Generative Generosity

You know lots of ways to be generous. You open doors, offer your seat, donate to charities and sometimes even share your lunch. Generosity might not be a word you normally associate with how you interact with others, but it is an important and generative quality to bring to the table. You are generous when you pay attention to what others are saying and work hard to understand it. You are generous when you share … Read more…

Well-Being in Meetings #4: Generosity

Generosity turns out to be its own reward. According to neuroscientist Richie Davidson, “There are now a plethora of data showing that when we individuals engage in generous and altruistic behaviors, they actually activate circuits in the brain that are key to fostering well-being.”         Generosity is one of the four building blocks of well-being identified by Davidson. The other three ingredients are resilience, outlook, and attention. They were the focus of the last three … Read more…

Well-Being in Meetings #3: Attention

Years ago a colleague remarked, “Attention is a limited resource.” Although I agreed with her at the time, I could not have appreciated then the deeper truth of her words because 25 years ago we did not know much about how attention worked in the brain. We now know that focusing attention and inhibiting or avoiding distractions uses lots of energy in the very part of the brain that plays an important role in paying … Read more…