deeds are contagious We naturally imitate the people around us, we adopt their ideas about appropriate behavior, and we feel what they feel. Acts of charity are no exception. In our 2010 generosity experiment, we showed that every extra dollar of giving in a game designed to measure altruism caused people who saw that giving to donate an extra twenty cents. 2. The network acts like a matching grant That same experiment showed that contagious generosity spreads up to three steps through the network (from person to person to person to person), and when we added up all the extra donations that resulted at every step, we found that an ... posted on Mar 21 2012 (46,306 reads)

Star dedicated unprecedented coverage to the funeral of 55-year-old Shelagh Gordon – interviewing more than 100 of her friends and family – to show how a modest life can have a huge impact. I met Shelagh Gordon at her funeral. She was soap-and-water beautiful, vital, unassuming and funny without trying to be. I could feel her spirit tripping over a purse in the funeral hall and then laughing from the floor. She was both alone and crowded by love. In another era, she’d have been considered a spinster — no husband, no kids. But her home teemed with dogs, sisters, nieces, nephews and her “life partner” —a gay man — who would pas... posted on Jan 18 2016 (110,627 reads)

the past two years, James O’Dea has found himself synthesizing his remarkable life experience into what he calls “social healing”. Formerly Director of Amnesty International’s Washington, DC office, Executive Director of the Seva Foundation and President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, O’Dea has now been asking (and answering) some profound questions: What does it take for an individual, community and a nation to heal itself?  Our enriching conversation with O’Dea explored the roots of this tangled question, and unearthed deeply held truths.  “Service ... posted on Mar 27 2012 (24,412 reads)

five women are fighting poverty in a serious way, but they’re not handing out aid. We hope to see them scale up their models this year and make an even bigger impact. Leila Janah - Leila knows that what poor people really want is a job—steady income that pays for food, school and medicine. But American companies that "outsource" work to poorer countries aren't exactly popular right now. To Leila, the concept of “microwork” isn’t exactly outsourcing, either. She founded Samasource, a social enterprise that takes simple, computer-based tasks from companies like Intuit, Google and LinkedIn and turns them into jobs for poor peopl... posted on Mar 28 2012 (17,120 reads)

athletes have the benefit of seeing what's ahead of them -- an opponent, the bars, a vault. But for 13-year-old Lola Walters, she usually has no idea what's coming until she's literally five feet away from it. Walters, a Washington resident, is legally blind, and suffers from a disease called nystagmus which causes her eyes to shift constantly, leaving her with double vision and no depth perception, the Daily Mail reports. "Most people I compete with don't know I am any different to them," Walters told the news source. "And as far as I'm concerned it can stay that way. If they don't know, they don't... posted on Mar 30 2012 (19,735 reads)

is Practice." ~Pele When we learn a martial art, or ballet, or gymnastics, or soccer … we consciously practice movements in a deliberate way, repeatedly. By conscious, repeated practice, we become good at those movements. Our entire lives are like this, but we’re often less conscious of the practice. Each day, we repeat movements, thought patterns, ways of interacting with others … and in this repeated practice, we are becoming (or have already become) good at these things. If you constantly check Facebook or Twitter, that is practice, and you are forming that habit, though it’s usually not with too much awareness. When you s... posted on Apr 3 2012 (32,487 reads)

at schools has become a huge issue. In looking for innovative solutions, Canadian educators turned to a unique classroom program called Roots of Empathy. At the heart of the program, now being implemented in 1,400 schools, lies this insight: When you put an infant and its parent in the center of the classroom, children start to sensitize themselves to the baby's intentions and emotions. The results that ripple out are unambiguous: a measurable reduction in levels of aggression among schoolchildren. The program is successful because it fosters the development of empathy, supporting children in tapping into an unconscious part of themselves. The baby becomes ... posted on Apr 8 2012 (17,147 reads)

for Happiness has developed the 10 Keys to Happier Living based on a review of the latest scientific research relating to happiness. Everyone’s path to happiness is different, but the research suggests these Ten Keys consistently tend to have a positive impact on people’s overall happiness and well-being. The first five (GREAT) relate to how we interact with the outside world in our daily activities*. The second five (DREAM) come more from inside us and depend on our attitude to life.   1. GIVING: Do things for others   Caring about others is fundamental to our happiness. Helping other people is not only good for them and a g... posted on Apr 14 2012 (91,844 reads)

leading development economist speaks on the virtues and limitations of a data-driven approach to healing the world's most intractable problems   Reuters Do free bed nets in some countries lead to more cases of malaria? Could anti-parasite pills raise school attendance in one country and have no effect in another? How cheap does preventative care have to be for low-income families to see the doctor? There might not be a perfect way to answer these thorny questions on a country-by-country basis. But some leading scientists think the most rigorous answer comes from what they call "randomized controlled trials." Esther Duflo is widely recogni... posted on May 19 2012 (9,168 reads)

not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” - Buddha Have you ever lost yourself in your work, so much so that you lost track of time? Being consumed by a task like that, while it can be rare for most people, is a state of being called Flow. In my experience, it’s one of the keys to happiness at work, and a nice side benefit is that it not only reduces stress but increases your productivity. Not bad, huh? When I wrote about called The Magical Power of Focus, I promised to write more about how to achieve Flow, a concept that is very much in vogue right now and something mo... posted on Apr 30 2012 (34,598 reads)

Einstein’s was estimated at 160, Madonna's is 140, and John F. Kennedy’s was only 119, but as it turns out, your IQ score pales in comparison with your EQ, MQ, and BQ scores when it comes to predicting your success and professional achievement. IQ tests are used as an indicator of logical reasoning ability and technical intelligence. A high IQ is often a prerequisite for rising to the top ranks of business today. It is necessary, but it is not adequate to predict executive competence and corporate success. By itself, a high IQ does not guarantee that you will stand out and rise above everyone else. Research carried out by the Carnegie Institute of Techn... posted on May 5 2012 (79,080 reads)

the price of a fancy cup of coffee, Dr. Russell Dohner has cared for Rushville, an Illinois town of 4,300 people, for more than half a century, delivering 3,500 babies, and never taking a vacation — or even an entire day off. Rushville, Ill., is the kind of place where backyards have gardens instead of grass, and sunflowers wave in the wind. A tiny town, just 4,300 people, named for a doctor and settled by the men who marched back from the War of 1812. Rushville was built on government land, halfway between St. Louis and Chicago, as a gift to veterans. Those who did not come back got a statue on the courthouse square and were called heroes. “In a mercenary wo... posted on May 11 2012 (27,694 reads)

humble. Stay close to the earth. That's at the core of this existence, I was told. And so, for years, I've wrestled with living the "less-is-more" life in a world that seems to be busting at its seams — in every way — financially, physically, psychologically. That sentiment tends to get lost in the "more-bang-for-your-buck" schemes, the two-for-one offers. There's a need, it seems, to acquire and expand. And it's not just in our personal and material lives. Startups want to scale — that's the most critical stage for them. How do we expand? How do we robotize it so we can speed up the process? Nonprofi... posted on May 22 2012 (15,591 reads)

your life can seem a incredibly tough and complicated thing, especially if you’ve failed a great number of times (like I did), found it too hard, and resigned yourself to not changing. But I found a way to change. And I’m not any better than anyone else, not more disciplined, not more motivated. I just learned a few simple principles that changed my life. I’ve written about them many times, but realized they’re spread out all over the site. Here is how I changed my life, in a nutshell. tl;dr The four lines you’re looking for are at the bottom. How I Started Running In 2005 I was sedentary, and couldn’t for ... posted on May 21 2012 (46,209 reads)

descriptions of Albert Einstein’s thinking process were discovered in his correspondence with his close friend Maurice Solovine, who was a student of philosophy. One day Solovine suggested reading and debating the works of great authors. Einstein agreed enthusiastically and soon mathematician Conrad Habicht became involved in what was to be known as the "Olympia Academy." Often their meetings, held in Einstein's flat, would last until the early morning hours where the three discussed issues while eating hard boiled eggs and smoking pipes and cigars.   Among the topics that intrigued them was thinking and believing. How do we think? Why ... posted on May 23 2012 (38,832 reads)

his book, “To Bless the Space Between Us,” John O’Donohue describes an experience he had when he was a young priest visiting a group of nuns.  He was asked by one of the older women to offer her a blessing.  After he finished, he knelt down in front of her, and similarly asked her for a blessing.  She was completely taken aback by this because, apparently, no one had ever asked her for such a thing.  It’s odd to live in a world where some people, but not all people, feel worthy of offering blessings.  To change this inequity, O’Donohue encourages all of us to rediscover our power to bless one another. I’ve become ench... posted on Jun 25 2012 (23,040 reads)

in the coffin of the miser; this is the man who could never be satisfied with riches; but see now a few boards enclose him, and a few square inches contain him. . . Behold the consequences of intemperance in the tomb of the glutton; see his appetite now fully satiated, his senses destroyed and his bones scattered. These messages are clear. We cannot hide from death. Its embrace will consume our social existence entirely. Job titles, social position, material possessions, sexual roles and images--all must yield to death. This does not mean that we should abandon our material and social existence. Rather, it means that in consciously honoring the fact of our physical death, we are there... posted on Jun 7 2012 (37,233 reads)

is an old Zen story about a man riding a horse, galloping frantically down a path. His friend, who is sitting by the side of the road, calls out "Where are you going?" The man replies: "I don't know. Ask the horse!" When we build our tools, we often depend on metrics to guide our development. We keep graphs of unique visitors and pageviews and watch them closely. This keeps us honest. It's hard to convince anybody that we're building a useful tool if our metrics show that nobody is using it. But we must take care when we use metrics. Metrics can be like the horse in the old Zen story. Once we decide on them, they have a habit of setting t... posted on Jun 12 2012 (13,802 reads)

Stranger,   I think we need to talk.   My mom always told me never to talk to you, even if you offered me candy. The news tells me not to trust you–that you will kidnap, rape, rob, or kill me given half the chance.   But I never believed those lies. I know you’re just like me, trying to make your world turn as best as you can. I know you have dreams, ideas, and favorite recipes just like me. You might even have some insight to share that will make my life better. Maybe you know my future partner. Maybe you know the solution to something I’ve been trying to figure out for a long while.   Sometimes... posted on Jun 22 2012 (13,114 reads)

in West Tennessee, not far from Graceland, nine women -- or "The 9 Nanas," as they prefer to be called -- gather in the darkness of night. At 4am they begin their daily routine -- a ritual that no one, not even their husbands, knew about for 30 years. They have one mission and one mission only: to create happiness. And it all begins with baked goods. “One of us starts sifting the flour and another washing the eggs,” explained Nana Mary Ellen, the appointed spokesperson for their secret society. “And someone else makes sure the pans are all ready. We switch off, depending on what we feel like doing that day. “But you make sure to say Nana... posted on Jun 29 2012 (1,773,133 reads)