Beverly Hillbilly Jed Clampett would reckon to commence something everyday. But for those who don’t use language like “cee-ment pond,” commencement is linked typically to the milestone of graduation.  And there’s a lot of that going around my circle of family and friends.

My gal-pal Ruth’s daughter graduates tomorrow from Boston University. Next Sunday I’ll be one proud and happy parent watching my son’s commencement ceremony at Wesleyan University. And the weekend after that my niece will receive her high school diploma in Austin, Texas. So it’s time to party! To celebrate academic accomplishments and feel excitement about a future filled with all they imagine for themselves.

Some mighty wisdom is shared in commencement speeches. There’s Steve Jobs’ address to the 2005 graduating class at Standford. Or the not-really-written-by-Kurt-Vonnegut “wear sunscreen” speech that went viral in May 1997.

But I have to confess that my three most memorable pieces of advice come from a favorite educator, the fictional Miss Frizzle, of Magic School Bus fame, who said “Take chances, make mistakes, get messy.”

Have fun class of 2012!

Photo credit: FreeDigitalPhotos

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood” is Covey’s Habit 5. And it popped up in a great piece this week on cbsnews.com’s MoneyWatch, titled “The Number One Skill,” by Mary Goodman and Rich Russakoff. But before you get to their list of six easy tips to help you go from poor listener to great listener, be prepared to answer which of the five bad listening habits you might be guilty of. (That first one is a killer.)

And then, when you’ve listened effectively, when you’re ready to respond thoughtfully and be understood, remember that the tone of your voice often communicates more accurately what you’re thinking than your words do.

“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.“ – Lewis Carroll

Outstanding leaders know the power of a positive mental attitude. They have developed habits of thought that tap into and leverage the energy of their own minds. They have learned to direct their thoughts to whatever it is they want to achieve. For them, everything is possible. They know their priorities are attainable. They envision what they want, plan for it, and then align their organizations to accomplish it.

Take control of the only things that really matter to your success: your thoughts and your attitude.

The Inc. magazine article I posted a  link to Tuesday on Facebook – Geoffrey James’ “8 Core Beliefs of Extraordinary Bosses” – found its way to my inbox today via email from DailyGood.org. Its arrival prompted a search in the Brain Food blog archives for my 2010 post on the basic principles of leadership. Some ideas are just worth repeating.

The Basic Principles

1. Focus on the situation, issue, or behavior, not on the person.
2. Maintain the self-confidence and self-esteem of others.
3. Maintain constructive relationships with your employees, peers, and managers.
4. Take initiative to make things better.
5. Lead by example.

Whether you’re a boss, manager or team leader, being a good leader isn’t as much about skill as it is about the behaviors and attitudes that build trust and inspire others. There are two questions about you that matter most among the people working with you: Can I trust this person? Does s/he care about me? Your application of the basic principles should make it easy for them to answer in the affirmative.

Walking to an appointment yesterday, a little girl in a stroller passed me singing loudly “I’m so happy because I’m free.” The day before I sat on a subway train across from an ad banner with the headline “Sustainable Happiness,” promoting a 10-week course on how to discover the principles that lead to freedom and happiness. And earlier in the week I received an email invitation from author Shawn Achor to attend his weekend-long Happiness Advantage Retreat at a resort in upstate New York.

I’d been participating in the “Track Your Happiness” research project via an iPhone app for a couple of weeks, so I wasn’t surprised that the happy evidence of my mindset was popping up everywhere I turned. I signed up to participate, because I was curious about the questions I’d be asked that would rate my happiness levels. Not surprisingly, they’re similar to the questions I suggest my clients ask themselves occasionally throughout the day. Questions intended to sample their own mindset and gauge how their thoughts relate to how they feel.

What we think about and how we feel shape our physical experience. And happiness signals a strong energetic force. It’s an indicator of the positive energy that allows us to focus. And it’s been proven to trigger motivation, creativity, productivity and lead to success.

Take some time during the day to check in on your own mindset and energy. Ask yourself: What am I thinking about right now and how does it make me feel? Am I judging myself? What am I expecting to happen? What do I want to happen?

Happiness is in. And that’s a good thing, because happiness leads to success. I hope you’re eager to be in on that.

How today – or any day – unfolds for you depends on your beliefs. So let Friday the 13^th be a trigger to reflect on the beliefs you hold about yourself, your role at work, the relationships you have with co-workers, your present situation and your future. Be aware of them, write them down, examine them. Are they your beliefs, or have you accepted the beliefs of others?

Nothing is more important than your beliefs. They shape your feelings and your behaviors. What do you believe? What do you expect? Those are the things that create your experience which then, in turn, reinforces the belief or expectation.

A belief is only anything you accept as the truth. It is nothing more than a practiced pattern of thought, a habit of thought. But just because you believe something doesn’t make it true. You are always the leader of you. At any moment in time, you have the personal energy and freedom to reject limiting thoughts and beliefs, form others and change your experience. Lucky you!

In a matter of minutes, you can sign up to join me and the more than 15,000 other people in 83 countries to report emotional states in real time. The experience-sampling app Track Your Happiness was built by Matthew Killingsworth, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard University. Since 2009 he and his collaborator, Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert, have collected more than half a million data points, making this the first-ever large-scale study of happiness in daily life.

The study has found that no matter what people are doing, they are much less happy when their minds are wandering than when their minds are focused. And a major finding concludes that people’s minds wander almost 50% of the time, including time spent on the job. In future research Killingsworth plans to use this tracking technology in the workplace to find out what actually makes us happy at work. Early indicators are that happiness is not as dependent on a big salary or high-powered title as it is the moment-to-moment emotions of our experience.

So in this moment, I wish you a happy holiday weekend filled with as many focused, feel-good moments as you can muster.

Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert confirms what many already know:

• Happy people are more creative and more productive.
• People are happiest when they’re appropriately challenged. (Challenged does not mean threatened.)
• Small stuff matters. The number of good experiences one has is more a factor in happiness than how good a single experience is.

And those facts are a meaningful segue to the “Creating Sustainable Performance” article by Gretchen Spreitzer and Christine Porath. Their lead: “Happy employees produce more than unhappy ones over the long term.”

When the duo and their research partners at the Ross School of Business’s Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship began studying what factors contributed to sustainable individual and organizational performance, they found a better word for happy: They preferred thriving. The thriving workforces were made up of people not just satisfied and productive, but also focused on and committed to creating the company’s future as well as their own. They were highly energized, performed better overall, reported 125% less burnout than their peers, and went to the doctor less often.

Spreitzer and Porath identified two critical components of thriving. The first is vitality, as in the sense of feeling alive, passionate and excited and whose energy is contagious. The second is learning; people who develop through new knowledge and skills are more likely to believe in their future growth.

Now while some people thrive no matter what – and you know I believe it’s possible for anyone to become a “thriver” – in seven years of research Spreitzer, Porath and their colleagues found four interrelated mechanisms necessary for a company to create a culture of thriving:

• Provide decision-making discretion. Empower people to make decisions that affect their work. Invite employee input into decisions that would improve overall company service and performance.

• Share information. People contribute more effectively when they understand the bigger picture. Knowing how their work fits with the company’s mission and strategy increases a sense of ownership.

• Promote civility. In their research with Christine Pearson, a professor at Thunderbird School of Global Management, the authors found that half of employees who experienced rude or disrespectful behavior at work intentionally decreased their effort and more than a third deliberately decreased the quality of their work. Clearly the Golden Rule rules in a thriving work environment.

• Offer performance feedback. It’s critical for creating a culture that thrives. Fast, direct feedback can quickly dispel feelings of doubt and uncertainty and allows people to stay focused on work and goals.

And no matter what your role is in an organization, you can create a mindset for developing your own thriving environment, both personally and professionally. There are simple things you can do to create more positive energy and boost your vitality. Commit to meditating, exercising, getting enough sleep, spending time with the people that matter to you, volunteering. Feel good. Be happy. Thrive.

idea by tony dowler

Here’s a video clip from EO Alchemy that I hope triggers some self-examination, frees your mind and gets you thinking about the future you’ll create.

The new fuzzy-eared headband called “Necomimi” – or cat ears in Japanese – is a communication device that’s controlled by the wearer’s thoughts and emotions. Created by a company called Neuroware, Necomimi uses the latest neuroscience imaging technology to detect brain waves and interpret them.

The ears shoot up when the wearer is focused. They flatten when the wearer is relaxes. When a person is relaxed but also focused on a specific activity, like reading a book or playing a game, the ears twirl around in a circle. When brain activity is low, the ears just flap gently back and forth. See it in action here.

The technology to control objects just by thinking about them has been in development in labs around the world for years to assist wheelchair users or help people who’ve lost limbs control prosthetic devices. And brain-computer interfaces continue to be explored. Whether it’s serious science or hi-tech fashion fun, the point remains that while brain activity can be monitored, harnessed and interpreted, it’s still the energy of thoughts and emotions that trigger the activity. It’s mind over matter, always.