Last fall, I’m on a retreat and someone shares with the group, “As I was growing up, I spent all my energy doing everything I could to get away from the small town in which I grew up.” He pauses and we can tell he’s getting emotional as he barely gets through the rest of the sentence <more>

It’s November 2006. I just finish my master’s research project on gratitude and leave my job to pursue the dream of one billion happier people—although I described the dream a bit differently back then.

At the time I’m very confident that I know most of what there is to know about gratitude—hey I just spent two and a half years researching gratitude !

And over the next 15 years, I <more>

My grandson and I got Turing Tumble as a joint gift for Christmas. It’s a game with switches and ball bearings where you build logic layouts that essentially becomes a mechanical computer. It’s super cool.

Max and I love playing it together. There are 5 or 6 types of switches and the puzzle layouts you need to solve get progressively more challenging. We’re at the 16th puzzle and still haven’t been introduced to all the switches yet and I can tell you this, <more>

The kids were over the other day and we were talking about playing the game pandemic a few months back. It was the first time I had played a co-operative board game—that’s where everyone plays together “against” the board.

Anyhow, it was a pile of fun and in the end, we overcame the pandemic and won the game.

It got me thinking <more>

There is no shortage of ideas being thrown around to make sense of what is happening in the labour market today. Here’s what I’m seeing: <more>

Last week I’m doing a debrief with a client. I ask, “What did you like best about the program on grateful leadership ?” Without skipping a beat, he says,

“I was looking for it and I didn’t even know I was looking for it.”

His words stop me in my tracks. I’m not sure what to say next, so I say, <more>

Recently, we had a power outage that lasted about 5 hours. We have a new gas fireplace and after several unsuccessful attempts, I couldn’t get it to light when the power was off—this was the first time we tried to start it without power.

When Lyn got home she asked,

“Did you <more>

After hundreds of gratitude programs and teaching thousands of people about building a gratitude practice, we’ve found that for some people, their practice sticks and for some, it doesn’t stick.

We’re continually improving the stickiness of our training but when we follow up, we discover a much larger number of people than I would like, have discontinued their gratitude practice.

So when I ask, “Why did you stop your gratitude practice ?”

The number one response is, <more>

According to the latest research, and it’s from here in Canada—humans have on average, 6200 thoughts per day. I don’t know how many are positive vs. negative but have seen statistics that claim 85% are negative and 95% are the same thoughts you had yesterday.

This is likely the result of what I call “The <more>

My last blog post was published on April 9, 2021—that’s 10 months ago. When I see a blog that's forgotten and ignored, I can’t help but think that the creator is asleep at the switch and is really not focused on their business.

When that creator is me, I can quickly go to feelings of guilt or shame thinking that “I should be writing content” or “I should be doing more” or “Who do you think you are—an expert but you haven’t posted anything fresh in 10 months—what a loser !”

But I’m not going to do that—instead <more>

Researchers in Chile released a study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health this week confirming that gratitude at work (not my company, but the actual idea) reduces workplace materialism.

Workplace materialism is the tendency to <more>

We’re hearing a lot about finding the good in 2020 and being grateful for it. I fully support this idea, but we have to be careful in crossing the line into judgement. In spite of believing you can find lots of good in 2020, I don’t believe you should be grateful for <more>

A few weeks back, researchers released a study that found that a 10 day gratitude intervention in the workplace reduced incivility, gossiping and ostracism. Intervention is a strong way to describe making a gratitude list and 10 days over 2 weeks is not a lot of time when you consider the impact it had.

Researchers had two groups of employees journal at the end of each weekday for 2 weeks. One group was asked to write about what they were grateful for at work. The other group was asked <more>

I was driving into town this week and for some reason the street name on a road sign stood out.

CONSTRUCTION

ON BAYERS RD.

EXPECT DELAYS

I’ve walked, run, driven, and cycled on Bayers Rd. thousands of times and <more>

According to a recent survey by Modern Health, 47% of people feel more anxious now than at any other point in their life—that’s half of us !

In spite of feeling knocked off kilter, I’m back to enjoying one of my favourite <more>

I’ve been running for more than 30 years now but for the past 2 years it’s been very sporadic because of a nagging issue with my IT band (I ran only 7 times in 2018 and 2019). On the advice of a friend, two months ago I tested a knee brace and started back running and lo and behold—the acute pain was <more>

Your mindset is like the ocean’s tides—it ebbs and flows. I don’t care if you have mastered mental toughness or not, the reality is that everyone’s mindset, which is highly dependent on your emotional state, varies based on a whole host of factors far too complex for an engineer like myself to <more>

On Sunday, the Snowbirds started a cross country tour and did a flyover in our city - and fortunately for us, they flew directly over our neighbourhood.

The purpose of the tour is to recognize all the front line workers and all citizens who are doing their part to stop the spread of COVID-19.

As with many things in life, there are often unanticipated <more>

I’ve been noticing on my last couple runs and walks around the city that not everyone acknowledges your presence when we pass each other. While I understand everyone has different comfort levels and are dealing with their own challenges, it seems like people are interpreting social distancing as <more>

This ain’t no April Fool’s joke - I’m declaring pronoia as the word of the day !

Most people have heard of paranoia - the belief that everyone is conspiring against you. But what about pronoia? Pronoia is the belief that everyone is conspiring <more>