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Building Your Emotional Intelligence

Take a glimpse into the world of applied positive psychology with The Flourishing Center podcast. Each episode includes three sections giving you insights and hacks into living an authentically happy and flourishing life. What you'll learn in this podcast: Science Says—Learn what people who score high in trait emotional intelligence do differently. Life Hack—Learn how to further develop your own emotional intelligence. Practitioner’s Corner—Find out how one executive coach puts positive psychology into practice with her clients. Learn more about The Flourishing Center Read the interview from the Practitioner's Corner: Emiliya: Hello everyone, and join me in welcoming Lisa Jacobson. She is a career consultant and leadership coach, and she is incredibly unique in so many ways, and one of which is that she holds both a Masters Degree in Applied Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and she's also a graduate of our Certification in Applied Positive Psychology program here at The Flourishing Center. We're so excited to have Lisa with us and learn about how she's been applying positive psychology. She is an individualizer in our 5i Model, meaning that she uses positive psychology on a one-on-one basis with helping people figuring where are they and where do they want to go in their life. Lisa: Well, I was a practicing human resources consultant, an internal consultant with Verizon, and I felt as though I reached a plateau in terms of how I could help people in the workplace. I really felt as though I needed more knowledge about what works well in the workplace and so that's what led me to the Masters of Applied Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Emiliya: Beautiful. What brought you to the CAPP program as well? Lisa: Well, the CAPP program is very interesting to me because I was in the same MAPP program as one of the co-founders, and I felt after several years of practicing positive psychology, I needed a refresher course, and I thought this was one way to find out what's some of the newer research out there and how could I use the existing research in new and different ways. Emiliya: Tell us, Lisa, how are you using positive psychology personally and professionally? Lisa: In my coaching practice, it's a very much a full practice. There are probably four different ways in which I practice positive psychology on a full-time basis. The first one is in Tampa, Florida. I actually have a clientele of young people who are about to graduate college and are undecided about what they want to do with the degree that they'd been earning, and then also some people in the Southeast United States who are currently in the workplace, and they want to maybe make a pivot and change directions in their career for many reasons. It varies considerably. Then I have my executive coaching practice, and what I do in that is there are some firms in the Southeast, businesses, a couple of construction companies that I work with, a research company that I work with, and some health care organizations, and I go into their workplaces, I'm hired usually by the CEO of the company, to work with their leaders who have a lot of potential, and I walk them through a leadership development program. Finally, what I've added just recently, and I really love it, I didn't know what I was going to think is I actually contract as a 1099 for a coaching organization called BetterUp. Emiliya: Wow, that is so cool, Lisa. I love the variety of experiences that you get to have in the work that you're doing with people, being in such different places of their life as they're working with you. What are some of the ways in which you find yourself integrating positive psychology as you do this one-on-one work Lisa: Positive psychology's actually my absolute guiding post for just about any activity that I do with clients. On a basic level, let's say that I'm working with someone about career decisions. The first thing is to guide that person to clarify their goals and to list those goals, and then to agree that they're going to be accountable for those goals, and also that I agree to help the become accountable to those goals and for the goals to be specific and for them to be measurable for them to have an idea of what a good might be. That would be step number one in just career exploration. There are probably 36 different activities I work with, I use from CAPP or positive psychology that are positive things that tap into a person's strengths to create a greater awareness of what those strengths are, and then to apply those strengths in new and different ways. I'd like to say that probably one of the most fundamental and most effective methods that I use is the "my best moment" method, and I usually establish that early on in the relationship. I do that because I find that when you ask someone about a best moment in their life, it's a bonding experience with them, so this establishes trust in a fairly quick way, and I share my own best story with them too. I usually have two versions. One that's just kind of an everyday best moment, and then there's a deeper one that I share when I feel we have established maybe greater intimacy, but this best moment story gives people a chance. It gives my clients an opportunity to reveal who they are, who they have been at their very best. It gives me the opportunity to listen for their strengths and to begin to appreciate what they're good at. When we have this experience of back and forth, like when I tell them, "I heard in this that you're a very creative person, and I saw a lot of curiosity in it as well," then they verify if what I heard is accurate or not. This gets them thinking they've really never thought of before. It just kind of opens the floodgates for ideas. Emiliya: Wow. Thank you, Lisa. I hear you saying that one of the pillars of your practice is focused on identifying and naming strengths and that you are listening for your client's strengths as you're speaking with them and that you're kind of bringing them out within them as you're sharing, as you're listening to them speak about their goals, their dreams, their aspirations for themselves in life. Lisa: Yes, exactly, because I really don't know of any formal program or opportunity that people have to begin to find their voice, and by their voice, I mean to be able to answer the question, who am I and why am I here and how do I add value to my family, to my friends, to my organization, to my team. These are such important questions, and it's just, it mystifies me why the first time someone finds themself answering these questions is often with the work that I do with them. Emiliya: That's such a great point, Lisa, in that we can, as change agents ourselves, start to ask these questions of the people that we know, of the people that we care about that people shouldn't have to wait until they're finding themselves in just a professional setting or place of transition to start to recognize these things about themselves. Lisa: Sure. I usually start out with a very lighthearted story of when I was, in my early 50s, and I think it's important to note that because I work with a lot of people who are aged 50-plus, and I really try to live out the fact from what we know about change and adult development and positive psychology that we continue to learn and grow, and that improves the quality of my lives. One of my best moments was when I started to do more exercise, and I actually kind of got that motivation from you because to me, when it comes to positive psychology, you represent the importance of the vitality that people have, and vitality becomes so much more important as you age. We take it for granted when we're younger. With vitality in mind, I signed up at the local YMCA to take a Body Pump class. That's basically weightlifting to music. It was down the street from where I work, so I would just run over and snag a class. I'd often come to the class late and I would often leave early because I had appointments, and people were paying me to be their coach, and I had a lot of work to do. I was building my practice up, so I didn't take it very seriously, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and loved it. One day, I came in with flip flops on. In fact, I call this my flip flop story. They were probably into the third routine. The instructor stops the class, and she says, "You can't stay in this class, Lisa, because you're not dressed appropriately. You need close-toed shoes. We're dealing with weights here," and I said, "Well, if you don't mind, I'd just like to stay because I'm here already." She left the room, and I thought everyone in the class, there were 30 people in the class, I thought they would say, "Oh, let Lisa stay," but no one defended me. I was really embarrassed, and I realized at that moment that my late entrance to the class and my early departures were things that people kind of didn't like about me. They didn't come to my defense. Everyone was annoyed because I was holding up the class. The manager of the YMCA came to the front door, and like a principal, he asked me to come to his office, and then he told me about rules and regulations and safety. I was humiliated for being called out, and I walked home, and something just came inside of me where I just said, "You know, I'm 50 years old, and I can't just act like a little girl here and get angry and hide my head in a pillow. I have to buck up and get back to that class and apologize to the instructor for my lack of motivation and tardiness and just not taking it seriously." I did, I went back to the class. I finished the class with my shoes on, and then after the class, I walked up to the instructor, and I told her that I apologize, and I said, "I learned a lesson, and the lesson was that I wasn't valuing her time as much as I valued my own, and I wasn't taking the class seriously, and that I would hereafter." She said, "Thank you," and from then on, I took it more seriously, in better shape for it too, but more importantly, I learned that I was disrespecting her, because to me, honestly, and this is still hard for me to admit, I did not value her time as much as I valued my own. Emiliya: Firstly, I'm so grateful because I can tell you that I, too, am a Body Pump enthusiast, and I, too, have actually been that person who showed up in flip flops and was like, "What do you mean I can't do this class barefoot? I actually really prefer to squat and do things in my barefoot running shoes anyway," and have also been told to leave the class until I am able to come in with sneakers and find myself in that place too. Thank you so much for sharing that at the always in a hurry person within me bows to the always in a hurry person within you and recognizes that we share this in common along with a passion for this particular modality. As you share that story with your clients, what are some of the strengths that you highlight within ourself or pieces of learning that you hope that they'll capture within that story? Lisa: Well, first of all, I hope they feel comfortable enough to admit that they're human and even at whatever age, we still have things to learn. It's so important. Even character strengths. They often tell me that they hear the humility in having learned a lesson, and they also hear perseverance, and as much as that I didn't give up, I went back to the class, and they hear honesty and authenticity and bravery. Bravery is interesting because so many people think bravery has to do with a physical thing, but bravery, as we know from positive psychology, has to do with being brave enough to be honest with yourself and with other people. Emiliya: You said that that's the more surface-level story. I know that we're just getting to know you, but what's the deeper story that you sometimes share with clients? Lisa: Well, the deeper story is a story of resilience, and it's one that I have come to really appreciate as I've told certain people. It seems, as a coach, that I really have my whole life together, and it appears as though sometimes people want to be like me. I want to let them know that this was, my journey has been a very long and painful journey with a lot of work involved and a lot of effort. The story begins just when I was a child. I had a mother and father, but my mother was mentally ill. She had severe psychosis and bipolar disorder. She ended up having four children, and she was really unable to take care of her children. I grew up in Philadelphia, actually, and we used to spend summers at the Jersey Shore. One summer, we were renting a house there, and school was starting, it was late August, and school was starting in September. This is where my mother could really relax, and it would be a vacation for her. Well, this particular summer, when I was 11 years old, we all got in the car to go back to Philadelphia, and everything was packed up, but my mother would not get in the car to come back to Philadelphia with us. I didn't quite understand it, but she was having yet another nervous breakdown, and she really just said, she came to the car, and she said, "I just can't do this anymore." That was really a tough moment for us all to handle. My father had no choice but to drive us back to Philadelphia. School started, and my mother never came home. That was September. Then in October, it was my birthday, and still, mom did not come home. November was Thanksgiving, no mom. December was Christmas, again, mom, it seemed as though she was just not going to return. It seemed as though she decided she could not raise her four children. In January, my father called his family in Tampa, Florida and asked if they could help raise us. We moved into a little two bedroom house with my great-aunt who I've never met before, and we started our lives all over again. Needless to say that that was a very though, bewildering time for me, and I just did what I had to do. I put one foot in front of the other to get through it. The toughest part, really, was as a teenager growing up in a new environment, people would always ask, "Well, where's your mom?" I would say, "She's very, very sick, and I don't think she's ever coming here. That, it's like she's terminally sick," I would say. I kind of make up stories as a kid. Then they found out, basically, that my mother was chronically mentally ill, and she gave us up to my dad. Kids make fun of stuff like that, and they think you're weird, and they don't want to be around you, and they think there's just something wrong with you and your family. A lot of judgment of the stigma of mental illness. I grew up with adversity that way, not having a mother, then it being kind of an illness that has a stigma, and then facing the fact that was abandoned by my other, and then being raised by man and dealing with all that going to high school and college and so forth. I just had to make my own way and make the best of the circumstances that I had. It wasn't easy, but I found my way forward, and I did it. That's my story. Emiliya: It's an amazing thing to put the two strength stories together because you can hear the honesty and the authenticity and the bravery that comes with both being honest with yourself and also the bravery to just do what needs to be done and putting one foot in front of the other in stories of resilience like this one. Thank you so much for sharing that, Lisa. Lisa: You're welcome. Bottom line there is that I was very, very sad, sad, sad, sad, as a child, and I found that you can do things to make your life matter. You don't have to resign to what your life circumstances have given you. That's what I've learned. Actually, my adulthood has been a lot happier than my childhood. Emiliya: What are some ways that you personally practice positive psychology in adulthood that give you that sense of happiness and well-being and life satisfaction? Lisa: Well, I practice mental hygiene. I think that's a term, actually, I got from you in the CAPP course. I start every day of my life quietly in meditation. Before I do anything, I practice meditation. I set intentions for the day, and it's usually 15 to 20 minutes of my practice in setting intentions. Then I routinely practice yoga twice or three times a week, and I exercise twice or three times a week as well. These things are absolutely staples in my life. I not only coach actively with the science of positive psychology being my primary toolbox, but I live it. I practice gratitude as well every day, and so does my husband. We've been doing that for 10 years now, sometimes more consistently than others, but before I open my computer and I check my email, I write down three things for which I am grateful or three things that went well. Well, it sets the tone for the day for me, but with the gratitude, meditation, exercise, yoga, it all comes together. There's this synergy there too. There's definitely a synergy, and let me tell you, Emiliya, as you know, in studying for my masters, I couldn't sit still to meditate for three minutes. It has taken me years to work up to the 20 minutes that I now do. I tell people that because they think, "Oh, I just can't meditate," and I say, "This is something for some people that takes years of practice." Emiliya: I'm definitely in the same boat as well. I can't tell you how many times I ... I mean, I've been at it for over 14 conscious years of when I first learned about meditation to getting to the point where I do do it, I do it frequently, still not every day, and so one of the things that's helped me is reminding myself that what we do on the cushion is what we do off the cushion, and that on the cushion, your mind wanders, and you come back, and your mind wanders, and you come back, and what's most important is not that you have a clear mind, but that you keep coming back. That's definitely helped me having some more compassion towards myself on days when I haven't been meditating. It's all about coming back. Lisa: That's probably the benefit for staying at it for 10 years is that I am able, through the course of the day, to center myself. In a matter of a second, I can go to that place. It's my reset button, and it's wonderful. Emiliya: Beautiful. What have been some of the more powerful interventions and exercises that you've used with your clients as you've been sharing positive psychology with them? Lisa: At BetterUp, I've found that people in the workplace are starving for things that they can use in the workplace to avoid running down the hall and getting a Snickers bar or something because they're stressed out. A lot of us at work, we're stressed because we're stretched to reach our goals, and we can easily break down by, we even break down that self-discipline muscle we have. It's important to set ourselves up for success, and one of the ways that we can do that is by being prepared, by planning in advance for when things go wrong. One of the things I love to do is encourage people to figure out what works specifically for them when they're stressed out to de-stress and to calm down and to not do something negative like go, for me, it used to be go the, we used to have snack machines, and go to snack machine and get a Snickers bar. There a number of things that you can do, and one of them is what I call a BMW, and that just means try breathing first. We talk a lot about how breathing actually helps, a conscious breathing, helps at least bring more oxygen to the brain. One of the first things that even physicians do is when they're trying to figure out what's wrong with someone is figure out how much oxygen do they have in their blood, and so it's very important thing to understand that your bloodstream is getting oxygen. The simplest most fundamental way of doing that is to be conscious of your breathing and to do it more efficiently and effectively. The M stands for move, so if the breathing still makes you go have an urge for a Snickers bar I say move. Walk around the building, walk around the parking lot, the parking garage, but see if that can distract you. Then W is water, of course. Hydrate. Drink a glass of water and see if that doesn't ... If you tried all three of those things and you still have this urge to feed that stress with some kind of unhealthy habit, I guess you tried not to. That's one little intervention that I use in the workplace because most of the time, no matter where anybody works, it's stress is the biggest issue with them, effectively dealing with stress, using stress in a positive way, so here's an example of using stress in a positive way. This is another thing that I took away from [inaudible 00:31:06] with Louis at CAPP, and that is, instead of, I have to do something, I get to do something. Emiliya: Beautiful, Lisa. Thank you so much for sharing some of these powerful interventions with us that you integrate into your work. I'm curious if we could close our time off together with anything that you are really excited about within the field of positive psychology that you're reading or researching right now that's top of mind for you? Lisa: I think decision making is one of, it's a very common topic for positive psychology. People want to make better decisions, and what we keep finding is that decisions are better made when you discuss them objectively, bringing that objective quality into them, and that's why working with a coach, it doesn't have to be a coach, but working with a coach or a mentor, someone, just talking about the steps of your decision making with someone has a positive impact on the change that you want to make in your life. Emiliya: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Lisa. Thank you for taking the time to share your expertise in your practice of positive psychology with us. Lisa: Thank you. It was my pleasure. Emiliya: Lisa, if people wanted to find out m ore about your work, where could they find you? Lisa: They can Google Lisa Garcia Jacobson. Emiliya: Beautiful. Thank you, Lisa. Lisa: Thank you. Bye. Emiliya: Learn more about Lisa Jacobson's work at workplacesolutionstampa.com, including her interview bootcamp, career services, and executive coaching. Speaking of interviews, check out our website theflourishingcenter.com/5imodel. That's the number 5, the letter i, and the word model. This is a questionnaire that we've established to help you figure out which of the five change agent types you fall into, and based on identifying what type of change agent you are in the world, let us help you identify your personalized road map for success in helping you spread positive psychology in the science of flourishing around the world.

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Self-Care

Are You Facing Your Addictions?

September is National Recovery Month, which makes this a good time to both celebrate those who have been successful with recovery and to stop and learn how we can avoid falling into the trap of addiction and dependence. Addiction is defined as the habitual or compulsive surrender to a substance or activity. If you have an addiction or struggle with substance abuse, it can have an enormous influence on your happiness, success and productivity. It can even impact perceptions and behaviors. The Roots of Addiction One cause of addiction is the need to escape. Drugs, alcohol and other activities provide vehicles for denial and avoidance of real life. This particular form of escapism, however, never works in the long term. Instead, those who become addicted ultimately end up hurting themselves and others—often in life-altering ways. Much like a baby craves a bottle, pacifier or favorite blanket, adults have a similar pull toward various substances and activities that give them happiness and comfort. When this pull becomes an insatiable need and interferes with daily functioning, it is considered an addiction. Three elements combine to help create an addict: genetics, upbringing and the social factor (for example, you have a workplace where everyone goes out drinking together and drug use is condoned if not encouraged). If one of these is already present in your life, you should be cautious: the seeds of addiction are there. If two are present, there is a higher chance you could become an addict. If you have all three, you’ll need to be vigilant in order to avoid falling into addiction. Warning Signs Is there a substance you use or activity you engage in frequently that pulls you away from relationships, success, accomplishments or hinders your life? Whatever is causing you to pull away from other activities or people you once enjoyed needs to be examined. If something compulsive is getting in the way of you leading a fulfilling and satisfying life, follow this rule: Assess it and address it. Here are some of the best ways to do that: Listen to the voice. Almost every addict remembers a certain point right before things got bad when a small voice in his or her head said, “I think I might be an alcoholic/drug addict/compulsive overeater/sex addict.” Do not ignore this little voice. Give yourself time to question and assess whether you think you have a problem and work toward improving the behavior you are worried about. Get support. A support system is key when it comes to potentially addictive behaviors. If you are not sure whether you really have a problem, ask five trusted people: Do you think I shop too much? Drink too much? If a quorum of them says yes, it is worth examining. Call a professional. If you reach the point where you're doing something that is harming you and you cannot stop, it is time for professional help. When it comes to something as powerful as addiction, many of us do not have the proper tools to handle it—but professionals do. Reach out to a medical doctor, mental-health professional, religious leader or a 12-step group. In times of struggle, it is important to seek others and get the help we need. Keep good company. Role models are key when it comes to maximizing our potential in any area of life. When it comes to addiction or potential addiction, consider who you spend your time with. In order to recover, or stop from becoming addicted in the first place, you may need to change the company you keep. Make sure you spend time with people who model positive behavior and lead a high-functioning life. As the month of September comes to a close, I encourage each of you to take a good look at your behaviors and how they impact your life. There is no better time than the present to work on improving any weaknesses that might be getting in your way. For all of those working on their recovery, I salute you—it is not easy, but it is worth it. Find your peaceful and healthy place and visit it often. Read more: 5 Reasons to Stop Hating Your Body Read more: Do You Have These Hidden Symptoms of Depression? Stacy Kaiser is a Southern California-based licensed psychotherapist, author, relationship expert and media personality. She is also the author of How to Be a Grown Up: The Ten Secret Skills Everyone Needs to Know, and editor at large for Live Happy.

Self-Care

#HappyFacts: The Secret to Happiness

Each week, Live Happy Radio presents #HappyFacts designed to enlighten, educate and entertain you. Here’s a look at what we’re talking about this week: The secret to thriving revealed In the ongoing search for what makes us happy, it makes sense that people who are thriving in life will have greater well-being. But the definition of thriving and exactly how it’s achieved has remained something of a mystery. Even researcher Daniel Brown of the University of Portsmouth in the U.K.—who just completed a study on thriving—acknowledges that the exact definition is nebulous. But for the sake of his research, he settled on “feeling good about your life and being good at something.” Daniel discovered that thriving people share certain characteristics such as spirituality, optimism, motivation, flexibility and self-esteem. But they also have certain factors in their life, such as opportunity, support and a calm environment. When pro-thriving characteristics collide with these factors, ta-da! You’ve got happiness. These factors will of course change throughout our lifetime. Daniel is now looking at what kind of lasting or cumulative effect thriving has on us and how learning to thrive in good times can help sustain us when things aren’t going so well. Building better employees If you’re a boss looking to create a better work environment, maybe you need more mentors. While the benefits of on-the-job mentoring will vary from one person to the next, studies show that having mentors in the workplace can lead to happier and more fulfilled employees. Not only does on-the-job mentoring allow the mentee to build more confidence and take better control over his or her career, but it also builds a greater sense of job satisfaction. That, in turn, can lead to greater company loyalty – which, of course, means they’re more likely to stay on the job instead of looking for new opportunities. The person being mentored isn’t the only one who benefits, either. Mentors find an increased sense of self-worth as they share their knowledge and it can help re-energize careers. Live like you were dying If you spend a little time thinking about death each day, you might just make yourself happier. Really! That’s because thinking about death and pondering your own mortality can help you strive to create a legacy and find more purpose in your life. According to a new study published in OMEGA – Journal of Death and Dying, those who acknowledged their own mortality were more likely to do something to make a lasting difference. Rather than fearing death, they saw an opportunity to leave something behind, which gave them a sense of purpose. Not only does a sense of purpose increase our personal well-being, but it can offset feelings of powerlessness about our lifespan and inevitable death. Along with that sense of purpose comes greater self-regulation and responsibility for our health, as well as a greater tendency to participate in personal development. But if you’re one of those frightened by the thought of death, take heart—there is a silver lining. Researchers found that people who were afraid of their own mortality were more likely to make healthier choices as a way to offset an early demise. Just think of it as a “scared straight” program for your soul.

Self-Care

Live Happy Magazine Announces ABC News’ Good Morning America Co-Anchors on Cover of May/June Issue

Co-Anchors Reveal Secrets to Happiness and Well-Being Exclusively in this Workplace Edition; Issue Profiles “Happy at Work” Companies in Special Section Dallas, Texas – May 5, 2015 – It’s safe to say not many people would be happy waking up daily for work at 4 a.m., unless you’re the cast and crew of Good Morning America! In Live Happy’s May/June issue, the GMA co-anchors, George Stephanopoulos, Robin Roberts, Lara Spencer, Amy Robach and Ginger Zee share their own “secrets to success” in the workplace—revealing how camaraderie, teamwork and starting the day off right are essential to their positive work environment and to kicking off every morning with a smile. Live Happy, a first-of-its-kind publication combining the science of happiness with practical advice from positive psychology experts to help readers lead happy and productive lives, dedicated the May/June issue to the quest for happiness at work. Whether someone is a CEO, owns their business, or is reinventing themselves mid-career, this issue provides readers the tools to “make happiness their business” by continuing to grow and achieve success in the workplace, and learning to truly love their jobs. Paired with tips from the co-anchors of Good Morning America, readers will also find insight from other “happy companies” like Patagonia, Brown Paper Tickets, EverFi and Logitech. “After spending time on the set of Good Morning America, it’s hard to believe that only 30 percent of all Americans are truly engaged and like their jobs,” says Deborah K. Heisz, Live Happy’s co-founder and editorial director. “We were so inspired by the family-like culture of the GMA staff that we decided to create a ‘Happy at Work’ themed issue of Live Happy where we also explore other companies that emphasize employee well-being, and then share the advice and tools needed for our readers to bring this spirit to their own workplace.” The truth is, at least a third of our waking hours are spent at work, so it’s no surprise that the workplace environment significantly affects overall well-being. Research throughout the magazine demonstrates happy workers show higher productivity, tend to earn more money, enjoy stronger and healthier relationships (both personal and professional) and make smarter decisions. Celebrating the fact that giving back has been shown to help foster a positive work environment and stronger bonds with co-workers—Live Happy also gives readers a look at its #HappyActs Challenge that took place on March 20 in honor of the United Nations’ International Day of Happiness. #HappyActs challenged people across the country to make the world a happier place by sharing their stories and photos both online and at local “happy wall” locations set up in over 40 cities in North America (including at companies like Good Morning America that hosted walls in their workplaces). Along with regular columns on self, work, health, mindset and home, the May/June issue also features a variety of articles from celebrities and experts to help readers discover their inner courage: “THE BOUNCE-BACK EFFECT”—Olympic swimming champion Amy Van Dyken shares how no matter the challenge, being a creative problem solver, looking three steps ahead and focusing on the positive helped her overcome physical challenges after a life-threatening accident. “12 WAYS TO MAKE A COMEBACK”—Resiliency is a skill that allows people to recover from a fall or setback, but because everyone reacts differently, not everyone needs the same skills. Psychotherapist and relationship expert Stacy Kaiser shares 12 key ways to get back on course. “POSITIVITY HEALS”—Dr. Andrew Ordon, co-host of the Emmy Award winning talk show The Doctors, describes how resiliency amid physical and mental challenges has less to do with one’s physical health and more to do with a positive mental outlook. “REDEFINING SUCCESS”—Arianna Huffington, the founder of The Huffington Post reveals how the value of failure and importance of refocus allows her to achieve true success. “THE COURAGE TO CARE”—Everyday heroes—from firefighters to doctors to nurses—share their thoughts on why having courage and the ability to make sacrifices are essential to being ready to take action to help others. Timed to the season, this issue celebrates parents in honor of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Readers share their parents’ best advice and Pauley Perrette, star of NCIS, describes how she opened her New York City bakery, Donna Bell’s Bake Shop, in honor of her late mother. Plus Reverend Run, star of Rev Run’s Sunday Suppers, offers his take on why families should come together around the dinner table. Live Happy is available on newsstands at major retailers throughout the U.S. including Barnes & Noble, Whole Foods and Hudson News, and in Canada at Presse Commerce newsstands, among others. Live Happy’s digital edition is available from the App Store and on Google Play, and current subscribers receive complimentary access on their tablet devices. Separate digital subscriptions are available for $9.99 at livehappy.com. # # # About Live Happy Live Happy LLC, owned by veteran entrepreneur Jeff Olson, is a company dedicated to promoting and sharing authentic happiness through education, integrity, gratitude and community awareness. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, its mission is to impact the world by bringing the happiness movement to a personal level and inspiring people to engage in purpose-driven, healthy, meaningful lives. Media Inquiries: Alessandra Carriero Krupp Kommunications acarriero@kruppnyc.com (646) 797-2030

Self-Care

Train Your Brain for Happiness

Last year, my daughters and I surprised my husband by gifting him with the cutest puppy you’ve ever seen. He was thrilled! The tiny fur ball was calm and snuggly and eager to please—for about a week. As she became more comfortable in the family, though, she began to test her boundaries. For those of you who have ever raised a puppy (or a child, for that matter), you will understand how shocking it can be when your perfect angel gets that first glint of mischief in his or her eye. The morning that this happened to me, I was running late for work (of course), and my puppy was taking an epic morning stroll, looking for the perfect spot to do her business. The moment she finished, I swooped in impatiently to pick her up, and my cuddly lump of fur looked me square in the eye and did a side-lunge-juke to evade me! Not only that, but she squeezed through my fence and dashed into my neighbor’s muddy garden with the joyful bound of a gazelle. I chased after her; I scolded her; I used my high-pitch-fake-happy voice; I even tried to trick her into coming with a treat. But in that moment, I realized with chagrin that I had never bothered to teach my puppy the all-important recall command “come,” as in, “come here right now, darn it!” Assuming that she would always be a pliable lump of snuggly fur, I had underestimated my puppy’s developing mind and the need for attention training. Our Puppy Brains Likewise, our brains can behave like untrained puppies at times. Sometimes, we fail to train our brains to “come” when called, assuming that our minds operate on autopilot and always act in our best interest. Yet, as we all know from personal experience, when challenges arise, our bodies aren’t always well trained to respond on command. Sometimes our bodies take over, resorting to a “fight or flight” response. And instead of behaving in our best interest, our mind begins acting like a mischievous puppy on the run. We haven’t taught our minds how to listen to us obediently because we either didn’t even know it was possible or had no idea how to do so. Fortunately, the last two decades of research in the field of positive psychology have revealed that training our brains is not only possible, but that doing so can actually change the shape and function of our brains by improving neural plasticity (you can, in fact, teach an old dog new tricks); increase gray matter (the density of brain cells that drive how fast you can move, learn, and sense things around you); and strengthen neural networks (the pathways for our brain to talk to itself and the rest of the body). A recent study of mindfulness in the workplace found that the ability to step back from automatic, habitual reactions (those fight-or-flight responses) is highly predictive of work engagement and well-being. For instance, if you often feel your blood starting to boil when you hear a colleague down the hall talking too loudly on the phone, metacognition and mindfulness give you the power to choose a different reaction—perhaps taking a deep breath, using the opportunity to go for a walk, or listening to your favorite music. Mindfulness also creates positive job-related benefits, higher levels of engagement and increased psychological capital (hope, optimism, resiliency and self-efficacy), all of which may lead to more success at work. Specifically, a positive and engaged brain is 31 percent more productive, three times more creative and ten times more engaged. To reap these benefits, we need to actually train our brains for positivity. In the same way that you might go to the gym to exercise different muscle groups, so can you intentionally develop different skill sets that improve your overall sense of well-being and happiness. One of my favorite brain-training programs is called Happify.com (it’s free!). Happify uses colorful, fun games that are grounded in research to teach core positive psychology principles. Here are a few of my favorite brain-training activities on the platform: Need help focusing on the positive? A game called “Uplift” teaches your brain to scan the environment for the positive, thereby improving your mood and reducing negative thinking. As hot-air balloons float by, click on words like “joy” or “radiant” while ignoring words like “criticize” or “angry.”   Searching for a way to relax? Choose the “Serenity Scene” activity. Perfect for someone feeling overwhelmed with a long to-do list, these guided relaxation tracks can help people unwind, feel less anxious, and get a fresh charge of energy (grounded in brain-scan research).   Want games for your children to try? “Negative Knockout” is an Angry Birds–like game where you use a slingshot to destroy words that describe your biggest challenges that day.  Two months after regularly using the platform, 86 percent of users report feeling significantly happier. This impressive statistic highlights how technology can create positive change in our lives, enabling us to rise above our genes and environment to tap into our greater potential.   Happify is one of the best comprehensive resources for brain training that I have found; however, there are numerous apps, gadgets and devices for brain training that are worth exploring as well. To download a full list of my favorite brain-training apps, gadgets and devices, amyblankson.com/braintrain. Training your brain is not just a hobby for overachievers; it’s a leadership strategy. Whether you are a CEO, summer intern, corporate employee, graduate student, athlete or parent, these training skill sets are the building blocks of positive habit change in your life. It’s time to start training our minds now—and just like with puppies, the sooner we can start training ourselves, the better. Read more by Amy Blankson: Let Technology Lift Your Life and The Internet of Things Brings the Future Home. Listen to our podcasts with Amy: How to Declutter With Digital Spring Cleaning and The Future of Happiness.

Practice

15 Ways to Stay Grounded

Walking along a trail through an ancient redwood forest deeply rooted into the rocks and cliffs of the Pacific Coast, I stop for a moment and inhale a deep, refreshing breath of earth, ocean and pine. The quiet that surrounds me is timeless. Sunlight pierces the forest canopy and moves down deeply grooved bark until it reaches the forest floor nearly 300 feet below. By the time it touches the moss and pine needles beneath my feet and sparkles across the brook that nourishes giant roots that seem to have grown since the beginning of time, the constant state of hypervigilance that seems part of my daily life has dropped away, the tension that keeps me ready to run at a moment’s notice has gone and the sense that—in an hour, a minute, a moment—the sky will surely fall has simply disappeared. Gently, I reach out to touch the bark of a tree nearly 1,400 years old, close my eyes and take a deep breath of the richly scented air that surrounds me. Here among the trees, I feel grounded. And I know that I can handle anything. The New Reality Today the sense of feeling deeply rooted, deeply centered and able to handle anything is a gift. Recent economic, social and political events may trigger changes that can come at us so quickly that we run in circles trying to figure out how our lives will be affected six months or a year down the line. Negative noise surrounds us as we become dependent on instant news, social media and plugging in. And that’s in addition to the tumult of everyday life—coping with moody teenagers, watching over aging parents and navigating workplace politics. In a 2017 national survey, the American Psychological Association (APA) reported that 57 percent of us view the current political state as a source of significant stress. “This is a crazy time,” says Catherine Mogil, Psy.D., director of training and intervention development for UCLA Nathanson Family Resilience Center and a consultant for the National Military Family Association Operation Purple Family Retreats. “Parents are stressed, kids are stressed,” she says. And, says Katherine C. Nordal, Ph.D., the APA’s executive director for professional practice, “We’re surrounded by conversations, news and social media that constantly remind us of the issues that are stressing us the most.” Searching for Solid Ground So what are we to do? How—when this fast-changing world seems bent on keeping us anxious and unsettled—do we work, feed the family, get Dad to his doctor’s appointment on time and still keep our own feet planted firmly on the ground? 1. Carve out your turf. Begin by showing yourself that you can make a difference in the world, suggests Catherine. Pick one single thing in your neighborhood, local school or community that needs fixing and figure out how you can carve out the time, talent and resources from your life to get it done. When Galit Reuben realized several years ago that people in Los Angeles were abandoning dogs on the streets in unprecedented numbers, for example, she began picking up the starving and often battered pups, and asking friends to keep them until she could find the dogs a home. Eleven years later, the Ojai, California, mom has built an organization with a network of foster homes and street corner adoption fairs that has led to the placement of more than 3,000 mutts in forever homes. Her passion to help these abused creatures—to make sure they are loved and cared for—has not only rescued dogs, but has also brought together an entire community of caring people to support one another. Read more: 17 Ways to Give Back According to Your Strengths 2. Ditch the online politics. A 2016 survey of more than 14,000 social media users from the Pew Research Center reveals that more than one-third of us are “worn out” by all the political comments we run into on Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the social media universe. What’s more—59 percent of us who engage in a political discussion with a social media friend with whom we disagree end up feeling stressed and frustrated. 3. Manage your phone. Assign a special ring tone to your children and others who depend on you for care and emergency help. Outside of work, ignore other calls that come in, but then set aside 30 minutes or so each day to return to them. And turn off notifications! Any device that pings, beeps, burps and plays the national anthem can drive you crazy. According to a 2016 study by researchers at the University of British Columbia, students who kept their notifications on for one week reported significantly higher levels of inattention and hyperactivity than students who kept their phones off. The researchers reported that the higher levels of inattention predicted lower levels of productivity and well-being. Read more: Are You a Phone Snubber? 4. Sink into the mud. When Los Angeles marriage and family therapist Carly Arenaz needs her own personal renewal after helping clients explore the unique challenges they experience every week, she’ll pack up her miniature Pomeranian—Philippe, aka “the mayor of Hollywood”—and head north to the mud baths of Napa Valley. “They’re unbelievable,” says Carly, as she closes her eyes in remembrance. “You sink into a tub full of warm mud,” and the mud—a combination of volcanic ash, peat and mineral water from a hot spring—gently pulls you down until you’re suspended in its warmth, totally weightless. “The world just floats away,” Carly says. 5. Ration your news. Pick two mainstream news outlets, each from a different political perspective, and subscribe to their news feeds online. Check them no more than twice a day, Catherine suggests, and for no more than 10 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at night. 6. Trace your roots. Few things ground us like family. Use online databases like ancestry.com to follow the wild and sometimes twisting adventures of your own. Interview distant relatives and get to know cousins 10 times removed. Aside from discovering where that cute little nose of yours came from—and your penchant for chocolate—you’ll hear story after story of a people who survived and thrived through war, famine, migration, ocean voyages, possibly even a plague of locusts. With that kind of a heritage, you know there’s nothing that can keep you from taking control of your own destiny. 7. Connect with older women. The older women in my community have been there, done that, bought the T-shirt and survived. I love to hang out with them. They’ve tended their children, nurtured their families and supported friends through good and bad times. Plus, no matter what their political proclivities, they marched, boycotted, advocated, visited their representatives in Congress, even wrote editorials for the local newspaper. They survived and they changed our world. Sipping tea under the trees with my 80-something-year-old friends Barbara and Elspeth is a joy. Stories flow, challenges are discussed, advice is given, laughter is rich, and I go home uplifted and ready to solve every one of my—and the world’s—problems. Read more: How to Be Happy at 90 8. Look for a few good warriors. Any service member who has served in a combat role abroad and survived has a lot to tell us about staying grounded during unpredictable events. Attending a community barbecue at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars in your town and sitting down to talk with veterans can be an eye-opening experience. It’s amazing what you can learn when you open your heart, open your mind and sit down to gnaw on some corn on the cob straight from the grill. 9. Ground yourself with meditation. Whenever you feel as though the world’s spinning out of control, sit down, plant your feet solidly on the earth and close your eyes, suggests Carly. Focus your attention on one part of your body after another for 15 minutes. Then open your eyes, stand up and stretch. You’ll feel calm, centered and ready to restart your day. 10. Reach out. “Connecting to other human beings can be so restorative,” says Catherine. So nurture those relationships. When your best friend—overwhelmed by job loss, soaring rent, or just the demands and decisions of daily life—curls up into a ball and cries, throw your arms around her, feed her chocolate, tell her husband to take her camping for the weekend and haul her kids over to your place for a sleepover with uplifting kid movies and taffy-making. The fact that you would do this for her will ground her. The fact that you did will ground you. 11. Look deep. Pick out a group of people on the nightly news who are yelling and screaming about one issue or another, then try to figure out who those people are, what makes them tick and why they’re so steamed. Patti Callahan, a retired psychiatric nurse who was house-sitting in Hawaii for friends last year, was puzzled by some of the presidential campaign talk about how there were still no jobs for huge numbers of people whose industries had been decimated in the last recession. “I wasn’t interested in all the lamenting, protesting and putting people down that was going on during the election,” Patti says bluntly, “but it seemed obvious that [I] had missed something. And I wanted to know what it was.” So, Patti stopped by the local library, ordered a bunch of books for her Kindle and started reading. First up was Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild, Ph.D., professor emerita of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Arlie had experienced the same curiosity as Patti about why some American workers were angry, so she had gone on the road to Louisiana’s bayou country, a repository of American conservatism, hung out with people and listened to what they had to say. It wasn’t long before she learned of whole communities in which jobs had disappeared, homes had been lost and kids had been robbed of their futures. “I got a vivid and sickening picture of what’s happened to the land where they live and what they’re surrounded with,” Patti says. “It gave me a better understanding.” 12. Practice gratitude. We get so absorbed in bouncing from one crisis to another all day that we never focus on all the amazing things in our lives, says Catherine. So, make focusing on gratitude a daily practice. If you can take the time to say “I have my health, I have a loving relationship” for just two minutes every day, it will change your brain chemistry and allow you to move forward on solid ground. 13. Hold out a crayon. Reach out to children around the globe who have been forced to flee the horror of war and make a difference in their lives. You can donate time, money and talents to organizations like Save the Children. Or, like one couple from Santa Barbara, California, you can get even more directly involved. Robin and Robert Jones, who live part-time on the Greek island of Lesbos, were there when the rubber boats of Syrian refugees started hitting the shore. The entire island’s population turned out to help, but Robin, an art teacher, was concerned about the pain she saw in the children’s eyes. She went home, grabbed blankets and art supplies and took them to a transfer point at the beach. Within an hour of their arrival, she had children drawing and sketching their experiences, which gave them a voice to express their fear, confusion and pain—and a way to take the first step into a new life. 14. Weave a sense of Presence into your life. Pull together a book discussion group that encourages you to explore your inner spiritual life. Friends Mary Karp, Paul Harris, Polly Post and Maureen Glancy are four members of a local Quaker community in Santa Rosa, California, who meet every other week at Mary’s house to discuss A Testament of Devotion, the classic 1941 book of essays on the internal spiritual journey from Haverford College professor Thomas Kelly. The brief pause in their busy lives is an opportunity to rest in the inner stillness brought through a quiet attentiveness to that which is holy. 15. Retreat. Whether it’s a wicker chair on your front porch, a boulder in Yosemite National Park or the third pew on the left inside an empty cathedral anywhere in the world, regularly retreat to that one single place of quiet in which the world’s voices are hushed and your own can emerge strong and free. A long weekend, a day, even just a few hours is all it takes. A few yards from where I sit on my tiny porch surrounded by sunshine and jasmine, the narrow Santa Rosa Creek runs beneath a canopy of gnarled oaks and fresh California laurel. It begins as a great stream in the mountains to the north, but by the time it tumbles down the hills, over rocks and through lush vineyards into the valley where I live, it has gentled to a soft murmuring rhythm that soothes away all my edges. Here, the chatter of Twitter is absent, the minutia of life disappears, and the incessant voices that demand my attention don’t exist. My retreat only lasts an hour. But here I am grounded. I know who I am. I know where I’m going. And no matter how fast and furiously the world erupts in 10 directions at once, the ground under my feet is firm. Read more by Ellen Michaud: Living on Less to Give More Ellen Michaud, editor at large for Live Happy magazine, is an award-winning writer who lives in Northern California. She has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, Better Homes and Gardens, Readers’ Digest, Ladies Home Journal and Prevention Magazine.

Practice

#HappyFacts: Know Thy Strengths

Each week, Live Happy Radio presents #HappyFactsdesigned to enlighten, educate and entertain you. This week, in honor of Character Day on Sept. 13, we’re talking about character strengths. Know thy strengths As you may know, character strengths are qualities like bravery, creativity, kindness, humility and perseverance that affect the way you think, feel and behave. Learning your character strengths can help you understand yourself better, but it also can help you identify areas in your life that you’d like to improve. Today, character strengths are being used in the classroom, workplace and in the home to help improve relationships. They can help us in many different areas of our lives, so this week, the Live Happy team looks at some of the ways character strengths are valuable to us. Kid-tested, parent-approved If you’re a parent, you would most likely welcome a secret way to improve the effectiveness of your actions. Learning your child’s character strengths (in addition to knowing your own) is a powerful tool for knowing what will motivate and encourage them to take proper action or make the right decision. According to Lea Waters, Ph.D., author of The Strength Switch, a strength-based approach to parenting allows you to focus on what’s right with your child instead of seeing what isn’t working very well. By noting what is working, you can help bolster your child’s optimism, resilience and sense of achievement while at the same time enhancing self-esteem and confidence—making for a happier child. And, as we know, happier kids = happier parents. Especially if they’re teenagers. Thank more, stress less If you have to pick one character strength to get you through stressful times, try gratitude. Gratitude—the ability to recognize and respond positively to the things that happen in our lives—has been studied from many different aspects. Current research shows that practicing the character strength of gratitude can help change the way we react to stressful situations and make them easier to navigate and endure. What’s even better is that you get benefits from gratitude in good times, too, with increased positive emotions, better relationships and more satisfaction with your job and your life. And, when you’re thankful, you’re also more motivated to help others—which leads to a “helper’s high” and psychological flourishing. That creates what’s known as an “upward spiral”—which has such side effects as increased happiness and well-being. Strengths, noted What good are character strengths in the workplace? Well, they gave us the Post-it Note. 3M is known for its innovative “15 percent time” program, which encourages its engineers and scientists to spend up to 15 percent of their time working on their own ideas. By allowing employees to apply their strengths to projects that they are excited about, the company fosters the strength of creativity and nurtures their passion. And, in 1974, the company received confirmation of the value of their program when engineer Art Fry used his 15 percent time to develop the Post-it Note, which remains one of the company’s best-selling products of all time. What character strength do you most value in your life, and why? Tell us about it in the comments below.

science

Happy News of the Week

Growing Link Between Health and Happiness Top researchers of subjective well-being recently released a comprehensive review on the connection between health and happiness. Based on recent findings, the case is strong enough to encourage health practitioners to add “happiness assessments” when asking patients about their behaviors. Admittedly, the report does call for more research into this area, but the promising results are trending toward happiness playing an important role in our mental and physical health. The Happiest College in America Is… Vanderbilt University has the happiest students in North America, according to The Princeton Review, edging out Rice University, which claimed the title last year. The test-prep outfit’s annual guide The Best 382 Colleges 2018 ranks schools on categories ranging from Best-Run College (University of Richmond), the Most Beautiful Campus (University of San Diego) and Best Campus food (University of Massachusetts-Amherst) based on student surveys. Vanderbilt also boasts an academic rating of 95 percent and has a near perfect quality of life rating. Money Can Buy You Happiness In a recent study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers found that money can buy you happiness in the form of time-saving activities, such as paying someone to mow your lawn or clean your house. People who traded cash for time were found to be less anxious at the end of the day and reported less stress as well. The study also found that when we suffer from a “time famine,” we are putting our health at risk by forming unhealthy eating, exercising and sleeping habits. Be True to You The secret to well-balanced happiness may include embracing emotions that aren’t very pleasant, such as anger, sadness and contempt. According to Maya Tamir, Ph.D., a psychology professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem who worked on the study The Secret to Happiness: Feeling Good or Feeling Right?, researchers found that we are better off if the emotions we are experiencing match the emotions we desire. “If we embrace the feelings that we have, for instance, when we feel sad, we could accept these feelings as natural and understand that there is nothing wrong with us,” Maya says. Emoji for Hire We often send each other emojis to convey certain moods that we are feeling without using words, such as a laughing smiley face or a frustrated face-palm. Since people naturally like to mimic behaviors, or what scientists call “affective contagion,” a management professor from the University of Delaware who studies workplace performance wanted to see if emojis had an impact on how people behave at work. What he found was when people receive friendly and positive messages, they are put into a good mood which can then lead to the release of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine controls the reward and pleasure centers of the brain and allows us to be more creative and find new ways to solve problems. Chris Libby is the Section Editor for Live Happy magazine.

work

What Really Makes Us Happier at Work?

We spend a great deal of our lives working—and these days, even when we’re not at work, we’re likely thinking about it, texting about it or bringing it home with us. According to sociologist, author and blogger Karl Thompson, we spend about 25 to 30 years of our lives working. It makes sense, then, that there’s an increased emphasis on finding a job that’s rewarding and personally fulfilling versus one that “just pays the bills.” Our awareness of the benefits and need to find personal happiness has influenced how we feel about the jobs we want and the work we do. Today, workers would rather have a job that contributes to their personal well-being instead of just improving the bottom line. According to Gallup’s State of the American Workplace 2017 report, 53 percent of employees say that having a position that allows greater work-life balance and better personal well-being is “very important” to them. Wanting that balance and achieving it are two very different things, and this year the annual World Happiness Report, published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, added new research on well-being at work to the conversation on global happiness. Chapter authors Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Ph.D., associate professor of economics and strategy at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, and George Ward, a Ph.D. student at the Institute for Work and Employment Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, took a deep dive into the topic of work to find out how it affects our well-being—and what we should do differently. “People…spend the majority of their lives working, so it is important to understand the role that employment [plays] in shaping happiness,” Jan says. “Our research reveals that happiness differs considerably across employment status, job type and industry sectors.” While the report makes it clear that having a job is extremely important for happiness, it also finds that many of us aren’t happy with the jobs we have. Although a common complaint is about money, the researchers found that money isn’t necessarily the driving factor of what makes us happy or unhappy at work. Where joy goes to work It’s no secret (or surprise) that workers in some professions are happier than others. The researchers found that around the globe, people in blue-collar jobs were less happy than those in white-collar jobs. This wasn’t true in just a big-picture sense—it was reflected in the daily evaluations of how workers felt about their lives. “White-collar workers generally report experiencing more positive emotional states such as smiling, laughing, enjoyment, and fewer negative ones like feelings of worry, stress, sadness and anger,” Jan says. This was true even when they adjusted for factors such as differences in income and education or age and marital status. The study authors found this was true regardless of what type of blue-collar work was being done. At the top of the well-being scale, they found, were managers and executives, followed closely by professional workers. While clerical workers, service job employees and manufacturing and repair workers hover in the middle of the scale, those levels fall for construction and mining workers, and the lowest levels of happiness are found among farming, fishing and forestry workers. This, Jan says, illustrates “the raw differences in the happiness of job types.” Read more: 5 Ways to Spark Joy at Work When happiness clocks out It’s not just professions that affect your overall job satisfaction, though; certain regions report larger populations of happy workers. Austria claims the top spot, with 95 percent of respondents saying they are satisfied with their jobs, and Norway and Iceland rank only slightly below that. Scandinavian countries have consistently ranked high as the world’s happiest countries, and they fare well for the happiest workplaces, too. There’s even a word, arbejdsglæde, that means “work happiness.” Other countries don’t have such a word, but Alexander Kjerulf, CEO of Denmark’s Woohoo inc., says that learning from what’s worked for Scandinavian employees could help the rest of the world. “We have focused on creating happy workplaces for the last 30 or 40 years,” he explains. “Scandinavian countries have some of the lowest average weekly working hours, which allows for a work-life balance. And Scandinavian bosses include employees in their decisions, actively seek input and rarely give orders.” All of those components are also identified in the World Happiness Report as being crucial to happiness. As Gallup reported, feeling like you have a balance between your personal and professional life is a strong predictor of happiness at work; other things such as autonomy, the ability to learn on the job and variety of duties are also significant influencers of how we feel at the end of the day. The need for work-life balance In the report, Jan says it becomes clear that work-life balance is a primary driver of worker happiness. “This turns out to be true across the board, in terms of people’s life and job satisfaction, general happiness and moment-to-moment emotional experiences.” People who work too much, or whose jobs leave them too exhausted to enjoy life in their off hours, report having a much lower level of happiness, both at home and on the job. The same is true of people who feel they bring their work home with them, either physically or emotionally. And, Alexander adds, the price they pay goes beyond unhappiness. “Work-life imbalance makes people quite unhappy because you end up feeling like both work and life are demanding more of your time, and you have to let one of them down. Ultimately, you’ll end up failing both of them,” he says. “Research shows that those working a 55-hour week face a 33 percent increased risk of stroke than those working a 35- to 40-hour week. And to make matters worse, all those extra hours don’t even mean you get more work done. So overwork is killing employees while not improving business results.” Read more: 9 Tips to Be Happier Working From Home Who’s the Boss? Whom you work for also has a dramatic effect on how happy you’re going to be at work. Having autonomy and job variety are both important, but the World Happiness Report found that bosses play a substantial role in determining an employee’s well-being. A study led by Benjamin Artz, Ph.D., associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, found that a boss’s competence was the “single strongest predictor of a worker’s job satisfaction.” Benjamin's findings showed that, particularly among American workers, having a technically competent boss was considered more important for job satisfaction than earnings, even when their salaries were high. The older the worker, the more important the competence of their higher-ups was to employees. Your job satisfaction is profoundly molded by your boss’s competence, and your own team’s job satisfaction levels depend on your competence,” the study concluded. “The boss casts a very long shadow.” Alexander says that those who are stuck in toxic environments or have a bad boss can do something about it, but that may involve finding a new place to work. “The most important thing is to realize that being unhappy at work is not normal,” he says. “Many people just accept it. But the truth is that there are amazing workplaces out there and many people who love their jobs.” And finding such a job may be more important than many people realize. “We know that people who are happy at work have better health, are happier in life and enjoy greater career success and lifetime incomes,” Alexander says. “So having a job you like is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.” Satisfaction on the job ➡ The self-employed report higher levels of life satisfaction but more negative emotions (like stress and worry) than those who are employed full time for someone else. ➡ Unemployed people report having lower subjective well-being overall, yet also experience fewer negative emotions and more daily positive emotions than those who are employed. ➡ People who are happier with their lives appear to find employment more easily than those who are unhappy, while unhappy people appear to be more likely to lose their jobs. Top 5 predictors of on-the-job happiness ✔ Work-life balance ✔ Job variety/opportunity to learn new things ✔ Personal autonomy ✔ Job security ✔ Social capital/work environment Read more: 5 Habits to Make You Happier on the Job Paula Felps is the science editor for Live Happy.

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9 Tips to Be Happier Working From Home

As companies go global and workforces become virtual, more of us find ourselves working from home. On the one hand this is cause for celebration—no more commutes, cubicles or tepid coffee! But when you work from home, the responsibility is all on you. No one is clocking you in or out or constantly checking your work. You need to be organized and self-motivated. Working from home can seem very relaxed, but studies show that those who do it may be more productive than their office park counterparts. If you've landed a work-at-home job but don't feel entirely thrilled about the prospect of being alone with yourself every single day (you may be an extrovert who craves the energy of the workplace, or someone who doesn't like to mix home life and work life), don't worry, you have options. Take your laptop to a friendly cafe with Wifi and pay your rent by buying coffee and scones. In many cities, you can now find groovy coworking spaces, such as WeWork, General Assembly and NeueHouse, that provide camaraderie as well as office amenities. (Do a quick Google search of your city + coworking to find one near you.) For those who are committed to the home office, here are a few tips to maintain productivity and sanity throughout the workweek. 1. Get a room. If you have a choice, put your desk somewhere other than your bedroom. You don’t want your brain’s work and sleep wires to get crossed. A dedicated room that can act as your home office is ideal, but even a nook or large closet can often do the trick. 2. Set a schedule. When you work from home, it’s tempting to sleep late and then work until whenever, but this is not the path to productivity. Our brains like regularity, so set your alarm clock to get up at the same time every day (preferably early). Do some good exercise or meditation, and start the day with gusto. You might even want to take a walk around the block before you start working, not only for the exercise but also to create a mental demarcation between your home and work life. 3. Make your bed. This simple act may correlate with happiness, and it starts your day off on the right foot. But it is especially important to keep your home tidy and at least somewhat organized if you will be working there. Plus an admiral wrote an entire book about how important it is, so maybe you should do it. 4. Shower, brush your teeth and get dressed. This probably goes without saying, but if you stay in your pajamas all day—with mossy teeth and bed head—you’ll feel it. Somewhere deep down your brain is thinking, “Let’s get back in bed” instead of, “Let’s get on that conference call and talk about spreadsheets.” 5. Keep your desk neat. If you don’t keep your desk area organized, your work stuff will flow over into your home stuff and vice versa. You don’t want your house to look like the office on The Office, but invest in a small filing cabinet if you need one. Every month, go through old papers and recycle or file what you don’t need. You don’t want to be featured on the next season of Hoarders: Home Office Edition. 6. Resist the temptation to do house chores. The occasional load of laundry won’t kill you, but you can procrastinate away an entire workday by dusting the den and recaulking the shower. You won’t need a handyman, but you’ll probably need a new job. 7. Take brain breaks. Research shows that we are most productive in 90-minute spurts of creativity, interrupted by short breaks of either relaxation or exercise. Your own body clock may work differently, but the best thing about being at home is being able to get up, stretch, walk around a little—even catch a few z’s if you need to. If you do decide to take a nap, make sure not to go past 20 minutes or so (set an alarm on your phone or clock). 8. Make social plans for after work. Working from home has huge benefits, but let’s face it—you get a little lonely. If you are going to go on social media, schedule it into your day, such as “10 am: 5 min. Facebook break.” Otherwise you will get lost in the ultimate time- and productivity-sucking vortex. If you make plans with friends for dinner or the weekend, you can focus on your work, knowing you’ll have the opportunity to socialize later. 9. Take advantage of not being in an office. You get to be in your happy place all day, so make the most of it. With no coworkers to quibble over your musical taste, you can play tunes in the background while you work. Since you have a full working kitchen at hand (presumably), save money and eat more healthily by making quick salads and sandwiches instead of going out for lunch. And though we encourage you to get dressed—you can still wear anything you want—and that beats “office casual” any day. Read more: Clear Your Desk and Your Mind Will Follow and 6 Secrets to Creating Your Dream Job Emily Wise Miller is the web editor for Live Happy.

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