2. June 2010 by John Schinnerer.

By John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

Almost everyone includes happiness, well-being and success at the top when it comes to lifetime goals. Everyone wants well-being, but few know how to develop it. Recently, Deepak Chopra, a Senior Scientist at the Gallup Organization, presented results of a fantastic new study that reveals the commonalities among people who are in the top 10% of well-being, success and happiness. The study looked at individuals across the globe to eliminate any cross cultural confusion. Findings indicate that the more satisfied you are in each of these key areas, the better your life will be.

Five Secrets to Incredible Well-Being

1. Accomplishment 
    
a. Career. To what extent do you love your work? Does your job give you the
opportunity to use your strengths on a daily basis? A mere 20% of the workforce
reports being happy with their job. To increase your career well-being, identify
what your strengths are using a tool such as the Realise-2 or Gallup’s Strengths
Finder. Then, mindfully, do a task each day which relies on one of your top
strengths. Also, start to use a vocabulary of strengths (instead of weaknesses)
within your workplace.     
b. Financial. While money doesn’t necessarily buy happiness, it does help. It is
particularly helpful to eliminate the chronic stress of debt. Living debt free
is helpful in increasing your financial well-being. If you are not currently
debt free, make it a goal to become so. The other piece to financial well-being
is the understanding that spending your money on experiences (e.g., movies,
skiing, amusement park) is more satisfying than spending money on material goods
(e.g., new TV, sofa, clothes, etc.).

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26. May 2010 by John Schinnerer.

This is an small cut from a conversation between Martin Seligman and the Dalai Lama. It took place in Sydney, Australia in December 2009…

‘So people said to me you want to work on happiness? And I said ‘no, not exactly’—happiness has become over the centuries something that has very different meanings for different people and was scientifically unwieldy. And so we break into four different disciplines in positive psychology.

So the first is about happiness, it’s the study of positive emotion and so for example people interested in this look at the most catastrophic thoughts that people say when bad events happen, and how to find a realistic perspective on catastrophic thoughts. So we teach people to argue against the catastrophic and to see good possibilities; so one field is positive emotion.

The second field is meaning. Human beings ineluctably want to be part of something bigger than they are, to belong to and serve something bigger than they are. So we asked people to identify their highest strengths, their highest virtues… humour, fairness, kindness and to learn to use them more particularly in difficult tasks and to use them to be part of something larger than they are.

The third discipline that people in positive psychology work on is positive relationships, how to get along better with people. And so for example there have actually been discoveries that I didn’t know ten years ago in this area in which, if you tell me something in traditional marital therapy, what you do is you teach people to argue better with each other. So you’re trying to change insufferable marriages into being barely tolerable! But in positive psychology we teach people to celebrate together rather when something good happens. If you tell me something enormously good that happened to you the technique not of being destructive about it but of getting you to relive it and to elaborate it. So, the third discipline is positive relationships.

And the fourth discipline is positive accomplishment—mastery, competence, achievement—and so we look for example of high grit, people who never give up, people with high self control and we ask ‘how do you build that?’

So those are the four things that positive psychologists do and work on. If you teach people early in life techniques of positive emotion, of engagement, of meaning, of good relationships, of accomplishment, can you prevent many of the ills of life; depression, anxiety, anger.’

-       Martin Seligman

If you want more on this topic, visit this link:   http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2009/2766891.htm 

Have a wonderful week!

John Schinnerer Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

Danville CA

If you interested in a twelve week course on the latest in cultivating positive emotions, please send me an email at Info@GuideToSelf.com. I am looking at developing a weekly, web-based coaching course where you can view hour long presentations inthe convenience of your own home for $47 per week. Compared to the rate clients pay me hourly, this is a huge savings.

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23. May 2010 by John Schinnerer.

By John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Guide To Self, Inc.

A worthy, successful and productive career as an executive requires behaving according to a set of personal values.  Values are the core beliefs upon which you operate your life. You may be aware of your core beliefs or you may not. In my executive coaching work, I’ve noticed that the many executives and managers do not have a clear idea what their top values are.

To get the most from your life, you must believe at your core that you are a worthy individual – worthy of loyalty, worthy of respect, worthy of friendship, worthy of quality friends, worthy of taking time to refill and renew yourself, worthy of a flourishing and productive life. To get the most from your life, you must know your values like the back of your hand.

Values are the guide rails by which we navigate through life. Values set the trigger points for your shame and guilt. When you veer too far from a particular value, your emotional alarm goes off in the form of guilt.

Henry David Thoreau -  ‘The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.’

Ours is much too busy and noisy a world. Our lives take on a frenetic pace and people lose track of the values that give life meaning and purpose. Everyone says they are for values. The problem is their actions are not in keeping with their words.

Leaders who are unaware of their values are more likely to be inconsistent, fearful, and self-conflicted. The less we know what our values are, the more ambiguous our lives are. The more we understand our values, the better able we are to make right choices which lead to right action. This leads to decisive acts of courage which are primarily the ability to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done in spite of what people around you are doing.

There are several ways different ideas related to values: ethical energy, strengths and personal principles. When you throw in values themselves, you have consilience, or proof of the worth of an hypothesis due to the convergence of separate lines of research. And, as each of these ideas has a great deal of merit and inherent worth, let’s take a look at all of them.

Ethical Energy Defined

According to the authors of The Power of Full Engagement, ethical energy is…

‘… the connection to a deeply held set of values and to a purpose that is beyond our self-interest. Anything that ignites the human spirit serves to drive full engagement and to maximize performance in whatever mission we are on. The key muscle that fuels ethical energy is character – the courage and conviction to live by our values, even when doing so requires personal sacrifice and hardship. Ethical energy is sustained by balancing a commitment to others with adequate self-care….the capacity to live by our deepest values depends on regularly renewing our spirit – seeking ways to rest and rejuvenate and to reconnect with the values that we find most inspiring and meaningful.’

The alternative to living according to your values is to operate in survival mode, fueled by fear, mistrust and anxiety. Survival mode is marked by a sense of desperation where you are focused on filling your immediate needs for capital, sales and competent peers. Survival mode is also characterized by the mentality of a victim. Life happens to you, not because of you. If you are passively accepting everything that comes your way as inevitable, you are not living according to your values. You are living in survival mode.

Strengths Defined

Martin Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness, has put a slightly different twist on values. Seligman states, “To be a virtuous person is to display, by acts of will, all or at least most of the six ubiquitous virtues: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. There are several distinct routes to each of these six. One can display a virtue, such as justice by acts of fairness and loyalty.” Seligman calls these routes strengths and each is measurable and acquirable. They are ubiquitous across cultures.

According to Seligman, there are seven criteria by which we know that a characteristic is a strength.

First, a strength is a trait, a psychological characteristic that can be seen across different situations and over time. 

Second, a strength is valued in its own right. We value a strength for its own sake, even in the absence of clear beneficial outcomes. While a strength can produce good consequences, it doesn’t have to. 

Third, a strength can be seen in what parents wish for in their newborn children. Strengths are states we desire that require no further justification. 

Fourth, onlookers are usually elevated and inspired by observing strengths. Strengths typically produce authentic positive emotion in the doer – pride, satisfaction, joy, and fulfillment – and the observer – inspired and uplifted. 

Fifth, strengths are supported by the dominant culture in the form of institutions, rituals, parables, maxims and children’s stories.

Sixth, role models and paragons in the culture compellingly illustrate a strength or virtue. 

Seventh, they are ubiquitous. Strengths are valued in almost every culture. They are not quite universal, as some exceptions to every rule can be found. And they are ubiquitous. They take place everywhere.

‘Try not to become a man of success, but a man of value’ Albert Einstein

Values Defined

Each individual has a set of beliefs and ideas about abstract concepts called values. They describe how much worth a person places on various ideas, objects, or beliefs. Societies have values that are shared between many of the participants in that culture. These values may be put into four categories:

·               Ethics (good, bad, moral, immoral, amoral, right, wrong, permissible, impermissible)

·               Aesthetics (beautiful, ugly, unbalanced, pleasing)

·               Group Norms (political, ideological, religious or social beliefs and values)

·               Inborn (inborn values such as reproduction and survival, a controversial issue)

For the purposes of our discussion, we are concerned only with the group known as ethics and to a lesser extent, group norms. There are five features that are common to most definition of values. Values are concepts or beliefs. They are about desirable behavior(s) and/or end states. Values transcend specific situations. Values guide selection or evaluation of behavior and events and they are ordered by relative importance.

On occasion, we encounter ethical problems which pit two of our most cherished values against one another. In such a situation, we cannot act in a way that is in keeping with both these values. We solve such problems by prioritizing our top values that are relevant to the situation. Each of us has a set of prized values. Many of us simply are not aware of them.  We must have an awareness of our values as well as the intention to act upon them for values to be useful to us.

Stephen Covey and colleagues call these prized values our personal principles. He cautions against self-centered values such as “self respect” or “a sense of accomplishment” because they can lead us to develop pragmatic, utilitarian relationships with other individuals.  Covey suggests that we adopt prized values that are more holistic and anchored in the fundamental realities of nature, spirit and healthy interpersonal relationships.  Prizing your family higher than your career is a good example of adopting holistic and healthy values. However, it must be noted that as far as this author knows, Covey’s work is not based on empirical research and cannot be considered as part of the consilience towards the proof of the inherent worth of values.

Why Values Are Essential

Let’s look at how living according to one’s values can lead to a more fulfilling and purposeful life. Imagine that you could do whatever it is that brings you the most joy in your life. Picture anything you like that is deeply fulfilling to you. What you have then is a picture of a person living in accordance to his or her most cherished values.

There is a close link between values and living a fulfilling life. Once your values are clarified, you will have a map that guides you through key decisions. Through this process we learn what is most important to the client and what is not. Part of my work is to help clients discover what is truly necessary in their lives. Clarifying values helps clients to take a stand, to take calculated risks, and to make choices based on what is personally fulfilling to them.

By its very nature, honoring our values is fulfilling, even when times get tough. You can suffer through discomfort if you know it will pass, while you rest comfortable in the knowledge that you are living in accordance with your values. Making decisions based on your top values will always lead to a more fulfilling decision. This leads to right behavior and a fulfilling life.  Some examples of values are creativity, helping others, independence, family, emotional management, power, peace of mind, lifelong learning, and spirituality. They cannot be touched, but they can be seen. You see them being acted out in how people behave.

Someone living perfectly in accordance with values will feel the pain of a disturbing situation, and perhaps some psychological disturbance, but will remain tranquil at the center. Equanimity is the ideal. Equanimity means evenness of mind, or in this case, evenness of emotion. When possible, excessive negative emotion is to be deflected or rerouted. No one lives perfectly in accordance with their values. The goal is to remain constantly aware of your values and to strive to behave in accordance with them.

Values remind us of our authentic self and our unique role in the universe. All of us benefit from a series of ethical guideposts which we can use to steer our actions towards the greater good

If you are interested in advanced training of the mind for your self or staff, call now (925) 944-3440. Or check the website at www.GuideToSelf.com

About the Author

Dr. John Schinnerer holds a Ph.D. in educational psychology from U.C. Berkeley. He helps clients discover their best possible selves via positive psychology. His offices are in Danville, California. Dr. Schinnerer has been an executive, speaker and psychologist for over 10 years. Dr. John Schinnerer is Founder of Guide To Self, a company that coaches executives to happiness and success using the latest in positive psychology. Dr. John Schinnerer hosted over 200 episodes of Guide To Self Radio, a daily prime time radio show, in the SF Bay Area.  Dr. Schinnerer’s areas of expertise range from positive psychology, to emotional awareness, to anger management, to executive coaching. Dr. Schinnerer wrote the award-winning, “Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought,” which is available at Amazon.com. His blog, Shrunken Mind, was recently recognized as #1 in positive psychology on the web by PostRank (http://drjohnblog.guidetoself.com).

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12. March 2010 by John Schinnerer.

I received an email today from a highly qualified individual who works with adolescents. She asked how I changed my own temperament from pessimistic to optimistic.

Here is her email…

Hi John - Hope I am not a nuisance. I would like to follow up to the email I sent last night with some thoughts I had overnight. Since you don’t know me at all(!) and you may be uncomfortable responding, I thought I would share just to let you know I do have some credentials for doing what I do - I have a Masters in Counseling/Sport Psych, certifications in hypnotherapy/neuro-linguistic psych/life coach, and a Gallup University Strengths Performance certification. I have been a NCAA Tennis coach as well. I’ve been working with young adults and professionals on tour for fifteen years.

More importantly - I am wondering how you transformed your outlook from black to white…I read that it was a conscious decision, attitude is a choice, however many individuals (mainly kids) are not strong enough to do this movement from bleak to bright (of course so they say… however are very resilient so the corollary should apply! may be excuse too as it takes hard work). What did you do daily to see and feel the glass half full?

Thanks for your attention and consideration of responding. Think positive as you never know when something like this could lead to a speaking engagement across country!

Best

Jeanne

And here is my response…

Dear Jeanne:

No nuisance at all. A pleasure.

The primary ways that I have altered my own temperament overlaps with the exercises that I share with others …Forgiveness a la Fred Luskin, Gratitude a la Robert Emmons, Mindfulness a la Jon Kabat-Zinn, Curiosity a la Todd Kashdan, Resiliency via Bonnie Bernard at WestEd, self-compassion via Duke University,  identifying strengths, values, purpose and meaning (Chris Peterson, Martin Seligman, William Damon), and then a large amount of time spent on awareness of and tools to manage emotions – both mitigating ‘negative’ emotions and fostering ‘positive’ emotions. The biggest help, I believe, came from the notion of radical acceptance of emotions and thoughts that comes with the practice of mindfulness.

This combined approach has been immensely helpful to numerous clients, in particular adolescent males.  Most of the men I see come in with complaints of depression, anger, irritability, anxiety and/or lack of purpose. I’m continually amazed at the results that clients achieve after learning and applying these tools. 

To keep younger folks engaged in the process, I often insert rewarding breaks such as short clips of stand up comics (laughter open us up to new learning), BMX trick riding videos (facilitates awe), and so on. I also reveal a lot of my past to clients to a) normalize their current situation and b) make the dynamic more of a two-way relationship. I believe it is difficult and unnatural to ask an adolescent male to come into an office and spill their stories to a stranger.  To improve upon the traditional therapeutic model, I often tell young men that they don’t even need to speak in the first session if they so choose. The simple act of giving them the choice and the power over how much to divulge and how quickly empowers them and makes them feel comfortable.  And we know that  roughly ½ of positive emotions have a prerequisite of feeling safe and comfortable before one has a chance of experiencing them.

I think Positive Psychology is necessary but insufficient to get many to a happier, more meaningful place in the sense that negative emotions are ‘stronger’ than positive ones. So the best bang for the buck in terms of increasing life satisfaction comes from teaching others to turn down the volume on the major negative emotions (anger, fear, sadness). This idea was well laid out in a recent paper by Todd Kashdan.

However, it’s also useful and necessary to teach people to identify and foster positive emotions as we are oftentimes unaware of many of them and they pass us by quickly. We know the positive emotions are fragile and fleeting so we need to train ourselves to be mindful of opportunities for the cultivation of positive emotions.

And of course, there are the more common sense interventions as well – proper diet, adequate exercise, hanging out with supportive, nonjudgmental people and appropriate assertiveness (to nip festering irritation before it escalates to anger or rage).

I hope that is helpful.

Feel free to email back!

All the best,

John

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Positive Psychology Coach

Author of the award-winning book Guide To Self:

The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion & Thought

Guide To Self, Inc.

913 San Ramon Valley Blvd. #280

Danville CA 94526

(925) 575-0258

GuideToSelf.com - Web site

DrJohnBlog.GuideToSelf.com - Award-winning Blog

@johnschin - Twitter

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23. February 2010 by John Schinnerer.

A first of kind study was released this past week by The European Society of Cardiology showing that individuals who experience positive emotions more frequently are less likely to succumb to heart disease (as compared to those who feel positive emotions less frequently or less intensely).

They sent out the following news release regarding the study which appears in European Heart Journal.

Don’t worry, be happy!  Positive emotions protect against heart disease

People who are usually happy, enthusiastic and content are less likely to develop heart disease than those who tend not to be happy, according to a major new study published today (Thursday 18 February).

The authors believe that the study, published in the Europe’s leading cardiology journal, the European Heart Journal [1], is the first to show such an independent relationship between positive emotions and coronary heart disease.

Dr Karina Davidson, who led the research, said that although this was an observational study, her study did suggest that it might be possible to help prevent heart disease by enhancing people’s positive emotions.

However, she cautioned that it would be premature to make clinical recommendations without clinical trials to investigate the findings further.

‘We desperately need rigorous clinical trials in this area. If the trials support our findings, then these results will be incredibly important in describing specifically what clinicians and/or patients could do to improve health,’ said Dr Davidson, who is the Herbert Irving Associate Professor of Medicine & Psychiatry and Director of the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health at Columbia University Medical Center (New York, USA).

Over a period of ten years, Dr Davidson and her colleagues followed 1,739 healthy adults (862 men and 877 women) who were participating in the 1995 Nova Scotia Health Survey. At the start of the study, trained nurses assessed the participants’ risk of heart disease and, with both self-reporting and clinical assessment, they measured symptoms of depression, hostility, anxiety and the degree of expression of positive emotions, which is known as ‘positive affect.’

Positive affect is defined as the experience of pleasurable emotions such as joy, happiness, excitement, enthusiasm and contentment. These feelings can be transient, but they are usually stable and trait-like, particularly in adulthood. Positive affect is largely independent of negative affect, so that someone who is generally a happy, contented person can also be occasionally anxious, angry or depressed.

After taking account of age, sex, cardiovascular risk factors and negative emotions, the researchers found that, over the ten-year period, increased positive affect predicted less risk of heart disease by 22% per point on a five-point scale measuring levels of positive affect expression (ranging from “none” to “extreme”).

Dr Davidson said: ‘Participants with no positive affect were at a 22% higher risk of ischaemic heart disease (heart attack or angina) than those with a little positive affect, who were themselves at 22% higher risk than those with moderate positive affect.’

‘We also found that if someone, who was usually positive, had some depressive symptoms at the time of the survey, this did not affect their overall lower risk of heart disease.’

‘As far as we know, this is the first prospective study to examine the relationship between clinically-assessed positive affect and heart disease.’

The researchers speculate about what could be the possible mechanisms by which positive emotions might be responsible for conferring long-term protection from heart disease. These include influence on heart rates, sleeping patterns and smoking cessation.

“We have several possible explanations,” said Dr Davidson. “First, those with positive affect may have longer periods of rest or relaxation physiologically. Baroreflex and parasympathetic regulation may, therefore, by superior in these persons, compared to those with little positive affect. Second, those with positive affect may recover more quickly from stressors, and may not spend as much time ‘re-living’ them, which in turn seems to cause physiological damage. This is speculative, as we are just beginning to explore why positive emotions and happiness have positive health benefits.”

She said that most successful interventions for depression include increasing positive affect as well as decreasing negative affect. If clinical trials supported the findings of this study, then it would be relatively easy to assess positive affect in patients and suggest interventions to improve it to help prevent heart disease. In the meantime, people reading about this research could take some simple steps to increase their positive affect.

‘Like the observational finding that moderate wine consumption is healthy (and enjoyable), at this point ordinary people can ensure they have some pleasurable activities in their daily lives,’ she said. ‘Some people wait for their two weeks of vacation to have fun, and that would be analogous to binge drinking (moderation and consistency, not deprivation and binging, is what is needed). If you enjoy reading novels, but never get around to it, commit to getting 15 minutes or so of reading in. If walking or listening to music improves your mood, get those activities in your schedule. Essentially, spending some few minutes each day truly relaxed and enjoying yourself is certainly good for your mental health, and may improve your physical health as well (although this is, as yet, not confirmed).’

In an accompanying editorial by Bertram Pitt, Professor of Internal Medicine, and Patricia Deldin, Associate Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, both at the University of Michigan School of Medicine (Michigan, USA), the authors pointed out that, currently, no one knew whether positive affect had a direct or indirect causal role in heart disease, or whether there was a third, underlying factor at work, common to both conditions. Nor was it known for certain whether it was possible to modify and improve positive affect, and to what extent.

‘Randomised controlled trials of interventions to increase positive affect in patients with cardiovascular disease are now underway and will help determine the effectiveness of increasing positive affect on cardiovascular outcome and will provide insight into the nature of the relationship between positive affect and cardiovascular disease,’ they wrote.

‘The ‘vicious cycle’ linking cardiovascular disease to major depression and depression to cardiovascular disease deserves greater attention from both the cardiovascular and psychiatric investigators……..These new treatments [to increase positive affect] could open an exciting potential new approach for treating patients with known cardiovascular disease who develop depression. If Davidson et al.’s observations and hypotheses stimulate further investigation regarding the effect of increased positive affect on physiological abnormalities associated with cardiovascular risk, perhaps it will be time for all of us to smile.’

Notes:

[1] ‘Don’t worry, be happy: positive affect and reduced 10-year incident coronary heart disease: The Canadian Nova Scotia Health Survey.’  European Heart Journal. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehp603.

[2] ‘Depression and cardiovascular disease: have a happy day - just smile!’. European Heart Journal. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehq031

We may as well add this to the growing mountain of research documenting the tremendous potential of positive emotions (currently there are more than 65,000 studies documenting the positive impact on optimal human functioning of happiness, life satisfaction, subjective well-being, and positive emotions). Think of it as a matter of degree and frequency that we’re trying to increase. It’s not a black or white issue in which positive psychology is saying you have to be happy all the time. That would be absurd. Rather, the idea is to increase the amount of time (as well as the intensity and duration) you spend in positive emotional states such as contentment, relaxation, curiosity, awe, pride, love, joy, laughter, hope, amusement and so on. And positive emotions is just one of the areas covered by positive psychology.

Have a tremendous day!

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Positive Psychology Coach

Author of the award winning ‘Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought’

Follow John on Twitter at @johnschin

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