Are You Near Palm Springs, CA?

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.

Read These (wk of Jan 15, 2006)

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

TONIGHT on Letterman – Josh Ritter!

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

Josh Ritter on Letterman Dave Letterman

Why This Blog?

Hello! You’ve been reading my blog for a while. Why do you visit this blog? I am going to write down the reasons I think you visit this blog:

* You have a positive, fun outlook on life, and you’re interested in more of the same
* You are interested in Positive Psychology
* You’re a friend of mine from pre-blog times
* You’re into some of the topics I cover: stories? questions? quotes? getting to know yourself? self-help? personal development? intuition? success? improving your life?

I would love to hear more (and I’m NOT looking for “you’re great, Senia”… more about why the blog interests you). I am especially interested in hearing more since I want to implement a bit of structure onto the blog for the next month or two. I want to cover a couple of specific topics in depth – having to do with making choices, the new year, going after your goals.

Thank you very much!
Best,
S.

Vote for SHAGG!

I’m friends with this great band SHAGG! They are in the Top 10 right now for an mtvU prize. Please vote for them! You can vote for them as many times as you go to the site! Thanks!

Definitive Jux, an indie hip hop label based here in NYC, is running a contest through mtvU, and the winner gets to record an EP as well as a single and video with Def Jux rapper Mr. Lif. Shagg was selected for the “Top 25” and now, Shagg is in the “Top 10.”

There’s one week left to go.
Please keep voting! YAY! Looks like you can vote as often as you like.

Go here and click on the “DEF JUX TOP 10” graphic on the left halfway down the page.

Ninja NY and TOMB Boston

I’m a huge fan of interactive entertainment, i.e. fun with real activities. Here are two great places.

1) I’ve been here and love to take my friends here. This is TOMB, an interactive adventure. An interactive, who-done-it, move-through-three-chambers, and solve-puzzles adventure, done in groups of 10-15 people. Love it!

2) Ninja Restaurant in NY (haven’t been yet, but want to go): the waiters hide and surprise you and jump out at you and the food includes swords that you need to pull out. Here is a video about it, and I heard about it from this link about 10 unusual restaurants:

Ask Early

I was reading Dave Seah‘s story about Ulrick the Bee, and I like this second part of the story where Tiffany appears and she ask a lot of questions!

Once of the best lessons I ever received was, “Ask Early.” When I was working on Wall St., my mentor was a woman who was very accomplished in her department, and a wonderful, kind, great person. I met with her early in my career at the company, and she gave me a great piece of advice. She said:

Ask early. Ask about anything that you don’t know. Because if six months have gone by and then you ask about something that should be simple and clear and easy, then you will seem to be slow and lagging behind. Then the quesiton will be, “Oh, you don’t know that yet?” Ask early. There is great simplicity to that. If you don’t know, ask.

My father also told me many times, three of the most beautiful words in English are “I don’t know.” And then finding out is fascinating.

Posted on 12-15-06 for Wed, 12-13-06.

Not-Perfect

Not-perfect is real.

Imagine two stories:
STORY 1: A girl lives on a farm with her Aunt Em and her Uncle. Everything is pretty outside. She goes to sleep. She wakes up. Her dog jumps into her arms. Everything is fine. Oh, yes, a little boring maybe.
STORY 2: A girl lives on a farm with her Aunt Em and her Uncle. Everything is pretty outside. There is a tornado. She finds herself in another world and her house has killed the wicked witch of the west. She needs to get away, and there are bad guys, and crazy monkeys, and three adventurers who come with her. The man who is supposed to get them out of there is frightening. Everything seems lost, and then she finds the wizard of Oz, clicks her heels and comes home and wakes up.

A little more drama in story 2, eh? I want to make sure I keep drama in my blog posts. I want to make sure I show you in writing what I think the cool parts are and what the issues are. I don’t want to be too didactic. I don’t want to be too simple and obvious. I want to write a mystery, like Haidt in most chapters of The Happiness Hypothesis. I want to write a love story, like The Dot and the Line, and I want to write what’s fun!

But sometimes, I want to write and write and write and do more and more research before presenting it. This is the leftovers of junior high school perfectionism. Actually, everyone who knows me would say that I am not a perfectionist. I’m not. But in some things, I have the leanings of one.

And there are other bloggers out there who say similar things! That’s why I’m writing this down and why I made the repeated goal of writing daily! It’s about a hint of an idea. It’s not about a thesis! (…um, that’s an exclamation sign to me, not to you).

I have such a mini-struggle with blogs sometimes. There are so many fascinating ideas in the positive psychology literature, and I’d like you to see them all! Or, well, the really interesting ones anyway.

Here’s what Charlene Li of Forrester says about losing – and finding – one’s voice:

So I’ve vowed to follow Nike’s mantra and “just do it”, or in this case, to “just blog it”. Damn the idea of quality and depth of analysis — I’m better off getting something out there and getting your reactions to it. So here I am, writing a stream of consciousness and finding my voice again. … So hang on, I’ve got a lot of pent up ideas that I want to explore. I don’t promise well-formed ideas or deep insights in every post, but it’s the best that I’ll be able to do.

Christine Lane writes about the 17 things she knows about creativity. I like number 11 and 17:

  • 11 – Blogging is creative. I think blogs have become so popular because bloggers get to just write. They get to see the big deal of not making it such a big deal. …
  • 17 – Creativity is about showing up, not perfection. If you want to be more creative in your life, if you crave a more artful life, start small. Make cards for people. Make ugly cards. Call them “Ugly Cards, Inc.” Write bad poems. Call them “Bad Poems, Inc.” I bought a thank you gift for a friend of mine recently. And it sat on my desk for weeks because I was waiting to find “the perfect card.” Knowing what I know about Energy Drains and Creativity, I finally got so frustrated with myself and my perfectionist that I just ripped a piece of paper off a Kinko’s notepad. I folded it. On the front of the “card,” I wrote: “Beautifully crafted card with the perfect sentiment expressing exactly how grateful I am for your presence in my life.” And I opened the “card,” and on the inside I wrote: “…with the perfect little punch-line inside to make you laugh and feel good about yourself.” And I sent the card and package. And it brought my friend great joy. She loved the card.

And, of course, I am a fan of the dailyness of Fred at AVC, whom I first read about on Evelyn’s blog.

Cool, see you soon.

Posted on 12-15-06 for Mon, 12-11-06.

Will Smith on Aristotle

Will Smith is starring in “The Pursuit of Happyness,” and in this article, he says that he read a lot about happiness in preparing for the movie. Will Smith says he liked best what Aristotle said about happiness:

“I’ve been reading a lot about what is happiness, and I feel Aristotle had the best idea,” the 38-year-old actor said while seated in the stately wood-paneled McCormick Room atop Tribune Tower. “He broke it down in the Nicomachean Ethics. Like for me it feels directly and inexorably connected to self-esteem.

“So I always explain it as: Think of yourself as two people, and one of them is inside of you, and he’s a scorekeeper. And he keeps score of your idea of the world. … And when you have a conflict with your scorekeeper, that’s unhappiness. Happiness is being completely in sync” — he slapped his palms together — “with your own perception of goodness.”

Agreed.