Fifty Lessons to Enrich Your Life
Proven Principles From Psychological Science
This unique teaching/learning resource was created to enhance the reader’s interpersonal relations at home, at work, at school, and throughout the community. It’s a Life Coach Guide—based on research-based evidence from psychological science that reveals secrets for beneficial self-awareness, interpersonal acumen, and continuous improvement. More specifically, this self-help manual was designed to:
- Inspire quality teaching/learning conversations among diverse groups of individuals of all ages—anyone interested in applying psychological science to enrich personal and interpersonal well-being;
- Understand, appreciate, and enrich the human dynamics of everyday life. The focus is on circumstances that involve human behavior, ranging from educational settings and the workplace to the home—all life situations we encounter daily;
- Engage students, employees, and family members in teaching/learning conversations about the psychology of health, safety, and relationship-building;
- Enhance human welfare and well-being;
- Reduce interpersonal conflict and bullying; and
Improve work productivity, environmental conservation, and life satisfaction.
Description
E. Scott Geller, Ph.D., Alumni Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech (VT), is co-founder and senior partner of Safety Performance Solutions, Inc. For more than 50 years, Professor Geller has taught and conducted research as a faculty member and director of the Center for Applied Behavior Systems in the Department of Psychology at VT. He is the author, co-author, or editor of numerous books, book chapters, magazine articles, and research articles addressing the development and evaluation of behavior-change interventions to improve quality of life on a large scale. Dr. Geller is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, the Association of Behavior Analysis International, and the World Academy of Productivity and Quality Sciences.
Additional Information
Reviews
I read all 50 lessons and enjoyed them all, but two life lessons stuck out the most: Life Lessons 8 and 42. Life Lesson 8 is about using more supportive feedback to encourage the positive actions of others. My favorite part was toward the end when the oxymoron “constructive criticism” was mentioned. How can you criticize anyone and expect your words to help them? If you reward the good behavior, you increase the chance of the good behavior occurring more frequently.
Life Lesson 42 is about the good and bad of Type-A personalities. As a Type-A person, I could relate to this lesson perfectly. People with Type-A personalities are very goal-oriented and will stop at nothing to achieve what they want. Although this is a great quality to have, it often leads to frustration and an unhealthy competitive spirit. Thus, it’s critical to understand the difference between Type-A behavior and Type-A emotion.
This book is filled with many life lessons that make you think twice about how you perceive our world. I believe everyone should have access to this book so they know how to apply psychological science for human welfare. I love how Dr. Geller is teaching the subject of psychology to better our world.
One of my favorite life lessons is “Life Lesson 28: The Power of Reciprocity.” This is about paying forward acts of kindness. I’m sure many have seen videos on the internet or on the news of people paying for other people’s meals at a drive-thru or volunteering at a soup kitchen. No matter how big or small an act of kindness, such behavior is infectious and can spread in a ripple effect.
Overall, this book was an eye-opening read for me and could be a helpful guide for people of all ages. These 50 life lessons are relevant for elementary students as well as students in high school, universities, and in the workplace. Out of all my textbooks, manuals, workbooks I have used throughout my education, this is one I would be most happy to purchase.
The world seems to be increasingly hostile, apathetic, and disconnected. One of the life lessons is fundamental to solving some of these issues–“Life Lesson 14: The Power of Interdependence.” This life lesson highlights the advantage of changing our mindsets from independent to interdependent. By transforming self-importance to a combined value of self and others together, humans can improve every aspect of life on earth. Ranging from protecting our environment to just helping one person feel more connected to others, this life lesson is fundamental. More importantly, that is just one life lesson from this inspiring book. If we all took the time to read and apply these life lessons, the world would absolutely become a better place for us all.
The LifeCOACH Guide presents 50 key life lessons in a straightforward and to-the-point fashion. Books often present a lesson and then add “fluff” or too much additional information that confuses the reader. This teaching/learning guide enables readers to clearly understand the purpose of each life lesson and to apply it into a real-world context of their life. This book made me really think and consider the way I interact with others in various situations in my life, and I genuinely enjoyed reading it.
I liked the way the author uses an illustration and discussion questions to teach a life lesson. The questions opened my mind to different perspectives and scenarios. I particularly appreciated “Life Lesson 26: Communicate with Empathy.” This lesson focuses on different ways an individual can express empathy. In today’s world, I believe we have lost empathy for those around us. I’m convinced that learning and applying this and related life lessons would be extremely beneficial to everyone because it teaches the value of effective communication skills and the power of diversity. Overall, the 50 life lessons are easy to understand and practice in everyday life.
The author shared important information and examples with each life lesson. For example, “Life Lesson 22: Watch Out for Groupthink” shares the well-known and tragic example of groupthink that caused the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986. The entire crew of seven died as a result of an explosion on the space shuttle. The likely cause of the disaster was a malfunction of the rocket seals due to the freezing temperature. Although engineers of the rock booster anticipated a possible seal problem, the NASA seal-management team denied the engineers’ warnings and agreed with the executive order to launch the challenger. Examples like these are extremely important–they make us aware of these dangers and can prevent them from happening again.
Dr. Geller also used instructive and memorable quotations to help explain a life lesson, as for “Life Lesson 24: Don’t Blame People for Problems Caused by the System.” This quotation from W. Edwards Deming reminds us to focus our effort on optimizing the system.
I also thought the book was very insightful and informative about Actively Caring for People (AC4P) behavior. “Life Lesson 28: The Power of Reciprocity” really enlightened me on AC4P behavior. I learned that system thinkers consider the benefits of vicarious reciprocity when an observer of AC4P behavior is inspired through observational learning to perform prosocial AC4P behavior. I learned that when system thinkers receive a “Thank you” for their AC4P behavior they do not demean the favor by saying something like, “No problem,” or “It was really nothing.” This can make the AC4P behavior appear trivial and reduce the impetus for follow-up reciprocity or pay-it-forward behavior. They instead react to a “Thank you” and something like, “You are very welcome, but you’d do the same for me.”
These were concepts that made me realize what AC4P is really about and what it actually means. I also learned new information pertaining to other life improvement. In “Life Lesson 30” I learned how the seminal research by Carol Dweck directs us to use effort or behavioral-related labels for a desirable characteristic because labels that imply a fixed ability rather than growth potential can stifle motivation to take on challenges.
I also learned a completely new topic in “Life Lesson 42: The Good and Bad of Type A.” This topic was new to me and I learned a lot of information here. I learned that Type A-behavior individuals are likely goal-driven and self-motivated to get things done. On the negative side, they are more likely to experience a Type-A emotion like frustration, and this person-state can activate hostility and aggressive behavior.
I really enjoyed this book because it elaborated on topics I had learned in previous psychology courses. Just a short list of examples: the self-fulfilling prophecy, response efficacy, outcome expectancy, the self-serving bias, attributional bias, the facial-feedback technique, the just-world hypothesis, classical conditioning, operant condition, and observational learning.
I read all 50 lessons and enjoyed them all, but two life lessons stuck out the most: Life Lessons 8 and 42. Life Lesson 8 is about using more supportive feedback to encourage the positive actions of others. My favorite part was toward the end when the oxymoron “constructive criticism” was mentioned. How can you criticize anyone and expect your words to help them? If you reward the good behavior, you increase the chance of the good behavior occurring more frequently.
Life Lesson 42 is about the good and bad of Type-A personalities. As a Type-A person, I could relate to this lesson perfectly. People with Type-A personalities are very goal-oriented and will stop at nothing to achieve what they want. Although this is a great quality to have, it often leads to frustration and an unhealthy competitive spirit. Thus, it’s critical to understand the difference between Type-A behavior and Type-A emotion.
This book is filled with many life lessons that make you think twice about how you perceive our world. I believe everyone should have access to this book so they know how to apply psychological science for human welfare. I love how Dr. Geller is teaching the subject of psychology to better our world.
One of my favorite life lessons is “Life Lesson 28: The Power of Reciprocity.” This is about paying forward acts of kindness. I’m sure many have seen videos on the internet or on the news of people paying for other people’s meals at a drive-thru or volunteering at a soup kitchen. No matter how big or small an act of kindness, such behavior is infectious and can spread in a ripple effect.
Overall, this book was an eye-opening read for me and could be a helpful guide for people of all ages. These 50 life lessons are relevant for elementary students as well as students in high school, universities, and in the workplace. Out of all my textbooks, manuals, workbooks I have used throughout my education, this is one I would be most happy to purchase.
The world seems to be increasingly hostile, apathetic, and disconnected. One of the life lessons is fundamental to solving some of these issues–“Life Lesson 14: The Power of Interdependence.” This life lesson highlights the advantage of changing our mindsets from independent to interdependent. By transforming self-importance to a combined value of self and others together, humans can improve every aspect of life on earth. Ranging from protecting our environment to just helping one person feel more connected to others, this life lesson is fundamental. More importantly, that is just one life lesson from this inspiring book. If we all took the time to read and apply these life lessons, the world would absolutely become a better place for us all.
The LifeCOACH Guide presents 50 key life lessons in a straightforward and to-the-point fashion. Books often present a lesson and then add “fluff” or too much additional information that confuses the reader. This teaching/learning guide enables readers to clearly understand the purpose of each life lesson and to apply it into a real-world context of their life. This book made me really think and consider the way I interact with others in various situations in my life, and I genuinely enjoyed reading it.”
I liked the way the author uses an illustration and discussion questions to teach a life lesson. The questions opened my mind to different perspectives and scenarios. I particularly appreciated “Life Lesson 26: Communicate with Empathy.” This lesson focuses on different ways an individual can express empathy. In today’s world, I believe we have lost empathy for those around us. I’m convinced that learning and applying this and related life lessons would be extremely beneficial to everyone because it teaches the value of effective communication skills and the power of diversity. Overall, the 50 life lessons are easy to understand and practice in everyday life.”