While attending the IPPA World Congress this summer I learned a lot.  I took a lot of notes.  Then I promptly forgot a great deal of what I heard.  Why?  Well, I was a little distracted.  We were launching our book, Character Strengths Matter:  How to Live a Full Life, which has been doing really well.  There was a lot of excitement among all the contributors and endorsers and we had a lot of books to get out to them. And I was on the practice committee which had to review 1/2 of the 800 abstracts, so I was busy greeting my committee and thanking them.  But one of my takeaways was Barbara Fredrickson’s new research that people who aim for happiness are actually less happy than those who aim for positivity in their lives.  If you focus on those… …

Did you miss our webinar on Thriving Virtual Teams?  No fear.  Click the link below. We had a fantastic webinar with Tina Jackson of Action Resources at the end of March, 2014.  And after much ado, here is the recording: https://files.secureserver.net/0sNoQCO1c89T1v Password: act1on (that’s a #1, not the letter l) She did a fantastic job of talking about the 5 C’s of communicating virtually and the neuroscience of the brain and how we learn – kinesthetic, visual and auditory.  You can see our previous post about the Brain Pathways and here for more on the webinar. Below is a little bit more about our amazing facilitator. Tina Jackson, M.A., M.C.C., is an organization development consultant, corporate trainer, and leadership coach.  She has helped over 10,000 people develop sustainable skills to enhance individual and team performance. Working with Fortune 500 companies, professional services… …

Editor’s note: June 25 was the official launch date of the book, Character Strengths Matter: How to Live a Full Life, coinciding with the start of the 4th World Congress of the International Positive Psychology Association in Orlando, Florida. The book is published in loving memory of Christopher Peterson, master scientist of character strengths, and the proceeds go to the Christopher Peterson Memorial Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Character Strengths Matter is the third book in the Positive Psychology News series, joining Resilience: How to Navigate Life’s Curves and Gratitude: How to Appreciate Life’s Gifts. A Kindle version of Character Strengths Matter is also available. This article comes from the introduction in the book. It explains why the book includes read-aloud passages for all character strengths. For those of you that read aloud to your children, grandchildren, or friends, it may come as a surprise how much good you are doing… …

Research shows that we spend far more time thinking about how we can correct something that has gone wrong, or is about to go wrong, instead of basking in what has gone right. There may have been an evolutionary advantage to analyzing bad events more thoroughly, but this minimizes your life satisfaction and it maximizes anxiety and depression. The Seeing the Good Stuff Exercise improves well-being by a simple method of redirecting attention towards positive thoughts and away from negative thoughts and sweetens your memories about the past. Research shows that becoming more conscious of good events reliably increases your happiness and decreases depression.  Noticing and analyzing what goes well in our lives builds the skills of remembering good events and not taking them for granted. It builds gratitude as well. Analyzing why events go well encourages a consciousness of… …

I often get asked about how to change your mind about a specific incident.  This is the crux of cognitive behavioral therapy.  Carol Dweck’s mindset is a fantastic tool.  Here is some more details on how you can use it. The Approach: How we interpret an event, i.e. our ‘mindset’ has huge implications for how well we bounce back from change and how we set goals.  By learning more about our mindsets, we can change them and become more resilient in the face of the challenges of our jobs and our daily lives.  This pioneering work was done by Dr. Carol Dweck at Stanford and has been tested over the last 20 years. A fixed mindset says, “Looking smart is most important” with the main goal at work is to show how good or how smart you are.  A growth… …

Do You Have Executive Presence? When you walk into a room at work are people naturally drawn to you? When you sit at a meeting table do others ask to hear your thoughts? When there’s a decision to be made do people seek our your ideas? If you’re wavering in your responses chances are you’re missing what researchers have found is an essential component to getting ahead at work … executive presence. Reported to account, on average, for 25 percent of what it takes to get promoted, understanding how to project confidence, stay poised under pressure and be authentic are clearly skills worth having. But if you’re not quite there yet, what can you do to cultivate a more positive presence at work? What Is Executive Presence? Michelle McQuaid on Presence from Donna Hemmert on Vimeo. “Studies have found that in the first seven seconds of meeting… …

What’s your next mountain or molehill? My husband thinks I need to scale back on the learning.  I got so jazzed after finishing my coaching program at Georgetown, that I went and got certified in the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator).  Now I can understand the four letter codes my colleagues are always muttering.  And as a newly certified leadership coach, I wanted to have a 360 to offer my clients so I went to the Leadership Circle Profile 360 training as well.  I assumed that would be similar to MBTI…learn some theory, practice debriefing and then we’re done.  As it turns out it was some of the most impactful training of my life.  I had about 6 months of insights in three days.  The theory that underpins the assessment is very sound and the analytics are compelling for how the… …

  How cool is it to have a graphic artist translate your talk into images?  I had a great time on Live Happy today.  Thanks to Kym and his team for having me and thanks to those who listened!

Tom Rath on the Trends in the Field I was thrilled to finally get to hear Tom Rath in person at the GMU Well-Being conference a few weeks ago and I’m very excited for his new book.  I thought that employee engagement was the be all and end all measure for employees.  Rath’s research with Gallup indicates that well-being is more than being engaged on the job.  He shared 3 keys to improve daily wellbeing: Meaning – Making progress on goals Interactions – More positive than negative Energy – Based on his last book – Eat Sleep Move    In regards to meaning, the latest research shows that pursuing your own happiness may backfire.  Try to make meaning for others.  Connecting actions to meaning boosts performance and quality. In your own work, small wins can generate meaningful progress. As far as interactions go,… …

  Brain PathWays™ is the system you need to discover and leverage your unique brain strengths. Follow your brain pathways on a journey of self-discovery for breakthrough insights. Then, align with how your brain is wired for overall enhanced potential and fulfillment of your goals and dreams.  Knowing how your unique brain is wired to work for you is the most important thing to know about yourself. When you understand which senses your brain prefers and how it prefers to process information, you’re prepared to apply that knowledge to experience fulfillment and success. Doesn’t it make sense that when your work matches your strengths, you excel? Performing work that does not engage your brain strengths is more difficult, frustrating, stressful and less productive, not to mention, no fun at all.  Every aspect of your life can benefit from applying this… …

  The world is flat. More and more teaming occurs virtually. But how do you build rapport when you don’t have a water cooler to meet near? How can you really know what your employee is doing? What does the science of positive psychology say about all this? Join us with an expert, Melissa Hammer, who shares some tips and techniques. She will also share some research on brain science and how you can use the way you learn (auditory, kinesthetic, visual) to engage your team…and yourself.   Join us on March 31st, 2015 from 12 – 1 pm EDT for Thriving on Virtual Teams.  Register here. Mastery in building strong virtual teams lies in the capacity to effectively connect and collaborate across barriers like time zones, cultures, business units and technology. To successfully sustain this connection and translate it to high… …

Ever since 2012, March 20 is UN´s International Happiness Day. All around the world, people will celebrate and host events to educate their fellow human beings on all things happiness, well-being, and flourishing. And I´m in as well – as part of a Virtual Happiness Conference. 32 fellow Penn Mappsters were interviewed on their favorite Positive Psychology subject, among them a lot of people you might already know because they have done webinars for Positive Business DC.  All in all, there´s more than 24 hours of video material available. All content will be online for free until March 26. After that, you can purchase the videos. Every cent will go to the Christopher Peterson Memorial Fellowship which helps future students to afford attending Penn´s MAPPprogram. As for my part: I was interviewed by the fabulous Jamie Cundy on the role of Positive Psychology in presenting.  This is the link to… …

Did you miss our webinar today? No fear – you can see it here. Quick Recap: We had a very interesting webinar with Michelle McQuaid today, where she shared results from her survey of over 1000 companies and their views on strengths in the workplace. She shared statistics such as in 2015, 5 out of 10 people are building on their strengths. She also how shared how effective managers help their employees make changes as well as the benefits these companies are reaping. Who is Michelle McQuaid? Michelle McQuaid is a best-selling author, workplace wellbeing teacher and playful change activator. With more than a decade of senior leadership experience in large organizations around the world, she’s passionate about translating cutting-edge research from positive psychology and neuroscience, into practical strategies for health, happiness, and business success. An honorary fellow at Melbourne University’s Graduate School of Education,… …

I was stunned when I first read Kristin Neff’s book, Self Compassion.  After having recently taken her assessment online, I realized that I am abysmal in regards to self-compassion.  But I’m going to be compassionate about my low score! I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Neff on Wake Up Happy from Live Happy magazine this week.  She had some great things to reiterate from her book. As Kristin said, self compassion is not contingent on success.  You must relate to yourself kindly.  This is available when we succeed or when we fail.  If self worth contingent on success we start becoming afraid of failure. We don’t really want to even try because the consequences are too devastating.  The myth that most of us believe is that self criticism motivates us. I was having this conversation with my writer brother… …

Frequently we like to alert our readers of great opportunities to learn about positive psychology and positive business.  Here is one of those opportunities. It’s local to DC and it has a great lineup of speakers! The Leading to Well-Being Conference: Facilitating Leadership for a Well-Lived Life at George Mason University on Friday, April 12, 2013 at the Mason Inn & Conference Center. The conference is co-sponsored by MasonLeads and the Center for Consciousness and Transformation.  The conference format includes featured keynote speakers and interactive breakout sessions. Since conference enrollment is limited to 375 attendees, early registration is recommended. Keynote Speakers   Dr. Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist who lectures frequently to professional groups, business and professional audiences, and higher education institutions.  Dr. Goleman is the author of numerous best-selling books including Emotional Intelligence and Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence.  His most recent book, The Brain and Emotional Intelligence:… …

If you want to learn the basics of Positive Psychology directly from one of the most eminent researchers in the field, 2015 is your time. Barbara Fredrickson is offering a massive open online course (MOOC) via the platform Coursera for free. The course is scheduled from February 9 to March 27. You´ll have to put in roughly 2-4 hours of work. This is the course´s syllabus: Week 1: Positive Emotions: The Tiny Engines of Positive Psychology. Look “under the hood” to discover the powerful drivers of growth, well-being, and health. Week 2: The Mindscapes and Outcomes of Positivity. Discover the roots of flexibility, creativity, and resilience. Week 3: The Delicate Art of Pursuing Happiness. Discover the ratios and priorities that best promote flourishing and learn common pitfalls to avoid. Week 4: Positivity Resonance and Loving-Kindness. Unveil the force of co-experienced positive emotions and practice… …

*This article first appeared on www.positivepsychologynews.com In my other teamwork article, I set the stage with reflections on the teamwork character strength and then explored one way to build this strength. Today I’ll follow up with three more approaches.   Approach Two: Invoke Connections to the Larger Group Another way to build the strength of teamwork is to remind people that thinking about group membership best serves the whole team. Ford and colleagues describe a study of airline flight attendants based domestically or overseas. They received a manipulation designed to prime either their social identities in terms of being employees of the airline or their personal identities in terms of self evaluations and feelings. Then they read a brief outline of an in-flight event before completing a teamwork questionnaire. Those who received a social identity prime indicated increased willingness to engage… …