The Power of Happy

When it comes to work and happiness most of us of the "Baby Boomer" persuasion would regard happiness as purely a bonus- something of a lucky accident that might occur on our way to the attainment of other more "legit" goals. As "Type A" folks who sacrifice much of our personal lives and wear fatigue like a badge of honor, in pursuit of achievement, advancement and the visible trappings of success, we might regard happiness as some sort of consolation prize for those who didn't quite make the cut. 

Maybe we are getting a little soft or just tired! But one thing is for sure, the conversation about the importance of happiness is changing.

Over the last 10-15 years new generations of leaders have brought new perspectives about what success means and even the patrician leaders who are moving into the twilight of their careers are beginning to see the light.  The light being that happiness and meaning in our work lives is a noble goal and in fact important - not only important to high-functioning company cultures, but also to the bottom line.

According to a recent article on inc.com, "Companies in all sectors have been increasingly  investing in the happiness of employees, with firms like Etsy going so far as to create a Gross Happiness Index, and Google gathering metrics to optimize the length of its free lunch lines (too long, and people are annoyed; too short, they don't get to chit-chat)."

In an article for Harvard Business Review, Shawn Achor suggests that research shows that when people work with a positive mindset, performance on nearly every level, productivity, creativity and engagement ~ improves. Yet happiness is perhaps the most misunderstood driver of performance.  Most people believe that success precedes and drives happiness when actually the opposite is true. His research in 48 countries suggests that every business outcome shows improvement when the brain is positive.

In a sweeping meta analysis of 225 academic studies, Sonya Lybomirsky, Laura King and Ed Diener found that happy employees have, on average 31% higher productivity; their sales are 37% higher; their creativity is three times higher.

Although our natural inclination toward positivity is important, we can all manage our personal sense of well-being if we incorporate positive habits into our day:

• Practice gratitude, reflect on the blessings in your life to maintain a balanced perspective.
• Exercise everyday.  If the idea of working out seems unattainable, even maintaining an active lifestyle can make a difference.
• Involve others in your life, practice reaching out and sharing your difficulties and offer your support in return.
• Look for humor and don't take yourself too seriously.
• Manage your stress with meditation and manage you goals with purpose.

Making personal happiness a priority is a win-win for everyone.  Perhaps it is time we acknowledge that happiness is the prize and not the surprise!

image credit: gregrevell.com

Commencement

My son graduated from college this week.  How exciting it was to watch all of those young adults celebrating their future! So much hope, so much self-satisfaction.  The word commencement, after all, is defined as a “beginning or a start”.  I began thinking about all the wonderful reflection and inspiration that comes with these moments of passage in our lives.  So, although most of us have left our cap and gown days behind us long ago, inspiration isn’t just for the young.  Here are eleven super inspiring commencement speech quotes, from some of my favorite “quotables.”   

Steve Jobs, Stanford University, 2005

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

Neil Gaiman, University of the Arts in Philadelphia, 2012

"And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here".

Ben Bernanke, Princeton University, June 2, 2013

"If your uniform isn't dirty, you haven't been in the game".

Steven Colbert, Northwestern University, June 17, 2011

"Life is an improvisation. You have no idea what's going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along".

Aaron Sorkin,  Syracuse University, May 13, 2012

"The world doesn’t care how many times you fall down, as long as it’s one fewer than the number of times you get back up".

Conan O’Brien,  Dartmouth College, June 12, 2011

"Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen".

John McCain,  Liberty University, May 13, 2006

"Our country doesn’t depend on the heroism of every citizen. But all of us should be worthy of the sacrifices 

made on our behalf".

Maria Shriver,  USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, 2012

"Before you go out and press that fast forward button, I’m hoping, I’m praying, that you’ll have the courage to first press the pause button".

Tom Hanks,  Yale University, 2011

"Your rising from bed every morning will give fear its chance to grow stronger just as it will afford faith its chance to blossom".

Sheryl Sandberg, Barnard College, May 17, 2011

"Don’t let your fears overwhelm your desire. Let the barriers you face—and there will be barriers—be external, not internal".

Ellen DeGeneres: Tulane University, 2009

"Follow your passion, stay true to yourself, never follow someone else's path; unless you're in the woods and you're lost and you see a path, then by all means, you should follow that."

Focus

Daniel Goleman, renowned Psychologist and Emotional Intelligence pioneer, describes focus as the “hidden driver of excellence”. Goleman’s new book is about focus and the brain systems involved in training our attention. He claims that leaders need to be adept at three varieties of focus.  “The first is self-awareness, and the ability to manage your own emotion; the second is the awareness of other people; and the third is an outer focus, an awareness of broader organizational needs.  Leaders need all three types in balance to be effective.”

Goleman suggests that it is concentration that drives superior performance. After countless studies in many areas Goleman claims: “The data is showing us that the ability to pay attention well—in the right way at the right time—is absolutely critical to top performance.”

Our attention is under siege as the level of distraction in our lives has never been greater. The demands of our work lives and personal relationships have become more and more transactional and the expectation of fast paced, urgent communication exchanges continues to escalate. This changing dynamic pushes us all into a mode of multitasking.

Multitasking has become the norm.  Where it used to be reserved for times of high volume or peaks in our workload, multitasking is now the standard manner of approaching both personal and work tasks.

If you are thinking that your ability to multitask is a strength, you might want to think again.  Like Goleman, Travis Bradberry, best-selling author and contributor at Inc.com favors focus over multitasking in driving superior performance. In a recent post titled: The Real Harm in Multitasking, Bradberry discusses the pitfalls. He cites a Stanford study that supports his position that multitasking may not be all it is cracked up to be. He writes,

 "Stanford researchers compared groups of people based on their tendency to multitask and their belief that it helps their performance. They found that heavy multitaskers--those who multitask a lot and feel that it boosts their performance--were actually worse at multitasking than those who like to do a single thing at a time. The frequent multitaskers performed worse because they had more trouble organizing their thoughts and filtering out irrelevant information, and they were slower at switching from one task to another."

The researchers measured all subjects' efficiency when multitasking and found it was less productive than doing a single thing at a time. More startling, they found that multitaskers cannot pay attention, recall information, or switch from one job to another as well as those who complete one task at a time.

Multitasking reduces your efficiency and performance because your brain is wired to focus on a single thing at a time. When you try to do two things at once, your brain simply lacks the capacity to perform both tasks successfully, according to Bradberry.

Additionally, Bradberry shares that “research also shows that, in addition to slowing you down, multitasking lowers your IQ. A study at the University of London found that participants who multitasked during cognitive tasks experienced IQ score declines that were similar to what they'd expect if they had smoked marijuana or stayed up all night. IQ drops of 15 points for multitasking men lowered their scores to the average range of an 8-year-old child.”

The takeaway here is to change your definition of “effective”. Instead of trying so hard to keep up with the chaos, slow it down, reflect, plan, focus and shine!

 Your future success may depend on it! 

Image credit: imgkid.com

Good Things Come to Those Who Sweat

We all know the benefit of exercise on our physical health. The list of disease risks that can be reduced by regular exercise is endless. There is no doubt that exercise gives us more energy and everyone wants to look fit. But there really is more going on when it comes to exercise and much of it is going on where you would least expect it… in your brain.

I often notice the benefits of things only when I stop.  Then, I feel the loss and realize how much I appreciated the advantages.  It’s like that for me and exercise.  Exercise has been a regular part of my life for years, especially in recent years when I began running and competing in marathons.  When you are training like that, the focus is on the milestones… the schedule.  Just getting it done is such a challenge that it is easy to overlook the positive influence your exercise is having on all aspects of your life.  When I get lazy with my schedule or start missing exercise days that’s when I notice the change in my overall mood, in my motivation and in my productivity.  There is good science that explains my personal experience.

A Fast Company article on exercise did a good job of explaining the brain’s response to exercise. Neuroscienceresearch suggests; that when you start exercising, the brain recognizes this moment as a moment of stress. As your heart pressure increases, the brain thinks you are either fighting an enemy or fleeing from it. To protect yourself and your brain from stress you release a protein called Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF).This BDNF protein has a protective and also reparative element to your memory neurons and acts as a reset switch. That’s why we may feel at ease after exercise and like things are “clearer”.   At the same time, endorphins tend to minimize the discomfort of the exercise, block the feeling of pain and are even associated with feelings of euphoria.

In a Huffington Post article, Sophia Breene did a great job of outlining the specific mental benefits of exercise. Here are some of my favorites taken from her blog:

Exercise:

Prevents Cognitive Decline

It's unpleasant, but it's true -- as we get older, our brains get a little... hazy. As aging and degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's kill off brain cells, the noggin actually shrinks, losing many important brain functions in the process. While exercise and a healthy diet can’t “cure” Alzheimer's, they can help shore up the brain against cognitive decline that begins after age 45 Working out, especially between age 25 and 45, boosts the chemicals in the brain that support and prevent degeneration of the hippocampus, an important part of the brain for memory and learning.

Sharpens Memory

Get ready to win big at Go Fish. Regular physical activity boosts memory and ability to learn new things. Getting sweaty increases production of cells in the hippocampus responsible for memory and learning. For this reason, research has linked children's brain development with the level of physical fitness (take that, recess haters!). But exercise-based brainpower isn't just for kids. Even if it's not as much fun as a game of hide and go seek, working out can boost memory among grown-ups, too. A study showed that running sprints improved vocabulary retention among healthy adults.

Helps Us to Get More Done

Feeling uninspired in the cubicle? The solution might be just a short walk or jog away. Research shows that workers who take time for exercise on a regular basis are more productive and have more energy than their more sedentary peers. While busy schedules can make it tough to squeeze in a gym session in the middle of the day, some experts believe that midday is the ideal time for a workout due to the body's circadian rhythms.

Helps Us Tap Into Creativity

Most people end a tough workout with a hot shower, but maybe we should be breaking out the colored pencils instead. A heart-pumping gym session can boost creativity for up to two hours afterwards. Next time you need a burst of creative thinking, hit the trails for a long walk or run to refresh the body and the brain at the same time.

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”. So when you think your workday is just too busy to squeeze in some exercise, you may want to think again! The return on that time may far surpass the lost time at your computer checking emails…

image credit: Martindata l Dreamstime.com

Destination Character

Several weeks ago, David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times released a new book titled The Road to Character.  When I heard him interviewed about the book, it seemed like a valuable read.  I haven’t read the whole thing but I am intrigued by the concept.  The book is about one mindset that people through the centuries have adopted to “put iron in their core and to cultivate a wise heart”. Brooks humbly shares that he wrote this book not sure that he could follow the road to character, but wanting to at least know what the road looks like and how people have trodden it.

Here is an excerpt , in which  David challenges the reader to consider the difference between what he describes as Resume virtues verses Eulogy virtues.  Brooks says “Resume virtues are the ones you list on your resume, the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to external success.  The eulogy virtues are deeper.  They’re the virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being—whether you are kind, brave, honest or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed.”

According to Brooks, most of us would say that the eulogy virtues are more important than the resume virtues, and yet, like most of us, he shares that for long stretches of his life he has spent more time thinking about the latter than the former.  He also describes our education system as oriented around the resume virtues more than the eulogy ones.  He goes on to say that our public conversation is, too—the self-help tips in magazines, the non-fiction bestsellers.  Most of us have clearer strategies for how to achieve career success than we do for how to develop profound character.

Brooks goes on to say that “ the noise of fast and shallow communications makes it harder to hear the quieter sounds that emanate from the depths. We live in a culture that teaches us to promote and advertise ourselves and to master the skills required for success but gives little encouragement to humility, sympathy, and honest self-confrontation, which are necessary for building character”.

Since I read that excerpt I have been thinking on how we can spend meaningful effort that might allow for us to truly work on character while allowing us to maintain the obligations that keep our daily life on track. After all, most of us cannot afford to retreat to a mountaintop and read Kahlil Gibran in sabbatical.  I came up with these 6 small steps that might allow us to explore our own character:

Make time for self-reflection. Use your commute or times when you are doing menial chores to consider life’s big questions. What makes you special or different? How would people who know you best describe you? What would you change about yourself if you could and what would you never change?

Leave open time on your calendar. No plans. Just time to be spontaneous and follow your heart’s song.

Create vision of who you want to be in three years... five years... ten years. People will often ask where you want to be. This is different. This is about WHO you want to be and what you would like those life stages to mean to your story.  

Make some meaningful resolutions.  Not resolutions about paying down your debt, learning a different language or losing weight. Make them about relationships, legacies and contributions.

Journal. Ask yourself tough questions about where you have been and what you have learned.  Spill your thoughts onto the page. Why not write your own eulogy, what would you like to be remembered for? If you can clearly articulate it, you can become it.

Become the storyteller in your family. Let your family know all about how you became the person you are and what you value and treasure in your life story.

When you think about your own road to character, think about minor course corrections.  Put your hands on the steering wheel and create a life worthy of remembering!