As an entrepreneur, you have a lot of spinning plates going all at once, and if any of them falls and breaks, it can end up sending them all crashing to the floor. No wonder you’re stressed! The problem with being stressed from keeping all those plates in the air is that the more stressed... Read more
By Emma Seppälä and Kim Cameron Too many companies bet on having a cut-throat, high-pressure, take-no-prisoners culture to drive their financial success. But a large and growing body of research on positive organizational psychology demonstrates that not only is a cut-throat environment harmful to productivity over time, but that a positive environment will lead to... Read more
Measuring young people's quality of life globally! The Youth Progress Index is one of the first instruments developed to give the full story of what life is like for a young person today, independent of economic indicators. It brings together reliable, relevant data to give each country a score on how well different countries meet Basic... Read more
People are hard-wired to reach out to others with shows of kindness and support. For as natural as this urge is, it is surprising how often we get it wrong.Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on linkedin In this post IntroductionAre you a good match?What about when things go right?Conclusion Introduction I am a happiness researcher... Read more
In June 2020, Stanford University Economist Nicholas Bloom said that 42% of working people in the US worked from home full-time. A study by Pew Research Center concluded that while 20% of people worked from home before the Covid-19 pandemic, by December 2020, that number has risen to 71%. The Pew Research Center also reports that out of the... Read more
Kate Johnson, Microsoft U.S. president, is a leader on diversity and inclusion.She discusses the importance of making actionable changes within businesses, harnessing empathy and hope. Johnson's actions have been described as courageous, and here she explains what courage means to herKate Johnson, president of Microsoft U.S., leads a $45 billion solutions and services 10,000-person field... Read more
Using Self-Kindness to Cope with Stress “In all the greatest spiritual traditions, at their heart is tenderness, just to be kind inside, and then everything rights itself. Fear rests. Confusion rests.” – Pamela Wilson Most of us today are suffering from the stress that chaos and uncertainty can bring. Self-kindness, an important aspect of self-compassion, has been proven to help... Read more
Leading experts on mindful self-compassion Drs. Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer share how self-kindness, recognition of our humanity, and mindfulness give us the strength to thrive. An explosion of research into self-compassion over the last decade has shown its benefits for well-being. Individuals who are more self-compassionate tend to have greater happiness, life satisfaction and motivation, better... Read more
Managing Yourself When you have a setback at work, treat yourself as you would a friend: with kindness and understanding. by Serena Chen From the Magazine (September–October 2018) Summary. When we experience a setback at work, we tend to either become defensive and blame others, or berate ourselves. Neither response is helpful. Shirking responsibility by getting defensive may... Read more
In today’s world of 24-hour news and social media, our lives are exposed to other people, or to juxtapose, their lives are exposed to us! The influence of media is such that it can mispresent a person’s knowledge of specific events. Depending on the angle the media is taking, we are so often influenced to... Read more
Recent challenges have triggered much interest in the “epidemic” of employee burnout. Articles and podcasts highlight that 76% of employees will experience burnout at some point in time, offering leaders tips to support their team’s well-being and prevent such ends. However, as is too often the case, such studies fail to address that leaders, too, have... Read more
Happiness at Work should be a top priority for all companies. Because this is good for employees: when they are happy at work, they are better parents, friends, neighbors, they are more likely to give to charity and do volunteering work. Don’t we all want to have nice neighbors? Yes we do! But also because... Read more
It’s easy to take cooperation for granted. Children team up to complete a project on time. Neighbors help each other mend fences. Colleagues share ideas and resources. The very fabric of human society depends upon working together. Cooperation is also ubiquitous in the natural world: lions collaborate on hunts, flowers share nectar with bees, and... Read more
Reviewing six decades of research into the meaning, development, and benefits of purpose in life Modern scientific research on human purpose has its origins in, of all places, a Holocaust survivor’s experiences in a series of Nazi concentration camps. While a prisoner at Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and two satellite camps of Dachau, Viennese psychologist Viktor Frankl noticed that... Read more
Over the course of dozens of studies, Frank Fincham has compiled an impressive list of ways that prayer and forgiveness make a difference. Frank Fincham, who holds an endowed chair of the Florida State University College of Human Sciences, is a former Rhodes Scholar with an Oxford doctorate and a long track record of insightful... Read more
Not long after Jim Mallozzi took charge of Prudential Real Estate and Relocation, the company hosted a convention for their many thousands of sales professionals around the world. The theme of my first keynote address,” says Jim, “was ‘change and innovation’ while tapping into the ‘positive power of the possible.’” At one point during his... Read more
A year ago, just after Bay Area governments imposed a shelter-in-place order to check the spread of a mysterious new coronavirus, Cristina Banks worried about how she would work from home. She would miss her office at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. She would miss interacting with colleagues and students. She would miss her... Read more
A mentor of mine recently passed away, and I was heartbroken—so I tried my best to avoid thinking about it. I didn’t even mention it to my family because I didn’t want those sad feelings to resurface. In other words, I took the very enlightened approach of pretend it didn’t happen—one that’s about as effective as... Read more
Reviewing six decades of research into the meaning, development, and benefits of purpose in life Modern scientific research on human purpose has its origins in, of all places, a Holocaust survivor’s experiences in a series of Nazi concentration camps. While a prisoner at Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and two satellite camps of Dachau, Viennese psychologist Viktor Frankl noticed that... Read more
