The beauty of stress relief…
Did you know that simply looking at artwork can measurably relieve your stress? In one study, Angela Clow (and others) tested the levels of the stress-related hormone cortosol in subjects’ saliva before and after a 40 minute walk through a London art gallery, and found a significant reduction in the cortisol levels after that walk.
But that’s not all. Discoveries in other studies are mores specific. For instance, it’s been found that pictures of nature (landscapes, seascapes, plants, etc.) are the most stress-reducing. And fractal images appear to be almost as good as nature images for stress reduction. That’s probably because fractals are recurring patterns in nature.
I don’t have an art gallery to offer you a walk through, but I do have some nice screensavers that are nature images and some that are fractals. You can download them at no charge at http://superperformance.com/screensavers2.html
Did you know that simply looking at artwork can measurably relieve your stress? In one study, Angela Clow (and others) tested the levels of the stress-related hormone cortosol in subjects’ saliva before and after a 40 minute walk through a London art gallery, and found a significant reduction in the cortisol levels after that walk.
But [...]
Training recommendation
Training is the premier method of improving performance and productivity, and if you need training for computer/internet skills, Lynda.com is the premier place to get it. I’ve been a subscriber for over two years now and have recommended it to almost everyone I know. I’ve even given subscriptions (one-month) to family and friends to get them started.
Lynda.com has over 500 courses using a total of more that 39,000 video tutorials. They cover every major piece of software and all major internet activities — and more. They make technological training easy, pleasant and fast. And they are very reasonably priced. You can get a one-month subscription for $25 or you can go for an annual one. They also have discount pricing for multiple users, so small businesses can afford to train their employees in essential skills.
The video tutorials are streamed to your computer screen rather than downloaded. However, if you want a permanent recording, they also have many of their courses on DVD.
Since most folks like to have some reassurance before they plunk down cash for a product on the internet, Lynda. com provides some of the tutorials free for each of the courses. You can try before you buy.
Training is the premier method of improving performance and productivity, and if you need training for computer/internet skills, Lynda.com is the premier place to get it. I’ve been a subscriber for over two years now and have recommended it to almost everyone I know. I’ve even given subscriptions (one-month) to family and friends to get [...]
Do you Squidoo?
Squidoo.com is a high-ranking website where anyone with an enthusiasm or expertise in any topic can go to make a web page at no cost. And even get paid for it. Squidoo has hundreds of thousands of web pages known as “lenses.” I consider Squidoo a productivity tool for both learning (or researching) and “webmastering.” Here’s why you need to go see the site:
- 1. You might want to visit Squidoo to learn something new. Since every lens is a single web page, you can find the information you want more quickly and easily than on many websites that are rich in content but difficult to navigate. Also, the lenses tend to be multiple media environments, making them more fun than the average web page.
- 2. If you are a webmaster, you might find Squidoo an admirable extension of your website. The lenses can be quite extensive and elaborate. They are perfect, free one-page websites that allow you to break out some content that may not be getting enough attention within your current site. Or you could cover related interests that refer to your main website and drive traffic to it. And you share in the revenues brought in by advertising and affiliations that Squidoo puts on your lens, as well as having the ability to promote your own products and affiliations.
- 3. If you haven’t yet developed a website of your own, but would like to do so, Squidoo lenses give you a great start. In addition to the fact they are free, they are very easy to make and require no programming. There is scads of information and advice on the site to show you how to do it, and you can be wildly creative in using text, images, video and audio. Once you’ve started developing lenses, you’ll be more confident about going on to an independent site of your own. Or you can stick with lenses and make some money from advertising, affiliations or promoting your own products.
- 4. And, one more reason to visit Squidoo — to see the lens I made to try out the service so I could confidently recommend it to you. Go to http://www.squidoo.com/mandalameditation
Squidoo.com is a high-ranking website where anyone with an enthusiasm or expertise in any topic can go to make a web page at no cost. And even get paid for it. Squidoo has hundreds of thousands of web pages known as “lenses.” I consider Squidoo a productivity tool for both learning (or researching) and “webmastering.” [...]
Networking article recommendation
Pamela Slim writes an excellent blog I’ve recently discovered called “Escape From Cubicle Nation.” It’s primarily for entrepreneurs, but much of the advice applies to career development as well. I wanted to call your attention to one of her articles I was reading today, “Expert networking techniques from a playground-savvy 9-year old.” It summarizes the best techniques of developing contacts, regardless of whether you need to network for your own business or for finding a new job. It also has great charm. The post is about a year old, but the advice is timeless. Go read it.
Pamela Slim writes an excellent blog I’ve recently discovered called “Escape From Cubicle Nation.” It’s primarily for entrepreneurs, but much of the advice applies to career development as well. I wanted to call your attention to one of her articles I was reading today, “Expert networking techniques from a playground-savvy 9-year old.” It summarizes the [...]
DabbleBoard — fun, friendly online whiteboard. Great productivity tool.
DabbleBoard is a web-based app, a virtual whiteboard that allows you to draw, chart, diagram, mind-map, brainstorm — and whatever else you can figure out to do with it. You can send a copy of your work to a colleague by email and view his updates live. It’s easy and intuitive. It has complete instructions that make it clear how easy and fun it is. You can try it out without signing up. If you want to save your work or use the collaboration features, you will have to sign up — but, since it’s free, you probably won’t mind. And it’s waaayyy better than doodling on the back of a napkin.
Try it out at http://www.dabbleboard.com/main
DabbleBoard is a web-based app, a virtual whiteboard that allows you to draw, chart, diagram, mind-map, brainstorm — and whatever else you can figure out to do with it. You can send a copy of your work to a colleague by email and view his updates live. It’s easy and intuitive. It has complete instructions [...]
Some articles on behavioral economics
I forgot to include in yesterday’s post some links to articles on behavioral economics. They’ll give you an introduction to the field. But if you want to understand and manage your economic life and your feelings and actions related to it, you must at least read a couple of books. And one of those books must give you at least an overview of economics per se. The ones I recommended yesterday make it fairly easy and non-academic. Some of the articles below are a bit academic.
Here are the article links to get you started:
- Behavioral Economics — From the Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_economics
- Behavioral Economics — by Sendhil Mullainathan, MIT and NBER, Richard H. Thaler, University of Chicago and NBER (pdf) www.iies.su.se/nobel/papers/Encyclopedia%202.0.pdf
- Economic Policy For Humans — From the Boston Globe. By Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/04/17/economic_policy_for_humans/
- A Short Course In Behavioral Economics — An Edge Master Class http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/thaler_sendhil08/thaler_sendhil_index.html
- The Marketplace of Perceptions — from Harvard Magazine http://harvardmagazine.com/2006/03/the-marketplace-of-perce.html
- Can Behavioral Economics Save Us From Ourselves? — from the University of Chicago Magazine http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0502/features/economics.shtml
I forgot to include in yesterday’s post some links to articles on behavioral economics. They’ll give you an introduction to the field. But if you want to understand and manage your economic life and your feelings and actions related to it, you must at least read a couple of books. And one of those books [...]
Economy, stock market, madness, panic
If you’ve been watching your 401K turn into what you might sneeringly call a 101K, you’ve probably also been questioning (or raving about) what’s going on in the economy. As part of my continuing education in psychology as well as in business, over the years I’ve done a lot of reading in economics and — more recently — in “behavioral economics” and “neuroeconomics.” So I have a couple of suggestions for you.
The short answer to what’s up is: people make decisions based more on emotion than rationality. The more negative the emotion, the more likely the decision will be hasty and ill-considered and the larger will be the emotional component. We can all train ourselves to make more rational, well-informed choices and many do. Most don’t.
Of course, a great deal more is happening in the economy than the panic selling we’ve recently seen in the stock market or the greedy mismanagement of an unregulated banking system. And it’s well beyond the scope of an article or blog to explain. However, if you’d like understand how it all works and get some insight into how you might make the most rational and informed decisions, here are some books you can read and some websites you can visit:
Books:
A great overview of global economics — whether you studied this in college or never cracked a book on it before, you will find this easy and enjoyable.
Right on point for understanding how to make to best financial decisions and avoid the worst:
A good coverage of irrational decision-making:
A book on influencing choices for the better. One of the authors is Richard Thaler, a pioneer of the field of behavioral economics.
Websites:
Predictably Irrational — the blog that followed the book “Predictably Irrational” (listed above) and gives up-to-date news, information and analyses of current events in the light of the topics of rational and irrational decision-making and behavioral economics.
http://www.predictablyirrational.com/
Nudges Blog — based on the book “Nudges” and the work of Richard Thaler, one of the two researchers who are credited as the ground-breakers in behavioral economics. http://nudges.wordpress.com/
If you’ve been watching your 401K turn into what you might sneeringly call a 101K, you’ve probably also been questioning (or raving about) what’s going on in the economy. As part of my continuing education in psychology as well as in business, over the years I’ve done a lot of reading in economics and — [...]
Articles and more
The guest article I published today is an excerpt of a podcast interview done by Marnie Pehrson of IdeaMarketers.com with Terri Zwierzynski of Solo-e.com. It’s titled “The 4 Most Common Mistakes Solo-Entrepreneurs Make.”
What makes the article unusual is that the podcast is included in the article. It is a new feature from IdeaMarketers.com that Pehrson has dubbed “Create-A-Wow” Podcasts. There’s more to “Create-A-Wow” than podcasts, however. Mosey on over to her sites and see what she’s doing.
IdeaMarketers.com, in case you aren’t familiar with it, is an article distribution site that features both public and subscription-based articles for webmasters to use on their own sites. I’ve been a subscriber for a while and have discovered quite a few very fine writers whose work I follow.
Read the article and/or listen to the podcast.
The guest article I published today is an excerpt of a podcast interview done by Marnie Pehrson of IdeaMarketers.com with Terri Zwierzynski of Solo-e.com. It’s titled “The 4 Most Common Mistakes Solo-Entrepreneurs Make.”
What makes the article unusual is that the podcast is included in the article. It is a new feature from IdeaMarketers.com that Pehrson [...]
Listening
Today I published a guest article by Duncan Brodie, “Leadership: 5 Benefits of Listening.” One of the benefits he mentions is that you gain respect when you pay attention to what people say. He’s quite right.
Psychotherapists discover that benefit both in their training and in practice. It’s our job to listen carefully and encourage the client to do most of the talking. For many, many people, it is a rare occasion that someone is listening to them with such intensity and acceptance that they’ve been able to completely explain their ideas and concerns. When they can speak without unnecessary interruption, they can also hear what they are saying. They have time to think about their own words and learn from them. There’s no pressure to try to say it all before they are cut off. Managers and other leaders who learn to listen with honest attention and patience, and without criticism are doing the same service as a therapist or minister and reap the same appreciation and respect.
It is well worth your time to learn how to listen well and actively. I recommend the book “Leader Effectiveness Training” by Thomas Gordon.
Today I published a guest article by Duncan Brodie, “Leadership: 5 Benefits of Listening.” One of the benefits he mentions is that you gain respect when you pay attention to what people say. He’s quite right.
Psychotherapists discover that benefit both in their training and in practice. It’s our job to listen carefully [...]
Meditation Video
I found an excellent meditation video on one of my favorite sites Lime.com and have added it to the superperformance.com video pages. I’ve also embedded it below for your viewing pleasure.
I found an excellent meditation video on one of my favorite sites Lime.com and have added it to the superperformance.com video pages. I’ve also embedded it below for your viewing pleasure.