Consultant Kevin Eikenberry argues that worrying is folly. But most of us do, in fact, worry and we often believe it’s helpful. He sets out some of the benefits we perceive: Worrying might prevent negative events from happening, it reduces our guilt because we are doing something, it gets us thinking about the problem, it shows we care, and it can keep us from being surprised should the fear come true. He adds on LinkedIn one reason we might not want to admit: “We worry because we worry, even if we aren’t sure why.” But how many of those justifications make sense? How many would change the outcome? His review of the research on worry finds, depending on the study, that between 85 and 92 per cent of our worries never come true. Worrying, he sums up, “makes you feel bad, raises your stress and worsens your mood. This activity rarely can change...

Crude oil tanker New Vision, carrying Kazakh oil, at the Dardanelles Anchorage off Sarkoy near Tekirdag, Turkey, on Dec. 9. YORUK ISIK/Reuters The Group of Seven countries’ price cap on Russian oil is not responsible for a queue of tankers waiting in the Black Sea to pass through Istanbul’s Bosphorus Strait on the way to the Mediterranean, the European Commission said. The number of vessels queuing in the Black Sea increased on Friday to 20, according to the Tribeca shipping agency, amid talks to disperse the build-up. Since the start of the month, Turkey has required vessels to provide proof of insurance covering their transit through the Bosphorus strait or when calling at Turkish ports, which is causing a logjam. The queues have coincided with the introduction of a plan this week by G7 countries and the European Union to stop insurers from helping to export Russian oil by ship unless it is sold at a capped price, in an attempt to reduce Moscow’s oil revenues. “This situation is no...

Most of us shy away from difficult conversations. And there are lots of reasons to steer away from conversations where race is a factor. They have all the appeal of touching a hot stove – and should we accidentally get scorched, we will remember it for a long time. Kwame Christian, a negotiation expert who is Black, says there is one main reason to hold such conversations: Care. In any relationship, people need to know you care about them. And the best way to do that is to talk to them about things that are important to them. “Your workplace consists of a system of interconnected relationships. We have difficult conversations at work, whether about race or anything else, because we care about those relationships,” he writes in How to Have Difficult Conversations about Race . But it goes beyond that. It also shows you care about fairness and progress, and aren’t ignoring a possible elephant in the room. “You can’t have a meaningful conversation with someone while denying an integral p...

Smaller communities have taken bigger housing market hits from rising interest rates than bigger cities, but have still had greater increases overall in property values since the start of the pandemic when compared to Toronto and Vancouver. The most desirable small communities, such as those within a couple hours of Toronto, uniformly saw skyrocketing prices over the pandemic as people left big cities for remote work. But similar to how those markets had larger value increases during the pandemic, they’re also seeing larger decreases as the Bank of Canada increases interest rates. The recent drops have been significant in Ontario municipalities such as St. Catharines and London, where the average selling price in December, 2022, was down between 14 and 15 per cent from 12 months prior, according to data provided by real estate marketplace Zolo Realty. The drop was even more steep in Belleville, which was down 25 per cent in December. Those numbers are large when compared to a year-ov...