HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: “Film could make you lose your lunch”

Competencies: eating/nutrition, cognitive hardiness, economics

Who benefits: any individual

Consultant Usage: health coaches, nutritionists

What’s it about? This a quirky and unintended follow-up to last week’s posting.  Last week I reviewed Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.  It was in part a scathing attack on corporate agribusiness and the harm it causes you, me and the rest of the world. 

This Blog supports eating and nutrition as part of its StressScan site that addresses the lifestyle, coping, and psychosocial factors of daily life.  I thought I would do last week’s review and be done with it…at least for a while.  You know, food for thought and move on.  But no!  This is where the “quirky and unintended” comes in.  This weekend Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times – he of the two thumbs up fame, came out with the damndest review I ever read.  It was more of an editorial than a review, which he admits by writing “This doesn’t read one thing like a movie review.”  But the damning isn’t just in the style of the review, it also in his extraordinary condemnation the giant corporations that control the growth, processing and sale of food in this country. 

The movie is “Food, Inc.”  The film is a documentary on the industrialization of agriculture by just a few companies and he describes it as “simply frightening”.  Ebert gives the film a 3.5 out of 4.

Here is a great quote from the review: “I figured it wasn’t important for me to go into detail about the photography and the editing.  I just wanted to scare the bejesus out of you, which is what ‘Food, Inc.” did to me.”

I made two assumptions and I was wrong on both.  First, from reading the review I was sure he was getting his facts and figures from Kingsolver’s book.  Wrong.  I also assumed initially that this must be another Michael Moore movie.  Wrong again.  The movie and Ebert’s research are based on the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (which I have not read) and the movie is directed by Robert Kenner.

Like his review, I don’t have a standardized way to end this posting.  If you are really concerned about your own personal health or the health of those you may be responsible for, you probably should read one of the two books or see the movie.  But there is a lot of unpleasantness in all of this.  And our world, this country and our local areas, no matter where you live, certainly have enough issues on their plate without adding another one.  Yet something in the back of my mind says this may be a coming global issue that surfaces much like climate warning has in the past 10 years. 

But that is all pure speculation, so I will end with personal testimony.  As a result of reading Kingsolver’s book, I have altered my food purchasing and eating habits.  I go to the local Farmer’s Market every Tuesday and Saturday.  I now buy local meat products with full knowledge of how the animals were raised and fed.  And I now look at labels in the store to find products made close to this area.  One person, small changes, making a very small difference.  But it feels right and frankly, I feel healthier. 

Catch you later.

Technorati Tags: food, diets, nutrition, health, food health, agribusiness, industrialization of agriculture, Monsanto, Dow Chemicals, farmers market, farmers markets, slow food, slow food movement, slow food international, sustainable agriculture, sustainable farming, food policy, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley

“I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous — everyone hasn’t met me yet.”

Rodney Dangerfield

Anytime we go anywhere with our guide dog puppy in training, Ajax, we plan on taking extra time.  Almost without exception other people stop us to ask questions about the guide dog puppy raiser program or about Ajax.  I’ve even had a few people ask if I was blind.  Many people ask why we want to raise a puppy that we will have to give back to Guide Dogs of America in about 12 to 18 months.  Once answer is that we love dogs and selfishly can take Ajax just about everywhere we go. 

Ajax always seems to bring a smile to everyone’s face.  Great leaders seem to be able to also engage talent but like guide dogs also need to be respected, valued and to have ongoing support from their family and friends.

Being a leader can be a lonely place.  The higher you go in an organization the less likely you are to have colleagues and reports provide you with candid feedback about your behavior.  How many of us of heard the refrain, “another great meeting Lou” only to wander out the door muttering to ourselves just how much a waste a time the meeting actually was.

Leaders also seem to be high in self-delusion (no research has looked at how many leaders still have “imaginary friends”).  In a recent study reported in Harvard Business Review, CEOs seem to have unrealistically optimistic perceptionsabout several aspects of their top team’s performance.  In this study, CEOs reported providing significantly higher effective direction for their team or believed that team members are less interested in promoting themselves than caring more about team interests than their direct reports¹.

Tom Rath in his 2006 book “Vital Friends: The People You Can’t Afford to Live Without” sites Gallop research suggesting that:

• When employees have close friendships with their bosses, they are more than twice as likely to be satisfied with their job
• People who have a best friend at work are seven times more likely to be engaged in their work (as well as less accidents, more engaged customers and more creative)

There is convincing evidence about the role of social support in physical health and psychological well-being. In research using our own social support questionnaire in StressScan, individuals reporting higher perceived availability, use and satisfaction report:

• Less inflammation measured as C-Reactive Protein–a new cardiovascular health risk marker
• Less burnout in professional working women–lower depersonalization and higher personal accomplishment².
• Enhanced immunityas measured by monocytes and lymphocytes³.

In fact a recent survey of over 15,670 employees in diverse industries by Career Systems International, the third most important retention driver was having strong relationships and working with great people (42%).  Only having stimulating/exciting work (48%) and having an opportunity to grow and develop (42.9%) were rated higher. 

Despite the challenges and problems in both conceptualizing social support, social integration and networking by researchers and practitioners, having people in our lives to use for emotional, functional and intellectual support appears to be a protective factor in health and one that simultaneously contributes to increase productivity.

Finding and developing meaningful relationships are always a challenge–recent statistics suggest that 50% of all marriages will end in divorce. Great leaders find a way to both stimulate individual engagement of their talent and build high performing teams who work toward a common vision of a better tomorrow.

Ajax seems to be embracing his role of a “leader” when he is working but without his working bib on he mostly just wants to be loved and to hang with my wife and I…..Be well……

Technorati Tags: surveys, Envisia, Envisia learing, retention, talent management, engagement surveys, job satisfaction, worklife balance, job stress, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack

1. Rosen, R. & Adair, F. (2007).  CEOs Misperceive Top Team’s Performance.  Harvard Business Review, September 2007 [↩]
2. Nowack, K. and Pentkowski, A. (1994). Lifestyle habits, substance use, and predictors of job burnout in professional working women. Work and Stress, 8, 19-35 [↩]
3. Schwartz, G.E., Schwartz, J.I., Nowack, K.M., & Eichling, P.S. (1992). Changes in perceived stress and social support over time are related to changes in immune function. University of Arizona and Canyon Ranch. Unpublished manuscript [↩]

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Competencies: eating/nutrition, cognitive hardiness, economics

Who benefits: any individual

Consultant Usage: health coaches, nutritionists

What’s it about? This book is about food, eating, nutrition, the economies of food, food and family life, and the social effects of personal change.  I stopped reading it about half way through.  I couldn’t stomach anymore.

Barbara Kingsolver is one angry woman.  With reason.  But I get ahead of myself.

This is a tale of two books.  On the surface it is a book about a family of four moving from Arizona to return to their roots – literally.  It is about a year of learning and eating only local foods.  It is about the joy and the pain of learning and growing. Living off the land.  It is a book about the nutritional value of foods along with some great ideas and recipes for those who enjoy cooking. 

But that is only half the book.  The other half is an exposé and condemnation of agribusiness, the mechanization of the food industry, and the critical loss of genetic diversity.  It is about myths that have been created to support big business. 

She makes a great case for the economics of supporting local foods and food growers and avoiding foods that have been transported great distances.  According to her figures, the average food item on your plate has traveled 1,500 miles to get to your stomach.  And that means about 13% of all the oil products consumed in the US are used in getting food to you and I. 

In “The Case of the Murdered Flavor” she makes a plea for us to eat ugly foods.  We like the pretty foods, but they have had their flavors removed and have traveled great distances to tempt us, yet providing blandness.  Real tomatoes aren’t perfectly round nor perfectly red…just flavorful.

One plea she makes is for more support for the more than 3,500 local farmers markets that have, dare I say, cropped up in the past 40 years. 

This is an important book about food and an eye-opener about the food industry.  So why did I stop reading mid way through?  Well, if I were more into being a cook of high quality, I probably would have finished it.  But I am not and to my thinking the book is too long by half.  This book told me everything, I mean everything, I could ever want to know about asparagus…and a whole lot more.  And for me, the book has a subtle whiny underlying tone that eventually grated on my nerves.  Stop already, I get it.

I did take away the need to be a better shopper and look for local solutions.  I found the information on the slow food movement to be of personal value.  And this could be a book of great value to someone struggling with weight/diet issues.

In summary, reading this book will give you much food for thought, leave you feeling stuffed rather than hungry for more, and frankly some of it is hard to digest.

Catch you later.    

Technorati Tags: food, diets, nutrition, health, food health, agribusiness, farmers market, farmers markets, slow food, slow food movement, slow food international, sustainable agriculture, sustainable farming, food policy, bill bradley, william bradley,   bradley

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
 
Antoine de Saint Exupery

Ajax, the guide dog puppy we are currently raising to hopefully lead someone who is sight impaired is a great metaphor for the executive coaching work I do with senior level leaders.  It’s amazing just how many leaders really could use a guide dog to see themselves and see the impact of their behavior on others more clearly.

It’s no secret that leaders have inflated views of their skills and competence–we’ve known this for a long time as it’s a consistent finding in all 360-degree feedback research¹.  What is simply amazing is the gap between self-perception and reality.

In general, leaders seem to perceive that they basically “walk on water” while others (who have a pretty fair grasp of what leaders really do) often experience them as “passing water.”  And, there appears to be growing support for the existence of this self-delusion in several recent studies and surveys.

It has been estimated that 65%-75% of the employees in any given organization report that the worst aspect of their job is their immediate boss. In fact, estimates of the base rate for managerial incompetence in corporate life range from 30% to 75% with the average level of poor leadership hovering at about 50%².

In a 2006 national survey of of 1,854  leaders surveyed, 92% rated themselves to be “excellent” or “good” as a manager.  Self confidence is fine you say, but only 67% of direct reports agreed with them and at least 10% rated their bosses as actually performing poorly according to this study.  What is unknown is how these leaders would interpret the results of this survey!

A 2007 global survey of executives and leaders by Korn Ferry involving respondents from over 70 countries revealed that only 27%thought their boss was performing the job better than they could! In this survey, 11% rated the performance of their current boss as “poor”, 14% rated it as “below average” and 23% rated it as “average” (42% did perceive their manager as either performing “above average” or “excellent”).  So, nearly 75% of executives truly believe they can do a better job than their own boss!

In practice, mental health professionals tend to diagnose thoughts and beliefs as “delusional” when they appear unusual (this can always be debated), create strong psychological distress (this is always subjective), or become an obsession–even when there is compelling evidence to the contrary. Perhaps the delusional leaders possesses the “no clue” gene.

We know it can be found in both male and female leaders but does seem to be more pronounced as leaders move up the corporate hierarchy. One way of defining an aspect of “emotional intelligence” is the accurate awareness and insight of one’s own skills, strengths and impact on others.  Delusional leaders seem to have a major disconnect in this department–often with pretty predictable life and career results.

Over the years of giving 360-feedback reports to executives, I can’t tell you how many “over-estimators” (leaders who rated themselves significantly higher than others) tend to shoot the messenger, critique the 360 questionnaire or explain away the more critical results by suggesting that the raters are the problem!  Indeed, even at my best as an executive coach I have always seen my role as being a very “imperfect mirror” for the leader to increase their self-awareness.

So far, I think I am doing better as a guide dog puppy raiser with Ajax than I had done with two other puppies (Ernie and Elmo)….But, if you really want a realistic picture of how I am doing as an executive coach with Ajax just ask my wife…..Be well….

Technorati Tags: self-ratings, distortion, self-awareness, multi-rater feedback, 360 feedback, self-insight, emotional intelligence,   kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack

Technorati Tags: self-ratings, distortion, self-awareness, multi-rater feedback, 360 feedback, self-insight, emotional intelligence,   kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack

1. Nowack, K. (1992). Self-assessment and rater-assessment as a dimension of management development. Human Resources Development Quarterly, 3, 141-155 [↩]
2. Hogan, R. & Kaiser, R. (2005).  What we know about leadership. Review of General Psychology. 9 (2), 169-180 [↩]

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: LearnOutLoud

Competencies: self-development, professional development, career development, leadership development, parenting and more

Who benefits: employees, managers and supervisors, executives, kids

Consultant Usage: any consultant reading this Blog is encouraged to click on this large resource for audio and visual products

What’s it about? Last week while writing about ITunesU I stumbled across this website.  In a quick summary, it seems to be an amazon.com for audio and video products.  It bills itself as “…your one-stop destination for audio and video learning.  Browse over 20,000 educational audio books, MP3 downloads, podcasts, and videos.”

The home page features 16 different categories including business, educational and professional, and self-development.  The home page also presents a list of best sellers and link to new releases.

I went to the business section link and found 12 subcategories including business leaders, leadership and management, entrepreneurship, networking, economics, public speaking, negotiating and sales and marketing.  It also offers the top five best business sellers and a monthly free download book – this month it is the autobiography of old Ben Franklin.

Just for fun I linked to the kids section.  There are three categories for different age groups and a total of 13 subject matter categories.  Included are children’s literature and foreign language.  If you are a parent of a teen or younger I recommend that you check out this link.

There is also a weekly Blog feature that promotes products but seems to give good insight to subject matter, a sale section, and a free stuff section.  All-in-all it is an easy site to browse, offers a variety of formats and 20,000 items will keep you busy looking for just the right one.  Enjoy.

Catch you later. 

Technorati Tags: audio books, business videos, audio downloads, video downloads, business leaders, leadership and management, entrepreneurship, networking, economics, public speaking, negotiating, sales and marketing, bill bradley, william bradley,   bradley

“If all of your friends jumped  off a cliff  would you do the same thing?”

Beverly Nowack

We sure are rooting for the guide dog puppy we are raising named Ajax to go on to become a leader for someone who is blind.  Those who have guide dogs or any type of service dog need to totally trust and follow the lead of the dog.  Followership is key in their relationship. So, knowing something about whom we follow, why we follow leaders and when we should not follow others seems pretty important to understand better.

People basically follow leaders for two reasons–the first is because they believe that the leader has a vision of a better tomorrow (more accurate knowledge and ability to translate it into results) and the second is that they are seeking the leaders approval.

People get information about how to behave by looking to the behavior of others, particularly those in the same social group that they belong or affiliate with. This is particularly true in uncertain situations—notably in crisis situations.  For example, those who might have to evacuate their homes due to a fire nearby tend to look at what their neighbors are doing and depending on what actions they take, they typically follow.  Wanting to fit in and follow what others do (the “everybody’s doing it affect”) seems to be hardwired.

In fact, there might actually be a neurobiology of followership that can help explain “blind obedience to authority’ such as the classic Milgram studies, purchasing of specific products and services (gosh, if everyone in our company is car pooling and buying hybrid automobiles maybe I should too), and compliance.  Individuals who don’t comply are often seen as a bit odd, deviant or “not fitting in” whether it is within organizational cultures or one’s own family.  In the “bible” of psychiatric continuum of abnormality there are even labels for those who seem odd and eccentric (e.g., schizotypal and schizoid personality disorders).

Some fairly recent brain imaging studies suggest that followership may actually be a path that is natural (after all, we are pretty herd like creatures) and not conforming may activate pain centers in our brain.  Arizona State University professor Dr. Rober Cialdini and his colleagues has conducted research that suggests that when we don’t’ think we are doing what others in a group are doing, our brain centers associated with pain and discomfort seem to react¹.

Professor Gregory Berns from Emory University School of Medicine has also shown that when individual judgment conflicts with a group, that individuals will often conform his/her judgments to the group².  With his use of FMRI tools, his research group has shown that nonconformity on specific agreement tasks with others induced amygdala activation of the brain and this particular area has been show to be associated with negative emotional states (e.g., fear, anger, discomfort, anxiety).  This specific area of the brain (our emotional “brake”) has been shown in previous research to be associated with moderating social behavior and is also activated by human faces particularly when our expressions indicate fear, terror, fright or anger.

These studies strongly suggest a biological basis for followership.  The choice of being independent, following our own path in the face of opposition and standing our ground when others in a team (or family) are against us might actually cause the same physical pain centers to become activated as if we stubbed our toe.  It helps explain why we read stories about crowds, groups and organizations and wonder why “whistle blowing” has to be rewarded or why people don’t speak up more to confront poor or dishonest decisions of those in power.

If we are to believe these researchers, it is far less painless path to just follow the leader.  Even if they seem to be taking us in the wrong direction.

Now, if I could only figure out how to get Ajax, our 4 month old guide dog puppy in training,  to follow my lead….Be well….

Technorati Tags: personality, leadership, conformity, compliance, independence, followership, group leadership, Envisia Learning, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, Nowack

1. Cialdini, R. B., & Goldstein, N. J. (2004). Social influence: Compliance and conformity. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 591-621 [↩]
2. Berns, G., Chappelow, J., Zink, C., Pagnoni, G., Martin-Skurski, M., & Richards, J. (2005).  Neurobiological Correlates of Social Conformity and Independence During Mental Rotation.  Biological Psychiatry, 58, 245-253 [↩]

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: A new way of learning

Competency: self development

Who benefits: those seeking alternative college education

Consultant Usage: self development; reference for career counseling

What’s it about?  As some of you readers know and some of you may have guessed, I am an old fogy.  I am on the other side of the hill.  I am the one they refer to in the Xpression “old dogs … new tricks”.

When I was young the electric typewriter had just been invented.  We were all in a twitter.  Now Twitter is a place in space and well, I am just so not there.

So excuse my enthusiasm over something I don’t quite get but, wow, it sure sounds great.   You can now take college courses and learn from special events on ITunes.  Many of the tracks in each course are free.

UC Berkeley offers 39 areas of concentration including typical college courses in biology, engineering, philosophy, political science, law, and history as well as some less typical areas.  They offer special events in nine categories including business and health and medicine.

Stanford University offers 13 categories, 33 university courses and three initiatives.  There is some overlap, but many of the 13 categories and three initiatives are presentations not offered as a formal course.  Two of the categories are “business” and “personal and professional development”.  In the latter category there is a very interesting Career Development area with 14 tracks.

The above two examples were sent to me by one of you wonderful readers.  I got to browsing on ITunes and discovered that more that 100 universities are participating in one form or another.  You can go to Apple Education, a commercial page from Apple and at the bottom you will find 10 of the most advanced sites.  You can also go on to ITunes and find the link to ItunesU and find the list of all current participating universities. 

There is enough (free) stuff there (on every topic you can imagine) to keep you in a self-development mode the rest of your life.  Happy learning.

Catch you later.

Technorati Tags: ITunes, ItunesU, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, mobile learning, bill bradley, william bradley,   bradley

“Seeing within changes one’s outer vision”

Joseph Chilton Pearce

Our guide dog puppy in training named Ajax is still growing and expressing all aspects of his personality and interests (e.g., pushing rocks around our deck, finding joy in pulling down toilet paper rolls from the bathroom, exploring things in the sky that fly, and wanting to play with other dogs that walk by while he is working).

We can’t help but wonder if he will emerge to become a leader and become an official guide dog.

One earlier guide dog puppy named Elmo was unbelievable but made a career change from majoring in “special education”  to “recreation” after he wasn’t able to handle the stress of being a guide dog.  His career path preference was clearly to be more of a devoted “stay at home” pet (specialist) then to enter the leadership track and become an official guide dog.  Other guide dogs also become “specialists” and are kept for breeding while others go on to other service dog positions using their initial guide dog training (generalists).

If leaders truly understood the pre-wiring of the interests, values and motives of talent and tried to use this information to lead them more effectively they would be able to unlock some of the mystery surrounding effective leadership.  Our interests, motives and values seem to be set at late teen age years (in most of us!) and remain stable for the rest of our life. 

Understanding the Four Career Path Preferences

MANAGERIAL – This career path preference is best characterized by those interested in continually moving vertically up the organizational ladder into traditional supervisory and managerial positions with increasing spans of control, responsibility, power, and authority.

Typical career anchors and motives of these individuals include power, influence, leadership, control, task accomplishment, status, managerial competence, and directing others. Appropriate organizational rewards for these individuals might include: upward mobility, promotion, special perks, titles, and organizational symbols of success (e.g., profit sharing incentive plans, company car, stock options, financial planning, expense account, club memberships, etc.).

SPECIALIST/INDEPENDENT CONTRIBUTOR — This career path preference is best characterized by those interested in remaining in one career field or profession for much of their working life. Along the way, these specialists are able to highly refine their technical knowledge, skills and abilities. These individuals are less interested in moving up as they are in becoming the expert and having autonomy to do things their way.

Typical career anchors and motives of these individuals include technical and functional competence, expertise, skill mastery, service to others, independence, affiliation and security. Appropriate organizational rewards for these individuals might include: job enrichment, continuing education, membership in professional associations, recognition, motivational programs, organizational benefits, sabbaticals, tenure and job security.

ENTREPRENEURIAL — This career path preference is best characterized by those interested in rapid job, career, and occupational changes over short periods of time. These individuals enjoy working on diverse projects, tasks, assignments, and business ventures with measurable and visible outcomes.

Typical career anchors and motives of these individuals include: entrepreneurship, achievement, autonomy, variety, risk, challenge, change, freedom from organizational constraints, flexibility, creativity and diversity. Appropriate organizational rewards for these individuals might include flexible schedules, short-term projects, independent contracts, consulting assignments, start-up operations, job sharing, and bonuses.

GENERALIST — This career path preference is best characterized by those who gradually change jobs and career over time but utilize the foundation of previously acquired skills, knowledge and abilities. These generalists generally move either laterally or upwards increasing their breadth of knowledge and experience along the way. Individuals who follow this career path tend to prefer new challenges and assignments that will enable them to grow and develop professionally. This career path preference is particularly well suited for project and program management assignments within organizations.

Typical career anchors and motives of these individuals include professional growth and personal development, learning, coaching, developing others, and innovation. Appropriate organizational rewards for these individuals might include cross training, job rotation, project management, tuition and educational reimbursement and coaching and mentorship assignments.

Of course we find combinations of these drivers.  For example those of you high in both “specialist” and “entrepreneurial” anchors are likely to be attracted to external consulting.  Others with a combination of “managerial” and “generalist” love “fix it” assignments and short term challenges before moving on to another leadership opportunity.

So, stop teasing that specialist/independent contributor about leading–they really just want to practice their craft and be left alone.  Oh, and stop trying to lead them too!  You will only frustrate yourself and drive key talent away.

We hope Ajax will have a strong proclivity towards both the Managerial and Specialist career paths to guide the way for someone lucky enough to be his partner….Be well….

Technorati Tags: career paths, specialists, project managers, interests, entrepreneurial behavior, coaching, leadership, talent management, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: Stumbling on Happiness

Competency: self-development

Who benefits: happy people, unhappy people

Consultant Usage: it will cheer you up — and, oh yeah, may make you more effective

What’s it about?  I just finished reading Stumbling on Happiness. And I am sooooo happy to have stumbled upon this book.    

I consider this a perfect book.  So what makes a perfect book?  Well, of course, you first have to be interested in the topic.   I am. 

This book is about the science of happiness.  It is not a self-help book.  There is not one single “should” in the book.  You don’t have to should on yourself.  The only “should” associated with the book is in this sentence: I think you should read this book.  Which I wrote.

A perfect book must have style and substance.  This book is written in a clear and concise style.  It is filled with witty phrases and worthy analogies.  It entertains while it enlightens.

The author explains a complex subject in terms that even a simple creature like me can understand.  I learned something.  And it was valuable.  If you are at all interested in the topic of “happiness” I recommend it with enthusiasm.

One of the delights of the book was the unexpected gems that seemed to pop up on every page.  I delight in relaying some of those jewels that amused and educated me in the same moment.

I learned a new word: “Prospection” – The act of looking forward in time or considering the future.

I learned we are anticipation machines and what we look forward to are happy events, which creates happiness in the moment.  Daydreams at work can actually make us happy.  It is called “The Joy of Next”. 

I learned about the many uses of the word “happy” and how we misuse the word frequently…and yet still get by.  You might not appreciate the example I picked from the book, but boy the sentence just won’t leave my mind: “After a day spent killing his parents, Frank was happy.”  Not a pretty picture, but the author’s point is, who is to say Frank isn’t happy.  Happiness is not something easily defined nor universally agreed upon.

I loved one of the greatest written sentences of all time: “It is only when your brain predicts badly that you suddenly feel avocado.” 

Why is that sentence great?  Because it shocks us?  (My first thought was “What the Hell?”.)  Because within the paragraph it makes perfect sense.  And the sentence itself illustrates exactly what the author is trying to communicate.  You cannot possibly ask more of a sentence!

Our forefathers promised life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  I am still working on the life and liberty thing; but the pursuit of happiness I now get. 

I respectfully suggest that if you are interested in the topic, you read this book.  You will be happy that you did.

Catch you later.

Technorati Tags: happy, happiness, prospection, the joy of next, mind’s eye, daniel gilbert, bill bradley, william bradley,   bradley