Checklist: What are 4 steps to a more meaningful life?
bsp; 1) What do you want the story of your life to be? It's your funeral. After a long life, the end has come. What do you want the people who love you to be saying about you? About what you accomplished? About the difference you made in their lives? Got a few thoughts? Congratulations, you now have long term goals. Work backwards and make those things happen. Via Richard Wiseman’s excellent book 59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a…
4 minutes
Which 8 questions can determine how happy and successful your life will be?
ve posted previously about the Grant Study. It followed (and continues to follow) a group of men through their entire adult lives and into old age to determine what is associated with health and well-being. George Valliant's book Triumphs of Experience covers the results of the study and what he learned shepherding it. Looking at the men who were happiest and most accomplished in their 80's researchers were able to see similarities. Which men would go on to fare the best and…
2 minutes
How do you find the best mentor for you?
bsp; Mentors have been essential for me. No matter how many books you read or how much time you spend researching on the web, mentors are still a crucial part of learning in any arena. So how do you find a great one? Daniel Coyle goes through the research in his excellent book The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills and pulls together five points: 1) Avoid Someone Who Reminds You of a Courteous Waiter …one who focuses his…
4 minutes
What makes for a good life?
the 1940's the Grant Study began at Harvard, following a cohort of young men for their entire lives in an effort to determine what predicts health and well-being. George Valliant took over shepherding the study in 1966. He recently published a book on its findings and how it affected him personally: Triumphs of Experience. Dan Slater has a piece in the Daily Beast about it. Here are some highlights: To avid consumers of modern happiness literature, some of Vaillant’s conclusions will…
2 minutes
What do great workplaces, making friends, networking, dealing with kidnappers and being happy all have in common?
l are done well by focusing on other people: Get out of your head and into theirs. Great Work Environments Bob Sutton reviewed Bill and Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World’s Greatest Company and called out “Dave Packard’s 11 Simple Rules” as guidelines for building an excellent work environment. What was #1? 1. Think first of the other fellow. This is THE foundation — the first requisite — for getting along with others. And it is the one truly difficult accomplishment you must…
3 minutes
5 Secrets To Using Your Time Wisely
Schedule things that make you happy You often schedule things that are "important", but what about the things that make you happy? Activities on your calendar are more likely to be the things you do. So be as good about scheduling the personal as the professional. From my interview with Stanford happiness researcher Jennifer Aaker: ...people who spend more time on projects that energize them and with people who energize them tend to be happier. However, what is interesting…
4 minutes
These 5 Things Will Make You Smarter
bsp; 1) Get rid of the distractions You can't multitask. Via Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School: To put it bluntly, research shows that we can’t multitask. We are biologically incapable of processing attention-rich inputs simultaneously. All those buzzing text messages and email chimes can reduce mental ability by an average of 10 IQ points. For men, it’s about three times the effect of smoking marijuana. Via Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining…
4 minutes
These Six Things Will Bring You A Great Night’s Sleep
bsp; Your Worst Enemy Is Probably You Stop cheating yourself. You can't cut corners on sleep and not have it affect you: ...by the end of two weeks, the six-hour sleepers were as impaired as those who, in another Dinges study, had been sleep-deprived for 24 hours straight — the cognitive equivalent of being legally drunk. Being tired actually makes it harder to be happy. Via NurtureShock: Negative stimuli get processed by the amygdala; positive or neutral memories gets processed by the…
3 minutes
