idealawg

Blog Glob: "For Good Self-Control, Try Getting Religious About It" (NY Times)

Excerpt:

If I’m serious about keeping my New Year’s resolutions in 2009, should I add another one? Should the to-do list include, “Start going to church”?

This is an awkward question for a heathen to contemplate, but I felt obliged to raise it with Michael McCullough after reading his report in the upcoming issue of the Psychological Bulletin. He and a fellow psychologist at the University of Miami, Brian Willoughby, have reviewed eight decades of research and concluded that religious belief and piety promote self-control.

...

So what’s a heathen to do in 2009? Dr. McCullough’s advice is to try replicating some of

Event in Sydney next year: Mind & Its Potential

From the Mind & Its Potential Web site:

Mind & Its Potential is a truly ground-breaking conference that will change forever your understanding of the human potential to learn, change and overcoming adversity. It is an event based on the very latest science that is delivered in an accessible, stimulating and practical way featuring:

• A dialogue between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and a group of eminent scientists including positive psychology founder Dr Martin Seligman. This forum showcases the Dalai Lama’s renowned interest and understanding of science combined with his compassion and concern for the wellbeing of humanity.
• A dazzling line-up of 40 speakers from around the world including renowned neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield.
• An agenda that explores our understanding of the brain and the implications for education, aging, creativity, relationships, parenting, psychology, the workplace and more.

The conference is being held on December 2 and 3 of 2009.

Writing Online: Best Practices

Here's a good post about online versus print writing. The added bonus is at the bottom of the post: links to four other "online resources that contain more great tricks and tips for writing more effectively online."

January 2 is the 7th annual Positive Postcard Day: It's not too early to start your writing

In case you don't know how the Positive Postcard Project works, or if you have forgotten, read all about Positive Postcards here.

Note (added July 5, 2010): Looks like someone else has created a Positive Postcard Project. Click to read about this new PPP.

Glob Blog: "Law firms move to hold down pay for associates: ‘Lockstep’ increases may be on the way out"

Excerpt:

The economic downturn has brought an abrupt end to the long-running salary party for young lawyers.

...

Latham & Watkins LLP said last week it will freeze associate salaries in 2009, meaning first- and second-year lawyers will get base salaries of $160,000. More experienced associates will get the same base salary in 2009 that they got in 2008.

The move allows Latham & Watkins to save millions of dollars.

...

The current downturn might bring about more significant changes to associate pay in coming years. Partners at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, for example, have discussed whether to do away with the lock-step associate pay system altogether in favor of a merit-based system. ...

“This downturn,” [Allan] Whitescarver said, “has added to the urgency, and my sense is that in 2009 a number of firms will make the change from a lock-step to a merit-based system.”

At least one major firm has already scrapped the lock-step pay system. Howrey LLP, with 90 lawyers in San Francisco and East Palo Alto, in January will move to a merit-based pay system. ...

The lock-step pay raise for associates “does not encourage people to perform at their best,” said Robert Ruyak, Howrey’s managing partner and CEO. Now associates will get a pay bump after proving they mastered increasingly advanced lawyering skills.

Click to read the rest of "Law firms move to hold down pay for associates" (San Francisco Business Journal - subscription required).

Bibliography of research on mindfulness

The Mindfulness Awareness Research Center at UCLA has compiled a bibliography of research on mindfulness. I posted the link to it from Brains on Purpose™ a while ago but have never posted it here. Click here for the mindfulness research bibliography.

Free Webinar on January 8: Facilitation Techniques with Stories

From the Web page:

Guiding groups through sense making is challenging yet rewarding. Our job is to help people work with their stories to generate new meanings, learning, and insights. This is not as simple as it may appear. Stories operate on lots of different levels. Unless we become sensitized to the various ways people make sense of their stories, we will miss precious opportunities to help them find meaning that can guide their behaviors in new directions.

This 40 minute interactive webinar examines dynamics that surface when groups share their stories and experiences with one another.

The majority of our time will be spent discussing several different scenarios. Through interactive discussions and polling we will capture your ideas of different ways you might respond to these situations.

All participants will receive a FREE copy of the white paper titled, Nine Ground Rules for Working with Stories.” Following the webinar you will receive a copy of the scenarios discussed during the webinar and a summary of the group’s ideas. The session will end with a drawing for one of my [Terrence Gargiulo] books. Be sure to tell a friend!

Sounds worthwhile. Join me? In addition to the content, I am looking forward to seeing how the Webinar is run. Terrence is both knowledgeable and creative. Register here.

Note: Several articles on the use of stories are available here at his makingstories.net.

Blog Glob: "Why We're Still Happy"

Excerpt:

[W]hen everyone from autoworkers to Wall Street financiers becomes worse off, your life satisfaction remains pretty much the same.

Indeed, humans are remarkably attuned to relative position and status. As the economists David Hemenway and Sara Solnick demonstrated in a study at Harvard, many people would prefer to receive an annual salary of $50,000 when others are making $25,000 than to earn $100,000 a year when others are making $200,000.

Similarly, Daniel Zizzo and Andrew Oswald, economists in Britain, conducted a study that showed that people would give up money if doing so would cause someone else to give up a slightly larger sum. That is, we will make ourselves poorer in order to make someone else poorer, too.

Click to read the rest of "Why We're Still Happy" (New York Times).

Blog Glob: "America's top meditation retreats"

Excerpt:

Face it. Your brain is dirtied with deadlines, sullied with schedules and clogged with responsibilities. ... It’s time to manage what meditation experts call your “monkey mind”—the modern brain that jumps from thought to thought like a monkey on steroids.

Meditation has been found to lower cholesterol, ease pain, speed healing, curb insomnia and boost the immune system. It can also help slay the demons of depression, anxiety and the kinds of compulsions that send you back three times to check the stove. By practicing meditation, you’ll feel more energized, gain self-knowledge and achieve a healthier state of mind.

For too long, Americans sniffed at meditation as little more than paranormal twaddle peddled by gurus of dubious expertise. ...

Click to read the rest of "America's top meditation retreats" (msnbc).

H/T: shambhala_med.

More neuroscience-related links added to "How NeuroLeadership Can Impact Business and Talent Management"

More links to resources have been added to the page where you can listen to a podcast of Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz. I have blogged about that podcast titled "How NeuroLeadership Can Impact Business and Talent Management" in the past but wanted to point out that links have been added. I do not see there a link to Schwartz's article "The Neuroscience of Leadership." That article (which he wrote with David Rock) is what started all these NeuroLeadership Summits. And you now have that link, too.

Photo of Jeffrey Schwartz © Laszlo Bencze.