I was reading a book of the best sports writing of W. C. Hines, famous for his work from the 1940s through the 1970s. In a profile of former heavyweight boxing champion Floyd Patterson, he asked Patterson about the month he had spent in seclusion at home after losing a…
I’ve written many times about what I call Proactive Positivity, actions you can take to help yourself to be happier, such as: expressing gratitude, smiling, helping others, exercising, spending time with people you like, looking for silver linings, being present, seeing the glass as half full, celebrating your progress, laughing,…
I was reading The Undoing Project, the latest book by one of my favorite authors, Michael Lewis. It’s about two psychologists / behavioral economists, Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman. I’ve written here before about their work after I read Kahneman’s amazing book, Thinking Fast and Slow. This excerpt from the…
Explaining “Be Proactive,” the first of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey wrote about pushing the pause button between stimulus and response, in order to respond in a way guided by how you want to live your life, rather than reacting in a way not aligned with…
Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, lost her husband to a tragic accident. Sandberg, who is quite famous for her book, Lean In, is writing a book with Adam Grant, the author of two of my favorite recent books, Give and Take and Originals. In a commencement speech at…
Back in December, I wrote about an extremely enjoyable and edifying discussion I had with Michelle Gielan. Michelle is the author of Broadcasting Happiness and, along with Shawn Achor (author of The Happiness Advantage, one of the great books I read during the last few years), has created Inspire Happiness,…
I've always liked the designs of the "Life is Good" t-shirts. I was recently given Life is Good, the Book, written by Bert and John Jacobs, founders of the Life is Good company. It's a nice, happiness book, and an easy read. After explaining optimism as the philosophy behind their…
I was listening to a TED Radio Hour podcast about memory, and Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow (a book I loved), was saying we get confused between our experiences and our memory of experiences. As an example, he talked about how people can have a great day,…
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to spend some time on the phone with Michelle Gielan this week. I loved our conversation. Michelle is the author of Broadcasting Happiness and, along with Shawn Achor, author The Happiness Advantage (one of the great books I read during the last few…
A quick google search on “choosing happiness books” yields hits such as Choosing Happiness, Just Choose Happiness, I Choose Happiness, and many more. I haven’t read those particular books, but I’ve read countless books on, or related to, happiness, and I work hard to choose happiness for myself. When I…
As I’ve written, and as I say at every one of my speaking engagements, smiling helps your happiness. The act of smiling releases chemicals to your brain that make you think you are happy. And that feels good. Similarly, I strongly recommend saying, “Great” when people ask how you are.…
I was listening to a happiness episode on one of my favorite podcasts, the TED Radio Hour. One of the speakers, Matt Killingsworth, talked about a study done to track happiness in real time. An app was given to 35,000 people who received survey questions on their smartphones, on a…