Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals focuses on goals: how we set them, how we reach them, and why we fail. This book is an extension of social psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson’s popular Harvard Business Review blog post: Nine Things Successful People Do Differently. The things people do to succeed are: 1. Be specific 2. Seize the read more…
What’s even better than an inspiring, innovative, and useful book that helps us thrive? One that also supports a good cause. Character Strengths Matter: How to Live a Full Life, edited by Kathryn Britton and Shannon Polly, is just such a book. Character Strengths Matter explores strengths: those things we do very well and that energize us. The read more…
Strengths = Talent + Energy At Happy Brain Science we teach individuals and organizations how to Truly Tap Strengths by focusing on examining beliefs that may be inhibiting strengths, exploring ways to discover strengths, and strategizing ways to act and build on strengths. A strength, as defined by strengths researchers, is a behavior that you read more…
David Eagleman is a very smart person with an infectious enthusiasm for how the brain works. He does an excellent job describing how much of what happens in our brain is typically beyond our conscious awareness, like changing lanes on the highway, for example. In Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, Eagleman spends a significant portion read more…
Why do we need science? Because even smart, skeptical people like me and you can be fooled pretty easily by circumstances. My health is generally great, but I’ve had issues with my skin (eczema) most of my life, and more recently was having some “gut troubles” that I’ll certainly spare you the details about! I read more…
Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull is literally and figuratively an exceptional book. I made a rare exception to my steady diet of books about science to read Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Normally I prefer science to people’s opinions based on experience (including my own), but I made an read more…
Martin Seligman helped launch positive psychology. In Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being, he redefines it. The book is important, and strongly recommended for anyone interested in deeply understanding positive psychology. That said, it is not a self-help book, and may not be terribly useful to the average person who wants to be flourishing more in life! read more…
Based on years of groundbreaking research, The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want is a comprehensive guide to understanding the fundamentals of happiness. It is data based, thorough, and practical — the best of the bunch on happiness. I truly love this book because it was my introduction to the science read more…
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…
Enter Will Lewis, the Lead Community Organizer for the Portland Indie Game Squad (PIGSquad) and a co-director in Pixel Arts Game Education, reaching and teaching to so many game-interested minds in the Portland area. I’ve been working with Scott on his game-in-progress, codename: “Choose Happiness,” for the past few months, providing coaching and feedback on read more…