Your Happiest Day Ever
Don’t go chasing waterfalls. You shouldn’t have to win the lottery, skydive or move to Hawaii to live your happiest life, either. You’ll find excitement in those adventures, for sure, but lasting joy comes from the habits you practice every day. If you’ve got a bucket list, by all means, go ahead and leap out […]
Happy Negotiating
There are two components to any negotiation: 1) The substance—whether you’re negotiating over how often you should visit the in-laws, cookies or a better contract with one of your partners; and 2) The people—from your spouse to your 5-year-old to your business competitors. Negotiation skills training has long focused on the substance of negotiation: How […]
Tipping Toward Happiness
You don’t need a doctorate to understand that it’s better to be more positive than negative. But in 2003 two Ph.D.s set out to determine exactly how much positivity is ideal. Psychologists Barbara Fredrickson (a pioneer of the Positive Psychology movement) and Marcial Losada used a mathematical model to discern the “tipping point” when it […]
Dr. Happiness Is In
Ed Diener, Ph.D., a psychology professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, is an award-winning author dubbed “Dr. Happiness” by admirers all over the world. Diener has spent a lifetime researching ways to measure and understand personal happiness, and was one of the first academics to seriously embrace a field that, in the early ’80s, […]
How to Create the Next Big Thing
Find inspiration outside your office. Great ideas don’t come from staring at a drawing board. Get out and look at things. When an idea comes, write it down and play with it until it works. Don’t sit and expect ideas to come. Think about the things you use every day. Although it is harder to […]
Liar, Liar, Pantsuit on Fire!
When I worked in an office as a magazine editor, the staff had weekly update meetings in which
Ordinary Person
In a letter she wrote home to her older brother in Quitman, Texas—the small town where Si
Overwhelmed with Choices?
“Choice is a wonderful freedom,” says Barry Schwartz, author of
“Keep it small.” That’s the very un-Hollywood mantra of Hollywood exec Bill DDream Maker
Why Peter Pan Is a Better Negotiator Than You
Gidget. Woody from Cheers. Peter Pan.
The three of them would have made a crackerjack
J.R. Martinez and His Backward Fairy Tale
Fireworks spit and sparkle in the background. Glittering confetti rains down. J.R. Martinez is
Get Unstuck
In a 2,500-word magazine feature on how to spark creativity in life and business, it’s ha
