Jerry Lopper's Blog

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Millions of people will make New Year resolutions in the next few days and weeks. Fueled by enthusiasm or guilt, we'll change aspects of our lives and move toward achieving our resolutions.

With the coming of a new year, we tend to pause a bit to reflect on our lives. Human nature is such that our reflections are often on the negatives, what's missing, what is dissatisfying, what do we want to change.

Within a few weeks, though, most resolutions will fail. Most of us will fall back into the old behaviors.

Why do most of our well-intentioned resolutions fail?

We've fallen into the trap (again?) of failing to adequately provide another source of the benefit we received from the old behavior.

Are your New Year Resolutions wishes or intentions? Are you committed to the path of change? It's not an easy path, so make sure the changes you contemplate will result in the new you that you truly desire.

These articles will help.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

In the last entry I put the finishing touches on the cover.

Now it's time to decide how I'm going to market the book. This is an important decision because there are some up-front costs associated, and once picked, revisions are expensive.

Buy an ISBN?

An ISBN is a thirteen digit number uniquely assigned to a book. This number, once purchased and registered, permits any book seller to purchase the book from its publisher by the number alone. The first ISBN decision I must make is whether to purchase a number.

Lulu will carry my book in its online store without requiring an ISBN. I can purchase copies at my cost for resale and I can link potential purchasers to Lulu's online store without an ISBN. However, I will not be able to sell through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or any other book seller.

I decide to purchase an ISBN number for $99.95.

Next I must decide on the retail price I will charge. Lulu provides a retail price calculator to clarify the inter-relationship between manufacturing cost, my profit, Lulu's cut, and final retail price. Wholesalers will purchase the book for fifty percent of the retail price, which must be high enough to cover manufacturing, my profit, and Lulu's profit. The book must also be priced competitively.

After factoring all this together, I select a retail price of $11.95.

The final step is to purchase an approval copy, read through it carefully, make any changes necessary, and give final approval. It's now a finished book. Any further revisions will be expensive or impossible, depending on what I may choose to change.

So this is it:

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT: 40 BEST ARTICLES ON Cheering Up,Positive Attitude, Goal Setting, and much, much, more.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

In the last entry I selected a cover design and began using Lulu's publishing wizard. There are still some cover details to finalize. The cover must convey something about the book and catch people's interest.

One might wonder why I'm using a stock cover rather than a custom design. I like to do things myself and I tend to be frugal; the combination generally result in doing things myself.

Lulu's cover wizard allows me to work on the front cover, spine, and back cover independently. I can pick images for front and back, colors, and text font and colors. With stock covers, the location of title, subtitle, and author are fixed.

After trying several versions of front cover text color and size, I select a bright yellow title complementing the cover's flowers, and a dark green subtitle and author font that matches the green of the prominent tree. Looks good.

For the spine, I color the title and author the same yellow as the front title. For the back cover I pick a solid blue that ties into and complements the blue sky of the front cover. I have to revise the back cover text several times, but finally get a good mixture of an intro to the book, my bio, a tie into my previous book, and a few blurbs (praises) from other people. The back cover text in white looks great.

Lulu requires images with 300 dpi resolution and at least 675 by 820 pixels in size. My existing head-shot images are smaller than that, but I'm able to scan a good professional 8X10 I have and reduce it to the right size with Irfanview ( a free image editor, remember, I'm frugal). The back cover looks good and I'm almost ready to publish. Next, to pick a distribution scheme.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

In the last entry I formatted my content, the internal visual appeal. Now for the all important cover, the chance to make a good first impression.

For my first book, Jump for Joy, I designed the cover myself. This time I decide to avoid that effort and use a stock cover.

There are dozens of stock covers to choose from. I selected five or six that are nature scenes in blues and greens and which suggest tranquility, abundance, and positive growth. I copied images of each of these and asked for comments from members of my writers group. They unanimously selected one that was also one of my favorites.

The cover shows a meadow of yellow flowers set against a beautiful blue sky with a prominent dark green-leaved tree in the foreground. The colors are uplifting, yet peaceful, and the abundant growth suggests personal growth, abundance, and harmony. Perfect!

My writers group members also helped with my title decision. I printed several versions of titles on individual pages and, again, they unanimously selected one.

With the manuscript "completed" (it's never really finished) and cover selected, I'm ready to upload my files and start the publishing process. Lulu's publishing "wizard" guides me step by step through the process.

First I select book format: size, black and white or color, and binding. My selections of 6X9, black and white, and perfect binding are simple clicks of the mouse.

Next I upload my manuscript with a point and click. When uploaded, the wizard converts it to a pdf document. This takes some time, but I can leave the page and do other things. Lulu sends an email when it completes.

The next wizard step is finalizing the cover, entering text and picking font size and color, which I'll cover (no pun intended) next time.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

In the last entry I selected content material and organized it. Now for some details that are very important to visual appeal.

Lulu and Wordclay both recommend using serif fonts. Although I've heard the terms serif and sans serif, the relationship between these font families never occurred to me. A serif is the little curly foot at the bottom of letters. You've seen this in printed material using Times Roman and similar fonts in the serif family. Sans serif simply means no foot, sans meaning without. Sans serif fonts are less formal.

I picked 11 point Garamond, 1.5 line spacing, with the margins and gutter of Lulu's template, which automatically makes my book compatible with the standards of book distributors. This is important in order to sell books through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other distributors.

The de facto standard for books is to place the title page as well as the first page of chapters on odd pages (right hand side). Normally, page numbering starts with chapter one. But the word processor is keeping track of all pages, so chapter one may actually be page 10. Even though you want chapter one to be numbered page one, another standard is to omit page numbers on the first page of a chapter.

The way you accomplish these page numbering standards is to make each chapter an independent section, starting each on an odd page, and selecting chapter one as the start of page numbering. You accomplish this, as well as omitting a page number on the first page of a section, with the format option for each section. Sounds complicated, but with some trial and error, I got the numbering and formats I wanted.

With the book's material now organized and formatted, it's time to turn to the cover.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

In the last entry I selected the basic structure and features of my book.

With formatting chosen, I'm ready to write, pulling together favorite articles, grouping them into logical chapters, editing for consistency, and establishing the visual effect I want.

I've decided on nine chapters:

• Cheering Up
• Positive Attitude
• Personal Values
• Keeping Your Mind Strong
• Good Life Tips (positive psychology related info)
• Goal Setting
• Improving Relationships
• Favorite Articles
• Books For Growth (books I recommend)

This was actually the easy part. The material I'm using for this book is already written and I own the right to publish it in print. So this step is a matter of selecting the best and most popular material for each chapter.

I end up using forty articles. The book will be about 140 pages long or slightly less, which feels about right to me.

Constructing a Table of Contents

Now on to the table of contents. This turns out to be very challenging. I've only used TOC's once or twice and only used the most basic form at that. I'm using Microsoft Word 2003, which has a TOC function that's very easy to use if you have selected headings and titles styles in advance with the idea of a TOC. I didn't. So, the headings I've used throughout the document don't give me the exact TOC look I want.

Fortunately, there are options for manually configuring a TOC. Lulu's online documentation is helpful to a point, but many of their references are to older versions of Word. But between Lulu's FAQ's and Word's help function, I'm able to configure a TOC that I like.

In the process of working out the TOC I wanted, I had to get a good understanding of header and footer relationships between sections. This is crucial because it affects page numbering. More on that in the next chapter.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

In the last entry I considered several publishing choices. I've since made the decision that enables me to go full speed ahead.

For my purposes, given how I plan to market and promote the book, I've decided to stick with Lulu, the print on demand publisher I used for my first book, Jump for Joy, Clearing the hurdles to an easy life.

Lulu charges nothing up front. I can upload my formatted document, use a stock cover, and incorporate moderate personalization without spending a penny. As author, I can purchase copies at Lulu's manufacturing cost. I can even buy only one copy for proofing or to display for my friends to envy. (It really is a high to see your name as author of a real book.) Lulu offers a market place, or online shop, where others can purchase the book at a price you set.

Registration at Lulu requires only a name and email address, no credit card is required until you purchase something. Since I am still registered from publishing my last book, I jumped immediately to the help section. This is a rich resource set up as a series of FAQ documents. There's an FAQ for every major segment of the process, from formatting content to buying the final product, marketing the finished book, and everything in between.

I decided on a 6 X 9 size (trade paperback), perfect bound (pages glued at the spine), black and white inner content, and full color cover from Lulu's free supply. Rather than set up all the document formatting myself, I downloaded their 6 X 9 Word document template, which gave me a family of recommended font styles, margins, gutter size, header and footer design, and more.

Now it's time to start writing. We'll see how that's going in the next chapter....

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Publishing Decisions

This blog continues from Self Publishing Again describing my experience self publishing a Personal Development book. The good news about self publishing is that I can have things just the way I want them. I can pick and choose content (no editorial changes), font, style, cover, color or black and white, book size, binding, ISBN registration, marketing, printer, and on, and on.

That's also the bad news. Everything is up to me, which is a great way to learn, but it does require that I understand the ramifications of a dozen or more decisions and choose options that will yield the end product I want.

I investigated two print-on-demand printers, Lulu and Wordclay. Print-on-demand printers store an electronic copy of your book and only print it when someone makes a purchase. Therefore, there's no inventory and no up front costs.

I'm also familiar with AuthorHouse, since several of my friends and partners in Sauna Friends use it. AuthorHouse provides lots of technical support services and turns out a very good product. But there is an up front charge. I estimated that a modest sized book such as I'm planning would cost several hundred dollars in advance.

Will I shell out a few hundred and get professional help? Or do it myself? My decision is in the next chapter.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

While researching happiness benefits for an article, I came across a web site holding over one hundred and thirty videos, all happiness related. A cable channel in White Plains, New York carried The Happiness Show, claimed to be the only TV show devoted to the theme of happiness. The show was created and produced by George Ortega, and was first aired in 2003.

The Happiness Show was picked up by cable TV stations in several other cities and ran until April, 2006. The web site by the same name provides all one hundred thirty shows free of charge in streaming audio and video. Each show is about 28 minutes long.

The web site lists several benefits of happiness and references reputable positive psychology studies as the basis for its shows.

Intriguing titles include:

Happiness and Poverty

Happiness Promotion: Key to a Happier World

In addition to the videos, the site contains interesting facts about worldwide happiness, references to books and scholarly papers on happiness, and information about happiness clubs. Stop by for a few minutes of happiness advice.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

It's time to publish another book. I self-published my last book, Jump for Joy, Clearing the hurdles to an easy life, in 2003. Now I'm feeling the pull to publish another; probably resulting from a book signing I participated in a few weeks ago.

I'm a member of a small group of local self-published authors who gather periodically for joint book signings. Our group, Sauna Friends (how we got this name is another story), arranges one of these signings at a book store or other hospitable venue two or three times a year. The last signing took place in Circleville, Ohio, the small town which is home to the Pumpkin Festival and the birthplace of entertainer Ted Lewis.

Every other member of Sauna Friends has a new book either recently published or nearing publication. I felt a bit out of date and unproductive hawking my lone offering. The other authors, however, were wonderfully supportive, as they always are, and they encouraged me to launch another book. Their encouragement took hold and now I've got the bug to publish.

It's amazing, the energy one gets from adopting a new goal wholeheartedly. My mind is filled with possible titles. I've researched print-on-demand publishers, selected my book content, and started the draft document.

For those aspiring authors out there, craving the satisfaction of seeing your ideas in print, your name on the colorful cover of a book that is all yours, I'll blog about my progress and what I learn over the next few weeks.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

How about a philosophy book that had me laughing 'til I cried. Philosophy, that esoteric science of deep, deep thinkers pondering the meaning of it all, is closely linked to humor. At least that's the claim of authors Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, who have penned an improbable book of philosophy/humor titled Plato and a Platypus walk into a bar...

In an odd combination of vaudeville and grad school, this small book yanked me between deep concentration--struggling to understand the difference between existentialism and essentialism--and delicious, gut-wrenching, laughter.

The authors claim that philosophy and humor have similar constructions, "to confound our sense of the way things are ... and ferret out hidden, often uncomfortable truths about life."

Paraphrasing a discussion on Essentialism illustrates how Cathcart and Klein weave their magic on the subject of the structure of reality:

What makes things the way they are? Aristotle's distinction, according to the authors, was that essential properties are those without which a thing wouldn't be what it is, and accidental properties are those that determine how a thing is, but not what a thing is.

Follow that? I didn't either, but the following joke illustrates the essential/accidental distinction:

When Thompson hit seventy, he decided to change his lifestyle completely so that he could live longer. He went on a strict diet, jogged, swam, and took sunbaths. In three months he lost thirty pounds, reduced his waist by six inches, and expanded his chest by five inches.

Svelte and tan, he stopped for a sporty haircut. While leaving the barbershop, he was hit by a bus.

As he lay dying, he cried out, "God, how could you do this to me?"

And a voice from the heavens responded, "To tell you the truth, Thompson, I didn't recognize you."

Thompson changed accidental properties, but not essential properties. Though he was still dead.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Tal Ben-Shahar, psychologist, author of Happier, and popular Harvard University lecturer, offers six tips for being happier.

Six Happiness Tips drawn from the advice of Tal Ben-Shahar

1. Give yourself permission to be human. Accept your emotions as natural responses to your situation. Allow yourself to be "with" the emotions for a time before moving on.

2. Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Happiness results when we are engaged in both pleasurable activities and those which are aligned with purpose. Consciously select activities with pleasure and meaning.

3. Keep in mind that happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our status or the state of our bank account.

4. Simplify! The popular image of a multi-tasking, constantly on-the-go, whirlwind person with a big smile on her face is just that, an image. The more complex our lives become, the more difficult it is to enjoy each moment.

5. Remember the mind-body connection. A healthy body is a strong foundation for mental well being.

6. Express gratitude, whenever possible. Want what you have. Savor the positives in your life, rather than dwelling on the negatives.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Tal Ben Shahar

What's the most popular class at Harvard? If you guessed a business class or even a Freshman introductory English or Economics class you'd be wrong. The most popular class at Harvard is Tal Ben Shahar's Positive Psychology class. Shahar is essentially teaching Harvard students how to be happier.

Learning to be happier at Harvard? You might think anyone rich enough and smart enough to go to Harvard would already be happy. You also might think that upon graduation with six figure job offers, students would already be happy. But that's not true.

The Money-Happiness Myth

What many know by common sense, what lottery winners learn by experience, and what psychological research proves, is that people who have a lot of money aren't any happier than the rest of us.

Per capita wealth in the Western nations is higher than it has ever been. So are rates of depression. Even students have higher rates of depression.

So they flock to Shahar's classes by the hundreds, over 800 students took his Positive Psychology class last year. I've just finished his latest book, Happier, and will be writing the review in the next few days.

Wouldn't you love to ask a modern-day happiness expert a burning question about how to be happier? Perhaps you can. I'm working to arrange an interview with Shahar and I'd love to include your question.

Submit your happiness question here. I can't promise to use it, nor that Shahar will answer it, but I will promise to do my best at both. Meanwhile, listen or watch one of Shahar's lectures.

For a preview, read Positive Psychology and Happiness

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Prolific Psychology Feature Writer Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen recently blogged about the distinction between knowledge and wisdom. That reminded me of a saying that goes something like, "wisdom is knowledge expressed."

Laurie muses on situations where she doesn't apply her knowledge. We all do that don't we? But why? Why don't we "do what's good for us?" Why over-eat when we know that we'll be uncomfortable later on? Why stay up late watching a movie when we know how it ends and we suspect that we'll deeply regret it when the alarm goes off at 6 am tomorrow?

Why indeed. Psychologists tell us, and common sense reinforces it, that we repeat behaviors because the benefit now is greater than the pain will be later. They also tell us to substitute a healthier benefit for the unhealthy benefit. Instead of eating a bowl of ice cream for a snack, substitute a piece of fruit.

Yeah, right. I love fruit, but sometimes nothing satisfies like a bowl of ice cream.

Still, for those unhealthy behaviors that can be harmful to health and longevity, we're best served by expressing knowledge, i.e. being wise. James Prochaska's Changing for Good is a great resource for research-proven ways to break those bad habits.

Now that we have the knowledge, it's time to show some wisdom.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

While some of us complain about having to walk 50 yards across a shopping mall parking lot, others voluntarily set off on 2,000 to 3,000 mile hikes across the USA. It's surprising how many people do this and the variety of reasons.

An Associated Press article of 9/16/07 indicates that former pro football player George Martin plans to walk from the George Washington Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge. Martin is doing this to raise $10M for the heroic people who faced danger, but did their jobs in response to the tragedy of 9/11 and now face serious health issues.

Reading about Martin's quest caused me to reflect on an article I wrote about Phil Goddard and his cross country walk to raise money for cancer research in honor of his deceased wife. A quick search for cross country walkers turned up several more attempting that feat over the last year or so.

They include:

• Walkers for Peace, two teens walking from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. to promote Peace.
• Steve Vaught, a man walking from California to New York to lose weight. Starting at a hefty 410 pounds, Vaught arrived in New York 110 pounds lighter.
• Crosswalk America, a group of ministers walking from Phoenix, Arizona to Washington, D.C. to strengthen their Christian movement.
• A 75 year old, retired engineer walking from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. to call attention to environmental issues. Remarkably, he traversed the U.S. twenty years earlier, too.

Some of us give $10 to a cause and pat ourselves on the back. These folks gave the better part of a year of their lives.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Personal Development is a broad category, encompassing everything from the time management to life purpose. I'm not complaining, Personal Development's breadth gives me loads of potential articles.

But I've been thinking about how a person might feel overwhelmed as they initially enter the path of conscious personal development and growth. "Where do I start?" and "What's most important?" might be questions befuddling someone wanting to grow, but not knowing where to begin.

Consider how we plan any trip we take, for personal development is a life journey after all. We need to know two things: where we are and where we want to go, the destination. A third choice then follows: what path to take.

So the first fundamental of conscious personal development is a self assessment; where am I now? Areas to consider might be: strengths, experiences, enjoyable activities, and roles and responsibilities. Self reflection will provide many answers. Valid self assessments will also help.

Now the tough one: destination. This is one of those, "Who do I want to be when I grow up?" questions. More intense self reflection is called for here, as well as conscious focus on life purpose .

Finally, then, pick a path: self study, workshops, and personal coaching are possibilities.

Personal development alternatives and options are still plentiful and can be overwhelming, but returning to fundamentals by asking these three questions will help:

1. Where am I now?
2. What's my destination?
3. What path(s) shall I take?

Every option or possibility of personal growth and development will fall into one of these three areas.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Positive Psychology studies indicate that our relationships are very strong factors in our sense of happiness in life. So the recent survey of over 1200 young people by AP and MTV is not surprising.

Though the survey may not have been as scientifically valid as researcher's studies, it is important validating information. The results apply to all of us, further reinforcing what makes us happy and what we can do to increase our feelings of happiness.

The important results show:

• 54% of those responding cited various types of relationships as the one most important source of happiness.
• The impact of family and friends was very high; over 70% cited family or friendships as being a source of their happiness.
• Over 60% indicated feeling very or somewhat happy with life in general.

What Can We Take From The Survey?

Relationships are important. This is the single dominant determinant of happiness. To be happy, work on valuing and improving relationships, including relationship with self.

We are naturally inclined to be happy. Unhappiness is normally a temporary state of being. We are happy beings. We deserve to be happy. We can overcome temporary bouts of unhappiness.

Related Articles:

5 Positive Psychology Exercises

Top Ten Ways to Cheer Up

Good Relationships and Awareness

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Happiness is something we all strive for. Once our basic human needs of food, clothing, shelter, and safety are met, the remaining human needs, as characterized by Maslow's Hierarchy, are all happiness related.

What is Happiness?

Defined as "a state of well being and contentment" (Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition), happiness is subjective, we know it when we feel it and we know it when it's absent.

Other Happiness Definitions

Aristotle:

"Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence," and "Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities."

Positive Psychologists Robert Biswas-Diener and Ben Dean (Positive Psychology Coaching, Wiley and Sons, 2007):

"Happiness is the experience of frequent, mildly pleasant emotions, the relative absence of unpleasant feelings, and a general feeling of satisfaction with one's life."

Kids: In a survey by AP and MTV of kids between ages 13 and 24, spending time with family was the top answer. A typical description comes from Stacy Rosales, 23, a recent college graduate, who calls it "just a general stress-free feeling where I'm not really worried about anything."

What Makes You Happy?

How do you define happiness? Do you have a favorite happiness saying or definition? What's your favorite way to cheer up when you're not happy? Share these in this discussion.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

An organization named The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love has the mission to scientifically study the benefits of unlimited love on those who give and receive it. Now you might think an organization with this name would be located in San Fransisco, or at least in California.

But you'd be wrong. Would you believe Cleveland, Ohio? Not only is it located in Cleveland, but it is essentially located within Case Western Reserve as it's president, Stephen Post, is a faculty member there. Case is historically a scientific and engineering institution, so it's surprising to see the "soft" science of love quartered there.

What is Ultimate Love?

The Institute's website offers the following definition of unlimited love:

"The essence of love is to affectively affirm as well as to unselfishly delight in the well-being of others, and to engage in acts of care and service on their behalf; unlimited love extends this love to all others without exception, in an enduring and constant way. Widely considered the highest form of virtue, unlimited love is often deemed a Creative Presence underlying and integral to all of reality: participation in unlimited love constitutes the fullest experience of spirituality."

Science and Spirituality

The Institute is yet another example of science bringing its methodologies and experience to the "softer" side of humanity. The growth and development of Positive Psychology is another. Each initiative of this sort serves to bring us to a greater understanding of what it means to be human: the totality of mind, body, and soul.

I applaud the Institute's mission and research projects, the partial results of which are in this article.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Is life tough? Or is it easy? Is life a constant battle, a struggle for survival and happiness, or an overall pleasant experience with some ups and downs?

Why do some people have it hard, while for others it seems so easy? Karma? Attraction? Choices?

In the unlikely event your life is easier, more pleasant and satisfying than you'd like, notice my recent article capsuling ten top ways to turn a life from easy to difficult, from satisfying to struggling. This tonque in cheek list may seem insensitive, especially to those suffering a recent loss of a loved one or a difficult personal situation. My intent is not to diminish life's difficulties, nor to blame victims for their situations.

For most of us, the choices we make result in the life we experience. Listing the top ten ways to make life difficult is my way of pointing out options we each have. Some do, indeed, seem to (subconsciously) create difficult lives.

If you crave an easier life, do the opposite of each of the top ten. Or watch for later articles that focus on the positive steps we can take for a more pleasant life.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Cheering up is a matter of taking one small step at a time. Make that first step a healthy snack. Some favorites of mine are:

• Chocolate, dark chocolate is healthiest, but milk chocolate tastes better.
• Wine.
• Fresh strawberries.
• Coffee, a fresh-brewed cup at home or the Hazlenut at Panera Bakery.
• Spiced tea, I like Tazo spiced chai tea.
• Any in-season, bright colored, fresh fruit.
• Ice cream; I know, not very healthy, but very good.
• Pizza.
• Cold beer, skip the high fat munchies and go with nuts or low fat cheese.

Don't wolf down your snack. Savor it. Breath in the aromas. Take a bite or drink and hold it briefly in your mouth, tasting the flavors. Notice that your spirits rise with each bite or drink.

There are more cheering up articles under Mind and Attitude in the index.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The comic strip, Dilbert, shows us bosses at their worst. What makes Dilbert so funny is that we can see our bosses and our co-workers in many of the comically depicted cartoons.

The Gallup semiannual employee engagement index of 2005 indicated that only 3 of 10 of workers are highly committed, industrious, and passionate about what they do (The Orange County Register, July, 2007).

Seventy percent of workers aren't contributing their best effort!

One contributor to poor morale and motivation is the boss. Not the only contributor, by any means. We each are responsible for our choices, whether to be productive, cooperative, and helpful, or disruptive and marginally involved.

But if you have a real-life boss reminiscent of Dilbert's pointy hair boss, you know that being a productive, contributing employee can be an experience in continuous frustration.

What can you do? As in all situations, you have three choices:

• Fully Accept the Situation,
• Work to Change the Situation, or
• Separate Yourself From It.

Many people choose the latter, but only separate themselves mentally. Physically, they keep showing up and drawing a paycheck.

If going mentally numb isn't for you, there are ways to change the situation while growing personally and professionally. Stop depending on the boss for the leadership, feedback, and expertise that isn't forthcoming. Take responsibility and view your work as self employment. Do your best work, take advantage of every opportunity to grow professionally, and make the boss a better manager than he or she is by excelling.

Your boss will love you for it and reward you. Just make sure you find ways to let upper management know that the good work, the great ideas, and your professional status is due to your own efforts.

Capitalizing on your strengths will give you a strong start.

Be sure to get the utmost out of your efforts with sound goal setting strategies.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Are you biased, bigoted, judgmental, and distrusting of people not like you?

I suspect most of you voice a vigorous and immediate no! to that question.

If you're serious about personal development, you've probably given much thought to your beliefs. Perhaps you'll admit you grew up with family and neighborhood beliefs about "them." But you probably feel that you've moved on to broader acceptance of other people, especially those who look, act, or believe differently.

Subconscious Prejudice

Don't be so sure. A research project dubbed Project Implicit finds that most of us have implicit and deeply held beliefs which bias us in favor of or against certain groups.

Social psychologists Mahzarin Banaji of the Harvard faculty and the University of Washington's Anthony Greenwald joined with Brian Nosek of the University of Virginia to establish Project Implicit on the Web in 1998. Since then visitors have completed 3 million demonstration tests that measure the implicit bias people have at a subconscious level.

Take a Self Assessment

To measure the presence or absence of your own subconscious prejudice, take a demonstration run on the Implicit Association Test. There are a variety of demonstrations, measuring implicit bias toward/against other races, genders, career associations, and more. Pick one or two.

I predict you'll find the results eye-opening, disturbing, and frustrating. I did.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

This last stanza of the poem, The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost, is often quoted as an inspiration for independent thought and action, i.e. take the road less traveled.

In this sense, Frost is misinterpreted. In earlier stanzas he writes:

Then took the other, as just as fair

and later:

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same.

Frost is saying that both paths appeared identical. Just as many choices in life appear equal and we are unable to experience both, it is only after taking one that we may rationalize that we took the best.

See Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) for an explanation of cognitive dissonance, the phenomenon that explains this.

Interesting Trivia:

Frost's first published collection did not appear until he was almost forty years old.

Frost read his poem, The Gift Outright, at President John F. Kennedy's 1961 inauguration ceremony.

For more mind sharpening material see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Sources:

The Intellectual Devotional, David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim

On The Road Less Taken, by William Pritchard

Posted by Jerry Lopper

I read lots of non-fiction books for personal development. I also read lots of mystery stories for entertainment, and just finished Harlan Coben's The Woods. The blurbs on many books include the tribute that "you won't want to put this book down." I seldom find that to be the case, but The Woods did that to me. Coben's best book yet, in my mind, and I literally couldn't put it down without effort.

But this isn't a review article. Sandy Mitchell already reviewed The Woods for Suite101.

A strong sub-theme in Coben's latest book is the extent to which a parent will go to protect a child. Although the parents in this story may seem to have gone to great extremes to protect their offspring, I often see similar behaviors reported in the newspapers.

I can recall right off the top of my head, a mother helping her son, who was accused of murder, escape from prison. Another, a mother helped her son dispose of the body of someone he killed. These are extremes, but they call our attention to this very strong protective instinct a parent has for a child.

What's that got to do with personal development? Maybe this...The next time we're inclined to criticize a parent's shortcomings, or blame a parent for our current personal situation, we should consider the times this same parent showed up to protect us.

Yes, there are the other extremes--parents who abandon and abuse--but for the most part parents are doing their very best at a difficult job. Sometimes we forget that.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Common sense prevailed today when District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff ruled against Administrative Judge Roy Pearson's $54 million lawsuit against his cleaners. The cleaners, owned by a Korean immigrant family named Chung, were sued after Pearson claimed they lost his suit pants.

Pearson claimed the Chungs failed to live up to the Satisfaction Guaranteed sign in their store.

Judge Bartnoff ruled that, "A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands."

For more on the tendency for people to hold on to an unreasonable demand or to continue justifying a big mistake, see this article.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The new and growing field of positive psychology offers much good advice with loads of tips to help your pursuit of happiness and the good life.

Positive psychology researcher Christopher Peterson, reports in his book, A Primer in Positive Psychology, that people who savor the good times are happier, more satisfied in general with life, more optimistic, and less depressed than those who don't savor.

Peterson describes savoring as "...our awareness of pleasure and our deliberate attempt to make it last."

Good Life Tip:

The next time something good or pleasurable happens to you, try these savoring strategies to increase and lengthen the joy of the event:

• Share the experience with others.
• Build memories of the experience with mental photographs or physical souvenirs.
• Congratulate yourself, reinforcing how pleased and impressed you are with the experience.
• Sharpen your perception of the experience by focusing on specific elements or highlights.
• Absorb it; get totally immersed in the pleasure of the experience, shutting out other thoughts.

For more Positive Psychology material see Positive Psychology Tips and Tools in the index.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

I caught up (electronically) with Dr. Brad Swift, author of Life on Purpose, Six Passages to an Inspired Life. Supplementing my recent review of Life on Purpose, I offered personal observations from my coaching practice and sought Dr. Swifts viewpoint. Following is our interchange:

Jerry: In my work coaching people toward clarifying life purpose, I've come to believe that many people avoid the topic because of fear that they'll find out their lives are wrong--wrong job, wrong spouse, wrong beliefs, etc.

Dr. Swift: Great questions, Jerry. I believe that what you are describing — the fear that their lives may be wrong — is one of the ‘moves’ of what we describe in the Life On Purpose Process as the Inherited Purpose, which is formed during a person’s childhood years during times when they felt threatened or unsafe and the meaning they ascribed to this occurrences. Once the Inherited Purpose is formed, usually by mid teenage years, it then becomes a primary shaping force in the person’s life especially during time when they feel threatened or unsafe. And you’re right, one of the ways this fear can play out is avoiding the whole question of what’s my purpose in life. So, many people stay frenetically bus as a way to avoide the question. After all, the Inherited Purpose has no interest us becoming clear what our true purpose it.

Jerry: How would you advise someone who has an interest in clarifying life purpose but the conflicting fear that purpose understanding will create terrible upheaval in their life?

Dr. Swift: So, I would start with the person by making this distinction with them. That what is keeping them from clarifying and living on purpose is simply a lie that is based in fear that they’ve been telling themselves so long that they’ve come to believe it to be true. And in the process, it sabotages their every effort to live on purpose starting with preventing them from doing the inner work to clarify their true purpose.

In addition to Dr. Swift's response, I encourage those serious about personal development to spend some time reflecting on life purpose. If you find yourself "too busy," consider that maybe your ego, or subconscious, is using that to divert your attention from the important life task of facing life purpose.

Related Articles:

Life Purpose Begins With a Eulogy

Meditation Clarifies Purpose

More Related Articles Under Self Awareness in the Index.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain each day by working an online crossword or Sudoku puzzle. Puzzles are great for mental stimulation and exercising your mind. Mind and mental exercises help to keep your brain young.

USAToday offers a variety of crossword and Sudoku puzzle combinations, ranging from very easy to very difficult, all available on their Internet site. With no fees, nothing to download, and no registration required, mental stimulation is just a click away.

Most puzzles include a timer, providing a bit of self-competition.

A Brief Sampling of available Puzzles:

• Word Roundup - Find a target number of words in specific categories from among a jumble of letters. A timer paces your progress.
• Up & Down Words - The word answering one question provides a clue to the next question.
• Quick Cross - Very short, four by four crossword puzzle with a nice user interface. In addition to the timer, it tracks the number of moves you make.
• Daily Crossword - A new theme crossword each day. Work against the clock for a bit of self-competition.
• Mini Sudoku - A small version of Sudoku using the numbers 1 through 6. Many options, including a timer.
• Sudoku - The standard 9 digit version, with many options.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain each day by working an online jigsaw puzzle. Jigsaw puzzles are great for mental stimulation and exercising your mind. Mind and mental exercises help to keep your brain young.

Jigzone.com offers thousands of puzzle combinations, ranging from very easy to very difficult, all available on the internet site with nothing to download.

There's no charge and no need to register unless you want to use some of the advanced features.

Puzzles range from 6 pieces to 247 pieces, with new puzzles every day. There's a puzzle of the day feature that will email you the daily link so you needn't remember to visit the site. When you receive the email you can click the link to work the puzzle, save it for later, or delete it if you don't have the time or inclination that day. The puzzle of the day is also available via an RSS link if you prefer to keep up to date that way.

You can embed many of the puzzles in your own web page or blog. You can even upload your own photos and turn them into puzzles to share with friends and family.

Advanced Features:

By creating an account at jigzone.com, you can access advanced features of the site, including the ability to upload your own photos as puzzles, competing with buddies, and configuring the daily puzzle.

Disadvantage:

As of now, you cannot save a partially completed puzzle and return later to complete it.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with these word-phrase mind puzzles. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

Find the hidden phrase in these three exercises drawn from The Big Book of Mind-Bending Puzzles, Terry Stickels

a) LOOK U LEAP

b) i e i e i e c e i e i e i

c) THOUDEEPGHT

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Several excellent mind exercise books.

Answers to these puzzles here:

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) describes the characteristic we all have of self justifying our mistakes and foolish decisions. It's called cognitive dissonance in psychological terms and there's no better example of it than the story of the Washington, D.C. judge who is suing his cleaners over a pair of lost trousers. The judge is suing for $67 million!

According to an article on NBC5.com, May 2, 2007, the cleaners lost a pair of suit trousers. They found the trousers a week later and returned them, but the judge maintains the trousers aren't his. The cleaners initially offered $3,000, three times the entire suit's value, as settlement, but the judge rejected it. Subsequently, a settlement offer of $12,000 was offered; this was also rejected. The $67 million trouser lawsuit goes to trial in June.

Cognitive dissonance is the stress we feel when we attempt to hold two conflicting thoughts or beliefs. I feel certain the judge views himself as a fair and honest person. But now he's suing a mom & pop cleaning establishment owned by two Korean immigrants for $67 million. That doesn't seem like the action of a fair and honest person, especially since the cleaners offered a settlement of twelve times the trouser's value.

The way we reduce the stress of cognitive dissonance is by self justifying and rationalizing our behaviors. No longer claiming the trousers are the issue, the judge is now claiming the cleaners committed fraud by advertising "Satisfaction Guaranteed" and "Same Day Service."

This seems to be a classic demonstration of self justification and rationalization in response to cognitive dissonance.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The new and growing field of positive psychology offers much good advice with loads of tips to help your pursuit of happiness and the good life.

Research indicates that human minds at the unconscious level gravitate toward the positive, while at the conscious level we tend to focus on the negative. These findings are summarized in A Primer in Positive Psychology by Christopher Peterson.

The Subconscious

The unconscious tendency to the positive is often called the Pollyanna Principle, after the early 1900's book, Pollyanna, about a young girl who fervently held an optimistic and grateful outlook on life.

Researchers Margaret Matlin and David Stang, in 1978, provided substantial evidence of the Pollyanna Principle. Among their findings:

• People see out positive stimuli and avoid negative stimuli.
• People take longer to recognize what is unpleasant or threatening than what is pleasant and safe.
• People report they encounter positive stimuli more frequently than they actually do.

The Conscious

However, at a conscious, thinking level, people tend to focus on the negative. Perhaps this is a survival mechanism, helping us pick out and focus upon things in the environment that are potentially harmful to us.

Is positive thinking being a Pollyanna? Discover the difference.

For more Positive Psychology material see Positive Psychology Tips and Tools in the index.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The May/June issue of AARP The Magazine contains a summary of six habits we can each utilize to improve our immunity systems and realize greater health. All are backed by research studies that, at the least, indicate these are helpful in maintaining and improving health.

• Laugh - As the Readers Digest long proclaimed, laughter is the best medicine. Think of comedians Bob Hope and George Burns, both of whom remained active well into their 90's. Laughter releases endorphins, which are believed to boost immunity, AARP quotes Michael Irwin, M.D. of UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine. Irwin also indicates that laughter reduces stress hormones, reason enough to shop in the comedy section of your video store.
• Adopt a Dog - Simply petting a dog is shown to reduce blood pressure, according to Alan Beck, Sc.D., director of the Center for the Human-Animal Bond at Purdue University. Add in the exercise you get with your dog's daily walk, and a pet is a good investment in ongoing health.
• A Good Night's Sleep - Sleep quality is an indicator of health according to Mary Amanda Dew, Ph.D., at the University of Pittsburgh. Poor sleep increases hunger, raising the odds of obesity and related diseases.
• Mental Stimulation - Read, work puzzles, take a class, or learn a new skill. Mental exercise can delay the onset of age related dementia. Education, including self study, correlates with better health.
• Become Ingredient Savvy - Pay attention to the ingredients in the food products you purchase. A good rule of thumb is to eat products with a small number of ingredients. The additives to many processed products are high in sugar and salt.
• Meditate - Studies show that meditation correlates with improved immunity and lower stress.

For more related articles see the topical index.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Exercise:

Replace the ? with the correct answer in this number sequence:

12, 30, 75, ?

Solution Here.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this vocabulary mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index

Exercise:

1. Two of the following words are most opposite in meaning. Which two words are they?

irrational, pleasing, privy, wise, perceptible

2. Two of the following words are closest in meaning.

Which two words are they?

change, stereotype, delete, pigeonhole, identify

Answer Here

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The future you can imagine will depend upon your past experiences.

"Using brain imaging, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that the human mind taps into the same parts of the brain while imagining the future as it does when recollecting the past. This means that the brain apparently predicts the course of future events by imagining them taking place much like similar past ones," reports David Biello in a January 02, 2007 article for ScientificAmerican.com.

This explains why it is difficult for us to see ourselves achieving goals and life situations much different from those we've previously experienced. Most of us are not very good at seeing futures that depart very much from our pasts.

This physical limitation of our brains reinforces the value of depending on intuition and connection to Universal energy to make significant strides in life development. Our own logical, analytical systems are limited by past experience.

For more mind sharpening material see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Exercise:

Replace the ? with the correct answer in this number sequence:

79, 88, 96, 102, 104, ?

Solution Here

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Vocabulary Exercise:

1. Which of the words below is opposite to PLAUSIBLE?

(glib, incredible, banal, hostile)

2. Which of the following two words are closest in meaning?

(incision, nostrum, vignette, panacea, progeny)

Answer Here

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The new and growing field of positive psychology offers much good advice and tips to help you be happier, more fulfilled, and enjoy a good life.

For more Positive Psychology material see Positive Psychology Tips and Tools in the index.

Good Life Tip:

Launch your pursuit of happiness and the good life by writing your own legacy. Think ahead to your final days of life and visualize how you want to be remembered by those closest to you. What personal strengths might they recall? What accomplishments will they remember?

What do you want your closest relationships to be able to truthfully say about you? Be honest and sincere about what you want at this time.

This is your legacy. What you leave behind is how you are remembered and the ways you impacted the lives of others. By crafting your own legacy well before your life ends you create a positive plan for your life.

Research shows that a life with purpose is a meaningful and fulfilling life. Those with an overall mission and purpose are able to transcend the negative events life presents. Your self-crafted legacy will provide the purpose and meaning in life that characterizes the good life.

Related Article: Life Purpose Begins With a Eulogy

Source: A Primer in Positive Psychology, Christopher Peterson.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Exercise:

Replace the ? with the correct answer in this number sequence:

16, 17, 21, 30, 46, ?

Solution Here

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Exercise:

Replace the ? with the correct answer in this number sequence:

100, 80, 70, 65, ?

Source: Unknown

Solution Here

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Galileo Galilei was born in 1565 near Pisa, Italy. Galileo made dramatic contributions to science and has been called the father of modern physics, the father of modern astronomy, and the father of modern science.

He invented the compound microscope, discovered Jupiter's moons, designed the first pendulum clock, and invented a telescope that could penetrate deeply into space. He laid the groundwork for the modern scientific method of experimentation, and he inspired Newton's development of the laws of motion with his concept of inertia.

Galileo died, however, under house arrest. He defended Copernicus's theory that the planets revolved around the sun, in opposition to the Roman Catholic Church which maintained that the sun and planets revolved around the earth. For this he was found guilty of defying church doctrine and was sentenced to life in prison. His sentence was commuted to house arrest, where he died eight years later.

In 1992, Pope John Paul II formed a commission that recognized Galileo's bravery and formally apologized for his punishment.

Interesting Trivia:

Galileo was more than the father of science. He fathered two daughters out of wedlock. Both later became nuns.

Galileo's father discouraged him from studying mathematics, wanting him to be a doctor instead.

For more mind sharpening material see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Source: The Intellectual Devotional, David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The new and growing field of positive psychology offers much good advice and tips to help you be happier, more fulfilled, and enjoy a good life.

For more Positive Psychology material see Positive Psychology Tips and Tools in the index.

Good Life Tip:

Consider three views or stances you might hold toward your work:

• a. My work is a job, it pays the bills.
• b. My work is a career, a stepping stone to future positions.
• c. My work is my calling, I was meant to do this work.

Research shows that those for whom work is a calling have a strong sense of overall life fulfillment.

What can you do for greater fulfillment if your primary arena of work, whether a paid position or an unpaid volunteer, which includes homemaker, feels more like a job or career than a calling?

Look for areas within your work that give you great satisfaction.

Many of the demands on parents and homemakers lack inherent avenues for self-satisfaction and appreciation. Yet there are also opportunities to recognize meaningful undercurrents, such as imparting strong values on young children or providing a clean and healthy environment for the family.

Likewise, within routine jobs that one holds simply for the income needed, there are also opportunities to recognize meaningful and fulfilling components of the job.

Obviously, the best solution is to find work which brings purpose and meaning to your life. Finding work that feels like your calling brings the greatest opportunity for life fulfillment and satisfaction.

Source: Positive Psychology and Coaching class notes, Fall, 2006, P.A. Linley

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Exercise:

Replace the ? with the correct answer in this number sequence:

1, 3, 5,15, 17, ?

Source: Unknown

Solution Here

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Exercise:

Replace the ? with the correct answer in this number sequence:

25, 5, 10, 2, 7, ?

Source: Unknown

Solution Here

Posted by Jerry Lopper

We tend to picture Albert Einstein as an elderly, distinguished looking, gray haired scholar. But Einstein produced his greatest contributions when he was a twenty-six year old patent office clerk.

He wrote four papers in 1905 while working at the patent office. His first paper proposed that light was composed of small packets of energy, called energy quanta. We now call these packets protons. Einstein won his Nobel Prize for his work on light.

His second paper dealt with the topic of atoms, heretofore a convenient theoretical notion, but unproven. His empirical evidence, based on the movement of particles suspended in liquid, proved that matter must have an underlying structure, now explained by the concept of the atom.

His third and fourth papers explained the relationship between matter and energy, his famous energy (e) = mass (m) times the speed of light (c) squared, the theory of relativity.

Interesting Trivia:

Einstein began his work on the theory of relativity when he was sixteen years old.

Einstein was asked to serve as Israel's second president, but declined saying he lacked people skills.

For more mind sharpening material see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Source: The Intellectual Devotional, David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The new and growing field of positive psychology offers much good advice with loads of tips to help your pursuit of happiness and the good life.

For more Positive Psychology material see Positive Psychology Tips and Tools in the index.

Good Life Tip: Focusing on three good things that occurred each day is proven to increase levels of happiness and decrease feelings of depression.

To experience this for yourself, each night before sleep recall three good things that happened that day. Do this for one week. A good thing need not be something dramatic, just something positive. In addition to recalling each good thing, review what might have caused that good event.

Researchers doing this study found that positive effects continued for up to six months, primarily because the study participants found three good things so satisfying they continued it on their own beyond the study period.

Source: A Primer in Positive Psychology, Christopher Peterson

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Exercise:

Replace the ? with the correct answer in this number sequence:

18, 9, 10, 2, 4, -3, ?

Source: Unknown

Solution Here

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Exercise:

Replace the ? with the correct answer in this number sequence:

10, 11, 12.1, 13.31, ?

Source: Unknown

Solution Here

Posted by Jerry Lopper

All living organisms, plants, animals, insects, and humans contain carbon. Carbon is normally a very stable molecule, but natural cosmic radiation creates a small amount of an isotope of carbon, carbon-14, which is not stable. Both the stable form of carbon (carbon-12) and carbon-14 are present in all living organisms.

Though carbon-14 naturally decays because of its instability, a living organism replenishes it through feeding. When an organism dies, however, the carbon-14 is no longer replenished and continues to decay. The decay rate of carbon-14 is known and constant; it will be reduced by one-half in 5,730 years.

Scientists use this known decay rate to measure the time at which an organism ceased to live by measuring the ratio of carbon-14 to stable carbon (carbon-12) still present. If a dead object has half the ratio as a similar live object, the object must have died 5,370 years ago.

Interesting Trivia:

Radioactive uranium has a half-life of 704 million years.

Potassium-40, naturally found in the human body, has a half-life of 1.3 billion years.

For more mind sharpening material see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Source: The Intellectual Devotional, David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The new and growing field of positive psychology offers much good advice and tips to help you be happier, more fulfilled, and enjoy a good life.

For more Positive Psychology material see Positive Psychology Tips and Tools in the index.

Good Life Tip:

Researchers find there is a strong correlation between happiness and using one's strengths in daily activities. Use one or more of these techniques to clarify your top strengths:

• Make a list of those things you do really well. Combine and narrow the list until you have only five or six of your top strengths. These are qualities that you have used in moments of greatest pride and satisfaction.
• Ask people who are close to you what qualities they most admire about you.
• Fill out the VIA questionnaire here which provides an assessment of your top five strengths. Compare these results with the above methods and look for consistent areas. Discard any that you disagree with.

Narrow your list of strengths from the above sources to the five or six that feel like they are really you at your best.

• List these on an index card or page posted where you can see it each day.
• Examine each day's responsibilities for ways to use your strengths.
• Look for new ways to use your strengths each day.

As you use your strengths, reflect on how you feel. I predict you'll feel satisfied and fulfilled. The tasks you complete using strengths may even be fun.

Source: Positive Psychology and Coaching, P.A. Linley, class notes, Fall 2006

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Exercise:

Replace the ? with the correct answer in this number sequence:

85, 95, 91, 89, 97, 83, 103, ?

Source: Unknown

Solution Here

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Exercise:

Replace the ? with the correct answer in this number sequence:

0, 1, -1, 0, -2, ?

Source: Unknown

Solution Here

Posted by Jerry Lopper

How strong is your conscience? Would conscience keep you from knowingly doing harm to another person? Most would answer yes. But the famous Milgram Studies demonstrated that people will act in opposition to conscience if directed to do so by an authority figure.

Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, performed a series of experiments with disturbing results. The subjects of the experiments were told to act as teachers in a learning and punishment experiment on others they (the real subjects) thought were the subjects of the experiment.

The fake subjects were actually actors. When the fake subjects made an error, the "teachers" were instructed to administer a shock. With each additional error the shock level was to be increased, ranging from "slight shock" to "danger: severe shock."

The fake subjects (actors) feigned pain when "shocked," but at the encouragement of an authority figure, someone dressed in a white coat and introduced as a doctor, the "teachers" continued to administer shocks, often up to the maximum danger level.

Though the academic community was appalled at Milgram's methods and his gruesome findings, these studies seem to explain the behavior of ordinary people who participate in atrocities such as the Holocaust, the My Lai massacre, and the genocide in Rwanda under the direction of authority.

For more mind sharpening material see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Source: The Intellectual Devotional, David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The new and growing field of positive psychology offers much good advice with loads of tips to help your pursuit of happiness and the good life.

For more Positive Psychology material see Positive Psychology Tips and Tools in the index.

Good Life Tip:

Researchers find a correlation between an individual's level of happiness and one's feelings of mastery over the environment.

Consider your personal space and take control of it, arranging it to your satisfaction. Whether a small cubicle at work or an entire home, your space is yours to arrange, decorate, and maintain as you please. Take pleasure in this opportunity.

Though you have little control over much of your environment, exercise control over the part you can. This might be concientiously recycling as your contribution to preserving mother earth. Though a small contribution, it is a contribution and exercising it in accordance with your beliefs is satisfying.

Your environment includes more than your physical space. It also includes your mental space. Recognizing the choices you have over what you think about is empowering and satisfying.

Source: Positive Psychology and Coaching P.A. Linley, Class Notes, Fall 2006

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Exercise:

Replace the ? with the correct answer in this number sequence:

0, 4, 4, 8, 12, 20, ?

Source: Unknown

Solution Here

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The surface of the sun is extremely hot at 6,000 degrees Celsius. But the surface is non-uniform, with differences along the surface of as much as 2,000 degrees Celsius. These areas are called sunspots. They are darker than the neighboring surfaces because they are cooler.

Sunspots usually occur in pairs with each carrying an opposite magnetic charge to the other. The area between sunspot pairs often generates huge explosions we call solar flares. The energy released in solar flares massive; as much as a billion tons of TNT.

Solar flares bombard the earth with powerful x-ray and magnetic radiation, at times disrupting power and communication systems.

Interesting Trivia:

Sunspots and solar flares wax and wan in an eleven year cycle. The latest peak year was 2000.

Galileo used sunspots to track the rotation of the sun, finding that the sun's equator takes roughly twenty-five days to fully rotate, while the poles take thirty-five days for a full rotation. The sun is primarily gas, so the surfaces rotate at different speeds.

For more mind sharpening material see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Source: The Intellectual Devotional, David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The new and growing field of positive psychology offers much good advice with loads of tips to help your pursuit of happiness and the good life.

For more Positive Psychology material see Positive Psychology Tips and Tools in the index.

Good Life Tip:

The greater your self acceptance the greater your level of happiness. We tend to focus upon our shortcomings, but this negative focus can be depressing if we dwell on shortcomings excessively.

Instead, enhance awareness of your positive qualities.

Make a list of your strengths. Reinforce your strength awareness with a widely used assessment, the VIA questionnaire. It's free and part of a huge Positive Psychology research study.

Reflect upon your values. What values do you hold highest? Your values provide your strengths of character and form the foundation for who you are.

Recall the positives people say about you. Resist the temptation to discount sincere compliments; instead, relish and relive them frequently.

Keep a folder handy of your strengths, your values, and compliments you treasure. When you feel down or blah, pull out the folder and read what you've written. You will feel better.

More Good Life Tips under Positive Psychology Tips and Tricks in the index.

Source: Positive Psychology and Coaching, P.A. Linley

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

For more mind related articles see Mind & Attitude in the index.

Exercise:

Examine the following series of numbers and replace the question mark with the correct number:

100, 92, 94, ?, 88, 80, 82, 74

Source: The Complete Book of Fun Maths, Philip Carter & Ken Russell

The Solution is here.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

Exercise:

Examine the following series of numbers and replace the question mark with the correct number:

1, 1, 2, 6, ?, 120, 720

Solution Here:

Source: The Complete Book of Fun Maths, Philip Carter & Ken Russell

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Earthquakes are primarily caused by movements of the earth's plates. The planet Earth's surface is in slow, but continual motion. Beneath our visible land and oceans are 25 to 50 mile-thick masses, called plates.

When these plates collide or rub up on each other the result is an earthquake. Earthquakes are fairly common. On average, there are two magnitude 2.0 or greater quakes each day.

Earthquake intensity is measured on the Richter scale, which is an exponential scale. Each whole number increase on the Richter is a ten-fold increase in intensity, so a magnitude 6 earthquake is ten times stronger than a magnitude 5. Although the scale does not have an upper boundary, a magnitude 9 is the strongest measured thus far.

Interesting Trivia: Charles Richter and Beno Gutenberg, two geologists at Caltech in California, jointly developed the earthquake magnitude measurement system. However, it became known as the Richter scale almost immediately despite Richter's modesty. He always referred to it as the Magnitude Scale.

Source: The Intellectual Devotional, David S.Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim and A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The new and growing field of positive psychology offers much good advice with loads of tips to help your pursuit of happiness and the good life.

Good Life Tip:

Studies show that personal growth and development is correlated with greater happiness . You can use that knowledge to overcome periods of mild depression.

Make a list of your accomplishments over the past twelve months. Briefly summarize what you accomplished and the positive traits or strengths you used in the process.

Reflect on how these accomplishments have contributed to your personal growth. As you consider current problems in your life, leverage your past accomplishments by applying your strengths to the problems you're trying to solve.

Source: Positive Psychology and Coaching, P.A. Linley

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number sequence mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

Exercise:

Replace the ? in the number series below

1, 3, 7, 15, 31, ?

Solution Here:

Source: Unknown

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

Exercise:

Examine the following series of numbers and replace the question mark with the correct number:

1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 13, ?

Solution Here:

Source: The Complete Book of Fun Maths, Philip Carter & Ken Russell

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Dan Brown's book, The Da Vinci Code brought Leonardo da Vinci's name into the public spotlight. Well known for his paintings, Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, da Vinci also excelled in sculpture, architecture, music, engineering, and the physical sciences.

Born in Vinci, Italy in 1452, he was an illegitimate child who referred to himself only as Leonardo. da Vinci is not his last name, it refers to his birth city. Leonardo da Vinci means Leonardo from Vinci.

Interesting Trivia: A contemporary artist, Raphael, reportedly used da Vinci's likeness for the figure of Plato in the Vatican fresco, The School of Athens.

Source: The Intellectual Devotional, David S.Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Is life a series of tragedies, at best broken up by short periods of pleasure or the absence of pain? Or is it naturally an experience of happiness and pleasure, disrupted at times by unfortunate events?

Research shows that it is in your best interest to believe or tend to believe the latter, that life is naturally a positive experience.

When compared to un-happy people, happy people almost always are more successful at school and at work, have better relationships, and even live longer. Happy people are also more flexible and creative.

Freud, the psychologist who has been a significant influence on the practice of psychology, believed in the tragic nature of life and that anything positive or happy is a defense mechanism, at best a sublimation and at worst a delusion. The research of Positive Psychology is proving Freud wrong on this count.

The Good Life, a life of well-being and happiness, though punctuated with negative events, is attainable by each of us by practicing ways of thinking and behaving that are available and easily implemented.

Source: A Primer in Positive Psychology, Christopher Peterson.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number sequence mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

Exercise:

Replace the ?'s in the number series below

10, 10, 11.5, 15, 13, 22.5, 14.5, ?, ?

Solution Here:

Source: Unknown

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

Exercise:

Examine the following series of numbers and replace the question mark with the correct number:

6, 18, ?, 60, 62, 186, 188

Solution Here:

Source: The Complete Book of Fun Maths, Philip Carter & Ken Russell

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Catch-22, Joseph Heller's 1961 novel of the same name, is still a popular and well known term, nearly fifty years later, referring to absurd rules and regulations resulting in no-win situations.

Set against the backdrop of World War II, Catch-22, takes it's name from an Air Force regulation stating that a soldier can be exempted from combat missions if he is deemed insane, but if he actually puts in a request for this exemption he is deemed sane enough to serve in the mission.

Interesting trivia: Heller's original title was Catch-18, but he changed to Catch-22 after Leon Uris's novel Mila 18 appeared earlier in 1961.

Source: The Intellectual Devotional, David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The new and growing field of positive psychology offers much good advice with loads of tips to help your pursuit of happiness and the good life.

Good Life Tip:

We all hear the expression "have a good day," probably many times each day. This is sometimes said as a sincere wish that a good day befalls us, but often it seems an automatic and insincere ending to a transaction. But what if we set out to create a good day for ourselves?

To do this, set up a journal or daily record and record your major activities each day for at least two weeks, preferably for a full month. At the end of each day, evaluate the "goodness" of that day on a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is one of the best days of your life, 5 is an average day, and 1 is one of the worst days of your life.

At the end of the two or four week period go back over your records and look for a correlation between good days, i.e. days you scored 6 or higher, and your activities for that day. Look for activities that are present in some form during each good day.

Now look for ways to include these activities in more of your days. In my case, a good day often includes completing one or more activities that I value, especially when I can see some result. Completing an article such as this is one such activity.

Even small activities can combine to provide that good day feeling, especially when I have started the day by listing them and I end the day with a list of items crossed off and completed.

Source: A Primer in Positive Psychology, Christopher Peterson

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number sequence mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

Exercise:

Replace the ? in the number series below

100, 99, 96.5, 92.5, ?

Solution Here:

Source: Unknown

Posted by Jerry Lopper

I challenge you to take a big step for yourself and someone you love. This Valentine's Day, commit to love unconditionally. Pick someone special, your spouse, significant other, child, parent, or friend. Tell that special person that your love for them is total, complete, and unconditional.

This may be difficult to do. We're used to expressing love with conditions. But true love does not encumber with conditions. So, if you need an example, try this:

I love you no matter what you do, what you say, or how you behave. I simply and totally love you. I hope that you love me, too, but that is not a condition. There are no conditions. I love you.

There. How does that feel?

If you can't bring yourself to speak it out loud or give it in a note, then write it privately and put the person's name at the top. You may be amazed by how this simple but powerful declaration changes both you and the relationship you have.

Related Articles:

The Ultimate Holiday Gift

What is Love?

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

Exercise:

Examine the following series of numbers and replace the question mark with the correct number:

100, 94.2, 88.4, 82.6, 76.8, ?

Solution Here:

Source: The Complete Book of Fun Maths, Philip Carter & Ken Russell

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Water has unusual physical characteristics. In solid form, ice, it is less dense than it's liquid form, which is why ice floats. It's ability to absorb and retain large amounts of heat explain why coastal towns experience moderate weather.

Water's surface tension is the result of a thin layer or skin of molecules on the surface that adhere strongly to each other. This characteristic is the result of water's physical arrangement of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.

Water-striders, small insects with relatively pad-like feet take advantage of water's surface tension to walk on water. Detergents work by lowering surface tension, enabling water to loosen dirt and grease.

Source: The Intellectual Devotional, David S.Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Gratitude is a wonderful feeling of thanks that, when expressed, brings positive emotions to both initiator and recipient. To experience this for yourself, think of everyone who has been kind and helpful to you, but have not heard your personal expression of thanks and gratitude. Consider parents, teachers, coaches, friends, and relatives; all those who might be "expected" to be kind and helpful because of the relationship or their job.

Write a gratitude letter to the person you pick, expressing your gratitude and why you are grateful in specific and concrete terms. If at all possible, deliver it personally and ask the person to read the letter in your presence. If personal delivery is not possible, mail, fax, or email the letter and follow up with a phone call.

In research studies, both initiator and recipient of the gratitude letter report positive outcomes. Those who are habitually grateful are found in studies to be happier than those who are not. Use your gratitude letter to reinforce the benefit of continual gratitude expression.

Source: A Primer in Positive Psychology, Christopher Peterson.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number sequence mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

Exercise:

Replace the ? in the number series below

1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 10, ?

Solution Here:

Source: Unknown

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young. Enter your answers in the Mind Exercise Answer discussion.

Puzzle:

Two golfers were re-hashing their scores after they both played a par 5 hole. Harry said, "If I had taken one shot less and you had taken one shot more we would have tied for the hole."

Jeff then countered, saying "Yes, and if I had taken one shot less and you had taken one shot more you would have taken twice as many shots as me."

How many shots did each take?

Source: The Complete Book of Fun Maths, Philip Carter & Ken Russell

Solution Here:

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The perception of pain, termed nociception, is essential to the survival of higher species. Children born with a rare congenital insensitivity to pain seldom survive past the age of twenty five.

The perception of pain, a reaction to physical or emotional stimulus, occurs in a complex network of the brain. Perceptions of intensity, duration, location, and type of pain occur in different areas of the brain's pain matrix.

The sensation of pain triggers feelings of distress. The distress we feel as a result of pain does not distinguish between physical or emotional causes; a broken heart or a broken arm may generate equivalent human distress.

Source: The Intellectual Devotional, David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim

Related Article: Time Magazine: Mind & Body Issue

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The new and growing field of positive psychology offers much good advice and tips to help you be happier, more fulfilled, and enjoy a good life.

Good Life Tip:

Researchers find that one's happiness correlates with the extent of their positive relationships. "There are no happy hermits."

To enhance your happiness, set aside special time for your close relationships. Nurture these as the treasured assets they are. Follow the 7 Steps for Good Relationships specific ideas to improve your relationships and your happiness.

Source: Fordyce's Fourteen Fundamentals, Positive Psychology and Coaching, P.A. Linley

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Most stars die and fade away quietly when their fuel is exhausted through nuclear fusion. But a small minority, about one in one hundred, are large enough and hot enough that under the right conditions they explode with a tremendous release of energy.

Though the explosion may take only seconds, it may release light so bright that it can outshine an entire galaxy for months. A supernova can release enough energy to create even very heavy elements such as mercury, gold, and silver.

In 1604, Galileo used a supernova to disprove Aristotle's theory that the universe never changes.

Source: The Intellectual Devotional, David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number sequence mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

Exercise:

Replace the ?'s in the number series below.

1, 2, 4, 3, 7, 4, ?, ?

Source: Unknown

Solution Here:

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Playing action video games may help you be a better and safer driver. Researchers at the University of Rochester in New York found that action video gamers tend to be more attune to their surroundings while performing tasks. For example, in situations such as driving down a residential street they may be more likely to pick out a child running after a ball than a non-video gamer.

People who play action video games can process visual information more quickly and can track 30 percent more objects than non video game players.

As we age and reaction skills decline, perhaps we should spend a moderate amount of time on action video games. This may offset the age-related decline of reaction time by helping us see a greater field of vision, so we remain safe and competent drivers.

There's more on keeping your brain young here and related important information on improving memory here.

Source: AARP The Magazine, January & February, 2007 and National Geographic News, May, 2003

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The new and growing field of positive psychology offers much good advice with loads of tips to help your pursuit of happiness and the good life.

Good Life Tip:

Research studies show that an orientation to the welfare of others is, in the long run, more satisfying than an orientation to one's own pleasure.

You can experience this for yourself with the following: In the next week, undertake one pleasurable activity for yourself and one philanthropic activity that will benefit another person.

A pleasurable activity is anything that you regard as fun for yourself without being harmful or harmful to others, while a philanthropic activity is something that you do for another that is difficult for the person you're helping.

Spend about the same amount of time on each activity during the week and at the end of the week jot down your reactions and feelings as a result of each activity.

Source: A Primer in Positive Psychology, Christopher Peterson.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number sequence mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

Exercise:

Replace the ? in the number series below

100, 101, 103, 107, 115, 122, ?

Source: Unknown

Answer Here:

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Homer's epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey, are lengthy stories in verse written in the eighth century BC. In ancient Greece these lengthy poems were often committed to memory and passed down verbally over the generations.

Though nearly three thousand years old, these epic stories are frequent references in modern literature and everyday life. Examples are: a Trojan Horse, Cyclops, the Siren's song, and Achilles heel.

There is some question about Homer's identity, his role in creating the poems, and even his actual existence.

The famous phrase describing Helen of Troy as the "face that launched a thousand ships" is often attributed to The Iliad, but actually appeared in Christopher Marlow's play, Dr. Faustus, in 1604.

Source: The Intellectual Devotional, David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

Exercise:

My brother is less than 70 years old.

The number of his age is equal to five times the sum of it's digits.

In 9 years the order of the digits of his age now will be reversed.

How old is my brother now?

Solution here:

Source: The Complete Book of Fun Maths, Philip Carter & Ken Russell

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Eating sweets can be good for you. This isn't new news, but it is definitely good news and merits reiterating. A Harvard study of ten years ago found in a study of over 7800 men that those who ate candy (chocolate or sweets) lived almost a year longer than those who abstained.

Researchers suspect this results from the beneficial effects of powerful antioxidants in dark chocolate. Other studies indicate that 1 and 1/2 ounces of dark chocolate improves blood flow and arterial elasticity.

Moderation is important though. The best results in Harvard's longevity study came from those who ate candy one to three times a month.

Source: AARP The Magazine, January&February 2007 and Scienceagogo.com, December, 1998

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The new and growing field of positive psychology offers much good advice with loads of tips to help your pursuit of happiness and the good life.

Good Life Tip: We systematically over estimate the duration of our feelings about both positive and negative future events. The raise we anticipate will bring us happiness for a lengthy time, very quickly becomes our standard salary and we adapt to our new level of income.

Conversely, the pain we think we'll feel "forever" if we miss out on that promotion fades surprisingly quickly when the feared event actually occurs.

Though knowledge of this principle may not be useful in making you happier, it may help you understand why something you looked forward to with great anticipation delivered positive feelings for a much shorter time than you expected.

You might also take consolation in knowing that the negative event you feared would be devastating will probably not have as long lasting an impact as you expected.

Source: A Primer in Positive Psychology, Christopher Peterson

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young. Enter your answers in the Mind Exercise Answer discussion.

Sign up for RSS notification at the bottom of this page to be notified of new entries in the discussion thread. Click the orange icon by "how to subscribe to feeds."

Exercise:

A snail is climbing out of a well that is 7 feet deep. Every hour it climbs up 3 feet but slides back 2 feet. How long will it take the snail to reach the top of the well?

Solution here>>

Source: The Complete Book of Fun Maths, Philip Carter & Ken Russell

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The science of genetics began with the observations of a Czech monk in the 1800's. Gregor Mendel, observing the unique traits of pea plants in the monestery garden, isolated factors that determine plant characteristics. Mendel named these factors alleles; later named genes.

Mendel conceived of the dominant-recessive traits of inheritance after cultivating and testing more than 28,000 plants.

Mendel's work was largely ignored during his lifetime and he died in obscurity. Botanists discovered his work in 1990, changing the field of genetics.

Source: The Intellectual Devotional, David S.Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim

Posted by Jerry Lopper

If you suffer from heartburn and acid reflux you may want to stay up an extra hour or two after meals. Researchers in Japan found that those who retired for the night three hours or less after eating were more than seven times as likely to have heartburn and acid reflux symptoms than those who went to bed four hours or more after meals.

Source: AARP The Magazine, January & February, 2007 and Reuter's Health, December, 2005

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The new and growing field of positive psychology offers much good advice and tips to help you be happier, more fulfilled, and enjoy a good life.

Good Life Tip:

There is a strong correlation between one's level of happiness and the sense of purpose or meaning in life.

Take advantage of this by writing your own personal mission statement or statement of life purpose. See the related articles below for tips on writing life purpose.

National Public Radio sponsors the opportunity to write and publish your own personal essay of belief, This I Believe. Read an inspiring collection of these essays, from famous and every-day people in NPR's book titled This I Believe.

Related Articles:

5 Steps to a Balanced Life

Personal Development 101

Meditation Clarifies Purpose

Source: Fordyce's Fourteen Fundamentals, Positive Psychology and Coaching, P.A. Linley

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

Sign up for RSS notification at the bottom of this page to be notified of new entries in the discussion thread. Click the orange icon by "how to subscribe to feeds."

Exercise:

Examine the following series of numbers and replace the question mark with the correct number:

1,3,7,15,31,63,?

Source: The Complete Book of Fun Maths, Philip Carter & Ken Russell

Solution here:

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The Rosetta Stone, discovered in 1799 by Napoleon's soldiers unlocked many of the secrets of ancient Egypt when decoded by a scholar named Jean-Francois Champollion. The Stone's first inscription was in Greek, dating to about 196 BC. The other two inscriptions were in hieroglyphics, the traditional writing of ancient Egyptians.

Historians were unable to read ancient Egyptian documents because they could not understand the hieroglyphics language. Champollion succeeded in translating hieroglyphics by lining up the first inscription with the next two inscriptions. After several years of study he discovered the relationships, which gave historians a greater understanding of ancient Egypt.

The inscriptions on the Stone outline the good deeds of thirteen year old Greek pharaoh, Ptolemy V in an effort to convince his subjects of his divinity.

The Rosetta Stone, seized by the British in 1801, now resides in the British Museum in London. During World War I it was moved to a subway station for protection.

Source: The Intellectual Devotional, David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young.

Sign up for RSS notification at the bottom of this page to be notified of new entries in the discussion thread. Click the orange icon by "how to subscribe to feeds."

Puzzle of Nines:

Arrange three 9's in a way so that the answer = 20.

Source: The Complete Book of Fun Maths, Philip Carter & Ken Russell

Solution is here.

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The link between sleep and obesity is strong and significant. But it may surprise you to know that slim people sleep more, not less than obese people. Researchers found that those who get only six hours of sleep a night are 23% more likely to be substantially overweight. People sleeping just five hours a night were 50% more likely to be overweight.

Why? Studies have shown that leptin levels decrease and grehlin levels increase in people who are sleep-deprived, leading to increased appetite and consumption.

This tendency may have helped early human survival, encouraging heavy eating during warm months when darkness hours were short and food was plentiful.

It appears that proper sleep not only keeps us happy but keeps us at a healthy weight too.

Source: AARP The Magazine, January & February, 2007 and NAASO article, November, 2004

Posted by Jerry Lopper

The new and growing field of positive psychology offers much good advice and tips to help you be happier, more fulfilled, and enjoy a good life.

Good Life Tip:

Vince Lombardi, long time coach of championship Green Bay Packers football teams, said "fatigue makes cowards of us all." Positive psychology research takes this wisdom even further, with findings that indicate one's level of happiness correlates with the amount of sleep obtained.

It may be tempting with today's hectic pace of living to shortchange sleeping hours to accomplish more. But doing so may have an adverse impact on your life satisfaction and happiness. Perhaps accomplishing more things is not what the good life is all about.

Source: Positive Psychology and Coaching, P.A. Linley

Posted by Jerry Lopper

Sharpen your mind and exercise your brain with this number series mind puzzle. Mind and mental exercises such as this mind teaser help to keep your brain young. The answer is in the Mind Exercise Answer discussion.

Sign up for RSS notification at the bottom of this page to be notified of new entries in the discussion thread. Click the orange icon by "how to subscribe to feeds."

Exercise:

Examine the following series of numbers and replace the question mark with the correct number:

19,38,57,76,95,114,?

Source: The Complete Book of Fun Maths, Philip Carter & Ken Russell

Solution is here