Happiness for Peak Performance

Click here to watch Harvard's Happiness 101 Course

I must start by thanking César for sending me the link to Tal Ben-Shahar's Harvard course "Happiness 101". I didn't only listen during my work-out yesterday, but continued totally absorbed all the way home and during my "recovery time"!

I must admit there wasn't a lot that I hadn't heard before, but for me Tal's low key, "self-deprecating" style with a lot of good evidence to drive home simple truths, capped by Peter Drucker's opening words to his weekend executive retreats, really got to me. At least that is my explanation for the discomfort I felt as I reflected on how little of this "stuff" I really practice consistantly.

I won't spoil it by giving away all the "secrets" but will just share a few notes I am jotting down as a public reminder to put into practice: "Give yourself permission to be human"; "Take time to recover"; "Remember the impact of daily meditation on the left brain"; "Take 3 Deep Breaths - all day long... and especially at the red lights"; "How appreciation appreciates... 5 a day"

You all have my permission to ask me - "What are you doing differently, Philip?" - and please do... at least for the next 8 months until my new habits are truly second nature!

Double Work-Out

Finally found a way to keep up my exercise routine at the gym and get back into to the habit of stimulating not just body, but also brain, heart and soul!!!* Simple as logging into You Tube on my smart phone, putting on the earphones, and letting serendipity do the rest as I peddle my 10K on the exercise bike. Miss one... miss the other!

A couple of weeks ago, a trailer for “Mr Turner”, led me digging into the hitherto unknown background of one of my favourite artists. A press conference in Hollywood, with director, Mike Leigh, and cast in Hollywood, including Timothy Spall, who played a brilliant leading role and explained his interpretation of Turner’s grunting as follows: “I think the grunting grew... organically out of this incredible, instinctive and emotional man who had a zillion things to say but never said it. So he captured it all in an imploded grunt...He's got this burning thing inside him, so rather than say it, it's just ghrrm, ghrrm.”

This week, preparation for a class on the "Ladder of Inference" had me up and down the steps to check to whom I should attribute the concept, Peter Senge who popularized it in the Fifth Discipline or Chris Argyris who devoloped the concept with Donald Schon.

In the process, still peddling away at the gym, I enriched myself with a lot of stuff both on and off the subject, but none more exciting for its clarity, simplicity and  brevity than Ed Muzio's Whiteboard Videos. No imploding grunts for Ed, who, in his 4-minute crisply produced video clips, free for all on You Tube, is set to put us all out of business... or who knows, will maybe create a lot more for us all? Highly accessible and digestible and a great complement for my CoachingPlus clients who are keen to continue improving their English.
Check this one out: Perceptual Position Resolves Conflicts and see if you can resist going back for more. As amigo Patricio said "Me encanta el poder de lo simple….breve, claro y concreto……viva el HAIKU!!"
* (Yes Stephen, looking down from on high, I often taught your philosophy and finally got round to practicing it)