This Friday Brain-Teaser from xrefer tests your knowledge of novels and novelists. (I filed this away in 2005 and just stumbled on it again now. It is just as relevant now as it was then)
In almost any kind of business, sometimes there is a need to motivate others. (NB: This is as distinct from "motivational programs" which are structured incentive schemes, usually aimed at sales staff to get them to sell more. This is a different area altogether and one which we can look at another time...
FOR ONCE IT'S NOT ABOUT SELLING
The cynics amongst us would probably say that all you need to do to motivate people, is to use sales techniques on them. There might be a bit of truth in that from the point of view that in order to motivate people, you've got to show them "what's in it for them." However that's probably where the resemblance ends.
I believe there is a difference between selling people an idea and motivating them to "buy into it." With motivation you need to focus more on generating and activating desire. That's not something you necessarily have to do with selling, because in that case you should be selling into a ready-prepared market opportunity. (But that's straying into marketing issues which we're not discussing now.)
You can change your personal capacity for happiness. Research psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky's pioneering concept of the 40% solution shows you how
Sonja Lyubomirsky has earned her credentials as a leading expert on happiness-increasing strategies and she generously shares with her readers the secrets she has learned from rigorously conducted scientific studies. Drawing on her own groundbreaking research with thousands of men and women, research psychologist and University of California professor of psychology Lyubomirsky has pioneered a detailed yet easy-to-follow plan to increase happiness in our day-to-day lives-in the short term and over the long term.
The How of Happiness is a different kind of happiness book, one that offers a comprehensive guide to understanding what happiness is, and isn't, and what can be done to bring us all closer to the happy life we envision for ourselves.
Using more than a dozen uniquely formulated happiness-increasing strategies, The How of Happiness offers a new and potentially life- changing way to understand our innate potential for joy and happiness as well as our ability to sustain it in our lives. These include exercises in practicing optimism when imagining the future, instruction in how best to savor life's pleasures in the here and now, and a thoroughgoing explanation of the importance of staying active to being happy. Helping readers find the right fit between the goals they set and the activities she suggests, Lyubomirsky also helps readers understand the many obstacles to happiness as well as how to harness individual strengths to overcome them.
Always emphasizing how much of our happiness is within our control, Lyubomirsky addresses the "scientific how" of her happiness research, demystifying the many myths that unnecessarily complicate its pursuit. Unlike those of many self-help books, all her recommendations are supported by scientific research. From expressing gratitude to taking care of one's body, she pours out the evidence for twelve happiness-enhancing strategies, offering persuasive rationales and practical suggestions for their implementation. The final chapter deals with the reality of depression, a topic often ignored in Pollyannish popular accounts of the happy life.
You may want to start the activities before you finish reading the book, but do both and those all around you will be grateful that you did.
Beginning with a short diagnostic quiz that helps readers to first quantify and then to understand what she describes as their "happiness set point," Lyubomirsky reveals that this set point determines just 50 percent of happiness while a mere 10 percent can be attributed to differences in life circumstances or situations. This leaves a startling, and startlingly underdeveloped, 40 percent of our capacity for happiness within our power to change.
Her tone is deliciously real and edgy, her presentation delightful and well-thought out, and her suggestions concrete, specific, realistic and engaging. There is something for everyone in this book.
The How of Happiness is both a powerful contribution to the field of positive psychology and a gift to all those who have questioned their own well- being and sought to take their happiness into their own hands.
This book can be ordered though Amazon
White woman on a green bicycle
by Monique Roffey
When George and Sabine Harwood arrive in Trinidad from England George instantly takes to their new life, but Sabine feels isolated, heat-fatigued, and ill at ease with the racial segregation and the imminent dawning of a new era. Her only solace is her growing fixation with Eric Williams, the charismatic leader of Trinidad's new national party, to whom she pours out all her hopes and fears for the future in letters that she never brings herself
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by Sophie Kinsella
Lara has always had an overactive imagination. Now she wonders if she is losing her mind. Normal twenty-something girls just don’t get visited by ghosts! But inexplicably, the spirit of Lara’s great aunt Sadie – in the form of a bold, demanding Charleston-dancing girl – has appeared to make one last request: Lara must track down a missing necklace Sadie simply can’t rest without.
From the ezine of Leadership Wired
People are your business's most important asset. "You can't find anybody in corporate America who doesn't agree with this, but their actions are inconsistent with that statement," Fairbank told his audience. An important part of a CEO's job—as well as that of any other leader—is recruiting and motivating employees.
Cast a compelling vision, but don't allow your desire to overshadow your humanity. People are more likely to work hard for and cooperate with leaders who are authentic. Fairbank says this involves "being vulnerable, being honest and showing your weaknesses as well as your bold dream."
Success isn't about an impressive title or large paycheck. Rather, "It's about having a dream, a quest," Fairbank said. "[My father] used to say that, 'It doesn't matter how big the quest is. What matters is how pure the quest is. You can own your own success by virtue of defining it as a quest.'"
People who work in a specific industry often don't see, or respond to, the changes taking place around them, according to Richard Fairbank, chairman, president and CEO of Capital One Financial. That's because the industry's conventional wisdom is so embedded in their brains that they don't notice how stale it has become. "There's an old Will Rogers saying that sums it up," said Fairbank, who gave a talk on leadership this fall at Wharton. "It ain't what he don't know that scares me. It's what he knows that just ain't so."
Read more of the article Registration is free.
“Paradoxically, a group of humans becomes healing and converting only after its members have learned to stop trying to heal and convert. Community is a safe place precisely because no one is attempting to heal or convert you, to fix you, to change you. Instead, the members accept you as you are. You are free to be you. And being so free, you are free to discard defenses, masks, disguises; free to seek your own psychological and spiritual health; free to become your whole and holy self.”
-- Scott Peck
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Help I Have to Give a Speech!
Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE simplifies and demystifies the process of designing your presentation...fast!
Our take on the year's best
Every year, PW selects its top 100 books, and for the first time ever PW has upped the ante by choosing the 10 books that stood out from the rest. The titles, whittled down from the more than 50,000 volumes considered this year, were picked by the PW reviews editors to reflect the very best of 2009. Here, PW reviews the 10 books.
One of the key ingredients to a successful life is belief in one’s self. Without self confidence how can you hope to meet the challenges that you are bound to face in life?
You must believe that you are worthy of the things you desire. Do not let past setbacks or failures stand in your way. You are living in the present and this is where your actions will count. Remember the errors of yesterday only to learn from them. Use this knowledge to avoid the same pitfalls in the future.
You can also try some of the following simple tips to build self confidence and self improvement:
