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5 Ways League of Legends Helps You Communicate Better Under Pressure

You are battling toward the nexus in a 5v5-ranked game late on a Wednesday night. You have to work the next day and know you are not going to get enough sleep. But fear not! Your dedication to League of Legends is helping more than just your online rep. It’s helping you to be a better team player by teaching you these five valuable lessons in communicating under pressure.

1 You’re ready to fill the gaps

If your team gets thrown a lot of projects each day at work, you have to quickly prioritize your tasks and assess how your team’s skills align. When you understand each other’s strengths and abilities, new challenges are easier for your team to tackle. In League of Legends, you get matched with random players in solo queue. You then have a couple of minutes to pull an all-star team together. In real life, as in League of Legends, you often have to work with what you are given. You don’t always get your first pick in a project, nor are all people easy to get along with. So you have to figure out how to help fill the gaps on your team without sacrificing your skills.

2 You know how to align your objectives

Getting ready for a team fight? Attack Baron? Clear enemy jungle? Kill Teemo? In the Summoner’s Rift, you are constantly aligning your team around the most immediate and impactful objectives. If one teammate is missing or not on board, it could cost you the fight or, worse, the game. In a fast-paced work environment, your team needs to work together effectively. Playing League of Legends has taught you to understand what your objective is and to be clear about what it will take to complete it.

3 You understand that flaming gets you nowhere

You are working late on a project that’s due tomorrow. Your colleague realizes he made a mistake that will keep you in the office longer. Option 1: ignite a pillar of flaming anger in your conference room with a snarky “GG noob,” dividing your team and setting yourself up for an even longer night. Option 2: take the mistake into account and refocus your team around the objective. If LoL has taught you anything, it’s that not sweating the small stuff under pressure can make the difference between victory or defeat.

4 You speak your team’s language

If you are trying to get out of the Bronze league, you have to know what it means to build an adc, stack mr, and go backdoor. Knowing the lingo saves time and makes you sound competent. In the office, you might Slack your colleague, “Hey Chad, what’s the ROI on the FB account for tomorrow’s Q1 meeting?” Just as in online gaming, every company has a list of acronyms they use around the office daily. Being able to speak that common language helps everyone get on the same page quickly.

5 You know when to stop beating a dead Warrick

Not all of your projects are going to be a success. You fail, and you learn. However, it’s important to know when to call it. League players understand that if a team has lost their top, mid, and bottom lane on the Rift, defeat is predictable and it’s time to call “gg.” You can beat your head against the wall and drag your team with you, hoping for something to change, or you can take your losses and analyze them so you know what to do differently in the next match.

You might not benefit from putting “Diamond League Player” on your résumé, but you can be confident that League has taught you l33t team communication skills you can apply IRL. So, when you’re on your third cup of coffee and your boss asks you why you’re so tired, tell her that you stayed up late working on effective communication strategies. Or . . . maybe not. Just grab that caffeinated beverage and buckle up for the day!

This Is How to Put Positive Spin on Weaknesses in a Job Interview

No job candidate is perfect. Everyone has their flaws. Fortunately, employers aren’t looking for perfect people, just the right people.

Honesty is always the best policy during a job interview, but that doesn’t mean you have to put your weaknesses on display. Whether it’s your resume or your personal challenges that might raise red flags with a hiring manager, addressing your weaknesses and framing them in a positive way can help you avoid making excuses or sounding defensive.

Resume Weaknesses

Even if your resume is a little less than ideal, you can put a positive spin on some of the most common trouble spots employers are likely to question.

When you don’t have much experience

Lack of experience sets up a frustrating paradox—employers want to hire people with experience, but in order to gain that experience, you have to find an employer who’ll give a person without any a chance. What to do?

Remember that everybody starts somewhere, and hiring managers interview inexperienced candidates all the time. When you’re still growing in your career, there’s one positive quality you can emphasize to help you win over a potential employer—enthusiasm for learning. Show the employer that not only are you able to learn, but you’re excited by the possibilities.

RELATED: 4 Must-see Ways to Improve Your LinkedIn Profile

It’s not enough to say that you pick things up quickly, however. Everyone says that. Emphasize real-life examples of your ability to learn and adapt. If you’ve made a point to take extra classes, earn certifications, or even pursue new and interesting hobbies for the love of learning new things, take a moment to point them out. Ditto if you’re making a career change and you can point out skills from your previous job that show you’re quick on your feet.

Demonstrating that you’re a good cultural fit is also important. Skills can be trained, but finding the right personality match is much trickier for employers. Even the most qualified candidate isn’t likely to work out if she doesn’t fit in with the company’s overall vibe. If you’ve done your homework, you’ll have a good sense of the ideals the company embodies. Drawing attention to how well you’ll fit in can take the spotlight off your lack of experience.

When you have gaps in your employment

Don’t kid yourself—hiring managers are going to notice those gaps on your resume, so you’ll need to address them.

Although honesty is the best policy, there are ways to turn things around so they don’t look so troublesome. If you struggled to find a new position after a layoff, for instance, you could say that you took your time trying to ensure that your next employer was a good fit. If you took a break to raise small children, care for a family member, or even broaden your horizons by traveling, don’t be afraid to say so. You’ll come off as more genuine and sympathetic than you would if you tried to sweep those things under the rug.

If you’re able to show that you did productive things with your downtime, such as taking classes or doing volunteer work, make sure you note them. It’s important to demonstrate that your resume gap was a period of personal and professional growth and not just a time when you allowed yourself to sleep in late and binge-watch Netflix in your pajamas all day.

When you’ve hopped from job to job

In a Robert Half survey, HR managers said that having more than five jobs over a ten-year period is just too much job hopping. If you’ve made frequent job changes, be prepared to explain them.

Although moving between jobs every few years is more common these days, especially among younger workers, too many job hops in a short span of time can raise red flags. Are you never satisfied? Difficult to work with? Do you lack follow-through and commitment? The hiring manager will wonder, and it’s your responsibility to enlighten him.

Hiring managers are looking for reassurance that the company won’t go through the expense and effort of onboarding and training you only to have you leave in six months. Start by explaining why you made each career move, and be prepared to tell the hiring manager how it helped you advance your career. Be honest, but keep it positive. (Don’t say “I hated that job”, say “I felt I needed to move on to find a better fit for my skills”.) If you left because the job bored you, say that you were “looking for more of a challenge.”

Rather than getting defensive about your frequent job changes, focus instead on what you learned from each one. Be sure to play up the transferable skills you gained along the way.

Personal Weaknesses

Even if the interview process has revealed a few personal challenges—perhaps through the dreaded “What’s your greatest weakness” interview question—there are ways to spin them as positives.

When you’re a perfectionist

Employers don’t want to hire people who nitpick every little thing and make life difficult. No one wants to work with that person. Instead, say that you’re thorough and you have high standards for yourself and your own work. It’s best to leave the word “perfectionist” out of your interview altogether, even if you identify yourself as one. The Muse explains why.

When you’re quiet or shy

Shyness can be misconstrued as awkwardness or social ineptitude. Hopefully, through your interview, you’ve been able to demonstrate your ability to “people.” But, if you can’t help but let your shyness show, frame it as a “reflective nature.” Explain that you get very focused when you’re at work.

When you take a long time to do things

Sci-fi author Douglas Adams said, “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” Unfortunately, hiring managers aren’t going to view missed deadlines as a positive. If you take a while to accomplish things, don’t lie and sell yourself as someone who’s always prompt. Instead, emphasize your attention to detail and your belief that each task deserves enough time to be done right.

Whatever you do, don’t make excuses for your weaknesses. A job interview isn’t a time to defend yourself, it’s a time to present yourself in a positive way that shows why you’re the best candidate. To get more job offers, make sure to focus on your potential.

What Is the Singular They, and Why Should I Use It?

Last year, Grammarly polled our social audiences to see if they supported gender-neutral pronoun usage. The results were a bit surprising: more than half of the audience polled felt that the idea of gender-neutral pronouns was a nonstarter.

With this knowledge, I’d like to make an appeal to our audience: consider the singular they. Language has changed a lot in the last year, with the singular they being voted the most important word of the year, and numerous dictionaries adding gender-neutral usage notes. Merriam-Webster even introduced the gender-neutral honorific Mx. to their unabridged dictionary this year, forever ending the question of what to call someone whose gender is nonbinary (i.e., not male or female).

It’s about time we talked about they in particular and gender-neutral pronouns as a whole, and it’s time we discussed why they’re important to binary and nonbinary folks alike.

First, Some Terminology

Since it’s Pride Month, we’d like to start by defining a few key terms in this discussion, with some help from our friends at the Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network (GLSEN). Here are four gender-related terms that you should know:

Gender: A set of cultural identities, expressions, and roles—traditionally categorized as feminine or masculine—that are assigned to people based on the interpretation of their bodies, and more specifically, their sexual and reproductive anatomy. Since gender is a social construction, it is possible for people to reject or modify the assignments given to them and develop something that feels truer and more just to themselves.

Gender binary: A socially constructed system of viewing gender as male or female, in which no other possibilities for gender are believed to exist. The gender binary is inaccurate because it does not take into account the diversity of gender identities and gender expressions among all people. The gender binary is oppressive to anyone who does not conform to dominant societal gender norms.

Nonbinary: Adjective describing a person who identifies as neither male nor female.

Of course, these three terms are just the beginning of a discussion about gender, but for the purposes of talking about gender-neutral or third-gender pronouns, they’re a great start. If you have more questions about gender or sexuality, I’d highly recommend GLSEN’s resources on the subject.

Now, to return to pronouns . . .

English Evolves!

One of the great lies about the English language is that it remains static. Grammar pedants and trolls generally operate under a series of assumptions about language, which may or may not reflect current usage and accepted norms. In the linguistics community, there is actually a term for this view of language—prescriptivism.

Unfortunately for prescriptivists, English is constantly changing—and always has been. Some words that grammar pedants scoff at as obnoxious neologisms were in fact coined as long ago as the nineteenth century. Take “dude” for example. Reviled by grammar trolls the world over, this term has provoked the ire of multiple generations of fuddy-duddies. But did you know that it has its roots in late nineteenth-century British dandyism? Although the term originally described a cultural trend in England, it eventually came to mean “clueless city-dweller” to American cowboys and ranchers (as Mental Floss notes, this is also the origin of the “dude ranch”). However, by WWI, “dude” had flip-flopped again to its current meaning—a cool guy.

Even if we adhere to certain rules to make communication easier for people across regions, dialects, and levels of writing proficiency, the language will eventually evolve. The singular they is simply another way English is changing for the shorter, the more empathetic, the better. As we’ve mentioned before, the singular they is not even a new phenomenon. Merriam-Webster includes usage examples of the singular they dating back to Shakespeare, with notable additions from the likes of Jane Austen and even the traditionalist W. H. Auden. The singular they is nothing new, but in making our language more inclusive of people of a myriad of genders, this simple word is becoming more and more important.

LGBTQ Harassment and Personal Gender Pronouns

According to a 2013 GLSEN study, more than 64.5 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer students hear homophobic remarks at school. Of these students, 33.1 percent have heard harassing remarks specifically targeting transgender students. For transgender, genderqueer, genderfluid, and other nonbinary students, this can have extreme consequences, from lower GPAs to missed classes to suicide.

Clearly, language matters, and it’s especially important to people whose gender does not match cultural assumptions. That’s why we support and respect the use of whichever personal gender pronouns a person or group may choose to describe themselves. What’s a personal gender pronoun, you ask? GLSEN defines personal gender pronouns (PGPs for short) as “The pronoun or set of pronouns that a person would like to be called by when their proper name is not being used.” For people who identify as male or female, this is generally he or she, but trans, nonbinary, or gender nonconforming folks may use a variety of pronouns. They could use the singular gender-neutral “they,” but they could also use one of these options:

Although we won’t touch on all the pronoun options listed here, you can see that there are many. So how do you know which one to use? Ask! Asking someone their personal gender pronoun is easy. Just say something like “What pronouns do you use?” or “Is this pronoun right for you?” Most people will be happy to inform or correct you, especially when you ask them early on in your relationship.

Since we’re focusing on the singular gender-neutral they here, it’s important to note that many people at different points of the gender spectrum use “they.” When you’re using it in a sentence, you can say something like this:

“They is a talented artist. I really enjoyed their painting of a flower in art class yesterday.”

But Wait, “They” Is Useful for Everyone!

Now that we’ve talked briefly about how to use they for people who have chosen it as their PGP, let’s talk about how it can help people who identify as he or she. Merriam-Webster sums up the situation well in their usage note for they:

They, their, them, themselves: English lacks a common-gender third person singular pronoun that can be used to refer to indefinite pronouns (as everyone, anyone, someone).

Although English has many great qualities, it’s never been great with indefinite pronouns. Traditionally, he was the default pronoun for a person whose gender you didn’t know, as in this quote from Thomas Huxley:

“Suppose the life and fortune of every one of us would depend on his winning or losing a game of chess.”— Thomas Huxley

But, as many have pointed out, gendering all unknown people as male is sexist and inaccurate. That’s why Merriam-Webster, the Oxford English Dictionary, and the American Heritage Dictionary have recently added notes supporting the use of the singular they for a person whose gender you don’t know. “The trend, then, is clear. Writers who choose to use they with a singular antecedent should rest assured that they are in good company—even if a fair number of traditionalists still wince at the usage,” says the American Heritage Dictionary, in their usage note on the subject.

Admittedly, using the singular they in a formal context may still cause some raised eyebrows, so be careful if you’re submitting a paper to a particularly traditional teacher or professor. But the tides are turning, and English will soon be more efficient because of usages like this:

If Sally or George got a cold, I would have sympathy for them.

Note that, if we did not use the singular they, that sentence would read:

If Sally or George got a cold, I would have sympathy for him.

Or, if we tried to make some awkward amalgam of current language norms, we might write:

If Sally or George got a cold, I would have sympathy for him/her.

Furthermore, if Sally or George identified as a gender other than male or female, even the above Frankenstein-ed sentence would be incorrect. After all, your name does not determine your gender or your preferred gender pronouns.

There must be a better way!

Luckily, using the singular they makes English a more efficient language, and it helps us to avoid awkward sentence constructions. More importantly, though, it allows you to avoid making assumptions about the gender of a person you don’t know.

Their Pronoun, Themself

Of course, not everyone will agree that it’s time to formally accept the singular gender-neutral they. GLSEN’s research reminds us that people who would use they as their preferred gender pronoun have long been the subjects of harassment and discrimination, although things are changing. Grammarly supports the individual choice of pronouns and is using the hashtag #theyisok this week to start a dialogue about PGPs, gender neutral pronouns, and the singular they.

What do you think about the gender-neutral use of they? Leave a comment below, or tweet your experience with personal gender pronouns.

Empathy vs. Sympathy

• Empathy is a term we use for the ability to understand other people’s feelings as if we were having them ourselves.
• Empathy can also mean projecting our own feeling onto a work of art or another object.
• Sympathy refers to the ability to take part in someone else’s feelings, mostly by feeling sorrowful about their misfortune.
• Sympathy can also be used in relation to opinions and taste, like when you say that you have sympathy for a political cause.

In 1855, Walt Whitman described his reaction to a person in pain in his poem “Song of Myself.”

I do not ask a wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person, My hurt turns livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.

What did the poet mean when he said that he would “become the wounded person?” Would his transformation be an example of empathy or sympathy? What’s the difference between empathy and sympathy? The words are easy to confuse. They are both derived from Greek, and the spelling only differs by a couple of letters. It’s almost as if they were made to be used as synonyms. But they weren’t.

The Difference Between Sympathy and Empathy

Of the two words, empathy is the more recent entry into the English language. Sympathy was in use for almost 300 years before empathy’s first written record in the nineteenth century. You might notice that both words contain -pathy, and that’s what makes them sort of similar – they share the same Greek root word pathos, which means “feelings” or “emotion,” but also “suffering” or “calamity.” But while both words deal with emotions, they are still very far from being synonyms.

What Is Sympathy?

Sympathy derives from Greek words meaning “with feeling.” The word is most commonly used to describe the way we share someone else’s feelings, especially feelings of sorrow or trouble. Hence, greeting cards given to mourning families are called sympathy cards. Sympathy can also refer to the sense of harmony between people with the same tastes, disposition, or opinions. When a person feels sympathy toward a cause or an organization, he has feelings of approval, loyalty, or support.

What Is Empathy?

The Greek phrase that lends empathy its meaning is “passion from feelings or emotion.” Most people know empathy has to do with understanding and sharing the experiences, feelings, and emotions of another person. However, empathy can also refer to using imagination to ascribe your feelings or attitudes to an object, such as a painting or a natural object.

Examples: Sympathy and Empathy in Sentences

Which quality was Whitman illustrating in his poem? Empathy. By becoming “the wounded person,” he vicariously experiences their suffering. Is it possible to completely understand how someone else feels? Most people have to content themselves with feeling sympathy—the quality of caring about someone’s misfortunes or the feeling of emotional or intellectual accord with another individual. Neil deGrasse Tyson proposes that since “humans aren’t as good as we should be in our capacity to empathize with feelings and thoughts of others . . . maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, [we learned] ‘reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy.’” But if you finished your schooling, maybe these examples might help you understand the difference between sympathy and empathy: A Canadian woman has criticised a “disgusting” sympathy card sent by two “ambulance chasing” estate agents offering their services following the death of her mother. —The Telegraph

So I have to say that my sympathy for Tyrone would be fairly limited. —The Irish Times

From an evolutionary standpoint, empathy is a valuable impulse that helps humans survive in groups. —The Atlantic

People with a higher level of empathy learn to help others more quickly than their more hard-hearted peers, scientists say. —The Guardian

What Do Adjectives Modify?

Adjectives are words that modify nouns. They are often called “describing words” because they give us further details about a noun, such as what it looks like (the white horse), how many there are (the three boys) or which one it is (the last house). Adjectives do not modify verbs or other adjectives.

Most often, adjectives are easy to identify in a sentence because they fall right before the nouns they modify.

The old clock hung upon the wall.

A white horse galloped across the lush, green grass.

Have you met our three handsome boys?

Ours is the last house on the street.

In these sentences, old, white, lush, green, three, handsome, and last are all adjectives; they give us a more detailed description of the nouns they modify. An adjective might answer the mental questions, “What kind is it?” (as with an old clock, a white horse, the lush grass, the green grass, or the handsome boys), “How many are there?” (as with the three boys), or “Which one is it?” (as with the last house). Adjectives that answer the first question are descriptive adjectives. Those that answer the other two questions are limiting adjectives—they restrict or quantify a noun rather than describing it.

The five ladies go to Las Vegas every year.

Those flowers must go on that table.

She gave the best piece to her mother.

The examples above use the limiting adjectives five (how many ladies?), every (which year/s?), those (which flowers?), that (which table?), best (which piece?) and her (whose mother?). Technically, definite articles (the) and indefinite articles (a/an) also function as limiting adjectives.

Predicate Adjectives

Although many adjectives fall before the nouns they modify, as in the examples above, those used in sentences or clauses with linking verbs fall after the nouns they modify. Linking verbs describe a state of being rather than an action; the most common linking verb is to be, and others include sense verbs like appear, seem, look, smell, sound, and taste.

Cynthia is fatigued.

Those muffins look delicious.

The sunrise seemed golden.

Do you think this spaghetti sauce tastes spicy?

With linking verbs, adjectives like fatigued, delicious, golden, and spicy all fall after the nouns they modify (Cynthia, muffins, sunrise, spaghetti sauce).

4 Ways to Get Back to Work When You (Really) Don’t Want to

You know you need to work, but you really don’t want to. Millions of distractions—some worthier than others—compete for your time and attention. How do you drown out the voice of procrastination?

Here are four ways that will get you working again, even when you’d rather be doing anything else.

1 Reward Yourself

In Key of Knowledge, prolific author Nora Roberts writes: “There’s no reward without work, no victory without effort, no battle won without risk.” The converse is also true. Why work without a reward? Why put forth effort without a purpose? Likely, your job has some intrinsic value. Of Nora Robert’s 200 published novels, most of them fall into the suspense or romance genres. Thousands of people use her stories to escape from reality, to relax, or to entertain themselves. How does your job help the world? How does it benefit you personally? When you are typing a document at work, do you think about how the task will ultimately fund your child’s college education, for example? With a little thought, you can likely find that your job adds value to your life in various ways.

According to ASuccessfulWoman.com, you may do your job because of “the desire to control [your] financial destiny, the need for autonomy, or perhaps the belief that [your] service or product will potentially enhance the current marketplace.” Why stop there? The same website encourages you to create your own rewards for a job well done. You’ll be motivated to work harder if you know something good will come at the end of it.

2 Make It Fun

Do you enjoy things more when you are alone or with friends? If you like solitude, why not get to the office early on your first days back? The office will be quiet, and you will have time to get yourself organized before your day starts. Tidy up your desk and make a list of what you want to accomplish. Then, you can either work in silence or listen to some tunes before your coworkers start stopping by.

If you’re a social butterfly, invite your colleagues to join you. You can work together in a shared space or flex your collective imaginations in a brainstorming session. Be honest, though, about whether your friends will disrupt your productivity. If you think they will, schedule a group lunch or go out for drinks after work.

3 Ease Yourself In

In video games, the lowest level is usually the easiest one. As you advance, you gain experience and the challenges increase. When you return from a break, you can’t always expect to pick up exactly where you left off. Instead, look at your to-do list. Are there a few important tasks that you can quickly or easily get out of the way? Clearing away these tasks can free your mind from worry so you can concentrate on the difficult work. Besides, marking even short, simple tasks as “complete” will make you feel a sense of accomplishment.

Do all your assignments seem equally overwhelming? Find out why. Are you afraid of failure? Do you feel incompetent? Do you have all the knowledge necessary to be successful? MindBodyGreen suggests addressing the source of your resistance, and “leaning in” like a surfer: “Just like surfing a big wave — once you’re in it, there are only two choices — either lean in, make the drop, and do your best to surf the wave, or wipe out miserably. You might wipe out either way — but . . . “Let’s do this!” . . . feels more empowering than “Oh no!””

4 Make It Doable

If you focus on everything you have to do, you might start to feel stressed. Instead, break large projects into small chunks. You can organize your time into chunks. For example, you might set a timer and commit to working for fifteen minutes. When the alarm sounds, briefly turn your attention to something less demanding, such as answering an email or filing documents. After a few minutes, restart the timer and do it all again. You’ll be surprised how much you can accomplish in fifteen-minute intervals.

Not all tasks lend to chunking by time. Instead, try the step-by-step method. Consider whether you have to complete the steps of the task in order. Would it be more efficient to juggle the sections around and compile everything at the end? For a writing project, for instance, perhaps you want to print out a copy before you proofread. Some writers claim to catch more errors on paper than on a computer screen.

Regardless of how you organize your tasks, don’t forget to include brief breaks from intense activity. Using this method, you will find yourself on the last step before you know it.

Every task presents unique challenges, so it might help to do a little research about how you can get over a slump in your particular profession. To illustrate, writers can research how to overcome writer’s block and build some of the methods learned into their to-do list.

Do you have work to do right now? If you were reading this article as a form of procrastination, it’s time to put it away and put your nose to the grindstone. If you think of a reward and a way to make the task fun, break tasks down into small chunks, and start easy, it won’t even seem so bad. You can do it!