5 Secrets from a Life Coach for a Happier Life By Jeannette Samanen PhD In my work as a life coach, I find that there are five basic ingredients that create sustained happiness. Cultivate these deceptively simple behaviors and you will make your good life better. 1. Give and Receive Love Your relationships are what [...]

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Here are some tips for staying positive at work when everyone else is at play. read more

Recently, I was asked to provide some tips for people who work in the veterinary industry for how to stay positive during the holidays, with one big challenge in mind: Veterinary team members often have to work when the rest of us are home for the holidays.  While it's true that having to give an alpaca an enema isn't a great holiday gig (to my mind at least), it's also true that other folks working other jobs have to work when the rest of the world gets to play.  So, here are some ideas for staying positive at work when everyone else is at play. (You can read the original version at the My Exceptional Veterinary Team website) Think about who will be working this holiday season while you're spending time with your family, stuffing yourself with chocolate, cookies, turkey, or latkes.  Cops, ambulance drivers and EMTs responding to accidents. Restaurant servers, sales clerks, flight attendants, and call center and hotline workers trying to help customers. Utilities...

I am excited to announce a new book I have just released with Bob Whitman, Chairman of FranklinCovey.  The book Predictable Results in Unpredictable Times outlines four key principles for getting great performance in good times and bad: First, winning companies slim down to a few key simple goals with clear targets and careful follow-through. Everybody [...]

A famous story relates the following encounter: Three men are found smashing boulders with iron hammers. When asked what they are doing, the first man says, "Breaking big rocks into little rocks." The second man says, "Feeding my family." The third man says, "Building a cathedral." To many of us who study and consult in occupational and organizational contexts, we would call what this third man does meaningful work. read more

A well-known story relates the following encounter (adapted from Ryan, 1977): Three men are found smashing boulders with iron hammers.  When asked what they are doing, the first man says, "Breaking big rocks into little rocks." The second man says, "Feeding my family." The third man says, "Building a cathedral." Today's column focuses on the third man, the one who saw each hammer blow as contributing to the construction of a cathedral, a home for human dreams and sacred aspirations.  To many of us who study and consult in occupational and organizational contexts, we would call what this third man does meaningful work. There are many perspectives on meaningful work, ranging from Marxist ideas about work that resists the dehumanizing influences of the Industrial Revolution to religious ideas about being called by a transcendent spirit to do Good Work in the world -- with everything in between.  I have come to see meaningful work as consisting of three, central...