Here is what will happen to you when you read George Vaillant’s book Spiritual Evolution:

• During the chapter “Joy,” you may cry as you feel Joy. During the chapter “Love,” you will want to call home to say Hi.
• You will be inside a colossal head fake - a situation in which you’re learning but it seems like you’re playing.

This is part two of coverage of the 2007 Appreciative Inquiry Conference (Sept 16-19, Orlando, FL). Today was Tuesday, September 18, 2007, and the main events were a panel on how to run an AI Summit, a keynote by Peter Coughlan of IDEO, and many companies presenting their results in using AI and strengths. […]

You may be wondering, should I get out of a bad mood? Suppose that our answer is already, YES. Now, what do we do?

Karen Reivich, co-author with Andrew Shatte of The Resilience Factor, suggests some concrete steps. In a talk she gave at our MAPP classes in 2005, Karen gave three suggestions for getting out of a bad mood and out of a downward spiraling mindset. These are practical and immediately usable. […]

There is no Nobel Prize awarded in the field of Psychology.  But Psychologist Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University received the 2002 Nobel Prize … in Economics, making him the only Psychologist ever to receive a Nobel Prize.  Kahneman received the Prize for integrating psychological insights into economics, especially about how people make judgments and decisions.  It turns […]

What can Positive Psychology say about being happy at work?  No, really, what can Positive Psychology definitively say about happiness at work?  For example:

Are there some people for whom happiness at work is easier?
Are there actual ways to increase happiness at work?
What if you’re too busy at work working to have time to worry about employee […]

Cooperrider went broad, Buckingham went specific, and Seligman went cohesive: Cooperrider introduced the concept of strengths elevating an organization to beyond its four walls, Buckingham hit home the message that using strengths at work starts with you, the individual, and Seligman outlined some major findings of positive psychology that support Cooperrider and Buckingham’s work in strengths. […]

Jennifer Aniston will be starring in a movie about Positive Psychology. The movie is expected to be called “Counter Clockwise,” and Aniston will play Harvard Professor Ellen Langer studying how to turn back the clock on aging. In 1979, Ellen Langer undertook a study in which she put elderly men into a setting that made them think that the year was 1959. According to the Harvard Crimson, “The magazines, newspapers, and music the men saw and heard were all 20 years old and the men themselves were told to behave and talk as if it were 1959. … Over the course of a week, signs of aging appeared to reverse and the men looked visibly younger. The subjects’ joints became more flexible, their posture straightened, and the lengths of their fingers, which typically shorten with age, actually increased.” […]

When Shane Lopez opened the 2007 Gallup Well-Being Forum yesterday afternoon, he recounted many firsts:

* The prior day, Gallup had hosted the first Courage Summit ever.
* That day, Gallup hosted what Lopez referred to as “the best symposium on teaching positive psychology” as a pre-summit workshop with over 200 people attending.
* That day, Gallup had hosted a pre-summit workshop on the Global Well-Being Report with over 200 people attending.
* Most significantly, in his opening, Lopez introduced for the first time the Gallup Well-Being Report, “The State of Global Well-Being.” […]

You wouldn’t use a paperclip to try to open a can. So why are you trying to use past skills to get a future job?

Suppose I told you that with a small change in mindset, you could turn the paperclip into a can opener. Suppose I showed you a tool that would give you leverage toward getting the kind of job you really want. […]

The public radio program Fair Game interviewed me last week for a story on mandating “positive news.” The program appeared in 25 markets in the U.S. (you can listen to the 6-minute interview here or read more detail here).

What do you do if you’re running a news radio station, and suddenly your new management which has heavy ties to the government comes in to tell you that you now must report “at least 50 percent positive” news? […]