Happy Links - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Happy Links - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog A great cause needs your support: January 24 is Belly Laugh Day. I could have some fun with one of Brad Montgomerys squeakers. Or with some silly string. In fact his whole site is great check it out. For those who are not happy at work: Maximize your time away from work with Jobacles sick day calendar. Hilarious. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related Happy Links - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Learning Voyager thinks intelligent disobedience is important at work. The ultimate application is in the field of organization development, where leaders are attempting to build a highly adaptive and successful organization. Unless the organization has a way to overcome its own blindness and detect a real and present danger, it may get run over. Slow Leadership has The Plain Truth About Work/Life Balance. Achieving an acceptable degree of work/life balance is never going to be easy, but it won?t even be possible unless you first understand clearly what that balance is and how it works. This blog has some of the most consistently great writing on leadership and work Ive ever seen. The Engaging Brand got great customer service at the dentist! I had a mother who gave me this HUGE fear of dentists40 years into my life and the sweat rolls as I enter THAT room, and see THAT chair. But fear not, I have found a dentist who could coach you on turning an unhappy customer into an engaged one. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related Happy links - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog What do you have to do to find happiness. A great, comprehensive article on the science of being happy. Wire up the right area of the brain, press a button, and hey presto youre happy. Is that as real as real happiness? Can technology cure fear? And should it, even if it could? Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related Happy Links - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Being nice helps you get customers. When we asked our new client what put us over the edge, they said that of course they liked our work, but they also were impressed by the way we related to each other?cracking jokes, bantering, etc. ?You guys just seem to like each other,??? they said. Slow Leadership on The Road Least Taken to Happiness at Work. Most people make decisions about their life and work based on what is generally considered ?right??? and ?good.??? This is living from the outside in: letting others people?s expectations, rule your life. You do what you do because that?s what you have been told to do. It?s a good recipe for frustration and stress. Bob Sutton explains how The Billable Hour Turns People into Workaholics. ?Once you?re paid by the hour,??? he says, ?you start placing a monetary value on that hour. Lawyers watching their kids play soccer admitted to mentally ticking away lost income for each minute they stood on the sidelines.??? Ouch! Paul English, the CEO of travel site kayak.com, on stuff Ive learned at work. Jim and i were struggling for many days making a difficult decision about a reorg which would probably hurt some people. We argued with each other about the options we had. Neither of us were really sure which one would be best, and one day he said since I am not sure which one will produce the best business result, lets choose the path that does the best for the people, and lets hope the world works that way; I would not want to participate in a system which worked another way. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related Happy Links - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Roger von Oech tells you how to discover your creative style. Much of our educational system is an elaborate game of guess what the teacher is thinking, and we come to believe that the best ideas are in someone elses head rather than our own. Heraclitus reminds us that there are good ideas within ourselves if we are willing to dig deeply enough. He gets extra points for bringing Heraclitus into this! Gifter.org wants to collect million wishes and a million bucks. Go give them a hand! Trusted advisor says drop your new years resolutions and make a new years gratitude list. Resolutions often have a component of dissatisfaction with self. For many, it isn?t just dissatisfaction?it?s self-hatred. This is also what my friend Stephen Shapiro writes about in his excellent book Goal-Free Living and on his equally excellent blog. (thx Lisa Guinn). How to overcome the Loss of Motivation that Follows a Surge of Productivity. How many times have you started a new activity (such as a personal project or exercise routine) with a burst of enthusiasm, only to see that initial momentum evaporate? Gretchen Rubin has worked on her happiness project for a year now. Am I happier? Absolutely. Some great lessons on happiness there. Boxes and Arrows magazine interviews Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice. And when you cross a line (and you are probably going to ask me ?where?s the line???? and I?m going to say, ???I don?t know; nobody knows???), choice goes from being beneficial to being paralyzing. So one effect of too many choices is that people can?t choose at all. A 45 minute video of Richard Dawkins explaining why it pays to be nice. Prisoners dilemma, selfish genes and tragedy of the commons are all explained very well. And, oh, that cultured British accent :o) A nice story about generosity at Southwest Airlines. The good news (yes, there is some!) about being as forgetful as I can be is that I?ve had the chance to see, and to experience, generosity from complete strangers. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related Happy links - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Here are some great, recent, happiness-related links. There are many more at my happy link collection. London based innovation agency ?What If! talk about the importance of good food at work. We also believe that good food helps create good ideas not only is it hard going trying to work without a good breakfast in your tummy, but there?s the fact that new and exciting foods can act as another great piece of stimulus to get your those brain cells pumping! They believe in it so much that they have a team called Food is Love that provides catering for their customers. You can also get their recipe for cup cakes at the linnk above Ive tried them, theyre delicious. And I could not agree more: Food is vital to all human activities and its no coincidence that all our major traditions have food at their core. A Dutch study shows that taking people down a peg impairs their thinking. Study shows that simply putting someone into a weak social position impairs his cognitive function. Conversely, ?empowering? him, in the dread jargon of sociology, sharpens up his mind. Oldie-but-goodie from Fast Company and Terese Amabile: The 6 myths of creative thinking. The 6 myths are: 1. Creativity Comes From Creative Types 2. Money Is a Creativity Motivator 3. Time Pressure Fuels Creativity 4. Fear Forces Breakthroughs 5. Competition Beats Collaboration 6. A Streamlined Organization Is a Creative Organization Way cool: Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit After a week Zappo says to its newest employees: ?If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you?ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.? Zappos actually bribes its new employees to quit! Why? Because if you?re willing to take the company up on the offer, you obviously don?t have the sense of commitment they are looking for. Bonus link: I defy you to watch this video of dancing NASA employees without smiling. You can find many more happy links here. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related