From the Archives: Happiness & How to Achieve It

A 3-Part DIY Guide for Finding Happiness!

The Problem: Running on Empty

Have you got the media miseries? Do you feel beaten down by complaining talking heads, political ranters and all manner of folks screaming for your attention based on the latest nasty scandal or ugly emergency? Are you worn out by your friends and family constantly complaining or maybe legitimately suffering from genuine obstacles to their happiness? 

Maybe it's time to take a step back, regroup and connect with your own happiness. After all, if your happiness reservoirs are empty, you're going to find it hard to find the energy to empathize with them and support them. And, worse yet, it's going to be tough for you to bring positive energy to your own life.

The Science of Happiness

Here's the bottom line: You can achieve happiness. In fact, there's a science underlying happiness that you can leverage to bring more happiness into your life. A few years ago, I published a series of articles all about that science. You can revisit them through the links below. Enjoy! 

Go to Part 1, A Little Theory

Go to Part 2, Some Fun Stuff

Go to Part 3, Train Yourself to Be Happier

See Also: 

• 10 Specific Actions That Can Help You Become Happier (an audio podcast)
• 10 of My Most-Accessed Items at Internet Archive
• Why It's Pointless to Argue about Politics or Religion
• Travel Back in Time, Through the Mountains of France & Around the World with Robert Louis Stevenson
• Some New Graffiti on the Wall of the Universe: All My Stuff at Internet Archive

Not all news is bad! Check out these 15 positive news sources.

Good news is out there. These sites serve it up daily!

Why We Need to Proactively Seek Good News

"Why does the media concentrate on the bad things in life, rather than the good? And what might this depressing slant say about us, the audience?  It isn't that these are the only things that happen. Perhaps journalists are drawn to reporting bad news because sudden disaster is more compelling than slow improvements. Or it could be that news gatherers believe that cynical reports of corrupt politicians or unfortunate events make for simpler stories. But another strong possibility is that we, the readers or viewers, have trained journalists to focus on these things."  - Psychology: Why bad news dominates the headline (from BBC)

"Humans exhibit this attraction to bad news thanks in large part to what is called the negativity bias...This bias helps humans scan their environment for potential dangers so they can learn how to avoid them, but this attraction to negativity can backfire if we allow it... The brain reacts to negative stimuli with a greater surge in electrical activity. It takes five positive experiences to counter one negative experience.  It’s for this reason, in part, that many people struggle with pessimism, anxiety, discouragement and other symptoms of depression. If you want to learn how to stay positive in a negative world you must expose yourself to as many positive experiences as you can while minimizing exposure to the negative... " - Why Bad News Grabs Our Attention

But if most media defaults to negative stories where can we find positive news? It can take a bit of effort, but once you find positive news sources that are updated daily you can bookmark them and return to them frequently to build up your immunity to the negative stuff. 

15 Positive News Sources

Here are some websites that aggregate good news stories. (Suggestion: Why not bookmark some of these so you can return to them whenever you need some positive energy? And check out any links from within the websites' articles to other potentially uplifting websites.)

• Good News Network - "The website, with its archive of 21,000 positive news stories from around the globe, confirms what people already know—that good news itself is not in short supply; the broadcasting of it is." 

• Positive News - "We report socially relevant and uplifting stories of progress – ranging from the global boom in renewable energy to cities that are solving homelessness – joining the dots between how people, communities and organisations are changing the world for the better."

• Good Good Good - "Good Good Good has been highlighted by The New York Times, Mashable, The Washington Post, Miley Cyrus, and more... In an effort to help their audience feel more hopeful and do more good, Good Good Good’s team of journalists reports on positive news happening in the world and creates helpful resources about the most impactful ways to make a positive difference."

• The Optimist Daily - "Our mission is to provide a daily dose of optimism in the form of solutions-focused, good news that you can enjoy and share with those you care for. The ultimate goal is to elevate, motivate, and reignite each individual’s innate reservoir of intelligent optimism as a way of catalyzing the evolution of human consciousness."

• Upworthy - Upworthy is a media brand on a mission to share uplifting stories that foster positive connections — with the community, the world and our partners... Experiencing stories about good things happening in the world can shape how we perceive and interact with the people around us. We're proud to play a role in creating a world rooted in decency, love and compassion."

• Goodable - "We use proprietary AI technology and science to create daily content feeds filled with wholesome, healthy programming that you'll love. It's the cure to doomscrolling that you deserve." (Note: The Goodable app is free to download but offers in-app purchases for Goodable Plus subscriptions.)

• YES! Magazine - "Through rigorous reporting on the positive ways communities are responding to social problems and insightful commentary that sparks constructive discourse, YES! Media inspires people to build a more just, sustainable, and compassionate world."

• Goodnet - "Goodnet connects people around the world with opportunities for doing good - it’s that simple. ... our writers and editors have eyes and ears across the world of good doing - from volunteering, charity work, microfunding and creativity to green tech, water conservation, collaborative consumption and mindful living."

• The Happy Broadcast - "Over the years, we have explored ways to bring positivity and better mental health to our community. We do this mainly by illustrating positive news stories to try and counteract all the negativity in todays news cycles. We have also, however, spent considerable time and resources experimenting with tools that can help improve happiness."

• Only Good News Daily - "In today's world it's almost impossible to avoid being bombarded with bad news. Obviously, you have to tune into it occasionally to keep up to date with the reality of daily life around you, but why not give yourself a break? And ensure you enjoy a healthy daily dose of good news. Only Good News Daily is designed to lighten your day, refresh your enthusiasm for life, make you smile, and enhance your general well being."  

• The 89 Percent Project - Ever get the feeling that nearly everyone's given up on trying to win the battle against climate change? The 89 Percent Project tells us that "Between 80 and 89% of the world’s people want their governments to be doing more to address climate change." And its website presents good news stories of those who are fighting (and winning battles) on behalf of Mother Earth. 

• Major Network Good News Sources: -- Most of the time it feels like the major commercial networks are unable to bring us anything but doom, gloom and "watch out!!!" stories. However, if you look for it, they do provide some good news exceptions:
• NBC's Today Show "Good News" Page  -- NBC's Today Show publishes this Good News page, whose subtitle claims it provides "Inspirational, uplifting, funny and happy news, photos, videos and more." 
• ABC News Good News -- "Follow the latest Good News news, videos, and analysis from ABC News."
• CBS News "The Uplift" -- "Stories that uplift and inspire" 
• CNN "The good news tracker of 2024." -- This is an interactive tool for finding last year's good news. 

10 of My Most-Accessed Items at Internet Archive

Recently I was contacted by someone who had found one of my audio podcasts at the Internet Archive. She asked if she could use excerpts from the audio Do What You Fear and Grow Stronger for a YouTube production. Of course I agreed... and happily! The whole idea of sharing this stuff is to put it out into the universe and hope it does some good somewhere. And while I have uploaded over 90 items to the Archive, I find that some of them are downloaded and used more than others. Below are some of the top 10 items accessed there. If you're looking for a little inspiration, you just might find it in one of these. Enjoy!

(Caveat: All these podcasts were created over 14 years ago. Some of the materials or links referenced in them may no longer be available.) 

👉 Do What You Fear and Grow Stronger [12 1/2 min audio]

This podcast includes inspirational quotations, war stories, a little philosophy and some practical challenges to help individuals and teams push through fear & grow stronger.

👉 Accept What Is [17 min audio]

This was designed to help individuals and teams discover the power of accepting the reality of a difficult situation in order to handle it effectively. 

👉 10 Specific Actions That Can Help You Become Happier [25 min audio]

How can you become happier? In this archived podcast I share 10 specific actions that I’ve taken to create more happiness in my life.

👉 Practice Mindfulness [22 min audio]

This audio is designed to help individuals and teams expand upon their inherent power of mindfulness — the practice of bringing your full awareness into the present moment.

👉 The Project Management Minimalist: Just Enough PM to Rock Your Projects! [2nd Edition]

This is a FREE 132-page PDF version of the book. The title is self-explanatory!

👉 Learn to Be Optimistic, Learn to Succeed. [9 1/2 min audio]

Cognitive therapy works because it helps you change your explanatory style from pessimistic to optimistic, and the change is permanent. It gives you a set of cognitive skills for talking to yourself when you fail. This audio will help you get started making that change.

👉 Worth Sharing: Essays & Tools to Help Project Managers & Their Teams [full 317-page PDF]

This is my eclectic compilation of practical PM tools, thought-provoking PM essays and suggestions for helping individual project managers and their teams stay sane while delivering good quality finished products. It consists of 54 Chapters, most of which were originally published as blog posts through my websites and hadn't ever before been released in book form.

👉 The PM Minimalist Quick Start Guide: The Absolute Least You Can Do [11 page worksheet/tool]

This Quick Start Guide is designed to help you plan and manage your first project using the PM Minimalist approach, as detailed in the The Project Management Minimalist: Just Enough PM to Rock Your Projects!

👉 Authority versus Responsibility: Find The Balance! [5 1/2 min video]

This brief video provides real-world examples to distinguish between authority & responsibility. And it makes the argument that by finding a good balance between the two, we can improve the quality of life at home, at work and in all of society.  

👉 Why Its Pointless To Argue About Politics Or Religion [9 page PDF]

This essay is designed to help you see the origins of the strong feelings of the people you are arguing with. And it provides some suggestions for improving your interactions with those whose politics and religious views may be far different from your own. 

👉 Michael Greer's Publications In Internet Archives 

See everything I've uploaded to Internet Archives (94 items!) & click the link in the item's "Description" to go directly to any of them.

Summer Reruns: A Few Entertaining Diversions & Inspirations

Whether you're hanging out on your front porch or inside in front of an air conditioner, long, warm summer days can be a good time to kick back, put your feet up and relax with a few media diversions. Or, if you're more ambitious, it can also be a good time to wax philosophical by reviewing some nuggets of wisdom handed down by the great philosophers and teachers.

Whichever your inclination, you'll find some useful resources below. I culled these from many years of my published articles, each of which took substantial effort to create. So that these don't disappear completely into our shadowy past, I hereby resurrect them as summer reruns. Enjoy!

The Media Diversions 

An intro to the long form music of jam bands
with links to nine classic performances

Travel by video to cities, villages & rural areas of
 the UK, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, Canada & More

Free media w/no ads from your local library

Beyond his fiction... Explore the world of the late
1800s with Robert Louis Stevenson's travel writing.

Sex & drugs & rock & roll: A wild ride
through one young man's 1960s

Some Nuggets of Wisdom & Inspiration 

A collection of 30 podcasts to enlighten & inspire

Not happy? Take charge & change your mood!

Confused & frustrated by current events?
Go deeper, challenge yourself, learn more.

Why you ought to be creating something...
and how to get started

More Good Stuff from the Archives

• The Science of Happiness: Part 1, A Little Theory

• The Science of Happiness: Part 2, Some Fun Stuff

• The Science of Happiness: Part 3, Train Yourself to Be Happier

• In Case You Missed Them: My Best Articles of 2022

• In Case You Missed Them: Some Ideas “Worth Sharing” from the Past Couple of Years

• My Website Migration: And Then There Were Three

• Got downtime? Teach yourself project management with these free videos and tools!

• Some New Graffitti on the Wall of the Universe: All My Stuff at Internet Archive

Learn to Be Optimistic, Learn to Succeed. (an audio podcast)

Focus:  “One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think…. On a mechanical level, cognitive therapy works because it changes explanatory style from pessimistic to optimistic, and the change is permanent. It gives you a set of cognitive skills for talking to yourself when you fail.” – Martin Seligman in Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind & Your Life.

(Use the control bar below to download or play the podcast. Or scroll down and simply read the rest of the transcript. Enjoy!)

Transcript of this audio was originally published on February 24, 2009 [some links referred to below may no longer be valid]

Martin Seligman, former APA president and one of the founders of the research-based Science of Happiness tells us that individuals and teams can learn to be optimistic (and ultimately achieve greater success) by adopting an optimistic explanatory style. In his book Seligman provides examples from sports and business in which teams that have developed optimistic explanatory styles have shown a greater ability to "bounce back" from defeat and return to their winning ways more quickly than their pessimistic competitors. This is great news! But how, exactly, can you change (or control) your explanatory style? Well for starters, you need to understand its key dimensions and how these influence your self talk.

Accept What Is (an audio podcast)

Focus:  This audio podcast includes inspirational quotations, war stories, examples, a little philosophy and some practical challenges to help individuals and teams discover the power of accepting the reality of a difficult situation in order to handle it effectively. Only when you accept it, see it clearly without denial and hand-wringing, can you take appropriate action to remedy it.

(Use the control bar below to download or play the podcast. Or scroll down and simply read the transcript. Enjoy!)

Transcript of this audio originally published on April 19, 2009 [some links referred to below may no longer be valid]:

Imagine this situation: You are in your beautiful, newly remodeled kitchen wiping the counters clean after dinner.  Out in the hallway you hear your big labrador retriever galloping toward you. In a flash, he bounds across the tile to the table, plunks his meaty front paws up on a chair and begins sniffing the dinner plates for leftovers. Stopping your clean-up chores, you whirl to see what he's getting into and bam!... his big nose knocks over a nearly full glass of dark, purple grape juice left untouched by one of the kids. The tough plastic tumbler bounces all over the place, spritzing the walls with purple droplets, while a big puddle of juice begins expanding across the tile. It's flowing straight toward your new beige living room carpet.  Do you:

• A. Deny that this is actually happening, telling yourself that you are a good, hard-working person who doesn't deserve this kind of misery?
• B.  Find your spouse and begin an angst-filled review of your family's history of owning this dog, bemoaning the fact that while the dog is lovable, he has always caused too many minor disasters?
• C.  Sit down with your wife and kids and imagine a future that has in it no potentially staining leftovers and no dog anywhere near the kitchen?
• D.  Run across the room, placing yourself and your counter-cleaning sponge squarely between the expanding puddle of purple and the new carpet, thus preventing the major stain?

Do What You Fear and Grow Stronger (an audio podcast)

Focus:  This audio podcast includes inspirational quotations, war stories, examples, a little philosophy and some practical challenges to help individuals and teams push through fear and grow stronger.

(Use the control bar below to download or play the podcast. Or scroll down and simply read the transcript. Enjoy!)

Transcript of this audio, originally published on March 22, 2009:  

Do one thing every day that scares you.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

“Always, always, always, always, always do what you are afraid to do... Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain... Do the thing and you will have the power.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I was 15 years old, I loved to sing. I sang mostly in the shower, really belting out the lyrics to rock and roll songs. The bigger the shower, the better the echo, and the louder I sang. One night after basketball practice, I was alone in the school's shower and really wailing. As I finished my shower and my song, I grabbed my towel and turned to leave and saw one of the seniors standing there smiling at me. I knew this guy. Everybody knew this guy. He was the lead guitar player in a popular local band. And he informed me that he really liked my voice and wanted to know if I'd consider singing with his band. Consider?! Well I jumped at the chance. Nervous, but enthusiastic, I attended a few rehearsals at his house and discovered that I really loved singing amplified and surrounded by all that rock & roll thunder. Eventually, during one of those rehearsals, it dawned on me. This was the real deal! Someday soon I'd have to do this in front of a crowd! If I stopped to think about this for long, my heart would start racing and I'd feel like running away and hiding. But I loved the music and I kept on rehearsing and pushed those thoughts out of my mind.

Inevitably, a couple of weeks passed and I found myself walking on stage in front of my first big crowd. I had sweaty, cold palms and I was terrified. My heart was in my throat and I could feel all the lyrics just leaving my brain entirely. And again, I felt like running and hiding! But, ready or not, the band started playing, people started dancing, and I somehow started singing on cue and the energy of it all just began to flow. For the next several years my singing skills grew, I learned to play bass guitar, the band played a wide variety of venues where we met all sorts of people, and I became completely comfortable in front of crowds. Whole new worlds were opened up to me... and I wasn't even out of high school!

As the years pass and I face even more frightening challenges, I realize that I've come to regard fear as a doorway. You can't really see everything that's on the other side, but if you ignore your sweaty palms, gather your courage and step through, you almost always enter another dimension in your life. A dimension in which you are stronger than you were in the one you left behind.

Some New Graffiti on the Wall of the Universe: All My Stuff at Internet Archive

In my preceding article, Internet Archive: To Capture & Store & Share All Human Knowledge (Seriously!!), I introduced the Internet Archive as that incredibly ambious effort to make certain that humanity's digital heritage is captured and preserved. In the intervening weeks I have acquired my own free Internet Archive account and have uploaded bunches of my own publications that I want to make sure are preserved. So now, should Google (this website's current host) or YouTube or Vimeo decide that they no longer want to host these materials on the web, they will still be available for anyone to find and download, absolutely free, from Internet Archive. 

A Complete List of My Internet Archive Publications

Specifically, I have uploaded 5 complete books in PDF form, as well as many individual essays, worksheets and other tools. In addition, you'll find complete videos and audios available to play or download. And it's all absolutely free! Click on the image of the Internet Archive document below to find a complete, categorized list of all this stuff. NOTE: Scroll down/left to the "Description" of this document in its Archive listing to find active links to individual items.

Go to Internet Archive Document:
Complete List of Greer's Publications

To browse through the entire collection of my (so far..) 86 Internet Archive items, a bit jumbled and not categorized, go to:  https://archive.org/details/@michael_greer  

Note that when you are at this collection you can scroll down to find a set of Filters and other menu items that will allow you to focus only on videos, only on text documents, etc. (See below.)

As you can see from this filtered list, I have thus far uploaded 48 text items (books, PDF articles, tools), 25 movies (videos), and a dozen audios. In addition, you can locate specific types of items based on tags, such as project management, team building, etc. by using these filters.

Just Looking for The PM Minimalist Stuff?

Below is a list (fully linked) of all my PM Minimalist materials that are available for free through the Intenet Archive. (For your convenience, I've pulled this out of the main "Complete List..." above.) I've included everything you need to teach yourself about (or create a two-day workshop on) Project Management Minimalism. So if you are just interested in the PM Minimalist stuff, see below!

-----------------------------------------

THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT MINIMALIST & SUPPORT MATERIALS

• The Origins My PM (Project Management) Minimalism 

• Become a Project Management Minimalist [audio]

• Overview: The Project Management Minimalist, 2nd Edition [video]

• Quick Start Guide For The PM Minimalist [video]

• The PM Minimalist Quick Start Guide: The Absolute Least You Can Do

• Summary Tool: 10 Steps To Project Success From Project Mgt. Minimalist

• The Project Management Minimalist: Just Enough PM to Rock Your Projects! [2nd Edition [complete 132-page book]

• Overview: The Project Management Minimalist, 2nd Edition [video]

• The PM Minimalist Mentor: Scripted Coaching Tools to Guide Your Project Team
  [complete 41-page booklet]

• Preview: The PM Minimalist Mentor (Scripted Coaching Tools To Guide Your Project Team) [video]

• Do It Yourself Course Outline: Become A PM Minimalist

• PM Minimalist Quiz & Exercises with Answer Key

• Video List: Become A Project Management Minimalist List Of All 8 Videos In Series [video overview]

• 1. Become A PM Minimalist Video 1 [ Start Here!]

• 2 A Become A PM Minimalist Video 2 A

• 2 B Become A PM Minimalist Video 2 B

• 2 C Become A PM Minimalist Video 2 C

• 2 D Become A PM Minimalist Video 2 D

• 3 A Become A PM Minimalist Video 3 A

• 3 B Become A PM Minimalist Video 3 B

• 3 C Become A PM Minimalist Video 3 C

• Audios (as referenced in “The People Stuff” section of The PM Minimalist book)

• Trust Your Judgment [audio]

• Let Go of Perfectionism [audio]

• Celebrate the Chaos Within [audio]

• Embrace the Work Itself [audio]

• Take the Risk [audio]

• Just Say No [audio]

• Listen, Understand, Collaborate [audio]

• Just Do It! [audio]

• Consciously Choose Your Attitude [audio]

• Be the Change You Want to See [audio]

• PM Minimalist Integration Guide Ver 1

• A PM Minimalist's Perspective On Agile, Scrum, & Waterfall [video]

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Conclusion

So that's it! If I should depart the planet tomorrow and Google or Vimeo or YouTube decides to ditch my labored-over publications, I am comforted to know that future scholars of project management, instructional design, team building, personal growth, etc. will be able to follow my digital audit trail at the Internet Archive and use some of my stuff as a springboard for their own creations. And if my grandkids (or my grandkids' grandkids!) are able to get something useful out of any of this material then that would be a real plus as well.  Thank you, Internet Archive!

======= Related Articles ========

• Internet Archive: To Capture & Store & Share All Human Knowledge (Seriously!!)
• My Website Migration: And Then There Were Three
• Introducing My PM Resources Archives
• Inspirations: An Archived Collection to Motivate & Bring Peace of Mind 
• Free Management eBooks: A Comprehensive Collection of References and Tools for Managers

From the Archives: "Why You Should Trust Your Judgment (Your 'Inner Wisdom Filter')"

Your "Inner Wisdom Filter" is real & it's trustworthy!

“Skill in any performance, whether it be in sports, in playing the piano, in conversation, or in selling merchandise, consists not in painfully and consciously thinking out each action as it is performed, but in relaxing, and letting the job do itself through you. Creative performance is spontaneous and ‘natural’ as opposed to self-conscious and studied.”  -- Maxwell Maltz in Psycho-Cybernetics

“By banishing doubt and trusting your intuitive feelings, you clear a space for the power of intention to flow through.” -- Wayne Dyer in The Power of Intention

The message shared by these great teachers… indeed, by many other great philosophers… is that to achieve anything great you must trust that voice which lies deep within you and is trying to be heard...  

Want to learn more? Read the entire chapter (including interactive "Team Challenges") online, for free, here:  Worth Sharing: Essays & Tools to Help Project Managers & Their Teams.  Or listen to/download the podcast that inspired it here:  Trust Your Judgment (the podcast).

Related Posts

• A Lesson from the Humble Pelican: Find Your Unique Mission, Then Soar!
• Overwhelmed by Angst? “Spit on Your Hands & Get Busy!” (Including a Quick Start Guide to Banishing Angst)
• Inspirations: An Archived Collection to Motivate & Bring Peace of Mind
• Inspirations: The Podcast Collection

• Inspired Project Teams Coaching Guide

• Book: The Project Management Minimalist (this chapter originally published there, in this section: "The People Stuff: 10 Sets of Challenges to Inspire Teams”)