Difficult Relationships: 5 Easy Ways To Improve Them, Backed By Research
metimes your closest and most important relationships are also the most difficult. Why? Columbia business school professor Adam Galinsky and Wharton professor Maurice Schweitzer have an answer: All your relationships are both cooperative and competitive. We work together with the ones we love but we also have a bit of rivalry going on at times. It's natural, but difficult. That competitiveness can be why friends and loved ones can have such a positive and motivating influence on us. But it can also…
9 minutes
Power of Empathy: 3 Ways Empathy Can Improve Your Life
es it ever feel like people are all self-absorbed jerks? Like they're not listening? Only in it for themselves? You're not crazy. Empathy is declining. Via Empathy: Why It Matters, and How to Get It: A recent study at the University of Michigan revealed a dramatic decline in empathy levels among young Americans between 1980 and today, with the steepest drop being in the last ten years. The shift, say researchers, is in part due to more people living alone…
11 minutes
How To Be Loved By Everyone: 6 Powerful Secrets
would all like to know how to be loved by everyone. In the end, who are our favorite people? Those who understand us and listen. Someone we can turn to and honestly say, "You get me." That really comes down to one skill: listening. And it's something most of us are awful at. In an age of sub-zero attention spans, focus is a superpower. And focusing on others is even more rare. When I asked the #1 love researcher, John Gottman, what the best thing…
7 minutes
The Lazy Way To An Awesome Life: 3 Secrets Backed By Research
all want an awesome life. And very often you know what you need to do to improve it... but you don't do it. I don't blame you. Hey, some of that stuff is hard. (I should know. I write about it all the time.) Isn’t there an easy, passive way where your flaws start correcting themselves, you gain respectable goals and become much, much happier? Well, at least in theory, there just might be. I called somebody to find out. Nicholas Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH,…
8 minutes
Fear Of Rejection: 2 Ways To Beat It, Backed By Research
all deal with fear of rejection. Jia Jiang did too. But he overcame it... thanks to a box of donuts. He explains how this happened in his wonderful book, Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection. His dream was to be an entrepreneur -- and that means a lot of rejection. So how could he beat the fear? By turning it into a game. For 100 days he made ridiculous requests of strangers, expecting to get rejected.…
7 minutes
5 Secrets To Always Making A Good First Impression
search shows that first impressions are even more important than you think: The findings indicate that getting off on the wrong foot has devastating long-term consequences. And once first impressions are set, they're very hard to change. Via David McRaney’s You Are Not So Smart: A study in 1997 by Wilkielman, Zajonc, and Shwartz created first impressions in subjects with images of smiles and frowns. The people in the study saw a photo of either a happy or a sad…
5 minutes
How To Be Someone People Love To Talk To
hen do we really learn good conversation skills? Well, we don't. We're just kind of expected to pick them up... And we wonder why people aren't better communicators. How can you be that person people love to talk to? I've posted a lot of research and expert interviews on the…
10 minutes
How To Get People To Like You: 7 Ways From An FBI Behavior Expert
eeting new people can be awkward. What should you say? How can you make a good impression? How do you keep a conversation going? Research shows relationships are vital to happiness and networking is the key to getting jobs and building a fulfilling career. But what's the best way to…
10 minutes
