The Science of the Good Life

 


 

See it at AmazonThe founder and driving force of “Positive Psychology” has summarized his lifetime of research in this accessible book for the lay reader. Though padded with the usual flab of today’s nonfiction–refutations of criticisms most readers have never encountered, tangential personal anecdotes, and repetition–the substance of his findings are practical and enlivening. Dr. Seligman even summarizes the components of a life well lived in a mnemonic acronym.

P – E – R – M – A

  1. Positive emotion,
  2. Engagement [A/K/A Flow]
  3. positive Relationships,
  4. Meaning, and
  5. Accomplishment.

I prefer FAMES, if only for the irony, since fame is at best a fleeting and ancillary aspect of a satisfying life.

  1. Flow, escaping the self through challenging activity
  2. Accomplishment & Progress
  3. Meaning, a generative story
  4. Experiencing welcome emotions
  5. Social Support

Details below.

 


 
Selected excerpts
Flourish:
A Visionary New Understanding of
Happiness and Well-being
by Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D.

Atria Books. 2011-04-05
Page numbers from Kindle Edition.
[Tony’s comments in square brackets.]

 


 

PREFACE This book will help you flourish. There, I have finally said it. I have spent my professional life avoiding (more…)

Will this year be happy for you? Or even “new”?

 


 

You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going because you might not get there.

–Yogi Berra

Happy New Year!

 

Or so we have been saying. But will it be happy for you? Will it even be all that new? Or is it just the same stuff on a different date? Is 2012 your future or just a rearranged version of your past?

Try this quick exercise. Pretend it is now January 1, 2013. How are you feeling about 2012? Was it a year of satisfaction or disappointment, growth or decay, health or decline, contribution or frustration? One year from today, what will you wish you had done sooner?

Like most of the people I ask, you have probably retired from the “New (more…)

Genuine Success: Vitality, Service, & Outstanding Performance

 


 

A small group of leaders in the DC Metro area is interviewing potential new members for their coaching group. Details below or you can download a brochure here: http://tiny.cc/gsvsop

 


 

Click to see the brochureYour organization and your responsibilities can grow only as fast as you do. Participate in Genuine Success: Vitality, Service, and Outstanding Performance (GS:VSOP) to develop your expertise in the only career strategy that is endlessly scalable. Leadership: the ability to get things done with and through other people.

GS:VSOP is a continuing program to provide business people with structure, tools, and support to produce nonlinear, unpredicted, massive results at work while enjoying a high level of personal satisfaction, fulfillment, and vitality.

GS:VSOP’s unique mix of traditional business principles, cutting-edge brain science, powerful one-to-one coaching, and ancient disciplines assures you a productive and profitable experience.

Each month, you will grow as a leader through a full day of group learning with other successful leaders; participate in one-to-one coaching sessions with your group leader; be held accountable for implementing your vision with follow-up sessions and field practice.

Program topics include influence and persuasion, organization and planning, finance, self-management and growth, focus and concentration, integrity, communication, health, and fitness. See brochure for more details.

This program is for leaders who:

  • Aim to achieve transformational growth & breakthrough results.
  • Want to improve ROI & speed growth.
  • Are frustrated with “business as usual”  & just know “there’s got to be a better way.”
  • Are ready to get more done with less stress.
  • Apply their knowledge to innovate & make things happen.
  • Strive for a greater clarity & confidence.
  • Are ready to take bolder action, to employ their talents & resources thoroughly.

You’ll learn why you behave the way you do and how to alter your conversations for greater performance and how to consistently achieve significant measurable organization-wide improvements.

Schedule a conversation with Tony Mayo to find out if this program is right for you by clicking here.

To me, leadership is a journey toward wholeness.

A leader’s journey starts by looking inward to understand, “Why am I here?” and “What is it that I’m here to do?”

–- Joe Jaworski, MIT
Society for Organizational Learning

 


 

Genuine Success:
Vitality, Service, & Outstanding Performance

A Program for Leaders
Committed to Workplaces of
Humanity & Prosperity

 


 

Best Leaders Cause Fun Workplaces




I believe that leaders have three main roles.

  1. They are responsible for interpreting the organization’s shared values and principles.
  2. They are senior advisers to everyone in the organization. And,
  3. They are the collective conscience, pushing the organization to reach its goals and live up to its ideals.

The idea that top executives or financial experts should make key decisions is so ingrained in our corporate cultures that it is nearly impossible for leaders to delegate important roles and decisions. Leaders who want to increase joy and success in the workplace must learn to take most of their personal satisfaction from the achievements of the people they lead, not from the power they exercise.

–Dennis Bakke
Joy at Work:
A Revolutionary Approach to
Fun on the Job


Fast Company




Does Harvard Study Show “What Makes Us Happy”?

 


 

 

That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.

–Dr. George Vaillant, Psychiatrist
Harvard Study of Adult Development

"What Makes Us Happy"

What Makes Us Happy?, in the June, 2009, issue of the Atlantic has attracted a lot of attention. It is an interesting story, or collection of anecdotes, but does it provide any useful guidance for CEOs or their executive coaches?

Vaillant sorts people according to their (more…)

Group Agreement

 


 

Handshake

For a group of people to work smoothly together, each member must understand what constitutes agreement. This understanding is often left in the background, unexamined, as everyone assumes their standards match those of other people. Fundamental to the success of the executive off sites I conduct is helping the group make these assumptions explicit so that everyone is playing by the same rules. If, in fact, everyone has the same standards, we finish this step quickly. If not, time invested early to clarify the ground rules saves a lot of time (and upset) later.

There are two essential parts: clarity and verity. First, everyone must be clear on what is being agreed. Second, the group needs a way to know if agreement has been reached.

 


 

#1) What’s the deal?

  • Clarity: Details of the agreement
    • What, how, when ,who, where.
    • Explicit standards of (more…)

Executive sheds pressure

Here is the story of one CEO who completed my executive effectiveness course Genuine Success: Vitality, Service, and Outstanding Performance in 1997. Notice how contemporary her concerns sound, twelve years later.

 


 

“Everybody is fearful about their jobs,” reports Genuine Success: V.S.O.P. graduate Marta Swymelar, “What will I do if this job gets downsized? We keep hearing: Social Security won’t be there, you can’t depend on your pension plan, you can’t be sure of the stock market…” Like many people sharing these concerns, Marta had some ideas about what she should be doing to protect herself in this insecure era. Returning to school to get an MBA, for example, was (more…)

005 Managing Yourself with Specific Measurable Results • PODCAST

 


 

Click to download pdf Goal Setting Kit

For more than twenty years, I have led groups and individuals through a powerful goal-setting process with astonishing results: marriages, career changes, doubled incomes, published books, and more.

The two downloads linked from this post include all you need. Use the Specific Measurable Results (SMR) Kit workbook and podcast to follow the same planning method my executive coaching clients have long employed. Like them, you can create a (more…)

Breathing Space: Living and Working at a Comfortable Pace in a Sped-Up Society

 


 

Breathing Space:

Living and Working at a Comfortable Pace

in a Sped-Up Society by Jeff Davidson

 

“Our contribution to the progress of the world must, therefore, consist in setting our own house in order.”

Mahatma Gandhi

Jeff Davidson

I use a lot of books in the executive training I offer, some of them well-known bestsellers like Flow [Click here to see Tony’s review.], but there is only one book that I advise my clients to read: Breathing Space. Jeff Davidson has filled each page of Breathing Space with insight, practicality, and specific advice. To get your hands back on the controls of your modern life, no book is better.

Life in today’s world is busy, full, and rife with distractions. Satisfaction can easily slip away without special efforts to create an environment and habits that support our own goals and priorities. Fail to do so and your life will–as Jeff Davidson amply demonstrates–be thoroughly colonized by advertisers, entertainers, and co-workers. It has often been said, and is even more true today, that if you are not (more…)