Senia.com Positive Psychology Coaching


First time here? View the Coaching Details and the Workshops Details
Most Popular:
Enjoy the daily thoughts below and read what 25 of us positive psychology colleagues write at Positive Psychology News Daily!

Friday January 2, 2009

Hi, I’m on Twitter

Filed under: All, Communication — Senia @ 1:03 am

Find me here: www.twitter.com/senia

I started “tweet”ing at the end of 2008. There is an entire vocabulary and etiquette associated with twitter. For example: DM - send a “direct message” to someone. RT - ReTweet what someone else just posted.

What is twitter? It’s a website where people update new information relevant to their fields ALL DAY LONG. People can post as may as tens of thoughts a day, every hour sometimes. Each thought is about the length of one sentence. For example: “Best time to be in finance, technology, and journalism: http://adjix.com/j8yw “

Other examples can be: “Went to the movie Yes Man - great fun although expected it to be” “Highly recommend this Top 20 list [and a link here]”

Here are the FIVE STAGES OF TWITTER ACCEPTANCE (written by the Influential Marketing Blog, and I read it at Tiny Gigantic):

1. Denial
“I think Twitter sounds stupid. 
 Why would anyone care what people are doing right now?”

2. Presence
“I don’t get it, but I guess I should at least create an account.”

3. Dumping
“I use Twitter to send people links to my blog posts 
 and to send people my press releases.”

4. Conversing
“I don’t always post useful stuff, but I am using Twitter 
 to have authentic 1×1 conversations.”

5. Microblogging
“I use Twitter to post useful stuff that people read, 
 and I’m having authentic 1×1 conversations.”

Come join if you want! twitter.com/senia, and let me know in the comments below what your twitter account is, please! Like Facebook, this takes a bit of time when you start. Somehow it becomes rewarding very, very quickly!

Happy New Year!

Filed under: All — Senia @ 12:52 am

Hi, happy new year!

How are you going to create new habits in the year?

I wish you something new this year. I wish you boldness. I wish you your own self-power in getting what you really want!

My best!

Senia

Wednesday December 31, 2008

Interesting Brain Findings to end 2008

Filed under: All — Senia @ 2:31 am

I wonder if 2008 will be called the “Year of the Brain.” There were a lot of interesting results released. (For even more brain research, go to Sharpbrains.com).

WINE STUDY
The single most interesting IMHO is the wine study.

Price tag can change the way people experience wine, study shows …According to researchers at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the California Institute of Technology, if a person is told he or she is tasting two different wines—and that one costs $5 and the other $45 when they are, in fact, the same wine—the part of the brain that experiences pleasure will become more active when the drinker thinks he or she is enjoying the more expensive vintage.

A BUYING DECISION REALLY HURTS AND REALLY JOYS THE BRAIN
On the surface, this may not seem like a controversial finding. When a person is hooked up to an fMRI machine, and presented with a buying possibility, both pleasure and pain sensors activate in the brain. No big deal.

What makes this a much bigger deal is that when money is mentioned, the pain part of the brain activates, and when the item is mentioned, the pleasure part of the brain activate. (This is 2007 research actually).

HEARING AND THE BRAIN
Yesterday’s AP article about loss of hearing as we age pinpointed some aspects in which the brain may be responsible:

  1. the “dimmer switch” for controlling various sound inputs into your head - i.e. for ignoring another conversation next to you - may be getting dim
  2. contradicting the “dimmer” effect, the brain may work better when facing the person who’s speaking so our ears pick up more sounds simultaneously
  3. nerve signals in the inner ear that are extremely sensitive can change with age

INTUITION WORKS FASTER THAN LOGIC
Also from yesterday: another study that demonstrates that intuition (i.e. the automatic brain) may be aware of something before the rational brain can explain it.

EXERCISE AND REGULAR BLOOD SUGAR HELP BRAIN STAY YOUNG
Yesterday’s news. Regulating blood glucose improves memory. And a great way to regulate blood glucose is through exercise. Therefore exercising actually keeps your brain young.

Again, for much more in-depth info, check out Sharpbrains.com.

Tuesday December 30, 2008

This is the best time to be in YOUR industry

Filed under: Goals, Habits, All — Senia @ 4:55 pm

You can make a major difference in your industry now. Right now.
How do I know?

At the start of a DVD, the warning says the movie’s been formatted to fit your TV. Well - at my home - one person dislikes that announcement, and each time jokes, “How do they know the size of MY television?”

I do know about you and your industry. Why? Because:

It’s when things are bad and you keep going, then you can actually beat everyone, most importantly yourself. You could be in any company-cycle, and especially, you could have been at point A but point B is just an opportunity to get to a higher point D, and beyond. Yes, if you’re like most people, you are likely in your work and in your finances at a trough, at a point B if not C. BUT. That’s the time when you can be the differentiator. That’s right - it’s just like the Terminator, but it’s the Differentiator.

Is that why 20% of twitter’s current membership joined in the past 60 days? Are people trying to connect and move forward in new ways?

Frog that turned milk into butter and livedThere’s a time for rigor and a time for mortis. You have a choice to put more effort in when it gets harder, or to say, “Man, it’s getting harder.” Be the little frog who turned the glass of milk into a glass of butter rather than the little frog who didn’t and drowned.




What I’m aiming to do: write the shortest post possible, get back to fun writing, and write what’s really me.

Saturday December 20, 2008

Hard for you to find the right gifts during the holidays? Here’s why.

Filed under: Positive Psychology, All — Senia @ 8:35 pm

The Maximizer Quiz

What is your decision-making style? Are you what’s called a maximizer or a satisficer? Answer these few questions YES or NO:

Items from the Maximization Scale (These are 7 of 13 total questions on the Maximization Scale by Schwartz et al., 2002 - reference is in the comment section)

1) When I watch TV, I channel surf, often scanning through the available options even while attempting to watch one program.

2) When I am in the car listening to the radio, I often check other stations to see if something better is playing, even if I’m relatively satisfied with what I’m listening to.

3) No matter how satisfied I am with my job, it’s only right for me to be on the lookout for better opportunities.

4) I often find it difficult to shop for a gift for a friend.

5) When shopping, I have a hard time finding clothing that I really love.

6) No matter what I do, I have the highest standards for myself.

7) I never settle for second best.

Are YOU a Maximizer?

Now count up how many Yes’s you have. If you have 6 or 7 Yes’s, you are likely to be a maximizer. If you have 1 or 2 Yes’s, you are likely to be a satisficer. In between, you have some maximizer tendencies.

Maximizers look for the one best version of something - the best meal at a restaurant, the perfect movie night, the best school, the best gift, etc. Satisficers look for something that is good enough to meet their general criteria: a good meal, a good gift, etc. Here’s the problem with being a maximizer during the holidays. It can lead to the following says Barry Schwartz, author of the super-successful Paradox of Choice: Why Less is More. Maximizing behavior can lead to:

  • Stress
  • Decision Paralysis (”analysis paralysis”)
  • Regret

If You Want to Stop Being a Mazimizer

If you want to stop being a maximizer, you can take specific steps to create what I call “GOOD Constraints” and to limit your actions in certain areas. For example, shopping a large part of the day? Going store to store? Putting pressure on yourself to find a really good gift? Try these three actions: presents and happiness

  • Give yourself _ time to make the decision - 20 seconds, 5 minutes, 2 days - limit yourself. Specifically, giving yourself three hours to get all your presents may be plenty.
  • Know that “almost good enough” is good enough. (This is a major Barry Schwartz thought). Specifically, going to one store may be plenty.
  • Once you make the decision, look only at the benefits of that decision to avoid buyer’s remorse. Specifically, if you see a different sweater for your sister and you’ve already bought one, you don’t need to examine the new sweater.

If you want to read more about maximizing, please enjoy these articles on PPND:

Finally, here is a wonderful video on Choice on Australian Broadcasting Corporation (click the “Windows Media” or “Real Player” links at the top) . Barry Schwartz is featured in this video and so is the above “former maximizer”! Great video that explains this so well.




+ + + + + + + p.s. The Story: I wrote all this up because I had a great time being on Live with Lisa Radio today, and telling Lisa about these techniques and also about the story of Barry Schwartz and his students. Barry started studyng maximizing and satisficing because he was finding that college students graduating from Swarthmore were taking jobs at Starbucks.
Schwartz –> students –> Starbucks.
After speaking informally with some students, Barry learned that they felt they had so many options (banking, consulting, start-ups) that they weren’t sure what the BEST option was, and they were delaying deciding by taking a job at Starbucks.

The history of the term “Ponzi scheme”

Filed under: All — Senia @ 12:32 pm

Very interesting: http://www.strike-the-root.com/82/davies/davies11.html

Listen in one hour: I’m talking about positive psychology at this link

Filed under: All — Senia @ 11:25 am

Hi, in one hour (at 11:30am ET (i.e. NY time)), you can listen to me on the wonderful LIVE WITH LISA RADIO program. We’ll be talking about positive psychology during the holidays!

Link to listen-in is here: http://wstcwnlk.com/

Live with Lisa Radio.com

Wednesday December 17, 2008

Positive psychology gift ideas

Filed under: All — Senia @ 10:30 am

Some fun positive psychology gift ideas for the holidays over at PPND:

Positive Psychology Holiday Ideas from PPND

Thursday December 11, 2008

Music and Math: The stock market reacts?

Filed under: All, Happiness Is — Senia @ 9:13 pm

My brother is so cool! He has done some research on music and the stock market: specifically does the volatility in the stock market react to beat-variance? Beat-variance is how much the beat in a specific song varies - are there slow parts and then fast part and differently paced parts?

He has made the most amazing music video ever:

I watched this ten times in a row. My two favorite videos on YouTube now are this Music and the Market and the Evolution of Dance. Enjoy!

Phil Maymin is a finance professor at NYU, and here is what SmartMoney had to say about this research:

Phil Maymin, an assistant professor of finance and risk engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, has crunched 50 years worth of stock-market data — along with more than 5,000 hit songs. And he says he’s found an inverse correlation between stock-market volatility and whether the hot music of the moment is frenetic or steady.

… What’s more, Maymin says that it appears as if musical tastes can predict future market volatility. A strategy based on predicting market volatility from past beat variance appears profitable, on average. “The model predicts that realized volatility next year will be lower than it was this year,” he says. Read more here.

Friday October 3, 2008

The Ultimate Resilience Quote

Filed under: Positive Psychology, All, Self-Talk — Senia @ 12:15 am

“A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself.”

– Alexandre Dumas