From Fast Company, Stephanie Vozza shares fascinating information from a study on how to get the best response from your email. Stephanie writes: GRATITUDE IS BEST An expression of gratitude resulted in a 36% increase in average response rate. “Thanks in advance” scored highest, with a 65.7% response rate. “Thanks” got 63%, and “thank you”…
From Self Development Secrets, Rebecca Temsen shares her recommendations for 41 things that will make you happier. These are my top nine from her list: 3. Talk to an old friend We all have friends with whom we have lost touch. Some of these friends are gone because of bad blood. Others though,…
From Inc., Jessica Stillman offers a guide to telling a story to help those who are challenged with storytelling. Storytelling is critical to so many interactions that it is great to have some guidance. Jessica writes: The site recently presented storytelling guru David Crabb’s simple five-beat plan to turn any meandering series of events into a…
From Harvard Business Review, Alison Wood Brooks discusses her research on how performing a ritual before a stressful task improves performance. Alison writes: In a series of experiments, I investigated this question with Juliana Schroeder, Jane Risen, Francesca Gino, Adam Galinsky, Michael Norton, and Maurice Schweitzer. We tested whether pre-performance rituals can improve performance by reducing…
About 30 years ago, I took at course on securities law at Boston University School of Law. I don’t remember the professor’s and remember very little about the course, one of the things that stuck with me over the years are the seven forms of argument. The professor said that there were seven…
From the Harvard Business Review, Christopher Germer describes the importance of self-compassion to help you recover from failure. I once interviewed a woman who had gotten fired from her previous job. She told me that after that she couldn’t get out of bed for a month. Aside from not making a good impression in a job…
From Fast Company, Lydia Dishman discusses the question about whether it is better to fit in or stick out if you want to get ahead. I’m reminded of Jeffrey Pfeffer’s observation of that quote “the nail that sticks up gets hammered down” was not good career advice. Lydia shares new research that seems to modify…
From the Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Berstein shares research that shows that men who are good storytellers are more appealing. She also offers recommendations for couples to continue to tell stories to continue to bond including setting aside story time, telling stories of “firsts”, and telling stories of the past, present, and future. But…
From HBR.org, Peter Gruber, in a terrific article, outlines the four truths of a story teller. Peter says the four truths are: Truth to the Teller — what a storyteller says must be consistent in their heart and mind Truth to the Audience — the storyteller has to understand and recognize and what the…
From FastCompany, Paula Davis-Laack discusses how she taught resilience to Army drill sargeants. She based her training on the work of Dr. Martin Seligman who identified three pillars of resilience: personalization, permanence and pervasiveness. Paula writes: Your resilience grows when you focus on developing specific skills in the following three categories: thinking differently, connecting…
From Harvard Business Review, Jonathan Gottschall discusses the power of storytelling and what happens when a story is used to manipulate. Jonathan writes: Humanity’s strange, ardent love affair with story has always fascinated me. To explore our enthrallment and explain the science behind it, I wrote a book – The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human. The book…