C'mon Get Happy!

Research has shown that happiness is highly contagious.

Psychologies magazine reports that if you become happy, any friend who lives within a mile has a 25% of becoming happier, too. And a friend of that friend is 10% liklier to be happy.

Call it the ripple effect: you're happy and so are those in your circle.

Less Junk Mail?

Is it just me, or since the economy took a slide, are you getting less junk mail: solicitations, catalogs and the like?

Silver lining, I'd say.

Free Seminar. Plus, Hot Breakfast and a Free Book!

During an economic downturn, professionals in the training, development, organizational development and HR arenas are vulnerable.

Making it more critical than ever to link your value to the bottom line.

So if you live in Atlanta, you'll want to attend a free seminar sponsored by Fort Hill Company with Cal Wick, co-author of Getting Your Money's Worth from Training & Development, on Thursday, June 25 from 8:30-11:30 a.m.

Five reasons you'll want to attend:

* Hot breakfast
* A copy of the book (a $25 value)
* Access to a world-renowned thought leader during an interactive Q&A
* Networking opportunities
* Best practices insight
* Ammo to help you measure or program learning activities at your firm

Register here: http://atlanta25jun09-rss.eventbrite.com/

Transform Your Life in 10s.

Suzy Welch, former editor in chief of the Harvard Business Review, claims you can transform your life by thinking in blocks of tens.

As in: how will a specific decision--take a new job, end a reltionship--impact your life in 10 minutes, months or years.

It's an interesting way to approach decision-making.

Learn more at http://www.suzywelch101010.com/.

Tools for Reinvention.

These days it seems everyone is thinking about Their Life, Version 2.0 (or 5.0, depending on age).

Routinely, folks ask me to help them polish their resumes, make a cyber introduction or brainstorm career possiblities.

And I'm happy to do it. Many people have lent me a hand over the years and believe in paying it foward.

But there are experts out there in the field of personal reinvention.

If now's the time for a change, check out http://www.reinvention-institute.com/ for inspiration.

Winning Similes and Metaphors.

Enjoy these examples from Sharp Objects, a dark novel by Gillian Flynn:

I fell asleep, accidentally and hard at nine o’clcok, woke to an angry sun at seven the next moring.

John’s face, despite a night of drinking and very little sleep, was like a petal.

My mother’s pigs were pricked with chemicals till they plumped and reddened like squirting cherries, till their legs couldn’t support their juicy girth.

Challenging Nonprofit Assumptions.

Mark Rovner of Sea Change Strategies has been called a "heretic" for challenging the status quo of the nonprofit world.

You decide if the fund-raising model of the past 50 years--direct mail--needs skewering.

The Nonprofit Technology Network,http://www.nten.org/taxonomy/term/960, features Rovner's latest "seven things everybody wants," which involve leveraging the internet for optimum engagement.