In the United States, Thursday is Thanksgiving Day. In the early 1600’s, when the first Thanksgiving celebration featuring Englishmen in the New World happened, “giving thanks” was how people expressed their gratitude for surviving a tough year, or for bringing in a bountiful harvest.

The tradition of “giving thanks” was, and still is, a big part of the Wampanoag tribe, who were part of the early celebrations, though not quite as the story is told now. In the middle 1800’s, when the Civil War had ended and President Lincoln was looking for a way to bring the nation back together, Thanksgiving was cemented as a national celebration designed to reflect, gather, and share a communal, traditional meal. The “traditional” meal itself was made up at the time, as was the pastoral story of the early dinners with Pilgrims and tribesmen.

It was called Thanksgiving. Would we still celebrate it if it had been called Gratitude Day or Appreciation...

Are you afraid to stand up in front of an audience and give a presentation? Most people are, including some professional speakers. There you are, unguarded, vulnerable, and relying on your memory and your personality to move the audience to think in a new way, act in a new way, and hopefully not throw rotten fruits and veggies at you!

There’s a word for the fear of public speaking – glossophobia. Nearly half of adults are affected by it, at least a little bit. Why it’s so common isn’t known yet, except researchers postulate that it could be rooted in the primal fear of being seen by predators. You never know who might be lurking in that audience, just waiting to pounce!

In reality, audience members want speakers to succeed. They’re on your side, not against you, so instead of imagining everyone as naked, try imagining they’re all your very best friend, that person you could say anything to and they would still love you. Use your imagination to...

Let’s talk about happiness today, and how difficult it is for scientists to even define it, much less quantify it for us. A focus on happiness has been in the news so much that now its shadow twin, toxic positivity, is making headlines. In this post, happiness is being discussed as one of the large range of emotions that humans feel. It’s nice to feel happy, and not mandatory nor even possible to feel happy all the time. That’s a completely unrealistic goal. What is realistic is for you to learn how to soothe yourself so you can make yourself happier when you choose.  

First, what’s the official working scientific definition of happiness? 

According to Sigmund Freud, happiness has two components: “the absence of pain and unpleasure,” and “the experience of strong feelings of pleasure.” Not much to argue with there, and yet it’s not a satisfying definition, because that definition chases its own tail....

Today is so taxing! If you’ve noticed that people are cranky, distant, or just plain missing, it’s probably because today is the day Uncle Sam demands his due. It’s tax day, and those who waited until the last minute have discovered that there aren’t a lot more minutes left to get all that paperwork handled.

As irritating as it can be to do make-work for the government and perhaps write a big check on top of it, there are other irritations often found in the workplace that you may have to deal with on a daily basis. Here are the top 5 things that team members do that annoy their coworkers:

• Talking too loudly on the phone
• Wearing too much fragrance
• Speaking in jargon instead of plain English
• Calling/texting/emailing outside of business hours & expecting a quick reply
• Poor grammar, punctuation, and spelling

In the post-pandemic world, people tend to be more stressed and touchier about the idiosyncrasies they find in their co-workers. Whether in person or...

If you’ve seen a billboard, heard a radio or TV commercial, been inside a store or even just poked your nose outside your front door in the last week, then you already know what today is. Did you know that, in addition to Valentine’s Day, it’s Galentine’s Day, Madly in Love with Me Day, International Flirting Week and National Week of Chastity? Heck, I’m feeling a bit whiplashed with those last two happening at the same time, aren’t you?

This day is fraught with so many emotions and expectations. For happy couples, it’s a celebration of their connection and commitment to each other, wrapped in feelings of love and joy. For unhappy couples, it’s a reminder of what they once had and don’t have now, and that can bring with it sadness, despair and a feeling of letting loved ones down. For those who aren’t part of a couple, it can feel like they’re an outcast in a sea of togetherness and aren’t living up to societal...

Could your self-esteem use a boost, and just how the heck could that be accomplished? Let’s talk about that this week.

This month is International Boost Self-Esteem Month, intended to shine a light on just how tough most of us are on ourselves. If you grew up hearing phrases like, “don’t blow your own horn” and “don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back” then maybe you think it’s not OK to recognize and appreciate your strengths, talents and abilities. If you live or work with someone who is constantly belittling you, perhaps you’ve come to believe in their opinion of you instead of your own. And maybe, like most people, you feel pretty good about yourself most of the time and now and then doubts creep into the dark corners of your mind, gutting your self-esteem for a little while, until you regain your mental balance.

High self-esteem, not to be confused with egotism or sociopathic tendencies, is a healthy regard for who...

It’s the last day of the first month of the new year. And it’s cold. OK, it’s winter and it’s supposed to be cold. Seriously, Mother Nature – 18 in Maine, 4 in North Dakota and minus 1 in Minnesota? The freezing temperatures are coast to coast, north to south, and make me want to hibernate. You, too? Then today is the perfect day to cuddle up to your computer and plan a vacation!

On this National Plan for Vacation Day, let’s look at how a perk at work gets treated like a jerk. Over half of Americans don’t take all their paid time off from work. They have the benefit of vacation and personal days, in addition to sick days, and yet they don’t take full advantage of the benefit.

That, in spite of the fact that in the most recent comprehensive study of vacation time as a benefit, 63% of workers said a generous paid time off package was a deciding factor in whether or not they would accept a job offer. Clearly we want to be offered vacation...

Quick – when was the last time you gave someone a compliment? I hope it was sometime today, because today is National Compliment Day. Actually, I hope you’re in the habit of giving compliments. If not, keep reading, because giving compliments to others has many benefits for you!

Since smiling is a side-effect of compliments, let’s explore the power of the smile. When you smile, your brain releases endorphins, serotonin and dopamine, three of your body’s feel-good chemicals. Also, when you see someone smile, your brain releases those same feel-good neurotransmitters. If you need another good reason to smile more, researchers in Scotland found that people who smile and make eye contact are consistently ranked higher on the “attractiveness” scale.  But wait – there’s more! (No, I’m not turning into an infomercial…promise!) Noted aging and development researcher Ernest L. Abel studied 196 baseball players and found that...

Quick – when was the last time you gave someone a compliment? I hope it was sometime today, because today is National Compliment Day. Actually, I hope you’re in the habit of giving compliments. If not, keep reading, because giving compliments to others has many benefits for you!

Since smiling is a side-effect of compliments, let’s explore the power of the smile. When you smile, your brain releases endorphins, serotonin and dopamine, three of your body’s feel-good chemicals. Also, when you see someone smile, your brain releases those same feel-good neurotransmitters. If you need another good reason to smile more, researchers in Scotland found that people who smile and make eye contact are consistently ranked higher on the “attractiveness” scale.  But wait – there’s more! (No, I’m not turning into an infomercial…promise!) Noted aging and development researcher Ernest L. Abel studied 196 baseball players and found that...

Have you ever had an idea, brought it to fruition, and during its infancy you discovered that your idea was bigger than you knew? International We Are Not Broken Day began in 2019, so is still fairly new, as is the organization of the same name. The founder, Texan Nochola Cotto, intended it to be a day for women who’ve been touched by any sort of trauma to be heard and helped. The “we are not broken” part has resonated with so many people that observance of the day has spread to anyone who’s suffered any kind of trauma.

Amputees
PTSD sufferers
People with depression
Victims of violent crimes
People with diminished mental abilities
People who are “different” in any way

Just being outside of what humanity at large considers “normal” subjects people to all sorts of unintentional, and sometimes intentional, abuse. Attitudes about people with disabilities, whether mental, psychological or physical, can be quite harsh, and human beings can...