I am currently enjoying working with several of The Culver Academies’ humanities instructors who are teaching the nuances of John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, the coming of age story of young men at a boarding school set in mid-World War II. The main characters, Gene and Finny are good friends who look at life from […]

If you’ve never seen a wrestling match, you’ve never seen one of the grittiest athletic spectacles known to man, and one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to watch as a nervous mother (through laced fingers over my eyes, to be honest). And if you haven’t heard about Dustin Carter, you’re about to learn […]

“Raindrops on roses and
Whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and
Warm woolen mittens”

Julie Andrews sang about them. Oprah has them. And so I now want to do a fun column about “My Favorite Things,” too, to pay homage to some of the things that bring happiness and contentment to my life in the hopes […]

Most people involved in sport agree that proper behavior makes the sport better and that character matters.  While there is a great amount of attention paid today to ideals of sportsmanship, or positive relational character — respecting self, teammates, opponents, and the game — there isn’t a lot of consideration paid to the influence that […]

Skiing for the first time in my life earlier this year, I was offered by my wonderful Italian ski instructor a new positive psychology construct I want to share with you. […]

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend and present at the 1st Annual Applied Positive Psychology Conference at The University of Warwick in April. Sponsored by the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology, over 200 delegates representing 24 countries were in attendance. The program, entitled People at their Best in Work, Education and Health, featured a variety of valuable keynotes and instructive and informative workshops and paper presentations. […]

The Department of Health and Human Services, in conjunction with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, launched a nationwide health promotion and disease prevention initiative called Healthy People 2010. One of the focus areas from this initiative is to increase the amount of physical activity in the largely sedentary population, in hopes of supporting physical health and reducing the staggering number of preventable deaths. For example, in the year 2000, of 2,391,399 deaths, 1,159,000 (48%) were from preventable causes. Furthermore and estimated 400,000 of those deaths were due to poor diet and physical inactivity. […]

     In 1954, the sports world was shocked when Great Britain’s Roger Bannister broke the four minute-mile barrier by six tenths of a second.  For years, track and field experts and enthusiasts claimed that breaking 4 minutes was impossible.  However, less than six weeks later, the Australian John Landy bested the new record time by […]

Very vividly, I remember the first time I tried to do swizzles. A swizzle is one of the most basic skating moves, where both feet simultaneously trace outlines of coke bottles on the ice. I was 5 years old, and was not a natural born swizzler. I recall the feeling of utter discouragement, and telling […]

Every few days or so, when I need a break from the world, I go to my sanctuary on top of a remote mountain in the Canadian Rockies.
Well, at least my brain is convinced that I do.
During my junior year as a varsity collegiate rower in Boston, my coach – concerned about some of our […]