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On behalf of Drexel University’s Business of Ambition: Co-Curricular Activities, Programs & Services, Kamina Richardson, Program Manager and co-sponsor happier.com invite you to attend:
“Staying Resilient: Why Happiness is Important in Business”
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Wednesday, October 14th
Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design
Nesbitt Hall, Ruth Auditorium
33nd and Market Streets
Philadelphia, PA 19104
5 – 6 p.m. Panel Discussion
6-7 p.m. Reception
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When the growth is stagnant and people are losing jobs, why should we care about happiness? What impact does employee happiness have on productivity and engagement, and how do we teach people to be more resilient in the face of adversity? What works for increasing employee happiness?
Leaders in the fields of management, consulting and psychology provide perspectives on staying resilient during tough times: why happiness is important for business. Learn what Merrill Lynch and the U.S. Army are already doing to increase happiness and resilience and hear about the latest findings in the science of happiness.
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Panel Speakers:
Professor Diana Sandberg is an instructor for the Finance Department at LeBow College of Business. She is an expert in Risk Management.
Scott Asalone is partner and co-founder of ASGMC. He co-founded the firm to inspire and guide people in business to be their very best, through the use of his motivational speaking skills and management development expertise. Scott has a Masters Degree in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. He is an affiliate of the American Psychological Association and a member of the International Positive Psychology Association. He is certified in Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory, Firo-B, and Dimensional Management techniques.
Karen Reivich, Ph.D. is co-author of The Resilience Factor and of the best-selling The Optimistic Child. Dr. Reivich is a Research Associate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Psychology, and is also the co-director of the Penn Resiliency Project and an instructor in the Masters of Applied Positive Psychology program in which she teaches a course on Positive Psychology and Individuals.
Adam M. Grant, Ph.D. is an award-winning researcher and Associate Professor of Management at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Grant’s research focuses on work motivation, job design, pro-social helping and giving behaviors, initiative and proactive behaviors, and employee well-being.
To register: http://www.lebow.drexel.edu/Event/2528 or contact Kamina Richardson 215-571-3568 for additional information.
Media contacts: Christa Guidi, Cashman & Associates, 215.627.1060, cguidi@cashmanandassociates.com or Courtney Sochacki, Cashman & Associates, 215.627.1060, courtney@cashmanandassociates.com
happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.
Last weekend, I decided to teach my kids how to ride their bikes. So, we went out to the garage, took off the training wheels and put on our helmets. Before we started, though, I told both boys, “Just remember, when you feel yourself starting to fall, pedal harder!”
As millions of moms and dads have done before me, I gave the boys some other words of encouragement, put them on the bikes, and held the seat for balance until they were up and running. Then, at the top of my lungs, I yelled, “Pedal harder! You can do it!”
Within seconds, my oldest son decided to ignore my advice and he crashed. No broken bones. No bruises, no scrapes. I ran to him and said, “Nice work! You went about 30 yards all by yourself. Now, bounce back up and let’s try, again.”
For any of you who have taught your kids how to ride a bike, you probably already realized that I repeated this sequence at least a dozen times over the course of that morning. Every time each one of them fell, in a very positive way, I told them to try, again. After a quick break for lunch, the boys were back on their bikes and riding around like pros.
If I had to do it all over, again, I probably wouldn’t change a thing that I said or did (except to have someone else hold the video camera!). While encouraging my sons to keep trying was a good thing, in this case, there are going to be challenges in my sons’ lives where the best decision is to stop trying and give up.
One of the most important lessons that I learned from The Resilience Factor was the idea that resilient people actually do give up. They have the ability to understand that further attempts are not going to change the results of a situation. Resilient people develop a “flexible optimism” that allows them to put their energy, efforts, and resources into the areas of their lives where they stand to gain the most. They look at failing as just another opportunity to learn more about themselves. They then apply this to future situations.
Unfortunately, I do not believe there is a formula that tells you when to give up, but here are some questions you might want to consider if you get the sense that it might be time to move on:
- What resources, experience, or qualities are acquired to achieve this goal?
- Of these resources, experience, and qualities, what am I missing?
- Can I obtain these?
- What is the cost in terms of money, time, effort, etc. to obtain these?
- What are my options if I decide not to pursue this goal?
So, when you find someone telling you to just “pedal harder” don’t be afraid to give up and learn.
happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.
Entrepreneurs are a hearty bunch. They’re known for persevering when others give up. But there’s a difference between realistic optimism and stubbornly hitting your head against the wall hoping something will change.
Inc: The Magazine for Growing Companies combed through 30 years of stories to find the ones that best illustrate an entrepreneur overcoming an obstacle where others would have given up. And, from zappos.com to the 1993 Dallas Cowboys Superbowl victory, many of the results are now taken for granted. All 30 stories are profiled online. And to read some unknown stories of resilience, from users of happier.com, visit the Community section, where you can even contribute your own story.
happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.
When I first moved to the the DC area in the mid-1990’s, it took me a couple of months to find a job. One summer day, I got a call saying that I had been offered a training specialist position. I was overjoyed. This was a completely new career for me and I looked upon it as a major achievement after countless interviews and applications.
About three months after starting the job, however, I was laid off as the business was downsizing. I was devastated and had trouble thinking straight for a couple of days. How was I going to find something, again, with so little experience? How was I going to pay the bills? These and many more questions kept running through my mind. I did find another job, of course, but it was a very difficult time.
Looking back on my reaction, I probably would have been better served by focusing on action. That is, my goal was to find another job, so my energy would have been more productively spent updating my resume, building contacts, applying for jobs, etc. By keeping it in perspective and focusing on solutions I am also convinced I would have felt much better.
And, the research shows that some people will actually grow from this type of experience and be stronger as a result. In fact, I would venture to say that if we all looked back on many of our own adversities, we would recognize that as one door closed, eventually, another one opened.
In my own case, I was able to land a position with an up-and-coming wireless telecom company that ended up being a spring board for my entire career. In fact, I probably would not have been looking for this particular job had I not been laid off. As I look at the other adversities that I have faced in sports, business, and my personal life, I realize that I actually did benefit from each bad event. I learned specific lessons that will help me for the rest of my life.
And, while this knowledge does not prevent future adversities from happening, I know that I am stronger and more resilient as a result. I know that (as my Winston Churchil and my Dad) have said, “This, too, shall pass.”
So, the next time an adversity hits, do your best to keep it in perspective and recognize that there may actually be an opportunity for growth waiting for you at the other end.
In the meantime, learn from your past adversities through our What Door Opened? exercise or take a minute to read some great stories of resilience in our Community section.
happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.
A recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer covers an exciting project involving the U.S. Military and research in positive psychology. The project focuses on resilience, which is the collection of skills that help people bounce back and persevere in the face of adversity. happier.com includes a number of resilience-building tools including:
Active and Constructive Responding build the bonds of strong relationships. Stronger relationships help ensure that, when faced with adversity, you find ways to excel together.
Control Negative Thoughts is an in-the-moment psychological strengthening tool to help minimize the impact of stressful situations and prepare you to excel even in though situations.
By Stacey Burling, Inquirer Staff Writer
Army sergeants may have a tough-guy image, but University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman thinks they’re in a perfect position to teach their fellow soldiers how to better handle emotions.
That is why sergeants – the line teachers of the Army – will be the first to receive resiliency training when a new project designed to revamp the Army’s approach to mental health rolls out next month. Fifty noncommissioned officers will go to Penn’s campus for a week of training by staff of the Positive Psychology Center, which Seligman directs. After that, 300 will arrive in November and December. They will take what they’ve learned about preventing psychological problems and living more fulfilling lives back to their troops, Seligman said.
Worried about rising suicide rates and thousands of soldiers with posttraumatic stress disorder, the Army is launching the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program to help 1.1 million soldiers and their families cope more effectively with the stress of military life and combat.
“They’re not coming into the service with the coping skills they need,” said Gen. George W. Casey Jr., Army chief of staff. “That’s how the resilience program was born.”
The goal is to reduce problems and increase the number of people who improve and grow personally after surviving trauma, undergoing what psychologists call posttraumatic growth. Seligman has long argued that psychologists should think not only about what makes people miserable but also about what makes them happy and successful.
“Having an Army that’s just as psychologically fit as physically fit will make for a much more effective Army of the future,” he said.
Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum, a doctor who has a Ph.D. in nutrition and biochemistry, will direct the initiative. She knows something about stress. During the Persian Gulf War, she was in a helicopter that was shot down in late February 1991. Iraqi forces held her captive for more than a week before repatriating her in early March.
Cornum said yesterday that she never questioned her ability to survive. “I had absolute confidence that I would do well and that I would be emotionally fine when I got back,” she said. And, she said, the experience even made her a better person. But she realizes that not everyone was “brought up to look at things that were difficult as challenges. . . . The time to teach that is not when they’re in a prison in Baghdad.”
The Army, she said, historically has done a much better job of teaching physical fitness and technical skills than of addressing emotions. Now that soldiers face repeated conflict, they need more help.
“We decided it wasn’t a good idea to just wait until people had a problem and then try to solve it,” Cornum said. She likened mental problems to heart attacks. You can give a patient a bypass afterward, but it’s better to head off the attack with healthy food and exercise.
The initiative will cost $100 million over three years. Seligman said Penn would receive about $1 million for its work this year. Contracts have not yet been completed for training in 2010 and beyond. The program will also include periodic assessments of soldiers’ mental fitness in four areas: emotional, social, family, and spiritual. Soldiers will fill out a 150-item questionnaire in October and will take it every two years. They will be told confidentially how they did and will be offered classes developed by experts in the four key areas. Classes will also be made available to their family members.
Seligman said he was impressed by the Army’s approach. “They are calling on the best civilian science here,” he said. “This is a very classy operation they’ve mounted.”
Penn will teach soldiers to think differently about what happens to them. The program, originally developed to teach schoolchildren, will help the noncommissioned officers avoid “catastrophizing,” a tendency to imagine and fret about worst-case scenarios. It will also help them play to their strengths and virtues and build better relationships.
For example, Seligman said, they will be taught “active, constructive responding,” a technique that helps people draw out detail in a conversation that allows the other speaker to “relive good events.”
Cornum said 35 soldiers tried the program in May and gave it rave reviews. They said they had used its lessons immediately at work and at home. “Every single one of them said that,” Cornum said of six graduates she questioned at Fort Jackson yesterday. “I was happily amazed.”
She said the Army was working with Penn to “militarize the curriculum” so it is better suited to soldiers. “It probably wasn’t Braveheart and Band of Brothers,” she said of the original curriculum.
Seligman said he was especially pleased that the Army decided to take the program out of its medicine department and put it under education and training.
“Ever since being APA president,” he said, referring to the American Psychological Association, “I’ve been arguing that psychology wants to move out of this pathology model that it’s painted itself into.”
The original article is available from the Philadelphia Inquirer
happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.
