Senia Maymin, Ph.D. – Brave Job Search
Senior Leaders: Get a new job *before* you get laid off
Q: What is the wildest, most incredible, most intense goal that you could imagine for yourself?
What is the most audacious, courageous, gung-ho, must-do goal that you can see in your head?
Feel free to answer this question with an anonymous name. Or with your own name. Answer it as crazily as you possibly can. As intently as you can! Ganbatte!
Hi, I’ll be in Palm Springs, CA (near LA) for the weekend for the 11th annual Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology conference and its partner BrainMeeting conferences (Jan 19-22).
If you’re in the Palm Springs area, please send me an email (here), and we can figure out if we could meet up.
I’ll be giving three talks (my talks).
* Increase Three Factors Critical for Job Productivity and Enjoyment
* New Positive Psychology Results for BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION
* How Can You Increase Job Productivity and Enjoyment? (Workshop)
Let me know if you’re around.
Best!
S.
Last week, I wrote about sleep. Next week, I’ll be writing about goals. Hence, some prelimiary quotes about goals.
A goal without a plan is just a wish.
~ Larry Elder
On setting things in motion …
What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
By losing your goal, you have lost your way.
~ Kahlil Gibran
What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
~ John Lubbock
Things which matter most should never be at the mercy of things which matter least.
~ Goethe (from this page)
Here is a great new website!
Positive Psychology News Daily is authored by alumni of the Master of Applied Positive Psychology at UPenn, and provides DAILY, in-depth news articles about Positive Psychology today. It covers up-to-date news events, new research studies, and particually, applications of positive psychology to various fields and industries.
Expect articles on various topics of Positive Psychology, including
* positive experiences
* positive traits
* positive institutions
Check out the site, and please let me know of any improvements and additions that you would recommend! Thank you!
Senia
I enjoyed two posts recently about “WHAT IS YOUR GENIUS?” – Evelyn’s and Dwayne’s.
The way my friend H asks this “What is your genius?” question is
“What is the one thing that you do that ONLY YOU can do?”
Evelyn Rodriguez writes a couple of weeks ago in “What is Your Genius?” that she was at a party and was asked to write down the answer to the your-genuis question in fifteen minutes. Evelyn writes that this is a question that she would think it takes years and much insight to answer, and so was initially resistant to trying to do the same thing with minutes and a pencil? She writes that the way she jumped into it is through her curiosity and by thinking:
(Write what Allen Ginsberg calls “first thought”, first impulse, go for the raw unpolished unedited uncensored spew your guts forth wear your heart on the page just write as if no one is watching and no one needs to see it. Forget grammar, forget sentences that make sense, quickly before any “but” can sneak in.)
That’s the way to get to your subconscious is by asking details, and not giving yourself time to find a “but.”
And if you want to think about your wonder and genius in a more logical way, Dwayne Melancon of Genuine Curiosity writes how he does it. He writes the post “When are you at your best?” Dwayne says:
“At the recommendation of a mentor of mine I’ve been interviewing people I work with and asking them four simple questions, developed with help from my office mate Gene. The questions are simple and humbling […]:
Obviously, I picked people I trust (to be honest, to keep my best interest in mind, etc.) but it’s still difficult to have these conversations with people you admire or respect. Trust me – it’s worth it to power through the anxiety.”
So, whether you want to PLAY (i.e. Evelyn’s style above) or DISCOVER (i.e. Dwayne’s style), it would be fun to try yourself out on this one! In both cases, though, just keep going. You know the little child who asks his Mom, “why is the sky blue?” and she answers that it is the only color that is reflected to our eyes, and then he says, “well, why is that the only color?” and she tells him about how the eye works, and he asks “why is the eye like that?” – be like that little child…. in both the intuitive PLAY and the logical DISCOVER cases, go deeper. Don’t stop at the outer level. Find out what your genius really is.
As Dwayne says:
One thing that can be challenging is to simply listen during these sessions. Fight your impulse to dispute what you hear, or play it down, or even lead your interviewee down a different path. Try to limit your commentary responses to, “Thank you,” or, “I didn’t realize that,” and make liberal use of phrases like, “Tell me more…,” and, “What do you mean by that?”
ENJOY!!!!
Here are some great links. Read these! :)
IDEA: The best role of a boss.
SOURCE:MabelandHarry
(via Anna Farmery and via the ThoughtsPhilosophies carnival):
Robert Altman says the the role of the film director is
“to create a space where the actor or actress can become more than they’ve ever been before, more than they’ve dreamed of being”Now if you replace actor/actress with employee…isn’t that what business is all about? You are a dream creator, a dream coach, a dream maker…..now tell me that you have no power!
IDEA: How to measure what you’ve been doing.
SOURCE: David Maister’s summary of the words of Deborah Szekely, founder of the Golden Door Spa.
(via Anna Farmery and the ThoughtsPhilosophies carnival):
Among her pearls of wisdom was the advice that, every week, we should take an hour or two to examine what we have done with our time in the previous week, marking everything in one of five colors.
* Green would be used for anything that was a challenging growth experience
* Black would be used for things that were a waste of time
* Blue should be used for things that could have been delegated (even if the other person could only do it 85% as well as you could.)
* Red would represent something you did that was a deposit for your health
* and your own favorite color would be used for time spent on family, friends and fun
IDEA: Why smiling makes you happy.
SOURCE: Bob Sutton
(via Life At the Bar which was emailed by Stephanie of Idealawg.)
There is now compelling evidence that smiling causes people to feel happy. Requiring people to smile, no matter how they really feel at first, results in increased positive feelings; frowning conversely decreases positive feelings. Robert Zajonc and his colleagues show that smiling leads to physiological changes in the brain that cool the blood, which in turn makes people feel happy. [A series of experiments] show that positive emotion and cooler facial temperatures result when people saying the letter “e†or the sound “ah†over and over again, apparently because making these sounds requires a smile-like expression. …
These [experiments] also show that negative emotion (and hotter facial temperatures) result from repeating sounds like the letter O or the German vowel ü, apparently because making these sounds require a frown-like expression to pronounce. This effect was found to be equally strong in both German and American research subjects. These researchers also found direct effects of temperature on emotion, demonstrating that people who have had cold air blown up their noses are happier than those who have had hot air blown up their noses. Hundreds of other studies show that hot temperatures are a powerful and reliable cause of foul moods and interpersonal conflict (especially aggression and violence).
So, if you want to be really weird, try increasing happiness (and thus creativity) by having your people say “ah, ah, ah,†“e, e ,e, e,†or perhaps saying “cheese†over and over again, blowing cold air up their noses, or just keeping the buildings cold where creative people work. Or as Jane Dutton at The University of Michigan told me after she heard Robert Zajonc talk about these ideas: “When I want to get in a good mood, I’ll just go home and stick my head in the refrigerator.”
IDEA: A website about the good things in life.
SOURCE: Stephanie West Allen of Idealawg about DarynKagan.com. Stephanie writes:
Without identifying it as such, the article mentions confirmation bias. Because so much sensory data hits us each moment, we have to filter much out to maintain our sanity; we tend to let through that which confirms what we already believe.
“Bad things happen in the world,” Kagan says. “But I believe everyone has this life filter, this life view. We all run around collecting stories in our head to support whatever that life view is. I’m choosing to have the life view that good things are happening.”
We cannot get rid of our confirmation bias but, with managed and focused attention, we can change the bias. How do you see the world? Whatever your answer to that question, you will continue to see through that lens. If you don’t like what you see, trade in your bias for a new one.
IDEA: Being good. Returning library books.
SOURCE: Man returns book overdue since 1960
What is your advice for good sleep?
I suggest these three things:
Q: What do you find are the best things for you to do to get great sleep?
This is Quetion Friday. Thanks and happy weekend! For fun, check out yesterday’s quotes on sleep.
Josh Ritter is the musical guest tonight on Letterman!
Definitely give a listen and a watch to this great guy who started off like the rest of musicians, singing at coffee houses and logging in miles on a beat-up car. He made it big in Ireland first, and now in the U.S. A few years ago, we could see Josh regularly when he used to play open mikes at Club Passim in Boston. Great guy – couldn’t be happier for him!!! I describe his music as a young Leonard Cohen. Joan Baez has already covered one of his songs on a CD of hers.
11:35pm CBS
Tonight, Jan 12
The Late Show with Dave Letterman
I’m getting married in the mornin’!
Ding dong! The bells are gonna chime.
Pull out the stopper!
Let’s have a whopper!
But get me to the church on time!
~ My Fair Lady, Get Me to the Church on Time
How can you get to sleep on time? On your time. At the time you want to fall asleep? WebMD has 12 tips for better sleep. I completely agree with one of the tips:
Allow yourself one hour to unwind before bed. Brush your teeth one hour before getting into bed and wash your face slowly with warm water. Set the mood for relaxation before bed. This is not a time to be rushing about or planning the following days events. Do this earlier in the evening.
What can you do to relax as completely and as simply as you can before bed?
Can you
* Light a candle,
* Have some camomile tea,
* Brush your hair,
* Meditate,
* Breathe,
* Read some poetry?
What can you do to prep your body that it is about to go to bed? What cues can you give to your body (smell – light-fragrance candle, sight – darken the lights, touch – put on pajamas and night clothes, taste – brush your teeth, hear – put on classical music)? Or other cues? How can you give your body a clue that sleep is about to happen?
That is the single-best thing you can do for your body to get ready for sleep – to put it in the mood for sleep. I suggest getting ready for bed between 10 and 11pm. You need to be in bed by 10 or 11pm for optimal functioning, in my humble unscientific in this case, opinion.
And, yes, this will take longer than your usual routine, and yes, you’ll need to factor that time into your day, but it will pay off in healthy, full sleep.
One more tip: get ready for bed, get everything ready (including all these above cues), and then just get in bed and read. Read books for fun, not necessarily books for work or for homework. Marsha Norman says that if you’re a writer, you should read for four hours every day, and if anyone asks you what you’re doing, tell them that you’re busy and you’re reading. And for those of us who are not writers, reading is so opening, so exhilirating, so freeing, so full – it is the ideal pre-bedtime activity. Reading takes us into different worlds. And by doing so absolutely prepares us for bed.
IN SUMMARY:
Note: I know these above won’t work for everybody. That’s why they’re my opinoons and my suggestions only.
Here are some earlier quotes about sleep!
Here’s a silly riddle for you from riddlenut:
I weaken all men for hours each day. I show you strange visions while you are away. I take you by night, by day take you back, none suffer to have me, but do from my lack. What am I?
Answer in the comments.
And a couple more:
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
~ Edgar Allen Poe
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
~ Egdar Allen Poe, “Nevermore”
Sleep is the best meditation.
~ Dalai Lama (1989 Nobel Peace Prize)
That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural graces, sleep.
~ Aldous Huxley
I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.
~ Mark Twain
There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.
~ Homer