An Antidote to the Age of Anxiety: Alan Watts on Happiness and How to Live with Presence

An Antidote to the Age of Anxiety: Alan Watts on Happiness and How to Live with Presence

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” Annie Dillard wrote in her timeless reflection on presence over productivity – a timely antidote to the central anxiety of our productivity-obsessed age. Indeed, my own New Year’s resolution has been to stop measuring my days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence. But what, exactly, makes that possible? Read more of this post

From dodo to phoenix: Conglomerates, once seen as heading for extinction, are spreading their wings

From dodo to phoenix: Conglomerates, once seen as heading for extinction, are spreading their wings

Jan 11th 2014 | From the print edition

ADAM SMITH once said that “there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” There is also a great deal of ruin in some kinds of business organisations. Management theorists have been predicting the death of conglomerates for decades. Stockmarkets apply a “conglomerate discount” to the price of their shares. Investors argue that it is better to bet on several focused companies than a single diversified one. Business writers routinely apply the adjectives “bloated” and “unwieldy” when mentioning conglomerates. And yet, almost everywhere, they continue to thrive. Read more of this post

The Culture, Causes, and Costs of Anxiety

The Culture, Causes, and Costs of Anxiety

“Anxiety … makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you,” Anaïs Nin wrote. “Anxiety may be compared with dizziness. He whose eye happens to look down the yawning abyss becomes dizzy,” Kierkegaard observed. “There is no question that the problem of anxiety is a nodal point at which the most various and important questions converge, a riddle whose solution would be bound to throw a flood of light on our whole mental existence,” Freud proclaimed in his classic introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. And yet the riddle of anxiety is far from solved – rather, it has swelled into a social malady pulling countless numbers of us underwater daily. Among those most mercilessly fettered by anxiety’s grip is Scott Stossel, familiar to most as the editor of The Atlantic. In his superb mental health memoir, My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind (public library), Stossel follows in the tradition of Montaigne to use the lens of his own experience as a prism for illuminating insight on the quintessence of our shared struggles with anxiety. From his personal memoir he weaves a cultural one, painting a portrait of anxiety though history, philosophy, religion, popular culture, literature, and a wealth of groundbreaking research in psychology and neuroscience. Read more of this post

Wisdom is quite strongly related to gratitude. Wiser individuals are more grateful than others, and they are grateful for different things than others”

Is it wise to be grateful?

Fri, Jan 10 2014

By C.E. Huggins

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – At all ages, wisdom and a sense of gratitude appear to go hand in hand, especially for women, according to a recent study. Among the participants, people who were considered wise by others also spontaneously expressed feelings of gratitude more frequently than others, Austrian researchers report. Read more of this post

Introspection Can Improve Your Investing

Introspection Can Improve Your Investing

by CFA Institute ContributorsJanuary 8, 2014

Introspection Can Improve Your Investing by A. Michael Lipper, CFA

The holiday season and the turn of the calendar year can create an opportunity for introspection as to how you invest. While one should be just as introspective about wins, it is too difficult for most to separate brilliance and a bull market. Hopefully on the downside it is a bit easier to identify systemic elements that led to losses. To see what impulses are really working, we must shed the standard alibis – “someone lied,” an external negatively interpreted event surprised us, or the weather plus Christmas or Easter came early. While each of these excuses may have happened, your own particular losses are what you were thinking about before, during and after the market prayed upon our conscience. Read more of this post

Turning Around the Successful Company

Turning Around the Successful Company

by Martin Reeves, Knut Haanæs, and Kaelin Goulet

DECEMBER 20, 2013

Today’s business environment is characterized by rapid, extensive change and unpredictability. The combined effects of digitization, connectivity, globalization, demographic shifts, and social feedback are shaking the foundations of almost all businesses, making sustained growth more valuable and elusive than ever before. In addition, we see that companies—at a time when adaptiveness is so crucial—are often hampered by internal complexity that makes change difficult. Read more of this post

Why It’s Hard to Be Entrepreneurial

Why It’s Hard to Be Entrepreneurial

by Matt Reilly  |   9:00 AM January 7, 2014

For many years, I have talked with business executives about the need to reorient their attitudes toward failure. If they want their organizations to generate more good ideas, monetize the best of them, and in general innovate faster, they need to not only tolerate but celebrate the fruitless pilots and instructive flops that are an inevitable part of the process. Read more of this post

It’s Not the How or the What but the Who: Succeed by Surrounding Yourself with the Best

It’s Not the How or the What but the Who: Succeed by Surrounding Yourself with the Best Hardcover – June 3, 2014

by Claudio Fernandez-Araoz (Author)

Are you surrounding yourself with the right people?
Yes, your success in business and in life depends on your own performance. But have you thought about how those around you affect that performance? Do they strengthen or weaken it? Help or hinder your progress?
In It’s Not the How or the What but the Who (a phrase adapted from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos), renowned global talent management expert Claudio Fernández-Aráoz explains why people decisions—the choices you make about friends, your spouse, employees, project partners, mentors, and even elected officials—are more important than any other. To thrive, you need to get the best people in your corner and on your team, and then help them grow. Yet few people know how to do that well.
In a series of short, lively essays, Fernández-Aráoz addresses the challenges and explains how to overcome them. Based on research and stories from his nearly thirty-year career in global executive search and leadership development, each offers wisdom and practical advice about how to “get people right” in a more systematic way—from identifying your biases and accurately assessing the skills and potential of others to selecting, developing, motivating, compensating, and diversifying teams.
Engaging and often counterintuitive, the book is packed with important lessons on how to surround yourself with the best.

Why Weird People Are Often More Creative

WHY WEIRD PEOPLE ARE OFTEN MORE CREATIVE

THE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION THAT’S GETTING INTO YOUR MIND DETERMINES HOW CREATIVE–OR CRAZY–YOU MIGHT BE.

BY DRAKE BAER

When Albert Einstein came across a cigarette butt, he would often pick it up–fuel for the ol’ tobacco pipe. When Charles Dickens walked around London, he would often be wielding his umbrella–the best defense to imaginary street urchins. When Björk goes to an awards show, she might dress like a swan–what could be more genius? Or beautiful? Or weird? Read more of this post

In Life and Business, Learning to Be Ethical

In Life and Business, Learning to Be Ethical

JAN. 10, 2014

By ALINA TUGEND

Lots of New Year’s resolutions are being made — and no doubt ignored — at this time of year. But there’s one that’s probably not even on many lists and should be: Act more ethically. Read more of this post

Review: ‘Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival’, by David Pilling

January 10, 2014 6:49 pm

Review: ‘Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival’, by David Pilling

Review by Chris Patten

Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival, by David Pilling, Allen Lane £20 / $29.95, 432 pages

Knightsbridge and Bond Street are not Britain, and clearly Nihonbashi and Ginza are not Japan. But a shopping trip to the Mitsukoshi or Matsuya department stores in Tokyo, or a sight of the stylishly dressed kids in the Shibuya district of the city, are nonetheless hard to reconcile with the picture that over the past 20 years has often been painted of Japan – a country said to be down on its uppers with a population reduced to hunting squirrels for the pot. David Pilling quotes a visiting MP from northern England, dazzled by Tokyo’s lights and awed by its bustling prosperity: “If this is a recession, I want one.” Read more of this post

Caring as a business tool: humanising companies with empathy

Caring as a business tool: humanising companies with empathy

As Comedy Central and Coca-Cola discovered, connecting more closely with people can make businesses stronger than ever

Christophe Fauconnier and Benoit Beaufils

theguardian.com, Friday 10 January 2014 21.40 GMT

Care, the conventional wisdom goes, belongs in the bassinet, not the boardroom. We disagree. We believe that care is the most essential ingredient of business, brands and marketing, today and in the years ahead. It makes us work as people, for other people. It helps us create brands and products that are meaningful for them, not simply transactions for immaterial targets. It will give us, our brands and our businesses longevity, the staying power that only comes from adding value to the lives of the people we serve. Read more of this post

Character at heart of global leadership

Character at heart of global leadership

Stewart Black and Allen Morrison | Business | Sat, January 11 2014, 3:46 PM

Most people think that the higher you go, the more authority and control you have. But our research finds that in today’s complex, global environment, the higher you go, the more you get things done because of the goodwill and trust you develop, not because of your formal authority.  Read more of this post

The canvas of life, painted with love: Even in times of trial, there are opportunities to reach out and make a difference to the people whose paths we cross

Updated: Sunday January 5, 2014 MYT 7:49:00 AM

The canvas of life, painted with love

BY SOO EWE JIN

Even in times of trial, there are opportunities to reach out and make a difference to the people whose paths we cross.

HAVE you ever watched an artist at work? Most artists paint in private but there are also those who do not mind letting people watch them work. On a recent trip to Penang, I came across a group of artists along Beach Street – which is part of the heritage zone – and I wondered how they could paint with so many curious onlookers hovering around them. Read more of this post

A VC’s 10 startup secrets he wishes he had known as an entrepreneur

A VC’s 10 startup secrets he wishes he had known as an entrepreneur

BY MICHAEL SKOK 
ON JANUARY 10, 2014

Entrepreneurs are in a position to make a significant impact on the world, but they’re also faced with intense challenges that aren’t typically encountered in any other situation. Over the course of my career, I have confronted and seen many roadblocks that can arise on an entrepreneur’s path. Read more of this post

What happens when your spouse’s care drains your savings

What happens when your spouse’s care drains your savings

Garry Marr | January 11, 2014 7:35 AM ET
It’s the end of the line for you, so who cares if there’s nothing left and you actually owe money? How about the lifelong partner funding the expensive care you require in your last days — their own retirement plans now in jeopardy?

We develop more health problems as we age — so why aren’t more people buying this kind of insurance? Read on

The scenario of a still healthy retiree caring for a dying spouse is all too common in Canada and with it comes a tough moral and financial question — put someone into a retirement or nursing home or try to keep them in the marital home. The cost is enormous physically and financially. Read more of this post

9 career mistakes everyone needs to make

9 career mistakes everyone needs to make

Vivian Giang, Business Insider | January 11, 2014 7:48 AM ET

Getty ImagesWhat if J.K. Rowling had never hit rock bottom, or Steve Jobs hadn’t been fired? 9 highly successful people reveal the mistakes that helped make their careers. During your career, you’ll surely make some mistakes. Although some of them will make you cringe with embarrassment, you always learn and grow from the experience. Read more of this post

The best way to get a book deal? Write a story 19 million people want to read

The best way to get a book deal? Write a story 19 million people want to read

Posted by: Nadia Goodman
January 3, 2014 at 3:00 pm EST

17-year-old Beth Reekles had a really good year. She published two books; appeared on national TV; sold the film rights for her first book, The Kissing Booth; graduated from high school and started college; and earned a spot on TIME’s list of the most influential teens of 2013, alongside household names like Malia Obama and Justin Bieber. And still she found time to watch five seasons of Gossip Girl. Read more of this post

Australia’s national science agency has issued a rare apology to a seven-year-old girl for not being able to make her a fire-breathing dragon, blaming a lack of research into the mythical creatures

Scientists Apologize for Failing to Make Girl a Dragon

By Agence France-Presse on 4:16 pm January 10, 2014.
Australia’s national science agency has issued a rare apology to a seven-year-old girl for not being able to make her a fire-breathing dragon, blaming a lack of research into the mythical creatures.

The youngster, Sophie, wrote to a “Lovely Scientist” at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), politely asking whether they could make her a winged pet of her own. Read more of this post

The Open-Office Trap

January 7, 2014

The Open-Office Trap

Posted by Maria Konnikova

In 1973, my high school, Acton-Boxborough Regional, in Acton, Massachusetts, moved to a sprawling brick building at the foot of a hill. Inspired by architectural trends of the preceding decade, the classrooms in one of its wings didn’t have doors. The rooms opened up directly onto the hallway, and tidbits about the French Revolution, say, or Benjamin Franklin’s breakfast, would drift from one classroom to another. Distracting at best and frustrating at worst, wide-open classrooms went, for the most part, the way of other ill-considered architectural fads of the time, like concrete domes. (Following an eighty-million-dollar renovation and expansion, in 2005, none of the new wings at A.B.R.H.S. have open classrooms.) Yet the workplace counterpart of the open classroom, the open office, flourishes: some seventy per cent of all offices now have an open floor plan. Read more of this post

The Quest to Improve America’s Financial Literacy Is Both a Failure and a Sham

The Quest to Improve America’s Financial Literacy Is Both a Failure and a Sham

BY HELAINE OLEN • January 07, 2014 • 6:00 AM

(Photo: Andrew Rich)

Financial literacy promotion may sound perfectly sensible—who wouldn’t want to teach children and adults the secrets of managing money?—but in the face of recent research it looks increasingly like a faith-based initiative. Read more of this post

How To Be A Better Parent: 3 Counterintuitive Lessons From Science

JANUARY 9, 2014 by ERIC BARKER

How To Be A Better Parent: 3 Counterintuitive Lessons From Science

Excerpts from my interview with Po Bronson, New York Times bestselling author of NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, about how to be a better parent.

1) Peer Pressure Can Be A Good Thing

Myth: Peer pressure is always bad, just leading kids to drinking, drugs and vandalism.

Fact: The same instinct that makes some kids so vulnerable to peer pressure also makes them better students, friends and, eventually, partners. Read more of this post

100 Years on a Dirty Dog: The History of Greyhound; Greyhound has been busing Americans around for a century. It’s hard to believe that after all these years, the company is still riding high

100 Years on a Dirty Dog: The History of Greyhound

Gary Belsky

Greyhound has been busing Americans around for a century. It’s hard to believe that after all these years, the company is still riding high.

As careers go, Carl Eric Wickman’s stint in the car business was less than auspicious. In 1913, the immigrant drill operator paid $3,000 to open a Goodyear Tire/Hupmobile car franchise in Hibbing, Minn., not far from the world’s largest open-pit iron mine. Unfortunately, Wickman was even worse at selling cars than he was at picking car makers—so the enterprising young Swede abandoned his dealership dreams soon after making his one and only sale … to himself. Read more of this post

Do the Hustle: Entrepreneurs are like con men, but are delusional enough to believe their own fantasies

DO THE HUSTLE

Entrepreneurs are like con men, but are delusional enough to believe their own fantasies

by James SurowieckiJANUARY 13, 2014

Con artists are greedy hucksters who sell us dreams that never come true. But Americans have a soft spot for them. Witness the current success of “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “American Hustle,” films that celebrate (sort of) the art of the grift. Somehow, living through two bubbles in which plenty of investors and homeowners were suckered by sugarplum visions hasn’t dampened our appetite for watching spectacles like Christian Bale duping almost everyone he encounters, including F.B.I. agents, and Leonardo DiCaprio hypnotizing a mark into buying worthless stock. Read more of this post

The Degree Is Doomed

The Degree Is Doomed

by Michael Staton  |   8:00 AM January 8, 2014

The credential — the degree or certificate — has long been the quintessential value proposition of higher education.  Americans have embraced degrees with a fervor generally reserved for bologna or hot dogs.  Everyone should have them!  Many and often! And their perceived value elsewhere in the world — in Asia in particular — is if anything even higher. Read more of this post

We need to talk about TED: Science, philosophy and technology run on the model of American Idol – as embodied by TED talks – is a recipe for civilisational disaster

We need to talk about TED

Science, philosophy and technology run on the model of American Idol – as embodied by TED talks – is a recipe for civilisational disaster

Benjamin Bratton

theguardian.com, Monday 30 December 2013 09.30 GMT

In our culture, talking about the future is sometimes a polite way of saying things about the present that would otherwise be rude or risky. Read more of this post

Positive parenting: Beyond the naughty step; Attempts to go where calm and reasonableness fear to tread

Positive parenting: Beyond the naughty step; Attempts to go where calm and reasonableness fear to tread

Jan 11th 2014 | CHICAGO | From the print edition

IN THE old days parents followed a simple rule: spare the rod and spoil the child. These days less violent forms of discipline are favoured. Supernanny, a television toddler-tamer, recommends the “naughty step”, to which ill-behaved brats are temporarily banished. Yet even this is too harsh, some psychologists say. Putting Howling Henry on the naughty step may interrupt his tantrum; but advocates of “positive discipline” say it does nothing to encourage him to solve his own problems (and thus build character). Some even suggest it may be psychologically damaging. Read more of this post

In Scandal’s Wake, McKinsey Seeks Culture Shift; Touched by scandal, a firm that has long relied on a culture of trust has laid down some tougher rules to follow

In Scandal’s Wake, McKinsey Seeks Culture Shift

By ANITA RAGHAVANJAN. 11, 2014

Dominic Barton is 51 years old, 6 feet 4 and silver-haired, yet he has the countenance of a choirboy. Born in Uganda, he is the son of a missionary and a nurse, both Canadians. But it could be said that the society to which he really belongs is that of McKinsey & Company. Read more of this post