Since 2013, I have had the privilege of teaching at OPERA America’s Leadership Intensive Program. This initiative trains mid-career opera executives to take on senior leadership positions at major opera companies. We meet for a week in New York and then I have a series of coaching calls with the leaders throughout the year. For our most recent cohort in …
The SPIRE of Career Planning: How to Build Happiness and Optimism with Meaningful Career Goals
My first post on the SPIRE of career planning explained how to embrace a positive mindset around your career planning and then conduct a personal assessment of your purpose, values, passions, and strengths. In this post, we will explore how to incorporate those elements to set meaningful career goals and create an action plan. The result will help you to …
The SPIRE of Career Planning: How to Build Happiness and Optimism into Your Career Part 1
Career planning may feel daunting so here is something that can help to make the process feel fulfilling and motivating, build resilience and lead to greater optimism: The SPIRE model of happiness. Let’s explore the SPIRE of Career Planning! Career Planning is a great way to clarify what you want to achieve professionally and how to get there. My method …
Strengths and Happiness Part 2: The SPIRE of Strengths
How do you feel when you are doing something that you are really good at and that you love? Probably pretty terrific! That’s because you are using your strengths: the talents that energize you. Research from positive psychology demonstrates that identifying and using your strengths enhances your capacity for greater well-being and happiness. Strengths connect closely to Tal Ben-Shahar’s research-based …
Flow and SPIRE Model of Happiness: How Flow Boosts Your Happiness
Think back to the last time that you were doing something: that you love, where you were totally immersed in this activity and in the zone, totally confident, free of judgment, feeling tremendous joy and so absorbed in what you were doing that time was going by and you didn’t even notice it. How do you feel? Chances are that …
Happiness and Balance: How Leaders Use the SPIRE Model for Life Balance
Does life balance give rise to greater happiness? How can the science of happiness help to achieve happiness AND balance? These are the questions that I explored with the alumni of OPERA America’s Leadership Intensive Program at the recent Leadership Intensive Alumni Forum in Los Angeles, California. These non-profit arts leaders have been through an incredibly demanding period starting with the …
The Wisdom of Improv: 6 Principles to Enhance Your Happiness and Well-Being
Last month, I was thrilled to offer a workshop on improvisation (or improv) at the live retreat of my science of happiness program in Akumal, Mexico. It was amazing to meet our professor, Tal Ben-Shahar, and 60 other happiness journeyers from all over the world who are part of the Happiness Studies Academy community for a beautiful weekend on Riviera …
SPIRE for Leaders: How to Bring Happiness to Your Organization
In my last blog post, I wrote about Tal Ben-Shahar’s SPIRE model of happiness and how to apply it to improve your life. In this blog post, I will talk about SPIRE for Leaders and how it benefits the non-profit workplace culture. A few weeks ago, I had the privilege and pleasure to lead a SPIRE workshop at the 2022 …
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The SPIRE Model of Happiness: How to Enhance Your Wellbeing
For the past six months, I have been studying the science of happiness in an amazing certificate program at the Happiness Studies Academy (HSA). The founder of the program is Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar. Tal is an internationally renowned teacher, best-selling author, and consultant in the fields of happiness and leadership who taught two of the most popular courses in Harvard’s …