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Amazon and the Problem of Modern Work Culture

I typically have to flip to the Business section of The New York Times to get to the news I can use–information about workplace culture and management practices—all relevant to my job as an organizational consultant and executive coach. Imagine my surprise to see a long feature article, “Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace,”on the front page of the Sunday paper. What could possibly be so big that it made front page news? Drones that can talk? Books that read themselves?What's the big surprise?I started reading and didn’t get it. Business review meetings that are anxiety producing? Aren’t they all? Putting in long hours and then logging onto email at night? A common practice for many, unfortunately. Employees who are put on “performance review plans”? Again, no different than countless other large corporations. As the title suggested, some people flourish in this fast paced, hard-charging environment, while others do not.A pointed rebuttalAfter reading the Times article I did a little poking around and found Nick Ciubotariu’s LinkedIn Blog debunking many of the claims against Amazon. Nick heads up Infrastructure at Amazon. His experience over the last 18-months has been quite different. And, if the over 600 comments (at the time of my writing this post) was a Gallup poll, we would find employees who have both flourished and floundered at Amazon. Before you cheer or damn Amazon, consider this one sentence that grabbed my attention:Thanks in part to its ability to extract the most from employees, Amazon is stronger than ever.”Extraction vs. InspirationClients often ask my co-author, Senia Maymin, and me, “How can I get the most out of my people?” We suggest they ask themselves a somewhat different question—one that doesn’t conjure up images of sucking every last ounce of energy out of employees, such as, “How can I get people to perform at their best?” The answer is simple. By getting them to identify, cultivate and use their strengths every day. Improving productivity using a strengths-based approach results in an energy-producing work environment where employees want to do their very best and will go that extra mile to accomplish their work and more.Negativity biasIt sounds simple enough, but in reality, focusing on strengths is very difficult for some people due to what psychologists call negativity bias. We are keen at finding fault. Many of us view the world through a deficit lens and are constantly asking questions such as: What’s missing? What isn’t right? What needs fixing? What are our gaps?From the Times article, it would appear that Amazon may be more focused on finding fault (and pointing it out immediately and vocally) than in cultivating strengths. Then again, Amazon has an amazing success record, which indicated they are doing something right.The danger here is that other companies eager to emulate Amazon’s success and looking for a quick fix may actually try to adopt some of the practices reported in the Times, even though the article was meant more as an exposé than a how-to. Amazon has been successful using the “squeeze-the-most-out-of" approach, but buyer—or job candidate—beware: Consider what work environment will bring out the best in you.Margaret H. Greenberg is an organizational consultant and executive coach, and the co-author ofProfit from the Positive: Proven Leadership Strategies to Boost Productivity and Transform Your Business.She is also the Live Happy Positive Work columnist with Senia Maymin. For more information about Margaret, visitProfitFromThePositive.comandTheGreenbergGroup.org. Follow her on Twitter @profitbook andFacebook.com/ProfitFromThePositive.

Practice

33 Ideas on Mindfulness

Being mindful helps us to stay in the present moment and to appreciate the world around us. Here are 33 ideas to help you calm your mind.1. Read Be Here Nowby Ram Dass.2. “In the end, just three things matter: How well we have lived; how well we have loved; how well we have learned to let go.” —Jack Kornfield3. Watch Peaceful Warrior.4. Download Headspace.5. Listen to “Across the Universe” by The Beatles.6. Read Hardwiring Happinessby Rick Hanson, Ph.D.7. “Be happy in the moment, that's enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.” —Mother Teresa8. Watch I Heart Huckabees.9. Get more Metta.10. Listen to “Thank U” by Alanis Morissette.11. Read Wherever You Go, There You Areby Jon Kabat-Zinn.12. "The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival." —AristotleRead More: Mindful Parenting 10113. Watch The Mindfulness Movie.14. Take a walk without your phone.15. Listen to “No Rain” by Blind Melon.The Mindfulness Coloring Book: Anti-Stress Art Therapy for Busy Peopleby Emma Farrarons.17. Meditate.18. Listen to “Just Breathe” by Pearl Jam.19. Read The Mindfulness Revolution edited by Barry Boyce.20. “Self-awareness is not just relaxation and not just meditation. It must combine relaxation with activity and dynamism. Technology can aid that.” —Deepak Chopra21. Watch Room to Breathe.22. Be present.23. Listen to “Realize” by Colbie Caillat.24. Listen to "Do You Realize" by The Flaming Lips.25. Read The Now Effect by Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.26. “Mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening right now without wishing it were different.” —James Baraz27. Watch The Dhamma Brothers.28. Do nothing.29. Listen to “Living in the Moment” by Jason Mraz.30. “Live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.” —Thich Nhat Hanh31. Watch The Wizard of Oz.32. Watch Dying to Know.33. Check out the September/October issue of Live Happy for 33 Ideas for finding purpose in life.Read More: 3 Must-Have Mindfulness Apps

relationships

Parents: The First Role Models

Many of us think of a role model as someone iconic and famous, looked up to by thousands of people. But according Merriam-Webster's dictionary, a role model is merely “a person whose behavior in a particular role is imitated by others.” What that means is that no matter who you are, how you feel, or how you behave, if you are active in a child’s life, you are one of their role models. Children learn from how they live When I was a young mother and a new psychotherapist, I was raising my kids in a wide, three-bedroom, ranch-style home. Rather than walk into the room where I was, my toddler daughter would scream across the house to get my attention. "MOMMY!!!!" she would yell over and over, until I would either come to her or yell back. If I ignored her, the yelling got louder. I was frustrated, exasperated, and no matter how many times I told her to stop yelling or tried to ignore her, the behavior would not stop. Fortunately, my mentor was a child development expert. She listened compassionately to my dilemma, but when I asked her if this was normal behavior, she said, “only if your daughter has been learning this; she wasn't born this way.” Well, I assured her that there was no way that I or her father had taught herthis behavior as we could barely tolerate it! Looking inside myself She then asked, “Do you ever call out to her from the kitchen that dinner is ready? Do you ever beckon to her from another room, asking her to come to you?" I sheepishly said,“Yes, but don’t yell, I only raise my voice slightly."To which she replied, “You have taught her that it is acceptable to call out from another room. She is simply using her version of it. "You have two choices, either everyone calls out from another room in the house in their own way or no one does. If you don’t want this behavior, you must start walking into the room that she is in if you need her, and you must teach her to do the same." Modeling unacceptable behavior I was modeling the very behavior that I was trying to stop.To this day, when parenting my teenagers, I am mindful that my actions, both good and bad, will be observed and emulated. When focusing on being an effective role model, seek progress, not perfection. Pay extra attention to these suggested important areas, and you will be on the right track! 1.The importance of focusing on the positive As parents, we tend to evaluate our kids and assess how they behave. We must take the time to let our kids know we like when they behave nicely, and that we love them for who they are. Let them hear when they are doing something right! Read More: 7 Keys to a Healthy Argument 2.Awareness of how we communicate verbally and non-verbally Whether speaking or not, we send messages to the world. Our words and our actions are equally meaningful. Teach your kids that a scowl, a frown or crossing arms in front of their chests puts out a negative message. A smile, a kind gesture or extended arms reaching out for a hug are all valuable body language messages. 3.The need for support and a sense of community Kids and adults need to feel like they have cheerleaders when they're up and shoulders to cry on when they're down. A good support system and community will provide both. As adults we can model how to be good to our friends and to nurture our community. Read More: 31 Days of Community 4.Have respect, kindness and compassion for yourself and others The ability to have respect, kindness and compassion for ourselves and others is not something we are born with, it is a skill we learn. The more we are taught these attributes and the more we practice them, the more likely we are to use them in our daily lives. Talk about how to be attentive and nurturing to physical, emotional and spiritual needs. And just as critical, our children should see us living that attentiveness through our actions. Stacy Kaiser is a licensed psychotherapist, author, relationship expert and media personality. She is also the author of the best-selling book, How to Be a Grown Up: The Ten Secret Skills Everyone Needs to Know, and an editor-at-large for Live Happy. Stacy is a frequent guest on television programs such as Today and Good Morning America.

science

Upping Your Downtime

We’ve all been there: We spend weeks and even months anticipating that dream vacation, only to return to work afterward feeling like we need a few days off. Even our weekends, which are supposed to help us relax and rejuvenate, often leave us feeling exhausted. So if downtime is supposed to make us happier and healthier, then why do so many of us feel depleted by it? “People today are doing more with less, and there are tremendous levels of burnout,” says Jamie Gruman, Ph.D., associate professor of organizational behavior at University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. “People really need to figure out how to decompress in their leisure time”. Cut the cord One way to make better use of time away from the office is to actually leave it behind. People who leave work at work tend to be more satisfied with their lives and experience fewer symptoms of psychological strain than those who bring it home. What’s more, a study published in Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology found that “psychological detachment” during the weekend may even improve our job performance during the workweek. Read More: How to Be Present Still plugged in “It’s not enough to just physically leave the office,” Jamie says. “You have to mentally leave the office. Very few people do this.” Sure, you might be sitting by the pool, but your mind might still be parked at your desk. “If you’re checking your email every half hour, if you’re not turning off your head and allowing yourself to enjoy the moment, you’re psychologically attached to your obligations,” he says. Technology has made it easier than ever to check in with work, which in turn has made it that much harder to check out mentally. Jamie recommends giving high-tech the heave-ho as much as possible. That could mean turning off email notifications on your cell phone or creating an out-of-office auto-reply so you don’t feel the need to respond immediately. Even better, have two cell phones—one for work and another for personal use—allowing you to turn off the work phone on nights, weekends and vacations. Read More: Unplugged Learn to detach Of course, turning off devices is easier than turning off thoughts. If you’re the type who broods about what happened at work or worries about what might happen, you may need to change how you spend your free time. A study by Sabine Sonnentag, Ph.D., called “Psychological Detachment from Work During Leisure Time: The Benefits of Mentally Disengaging from Work,” published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, found that meaningful activities like volunteering and mindfulness practices such as meditation can help us detach from work. You’ll stand a better chance of detaching if you bring tasks to completion before clocking out, notes Sabine, a leading researcher in organizational psychology and a professor at University of Mannheim in Germany. She’s published a number of studies showing that a heavy workload and high time pressure are the strongest predictors of low detachment from work. That’s why it’s wise to take vacations during slow periods at work or on the heels of a big deadline. And, if you absolutely must do some work on evenings, weekends or a vacation, set aside a specific time for it—and don’t allow yourself to dwell on it before or afterward. Read More: 6 Steps to Mindful Meditation How long is enough? No matter how well-timed the vacation, work will likely pile up in your absence. That’s just one of the reasons Jamie and other experts recommend taking frequent short vacations instead of infrequent long ones. Less time away means less catch-up and stress when you return; shorter vacations also require less preparation, which reduces stress in the days beforehand. “It’s not the [amount of] time but the quality of the time that matters,” Jamie says. “Research shows that three-day weekends can be as replenishing as longer vacations.” In his study “Vacationers Happier, but Most Not Happier after a Vacation,” published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life, Jeroen Nawijn, Ph.D., found that vacation length does not affect post-vacation happiness and confirmed previous findings that a vacation’s positive effects are short-lived. However, we can prolong our getaways’ positive effects by looking at photos, telling friends about the trip and otherwise keeping vacation memories alive, says Jeroen, a lecturer at NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. Both he and Jamie advise building in some “recovery time” between time off and returning to work. Read More: 5 Tips for an Energy Boosting Vacation Cut down on lag time “People think the way to get the most out of their vacation is to spend the most time away. It’s logical, but it’s a mistake,” Jamie says. Instead, leave time for laundry, grocery shopping and even recovering from jetlag when you return home, he says. And rather than getting home late Sunday night and going back to work Monday morning, consider coming home Saturday night—or at least early in the day on Sunday—to give yourself time to re-enter your world. Do downtime differently While relaxation is important to well-being, the way we relax could be keeping us from optimal happiness. “We’re not very creative in our downtime,” Jamie says. “We just do whatever is our habit.” He advises taking time to assess the effects of your habits. Does TV time relax you and improve your mood? If you go for a walk before you sit down to watch TV, do you feel better? Do the people you spend time with bring out the best in you? Ask yourself if there’s something you used to love doing that you aren’t doing anymore, and then start doing it again. “Doing something you enjoy is key to getting a boost out of downtime,” Jamie says. “We play a role in how happy we’re going to feel.” Read More: Tripped Up

work

1 Minute to Begin It

If we told you there is an action you can take in one minute that improves your ability to focus, lowers your stress, has no negative side effects and doesn’t cost a dime, would you be intrigued? If you’re like most people we work with, you’re thinking, “What is it and where can I get it?!” The answer may surprise you. It’s meditation. The missing piece One of our coaching clients, Monica, was moving forward in her career, doing well on the family front, and in strong shape physically. But she felt like she was rushing from one responsibility to the next. She wanted a clear path to find her next level as a manager and leader. “I want to not be rattled by small work stressors, like I am now,” she said. “I’ve thought about meditating, but I don’t know how to get started.” We suggested Monica start by doing something incredibly small, just one minute a day, but she was skeptical. “Just try it and notice what happens,” Senia encouraged her. Just one minute? Two weeks later, Monica reported that she had meditated for exactly one minute nearly every day. The results surprised her. “I feel like I’m making better decisions on the days that I meditate,” she said. “That’s great,” Senia replied. “How can you continue to build this practice? After some experimentation, she moved her meditation to right before bedtime, accompanied by soothing music. She eventually extended it to five minutes every evening. After about two months of consistent practice, she reported that she was able to weather work storms much more serenely. What was going on? Researchers now say that Monica was methodically changing the circuitry in her brain by developing improved stress-response habits, greater resilience and greater mental clarity. Our colleague Jackie Johnson, a leadership coach and meditation teacher, says, “Recent research by Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert of Harvard shows that most of us spend up to 50 percent of our time caught up in thoughts, usually replaying events of the past or worrying about an imagined future, both contributing to unhappiness. Mindful practice allows us to engage with the present with greater clarity and ease.” Given the benefits, why not try it? How about just one minute, right now? Read More: 6 Steps to Mindful Meditation Margaret H. Greenberg and Senia Maymin, are organizational consultants and executive coaches, and authors of Profit from the Positive: Proven Leadership Strategies to Boost Productivity and Transform Your Business. For more information about Senia and Margaret, go to ProfitFromThePositive.com.

Practice

Start a Journal, Change Your Life

A journal is far more than a blank book—it’s more of a blank canvas on which parts of your life can unfold. A journal can be a safe, non-judgmental place to exhale and explore your thoughts, emotions and experiences. Reflecting upon your life and writing down your thoughts can be a cathartic process that increases self-awareness, alleviates stress and leads to personal growth.If the prospect of keeping a journal sounds overwhelming (who has the time?) you might be surprised to learn that there are many different kinds of journals to keep, and some require very little time. Find the type of journal that resonates most with you.1.Gratitude or Positivity JournalWrite down three things you are grateful for about your day (tiny things count like your cup of coffee, or a great phone call with a friend) or three best moments of your day, and after just a few weeks you will experience a definite boost in your well-being. The effects have been so well documented by happiness researchers from Martin Seligman to Shawn Achor that we may soon see gratitude journals prescribed by our doctors like aspirin for the mood.Read More: 8 Easy Practices to Enhance Gratitude2.Morning Pages JournalJulia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, recommends keeping a morning pages journal—three pages of longhand stream of consciousness writing. There are no rules, you just wake up and write. According to Julia, morning pages are about “anything and everything that crosses your mind, and they are for your eyes only.” Morning pages “provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and synchronize the day at hand.” The concept of keeping morning pages, and the way in which these pages spark and provoke a current of creativity, are at the heart of The Artist’s Way, and a major part of what makes the book so special.3.Dream JournalCapture the stories your mind creates at night by keeping a dream journal at your bedside. Collect the details of your dream right after you wake up as dreams fade fast from our consciousness. You may not be able to decipher your dream precisely, but you can take notice of patterns or reoccurring worries, which you may be able to address later in your waking life.4.Idea JournalDo your ideas come to you in the middle of the night, while you’re on the subway, or anywhere that’s inconvenient and you don’t have a pen. Make sure you’re always ready to write down that million-dollar idea for a screenplay, a business … Grab your idea journal as soon as brilliance hits you and get your idea in ink. Capture thoughts for your home decor, bucket list, first book, or entrepreneurial pursuit. No more scribbles on a napkin for you.Click here to see Live Happy's beautiful Sunshine Journal.5.One-Sentence JournalHappiness expert Gretchen Rubin found the idea of keeping a journal daunting, so she came up with the idea of the one-sentence journal to record memories and appreciate her life more. She credits her one-sentence journal for keeping happy memories vivid and happy memories crisp in order to pass them along to her children.6.Baby JournalYes, you are sleep deprived and super-busy in the first year of your baby’s life, but when you get some sleep in a few years, you will be so glad that you took the time to capture the milestones, like the precious first baby giggle, of your infant’s first year. Photos are a major bonus here.7.Personal Development/Self-improvement JournalIf you love to read books about how to make your life better, consider keeping a personal development journal where you capture the best bits of insight and advice. Write down favorite quotes and gems of wisdom from books, speeches and websites. A personal development journal can be like a study-guide for a better life. Use it to write down and track your personal goals, too.8.Travel JournalEver go on a cruise and you stop at so many different tropical places that you can’t recall them a year later? Keep a travel journal to document the places you go. Write down favorite travel memories, countries, cities and towns. Take a glue stick with you and paste in little mementoes like tickets and menus, if you wish. When you reread your travel journey you can relive special family trips and savor your memories.Read More: What's the connection between travel and happiness?9. Visual JournalMaybe you process the world through pictures rather than words. Some of the most beautiful and meaningful journals are visual—filled with doodles, sketches, portraits of people, often alongside names, places and quotes. A visual journal could also be a travel or baby journal. If you are more an artist than a writer, by all means, record your moments using this amazing strength.10.Everything JournalIf you are more of a creative free-spirit, keeping a journal where you do some or all of the above might appeal to you. Don’t restrict yourself with the type of journal you keep, just doodle, capture quotes, write down memories or go for stream of consciousness writing. You can write every day or once a month.The simple practice of writing forces you to slow down from the frenetic pace of life and connect with who you are and what you’re up to. Reap the benefits of keeping a journal by staying attuned to your life.Read More: 31 Days of WellnessSandra Bienkowski worked as the national columns editor forSuccess magazine for three years, and is widely published in print and on the web. See more about Sandra atThe Media Concierge.

Practice

Sustainable Happiness [Video]

Catherine O’Brien, Ph.D., a professor at Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia, discovered the link between sustainable living and happiness while working on her doctorate at Barefoot College in Rajasthan, India, in the mid-1990s. That thought became the basis for her concept of Sustainable Happiness, which she teaches in a popular course at the university, combining principles of positive psychology with a sustainability mindset. Learn more about this fascinating topic by listening to our free podcast, where Catherine will discuss "Sustainable Happiness and Well-Being." Take a look at a portion of one of Catherine's hands-on classes: Read more about Catherine in our feature story, "Can Happiness Save the Planet."

Practice

3 Expert-Tested Tips for Tackling Anxiety

There’s something deeply reassuring about having a book about coping with anxiety written by an expert who’s actually been there: the racing heart, the nausea, the obsessive thoughts. That’s the case with Alice Boyes, Ph.D., author of The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points. “Since I’m anxiety-prone by nature,” she writes, “almost every major good decision I’ve made in my life has involved feeling physically sick with anxiety. If I weren’t willing to make decisions that lead to temporarily feeling more anxious, my life would be much emptier than it is today.” If you’re a worry wart by temperament and want to live a full, rich life, you’re going to need to step outside your comfort zone. But instead of rah-rah, “just do it” advice, Alice offers tips that are doable. She calls these “micro-interventions” to handle the times when you find yourself “over-checking, over-researching, overthinking, or being unwilling to try something that’s important to you because of a chance that something might go wrong.” Alice’s strategies don’t make you feel like you’re leaping off a cliff, more like you’re stepping onto an escalator that’s moving just a tad faster than you’re accustomed to. Here are three of Alice's top anxiety-reducing tips. 1.Work with your nature rather that fighting against it. Recognize when you’re berating yourself for feeling anxious, Alice says. For example, you say to yourself, “I should be able to chat with strangers at a party without getting so nervous,” or “I shouldn’t worry so much about what other people think of me.” That kind of “should/shouldn’t” thinking can prolong and intensify your anxiety, Alice says. Instead, treat yourself with compassion and empathy, the way you would a good friend. For starters, replace the “shoulds” in your self-talk with “prefer.” Rather than saying, “I should be more outgoing in social situations,” try “I would prefer to be more outgoing.” This may seem like a ridiculously simple change, Alice says, but it works. “It can help you disrupt your overthinking just enough to give you a small window of clear mental space. This allows you to start doing something useful rather than keep ruminating.” Read More:Become more resilient in 9 simple steps. 2.Change your behavior instead of waiting to change your mind. It’s easier to change your behavior and let your thoughts naturally catch up, Alice says, than it is to make the leap from insight to actions. Those of us who are anxious often wait to start something new until we’re 100 percent sure it’s going to be successful or absolutely certain that we’ve made the right decision, whether that means choosing the color to paint our walls or posting a profile on a dating website. This kind of hesitancy is a common anxiety trap that keeps us slamming the brakes when we want to tap the accelerator. Real problem solving, in contrast to avoidance, Alice says, involves “concretely defining what the problem is, generating a short list of your best options for moving forward, picking something, and deciding when and where you’re going to implement that solution.” Read More: Are you sabotaging your self-esteem? Take our quiz to find out. 3.Don’t try to be someone you’re not. By nature, some of us are gregarious extroverts, with a wide circle of friends. Others of us are introverts, reserved and less social with a few close relationships. Knowing your personality type, Alice says, can go a long way in helping you manage your anxiety. She suggests finding the right level of “busy-ness”—enough activities and social engagements to keep you feeling stimulated but not scattered—and maintaining a mix of change and routine in your life. If you’re someone who clings to the familiar, consider alternating vacations to the same old place with someplace you’ve never been before. Read More: Have you tried the 5-minute misery cure?

Giving

Not So Blue Hawaii

Aloha. On Christmas Day 2013, my husband and teenage daughter helped me fulfill a longtime dream of sharing a holiday meal with the homeless. We prepared 18 meals of ham, my famous cheesy vegetables, holiday cookies and rolls, placed into containers with a thoughtful greeting and a ribbon to make it a gift.Family teamworkChristmas evening, we drove around a few miles from where we lived and shared our meals with those we saw in their tents or asleep on the sidewalk. I was the driver, my daughter handled the meals and water from the back seat, and my husband would approach and ask if they would accept our gift. (And we noticed in pictures we took he was even wearing his Live Happy shirt!)A gift from the heartWe were so grateful to know if they had not received anything for Christmas, we were able to place a warm meal in their hands. Having this experience in my heart all year, I just knew I wanted to find a way to continue this project. Struggling with the ‘how,’ I’m ashamed to say I did nothing all year. That is until three days before Thanksgiving 2014, when I got inspired! With my husband and daughter helping me again, we prepared 24 meals of turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie and rolls to share.Personalized messagesFor the note, my daughter and I were working to create a message that said “YOU MATTER.” We had just learned about the Live Happy notes, and we both had an inspired thought to use them. We wrote the message “A holiday meal…just for YOU!” and placed the Live Happy note on the container and tied a ribbon around it. I loved that the note could be removed and kept.There were shouts of “Aloha!” (a Hawaiian greeting of love), and we could see tears in the eyes of several people as they read the notes after accepting the meals. My eyes were also filled with tears from this amazing experience and for having my husband and daughter be a part of it.Read about 15 Happy Acts You Can Do Today.Giving back gets biggerMy heart desired for more people to experience this unique way of giving back. On Christmas Day 2014, with the help of 28 people, we were able to share 100 meals. It was so touching to see others get involved and share in this vision. Our system of preparing the 24 meals was just duplicated four times.We had people donate the hams, cheesy vegetables, Christmas cookies, rolls, bottled water, and all the necessary supplies to make it a success. Wrapped toys were donated for the kids, and even dog food donations were made for the pets who were on the streets with their owners.Dreaming even biggerFeeling gratitude for the success that I had just witnessed for this project from my heart, I started dreaming BIG…and my commitment for 2015 is to share on four holidays: Easter, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas! On April 5, for Easter, we were able to share 100 meals with the help of 35 volunteers and the start of a system to build to our larger meal runs. Our Fourth of July run will have 500 meals and will include a special gift basket just for veterans we encounter on the streets.Our biggest run will be on Christmas Day this year; we will be sharing 1,000 meals… Yes, 1,000! We are planning to include wrapped presents for kids as well as practical presents for adults, such as flashlights, blankets and jackets.Read here about some other Happy Acts Heroes.What will your Happy Act be?I am committed to keeping the Live Happy notes as a staple for this project. Countless times, when the meal was given, we could see recipients reading the notes and tearing up or even burying their heads and sobbing.Witnessing this, I am grateful that the message was received by the people who were supposed to be reading it in this unique way!

Bob Bowman and Michael Phelps: Everyday Excellence

Self-Care

Michael Phelps’ Secret to Everyday Excellence

The most decorated Olympian of all time didn’t win 22 medals (including 18 gold) alone. Instead, swimmer Michael Phelps relied on his coach, Bob Bowman, to design the workload to help him make history. Consistent training, day in, day out Michael is naturally gifted, sure, but “what made Michael great,” Bob says, “is not his wingspan, his foot size, or anything else.” It was work. Consistent, hard work. Michael didn’t miss a day of training from the age of 12 to 18. “Were there days he wanted to? Yeah,” Bob says. “He just kept coming. And he kept getting better.” In fact, Bob says, the gains Michael made from training more than 2,100 days in a row “he’s basically used for the last 12 years.” According to Bob, developing that base and having the courage to face your insecurities and doubts are key to long-term success. “In a very short time, I can rush someone through to some [level of] performance,” he says. “If they don’t have the foundation behind it, it just goes away really quickly.” That personal best might be inspiring, but, Bob says, “perspiration comes before inspiration." Everyday excellence If you do something long enough, before long, you’ll do something good.” Then, once that foundation is established and you can’t do more work, you can do better work. Bob calls it “everyday excellence.” “It’s not about excellence every four years. It’s about how excellent are you right now, on a Friday afternoon. When you go to that practice at 5, how excellent are you going to be? Are you going to go through the motions? Or use this as a step toward your goals? That’s how it works.” Commit to your goal Bob says it’s the same for playing the piano, tilling your garden or losing weight. “Say you have a goal out there,” he says. “It means you’re going to change. You have to decide how important it is.” Then you have to start seeing yourself as someone who’s attained that goal, he adds. And commit to that vision every time you make a decision.

Amazon and the Problem of Modern Work Culture

33 Ideas on Mindfulness

Parents: The First Role Models

Upping Your Downtime

1 Minute to Begin It

Start a Journal, Change Your Life

Sustainable Happiness [Video]

3 Expert-Tested Tips for Tackling Anxiety

Not So Blue Hawaii

Michael Phelps’ Secret to Everyday Excellence

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