Book Review: Before Happiness by Shawn Achor

Before Happiness: The 5 Hidden Keys to Achieving Success, Spreading Happiness, and Sustaining Positive Change by Shawn Achor is the follow-on to his international best seller, The Happiness Advantage. I recently reviewed The Upside of Your Dark Side, by Robert Biswas-Deiner and Todd Kashdan, and shared that I had mixed feelings about it. This book read more…

The Upside of Your Dark Side by Robert Biswas-Deiner and Todd Kashdan (Book Review)

It’s with very mixed feelings that I write this review of The Upside of Your Dark Side: Why Being Your Whole Self–Not Just Your “Good” Self–Drives Success and Fulfillment; and the authors would undoubtedly approve! This is a bold and thought-provoking book by Todd Kashdan and Robert Biswas-Deiner (who, in the interest of full disclosure, read more…

Book Review: Your Brain at Work by David Rock

Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long is highly recommended. “In this book you’ll get to know your brain in a way that brains like: by reading a story.” Author and leadership coach, David Rock, wrote the book like a play, going scene-by-scene as the two main characters, Emily and Paul, read more…

Leveraging the holiday of gratitude.

Gratitude beyond Thanksgiving. The month of November calls for a focus on gratitude, but the topic is actually an evergreen in neuroscience and positive psychology, relevant all year. By now, several scientific studies have been indicating the effectiveness of so called “gratitude interventions” in increasing our level of happiness. A gratitude intervention is simply an read more…

A simple activity to boost the impact of your next presentation.

One of my favorite parts of workshops is applying brain research to get the audience involved and learning more. An example of this is getting audiences into small groups for discussion of how they will apply what they’ve learned. I try for groups of six or less people, because research indicates that in groups that read more…