Gratitude - Year 2015

Oftentimes we need to stop and list the things in our lives that we should be most grateful for? For just and/or unjust reasons, we focus on the negative things around us.

Reminding ourselves to feel grateful is one of the best things we can do for ourselves. Few mental adjustments bring so great a benefit. Consider all the good things that can happen if you start reminding yourself, even just once a day, of all you have to be grateful about. Some of the benefits are that:

1. You'll be in a better mood.
Focusing on your reasons for gratitude means focusing on the things that make you happy. And as I'm trying hard to learn, being happy about the good things in your life won't cause the Evil Eye to come after you. It will just give you a more optimistic outlook, which will in turn make you feel happier and more grateful. It's a self-reinforcing cycle, and that's a good thing.

2. You'll be more attractive.
If your usual attitude is to be grateful for the good things in your life and you have a positive, happy outlook, you will be more fun to be around than if you're constantly griping about everything. Most people are drawn to those who are positive, happy, and optimistic than they are to constant complainers. Your happy attitude may even prove to be contagious, making them happier too.

3. You'll be more resilient.
Practicing gratitude will tend to give you a sense of perspective. If, as many gratitude gurus recommend, you start the day by mentally listing three things you're grateful for before you even get out of bed, you'll have a much better sense of what really matters than if you start the day by reaching for your phone or tablet and reading your email.

That sense of perspective may make a difference when you're faced with a difficult co-worker, employee, or customer, a business or personal setback, or any of the other frustrations of modern life. You'll be likelier to handle those frustrations with more wisdom, because keeping the things you're grateful for in mind will help you see the big picture.

4. You'll be more generous.
I'm not just talking about actual giving, although that might happen as well. I mean something larger--the ability to consider a situation from someone else's point of view and treat that person with as much kindness as possible. Remembering that you're grateful for your job or business will help you get over your aggravation if one of your co-workers or employees leaves a task unfinished so that you have to complete it.

5. You'll live longer.
Few years ago, research confirmed what most of us have already observed: Happier people live longer, healthier lives. In a surprising study, researchers divided older people into happy, unhappy, and in-between categories and then tracked them over five years. More of the unhappy group died than either of the other two, and once researchers had controlled for age, chronic illness, depression, and healthy or unhealthy behaviors (such as getting regular exercise), they found that happy people were 35 percent less likely to die than unhappy ones. Practicing gratitude will not only make your life more enjoyable, it could actually give you more life.

For 2015 especially, I thank God and return all glory to Him.

2015: So Deserving!

The current year has put me under intense pressure to raise the bar in 2016. The keyword is sustainability!

Among the many ways that sustainability has been defined, the simplest and most fundamental is: "the ability to sustain" or, put another way, "the capacity to endure."

Today, it is by no means certain our society has the capacity to endure – at least in such a way that the nine billion people expected on Earth by 2050 will all be able to achieve a basic quality of life. The planet's ecosystems are deteriorating and the climate is changing. We are consuming so much, and so quickly, that we are already living far beyond the earth's capacity to support us. And yet nearly a sixth of our fellow humans go to bed hungry each day: both an unnecessary tragedy and a source of social and political unrest. Meanwhile, our globalized world is more interconnected and volatile than ever, making us all more vulnerable.

While sustainability is about the future of our society, for today's industries and businesses, it is also about commercial success. The mandate to transform businesses to respect environmental limits while fulfilling social wants and needs has become an unparalleled platform for innovation on strategy, design, manufacturing and brand, offering massive opportunities to compete and to adapt to a rapidly evolving world.

Time and Cockcrow

Time is a measure of events, duration, and change. Thanks to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) we share a basis for discussing Time. It helps structure our expectations. I may be at my desk by 9:00 EST (UTC-05:00), but I understand that colleagues in California (UTC-08:00) are likely still in bed. Global clock time tells me that at 11:00 EST, I can reasonably expect them to be at their desks. However, our experiences with Time may differ in accordance with local observances even along the same latitude. While it may indeed be five o'clock somewhere, what people may choose to do at that Time may differ greatly from place to place. The meaning of five o'clock can vary greatly.

Despite the standardization offered by the clock, Time is an intersubjective experience. Though we don't often consider it, local contexts can inform our temporal awareness in subtle ways. For example, consider the role roosters have played in keeping time:

The use of cockcrows in the predawn period to reckon time is extremely widespread, and has been ethnographically documented. The Bororo of Brazil keep track of time after midnight through the gradual increase in intensity and frequency of crows between the first cockcrow and dawn; the Ifugao of the Philippines state that cocks crow four times during the night with the third cockcrow at around four oclock in the morning; and among the Saramaka, a maroon group in Surinam, cockcrow is an auspicious time for sharing secrets in the predawn hours.

While it's true that roosters can indeed crow at any time, in a recent paper anthropologist Kevin Birth discusses how avian chronobiology shapes a reliable relationship between cockcrow and the coming dawn that may help understand perceptions of time prior to the establishment of a standard global time.

First, like roosters, preachers strive against darkness to account approaching light. Second, they awaken the sluggish. Just as cocks understanding penetrates the darkness, so should the knowledge of teachers. Also, Gregory states that cocks are louder in the darkness and more gentle as dawn approaches, and he says that this is a metaphor for how preachers should treat people. Those who are in darkness receive harsher messages, while those who are approaching spiritual enlightenment should hear the subtlest mysteries. The cockcrow was a temporal signifier in the Middle Ages, but is there any biological basis for these sorts of connections?

Do Roosters Crow at Dawn? Sure they do! Chickens have a circadian cycle. They're entrained to light-cyclesmelatonin secretion, and regulation of the heart, brain, and liver change in response to light. For roosters, whose crows are driven by testosterone, light cycles which regulate endogenous cycles can also trigger crowing behavior.

Endogenous cycles in chickens can reset in response to incremental changes in light intensity. Gambian hens, for example, shift their roosting times in accordance with the seasons: since the days are relatively the same length, the chickens appear to negotiate roosting in relation to shifting light intensity. Chickens, then, are able to anticipate light cycles. Research done in North-Central India, where the sun only becomes visible after it has risen higher than surrounding mountains, documents the onset of crowing approximately two to three hours before sunrise with initial intervals of about 30 minutes that decrease to about seven minutes at the time of sunriseeven though the sun is not actually visible at the moment of sunrise.

But roosters also crow at other times and for different reasons. Birth acknowledges theyre only temporally relevant during the period of predawn for a specific locationbut they are an excellent means of generating contextually-relevant information.

What Makes The Difference?

What really sets the best leaders above the rest? How would you describe your success and progress in life? Self-made or imposed? We all have stories to tell...which connotes the difference between the winner and loser. Leaders and managers alike have power to build a cadre of employees who have great inner work lives—consistently positive emotions; strong motivation; and favorable perceptions of the organization, their work, and their colleagues. Some leaders do not see the need for this aura.

As leaders we are a force!