As Ecuador was digging out from its 7.8-magnitude earthquake its security minister reported at least 507 people dead. President Rafael Correa said early Monday that the death toll would “surely rise, and in a considerable way.” But he added a note of confidence in his people — “The Ecuadorean spirit knows how to move forward, and will know how to overcome these very difficult moments.” President Correa’s comments to his people provide a simple and powerful insight into how the...

This past week, I had the pleasure of accompanying my wife Sheila as we travelled to Las Vegas where she shared the story of her work at a Ted Conference at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. The emcee introduced Sheila as “appearing on a Las Vegas stage for the first time in over 50 years since she last appeared at the Desert Inn while performing as a dancer at the Tony Martin and Peggy Lee Show.” Sheila’s performance was...

I’m excited to announce that The Resilience Advantage will be officially released next week and is available for ordering in print and e-version on Amazon as well as through my web site. The Resilience Advantage discusses why our current approach to dealing with stress, adversity and challenges is outdated and ineffective and why resilience provides us with a new way to see the events in our lives as opportunities for new understandings and growth for our families, our workplace and...

I was talking to a owner of a small business the other day and he was bemoaning how hard he is working and how he can’t seem to find any time to relax or enjoy himself or his family. When I asked him what he is doing to promote his own happiness he was taken aback. He told me that he didn’t think he had any control over his happiness but instead happiness would just come to him when he...

Building a “positivity bias” in place of our hardwired “negativity bias” is one of the important tools we discuss for building personal resilience in my new book, The Resilience Advantage. There is a mistaken belief, however, that if we just “think positive” we can then overcome all kinds of adversities, but that is a bit of how thinking positively became know as the “Pollyanna Principle.” The truth is that using positivity takes a lot more than just wishing and hoping....

It was obvious when Prime Minister Trudeau visited the White House last week that he and President Obama had a love fest. They joked about hockey, shared poutines, told stories about their kids, and even did some work around green house gas reductions. Oh yeah, and there was plenty of hugging to go around. A recent research study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology discussed the role of male bonding in reducing stress reactions among male rats. It seems that when the...