“Nice guys finish last.” Really? What does the research say?
ice guys finish last." Is it true? To some degree it depends on what area of life we're talking about. Let's see what the research has to say... Money Nice guys finish last here. More agreeable people make less money: ...men who measured below average on agreeableness earned about 18% more—or $9,772 more annually in their sample—than nicer guys. Ruder women, meanwhile, earned about 5% or $1,828 more than their agreeable counterparts. “Nice guys are getting the shaft,” says study co-author…
4 minutes
6 ways to make someone fall in love with you:
Dim The Lights Nighttime is the right time. Via The As If Principle: The Radically New Approach to Changing Your Life: Describing his findings in an article entitled “Deviance in the Dark,” Gergen noted that when the lights were on, none of the participants purposefully touched or hugged one another and that 30 percent of them felt sexually aroused. When the group was plunged into darkness, the situation was very different. Now, almost 90 percent of them touched one another…
3 minutes
What 6 secrets can the oldest couples teach us about how to have a long, happy relationship?
rl Pillemer of Cornell University interviewed nearly 1500 people age 70 to 100+ for his book “30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans.” What did they have to say about long, happy relationships? Via 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans: Here’s the “refrigerator list” of lessons for successful married life: 1. Marry someone a lot like you. Similarity in core values and background is the key to a happy marriage.…
2 minutes
How much is your success dependent on those around you?
u'd think that doing thousands of heart surgeries would make you better at them. Not necessarily. Surgeons only got better at their home hospital: the one where they knew the team best and developed strong working relationships. Via Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success: When Huckman and Pisano examined the data, they discovered a remarkable pattern. Overall, the surgeons didn't get better with practice. They only got better at the specific hospital where they practiced. For every procedure they…
3 minutes
To Help Others The Right Way, Do These 5 Things
ve posted a number of times about how helping others makes you happier. But I know this leaves some people scratching their heads: How much should I help others? How often? Will I be exploited? Will I end up resenting people I love if they don't reciprocate? We all know selfless givers who are taken advantage of and taken for granted. Nobody wants to feel like a sucker. So this simple thing doesn't seem so simple -- and it feels…
3 minutes
Interview – Harvard/MIT Lecturer Olivia Fox Cabane teaches you how to be more charismatic
ivia Fox Cabane is the author of The Charisma Myth. She's lectured on the subject at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, MIT, Google and the United Nations. I spoke with her about how charisma works, the science behind it and how anyone can become more influential. For brevity’s sake I’m only going to post edited highlights here. Subscribers to my free weekly newsletter get access to extended interviews. Join here. ——————————————— How does charisma work? Eric: In The Charisma Myth you break down charisma into presence, power,…
4 minutes
6 ways to prevent your relationship from boring you to death:
bsp; 1) Realize a slowdown is normal You can't expect it to stay like it was during those first few torrid months. No one can sprint for miles. A downshifting is natural, so don't let some slowing down make you think there are deeper relationship problems. Via The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't, What Shouldn't Make You Happy, but Does: ...the heightened passion and chemical attraction evident at the beginning of a love affair have…
4 minutes
When it comes to relationships, is it better to trust your gut?
mothy Wilson, author of Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change, has a piece in the New York Times covering research showing that feeling beats thinking when it comes to relationship predictions: It might seem that the people who thought about the specifics would be best at figuring out how they really felt, and that their satisfaction ratings would thus do the best job of predicting the outcome of their relationships. In fact, we found the reverse. It was the…
3 minutes
