3We Dare You to Try the 20 Seconds of Courage Challenge. If you can muster twenty seconds of courage to face a fear, you will be on your way to making a breakthrough. So, that raise you want from your boss, that big favor from a friend, that first step training for a marathon, all just seconds away. As the old Nike campaign used to say, Just Do It! You actually may be surprised by the outcome. I have proved this out to myself. No one was more surprised than myself when I crossed the finish line of the New York marathon or summited Kilimanjaro, having neither previously been a marathoner nor a climber.
4The Friend Effect: Why the Secret of Health and Happiness Is Surprisingly Simple. “A study has found that regularly eating meals alone is the biggest single factor for unhappiness, besides existing mental illness. Why is hanging out with friends so helpful?” For one, we are wired for human connection. I grew up in a Greek home; food is, well, almost everything. At breakfast, we talk about what we are going to have for lunch. At lunch, we ask what is for dinner? At dinner, it becomes what will we have for breakfast, and the cycle repeats the next day. Almost all of our meals were spent together. We fought, we laughed, most of all it shaped the closeness of our family; same goes for friends.
5Neil DeGrasse Tyson Explains Everything on Happiness. Essentially, he thinks it is all about how you run your life and the effort you put in over time. Having spent the last thirteen years consciously cultivating and upleveling my Happiness, I would agree.
6Happiness at Work Doesn’t Just Depend on Your Employer. It also does not depend on having an espresso machine or bean bag chairs to sink into, though they do help 😉 What makes for a happier work environment is people feeling valued, being managed by praise, and having schedule flexibility that allows for work-life balance. The article here points out that the best person for the job could be the one living in an area not easily accessible to the home office. Fifty-seven percent of start-ups in 2017 had at least one person working remotely. Personally, I have always viewed working in an office as a major time waster unless there is a specific reason to be there. Why waste valuable brain time sitting in traffic, being distracted by office chattiness, or getting interrupted every five minutes by people wanting things? My most creative work has always been done outside four white walls. Kudos to the companies who are redefining a “happy work environment.”
Jim B.