Seemingly, in the blink of an eye, 2017 is coming to a close. For me, it’s hard to believe how quickly my second year as the lead of Salsaholics passed. So many new patterns. So many new students (for which I am incredibly grateful). So many installments of Mark’s Lead, the place in which I…
We’ve considered four of the five elements of well-being as outlined in Martin Seligman’s book, Flourish—Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationship, and Accomplishment. Today, I’ll cover the final element in PERMA, the M for Meaning. Meaning is the sense of belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than you are. There is clearly…
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been writing about how dance connects with each of the five aspects of well-being as identified in Martin Seligman’s great book on Positive Psychology, Flourish. We’ve looked at the first three in his acronym, PERMA, namely, Positive emotion, Engagement, and Relationship. I’m going to skip over Meaning until next…
We’ve been examining the Positive Psychology construct of well-being, comprised of Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationship, Meaning, and Accomplishment, denoted by the acronym, PERMA. This week, it’s the R for Relationship that comes into our focus. It’s easy to understand how the intimacy of partner dancing, almost irrespective of style, can create long-lasting, intimate relationships….
Last week I began a series of short essays linking up Martin Seligman’s work on “well-being” in Positive Psychology as described in his most enjoyable book, Flourish, and the benefits of social partner dancing. How does Seligman define well-being? Great question! Well-being, according to Seligman, is the intention of Positive Psychology, constructed from five elements:…
I’m reading Flourish by Martin Seligman, the founder of Positive Psychology. Positive Psychology seeks answers to the question, “What makes life worth living?” As opposed to diagnosing psychological dysfunctions, Positive Psych looks at how we can improve well-being in our lives. What is this “well-being,” you ask? Seligman maintains that it is a construct comprised…
I just returned home from a quick trip to Phoenix to attend a family wedding. It was a lovely, relatively small event as weddings go. There was a live band playing lively, danceable music. And the guests got up to… ummm… jump up and down, and swing their arms wildly, unless it was a slow…
So, are you watching this year’s World Series? Two teams – the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros – each of which was the clear leader in their league through the regular season, performing in the “Fall Classic” in ways that are literally unprecedented in the history of baseball. And not necessarily in a good…
Yesterday, I met with a university student for whom I’m acting as thesis advisor. (Side note: among other things I do when I’m not dancing or teaching dance is to work with university students at all levels, guiding them through major research projects, theses, and dissertations either as their advisor/supervisor, or as an adjunct to…
Tis the season for employee engagement surveys—that annual exercise which provides a typically unreliable glimpse into motivation (or lack thereof) in an organization. In an environment that is overly bureaucratic, where an individual’s autonomy might be limited, where the HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) always take precedence, it’s easy to understand how people might simply…