Positive Intervention

Ever since hearing President Obama’s state of the union address last week, I couldn’t help but thinking what I need to do: ask for President W and his supporters for forgiveness – forgiveness for my own lack of support during his presidency, for saying things like “He’s not my President, he’s yours.” For mocking him continually (which was easy because my friends were doing the same). But not all my friends – and certainly not many of my family members, including my parents, who have a framed photo of the man (albeit in their basement), which arrived after they made...

I propose we attempt to set up learning organizations wherever possible to support a more positive evolution. According to Peter M. Senge, Director of the Systems Thinking and Organizational Learning Program at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Learning Organizations are places where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together. Essentially, anywhere there are groups of people that spend chunks of time together can form learning organizations –...

[caption id="attachment_174" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Diva Angel"][/caption] Ahemmm . . . How are you? I am so super grateful: I write this as I head to two places: (1) to my high school alma mater, where I'm meeting with students to talk about the application of Positive Psychology in the band, a group I was a part of 15 years ago, when I was "one of them." I'm co-presenting at an international band director's conference in Chicago next month, alongside my high school band director, Curt, on how bands can flourish using Positive Psychology and Social-Emontional Leadership; this is our action research and (2)...

[caption id="attachment_166" align="alignright" width="300" caption="From hearing to seeing to speaking. Assume much?"][/caption] Aim: To become more mindful of everyday language, to create meaning. Point: What we know of positive psychology is that other people matter. <roll eyes here>. Certainly, these words have been overused so much so, they’re becoming empty. Other words we use are empty, too. For example, when someone asks, “How are you?” answers like “fine” and “good” do not have significant meaning. The argument can be made that the question has no meaning either. Challenge: To be as specific as you can be when someone asks you, “How are you?”....

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