EDITION 729
3 SEPTEMBER 2018

As another week slips by, here are 10 things which caught my attention and may have escaped yours. This newsletter is sent to 50,000+ subscribers each Monday. Please share on social media and forward to your colleagues and friends so they can subscribe, learn and engage. I'd be very grateful if you did.

1. How to check in on your emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence can be strengthened over time with commitment and discipline. But those who most need to develop it often realise that too late. So here are some telltale signs that you need to work on your emotional intelligence: [READ MORE]
    
2. On the road to full employment. The employment rate has risen to a record 75.6%, the unemployment rate is just 4% and the UK has the third highest employment rate in the G7, behind Germany and Japan. Legitimate questions about the quality and security of many of those jobs remain - there are still 800,000 people working on zero-hours contracts, for example - but the improvement should be celebrated. The Guardian
    
3. Replying to office emails on train 'should count as work'. Commuters who regularly use travel time to catch up with work emails should have their journeys counted as part of their working day, say researchers from the University of the West of England. Their study, which concluded that wider access to WiFi on trains and the rise of smartphones have extended working hours, found that that 54% of commuters using a train's WiFi were sending work emails. BBC
    
4. Air pollution causes ‘huge reduction in intelligence’. Air pollution is already known to cause health problems, with 95% of the global population breathing toxic air. Now new research carried out in China reveals that it also causes a reduction in intelligence. The study found the average impact of living in polluted areas in China was equivalent to losing one year of education. The Independent
    
5. Land and house prices push UK worth to £10trn. Soaring land and house prices added almost half a trillion pounds to the country’s net worth last year, figures from the Office for National Statistics have revealed. The net value of all of the UK’s assets broke through £10trn for the first time in 2017, fuelled by a £450bn rise in land values. However, house price growth, which in part drives land values, has since slowed to 3%. The Telegraph
    
6. One quarter of 14-year-old girls self-harm. The Children’s Society says nearly one quarter of 14-year-old girls in the UK self harm. A survey by the charity of 11,000 children found 22% of girls, and 9% of boys, said they had self-harmed in the past year. The charity’s research suggests that both girls and boys struggle to live up to the roles enforced on them by gender stereotypes. The Guardian
    
7. Social media users urged to quit for a month. Social media users are being urged to give up their online habit for a month each year as part of the Scroll Free September campaign, a new initiative by the Royal Society for Public Health. More than 2,000 people have signed up to go cold turkey on the so-called Big Five social media apps – Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube. Daily Mail
    
8. Number of older people requiring 24-hour care ‘set to double’. More than a million people over the age of 65 will need 24-hour care by 2035, almost double the current number, according to a new study. The researchers, from Newcastle University and London School of Economics (LSE), also warn that raising the retirement age means the pool of available unpaid carers will be reduced to an unsustainable level. The Independent
    
9. Physical education more popular than French. With 11,307 students taking the exam this year, PE is a more popular A level than French (8,713 students). Chinese has replaced German as the third most-studied language at A level. The Telegraph
    
10. You really ought to read this...! If you are slaving away for retirement at 65, you are missing the point because only 82% of people in the world actually live to 65. If you get to 65, on average, you only have about 15 more years left to live after you retire. Additionally, only 65% of people actually live to the age of 80. Do you really want to spend the majority of your life doing something that you hate doing? [READ MORE]