“
The argument has long been made that we humans are by nature compassionate and empathic despite the occasional streak of meanness, but torrents of bad news throughout history have contradicted that claim, and little sound science has backed it. But try this thought experiment. Imagine the number of opportunities people around the world today might have to commit an antisocial act, from rape or murder to simple rudeness and dishonesty. Make that number the bottom of a fraction. Now for the top value you put the number of such antisocial acts that will actually occur today.
That ratio of potential to enacted meanness holds at close to zero any day of the year. And if for the top value you put the number of benevolent acts performed in a given day, the ratio of kindness to cruelty will always be positive. (The news, however, comes to us as though that ratio was reversed.)
Harvard's Jerome Kagan proposes this mental exercise to make a simple point about human nature: the sum total of goodness vastly outweighs that of meanness. 'Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy, and to be rude, aggressive or violent,' Kagan notes, 'they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture – especially toward those in need.' This inbuilt ethical sense, he adds, 'is a biological feature of our species.
”
”
Daniel Goleman (Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships)
“
Moderately fast growers (20 to 25 percent) in nongrowth industries are ideal investments. • Look for companies with niches. • When purchasing depressed stocks in troubled companies, seek out the ones with the superior financial positions and avoid the ones with loads of bank debt. • Companies that have no debt can’t go bankrupt. • Managerial ability may be important, but it’s quite difficult to assess. Base your purchases on the company’s prospects, not on the president’s resume or speaking ability. • A lot of money can be made when a troubled company turns around. • Carefully consider the price-earnings ratio. If the stock is grossly overpriced, even if everything else goes right, you won’t make any money. • Find a story line to follow as a way of monitoring a company’s progress. • Look for companies that consistently buy back their own shares.
”
”
Peter Lynch (One Up On Wall Street: How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In)
“
In the calculus of the heart it is the ratio of positive to negative emotions that determines the sense of well- being.
”
”
Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ)
“
The water beneath the Temple was both actual and metaphorical, existing as springs and streams, as spiritual energy, and as a symbol of the receptive or lunar aspect of nature.
The meaning of that principle is too wide and elusive for it to be given any one name, so in the terminology of ancient science it was given a number, 1,080. Its polar opposite, the positive, solar force in the universe, was also referred to as a number 666.
These two numbers, which have an approximate golden-section relationship of 1:1.62, were at the root of the alchemical formula that expressed the supreme purpose of the Temple. Its polar opposite, the positive, solar force in the universe, was also referred to as a number 666. Not merely was it used to generate energy from fusion of atmospheric and terrestrial currents, but it also served to combine in harmony all the correspondences of those forces on every level of creation.
”
”
John Michell (The Dimensions of Paradise: Sacred Geometry, Ancient Science, and the Heavenly Order on Earth)
“
A certain amount of native skill and training can allow many individuals to be fairly successful magicians, achieving a surprisingly high ratio of positive results through sorcery.(...) These outer changes, no matter how dramatic, will not necessarily have a deep impact on the deepest levels of your psyche, which is where the process of initiation most meaningfully manifests.'
--Zeena Schreck for “Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background
and role within new Western religiosity,” University of Stockholm, Malin Fitger 2004
”
”
Zeena Schreck (Demons of the Flesh: The Complete Guide to Left Hand Path Sex Magic)
“
As girls go through puberty, their hormones will have a direct impact on how their facial features develop. Women with high levels of estrogen will end up with full lips and a large waist-to-hip ratio, while women with lower levels of androgen, the steroid hormones, will keep their short and narrow jaws from childhood, along with their flatter brows—giving them much larger eyes. And—surprise, surprise—this balance of female hormones is also positively linked to fertility.
”
”
Hannah Fry (The Mathematics of Love: Patterns, Proofs, and the Search for the Ultimate Equation)
“
If you want the benefit of having an ox, you're going to have to endure the poo that comes with it. The goal is to have a positive poo to ox ratio.
”
”
Mark Gungor (Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage: Unlocking the Secrets to Life, Love and Marriage)
“
It is noted that from 1967 to 1995 essays on negative emotions far outnumbered those on positive emotions in the psychological literature. The ratio was 21:1. Even those supreme perpetrators of pop nihilism, The New York Times and The Washington Post, have a better ratio than psychological literature. They average 12 negative stories to every one that might be construed to be non-negative. Many of their non-negative stories, however, cover success in sports and entertainment.
I demand that the purveyors of despair who pretend to be dispassionate observes of the human condition go ahead and disclose that the 10 most beautiful words in the English languages are chimes, dawn, golden, hush, lullaby, luminous, melody, mist, murmuring, and tranquil; that Java sparrows prefer the music of Back over that of Schoenberg; that math experts have determined there are 1/96 trillion ways to lace up your shoes; that the Inuit term for making love is translated as ‘laughing together in bed;' and that according to Buckminster Fuller, “pollution is nothing but resources we’re not harvesting.
”
”
Rob Brezsny (Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You With Blessings)
“
Turn on the news, and the majority of airtime is spent on accidents, corruption, murders, abuse. This focus on the negative tricks our brains into believing that this sorry ratio is reality, that most of life is negative.
”
”
Shawn Achor (The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work)
“
You know what this means, right? It means those after-work happy hours or birthday cakes for a colleague are not just awkward ordeals, forced upon us by corporate overlords. They are investments in our future sanity, a way to build up the ratio of positive exchanges to manage the negative ones sure to come.
”
”
Amanda Ripley (High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out)
“
Psychologists Julie and John Gottman have studied conflict in some three thousand married couples over the years, and they’ve found that the couples most capable of keeping conflict healthy were the ones whose everyday positive interactions exceeded the negative by a ratio of 5 to 1. This is the “magic ratio,
”
”
Amanda Ripley (High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out)
“
The multitude of studies that I and other scientists have con ducted on positivity is destined to remain merely interesting dinner conversation until you deepen your self-study. You need to pivot away from what’s worked for others and toward what works for you. Have your own “Eureka!” moments. Discover for yourself what rouses genuine and heartfelt positivity.
”
”
Barbara L. Fredrickson (Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life)
“
company and for similar companies in the same industry. • The percentage of institutional ownership. The lower the better. • Whether insiders are buying and whether the company itself is buying back its own shares. Both are positive signs. • The record of earnings growth to date and whether the earnings are sporadic or consistent. (The only category where earnings may not be important is in the asset play.) • Whether the company has a strong balance sheet or a weak balance sheet (debt-to-equity ratio) and how it’s rated for financial strength. • The cash position. With $16 in net cash, I know Ford is unlikely to drop below $16 a share. That’s the floor on the stock. SLOW GROWERS • Since you buy these for the dividends (why else would
”
”
Peter Lynch (One Up On Wall Street: How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In)
“
If the objective exchange-value of money must always be linked with a pre-existing market exchange-ratio between money and other economic goods (since otherwise individuals would not be in a position to estimate the value of the money), it follows that an object cannot be used as money unless, at the moment when its use as money begins, it already possesses an objective exchange-value based on some other use.
”
”
Ludwig von Mises (The Theory of Money and Credit (Liberty Fund Library of the Works of Ludwig von Mises))
“
We can easily imagine a monetary organization which, by the exclusive use of notes or clearing-house methods, allows all transfers to be made with the instrumentality of sums of money that never change their position in space.
If differences due to the geographical position of money are disregarded in this way, we get the following law for the exchange-ratio between money and other economic goods: every economic good, that is ready for consumption (in the sense in which that phrase is usually understood in commerce and technology), has a subjective use-value qua consumption good at the place where it is and qua production good at those places to which it may be brought for consumption.
”
”
Ludwig von Mises (The Theory of Money and Credit (Liberty Fund Library of the Works of Ludwig von Mises))
“
Triglyceride-to-HDL Ratio After assessing each of these five biomarkers, there is one more step: calculate your triglyceride-to-HDL ratio to better understand insulin sensitivity. Simply divide your triglycerides by your HDL. Interestingly, studies have shown that this value correlates well with underlying insulin resistance. So even if you are unable to access a fasting insulin test, the triglyceride-to-HDL ratio can give you a general sense of where you’re at. According to Dr. Mark Hyman, “the triglyceride-to-HDL ratio is the best way to check for insulin resistance other than the insulin response test. According to a paper published in Circulation, the most powerful test to predict your risk of a heart attack is the ratio of your triglycerides to HDL. If the ratio is high, your risk for a heart attack increases sixteen-fold—or 1,600 percent! This is because triglycerides go up and HDL (or ‘good cholesterol’) goes down with diabesity.” Dr. Robert Lustig agrees: “The triglyceride-to-HDL ratio is the best biomarker of cardiovascular disease and the best surrogate marker of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.” In children, higher triglyceride-to-HDL is significantly correlated with mean insulin, waist circumferences, and insulin resistance. In adults, the ratio has shown a positive association with insulin resistance across normal weight and overweight people and significantly tracks with insulin levels, insulin sensitivity, and prediabetes. Perplexingly, the triglyceride-to-HDL ratio is not a metric used in standard clinical practice. If you remember one thing from this chapter, remember this: you need to know your insulin sensitivity. It can give you lifesaving clues about early dysfunction and Bad Energy brewing in your body, and is best assessed by a fasting insulin test, discussed below. Right now, this is not a standard test offered to you at your annual physical. I implore you to find a way to get a fasting insulin test or to calculate your triglyceride-to-HDL ratio every year. Do this for your children, as well. And take the steps outlined in the following chapters to ensure it does not start creeping up. RANGES: Range considered “normal” by standard criteria: none specified in standard criteria Optimal range: Anything above a ratio of 3 is strongly suggestive of insulin resistance. You want to shoot for less than 1.5, although lower is better. I recommend aiming for less than 1.
”
”
Casey Means (Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health)
“
The pay scales at large cooperatives are either identical to those at collectives or somewhat more unequal due to competitive pressures. The plywood co-ops paid all their members equally, the major exception being the general manager, who was usually a hired outsider and received a higher salary than members.74 In the conventional plywood mills, by contrast, the wages of the highest-paid workers and the lowest-paid differed by a factor of about 2.5.75 At Mondragon, until the 1980s the differential between the highest- and lowest-paid workers was fixed at 3:1. In recent years, with the pressures of globalization and the need to attract skilled managers who could receive much more money in private enterprises, some positions have been raised to a 6:1 ratio, while the CEO of the entire Mondragon corporation earns nine times more than the lowest-paid worker.76
”
”
Chris Wright (Worker Cooperatives and Revolution: History and Possibilities in the United States)
“
The sex ratio of those being referred had shifted dramatically too. The number of girls (known at that time at GIDS as ‘natal females’, now ‘birth-assigned females’) seeking help had equalled the number of boys for the first time in 2011. Previously, GIDS’s caseload had been nearly three-quarters male for those referred in childhood, or two-thirds overall. At first, this change was understood to be positive – a sort of balancing-out – and attributed to the fact that the girls were perhaps being better supported to seek help. But by 2015 it was clear that, in fact, something bigger was happening. There had been a complete reversal. Referrals for natal girls made up 65 percent of the total. In 2019/20 girls outnumbered boys by a ratio of six to one in some age groups, most markedly between the ages of 12 and 14 … Moreover, the majority were girls whose gender-related distress had begun after the onset of puberty, during adolescence. They didn’t have a history of childhood dysphoria.
”
”
Hannah Barnes (Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock's Gender Service for Children)
“
Don’t come to someone with feedback (or a problem) unless you have one or more solutions—In this approach the responsibility lies with the person giving the feedback to also come up with the best solution for acting on the feedback. That sounds totally reasonable and helpful: you’re telling people about the problem and the solution in one bite. • The feedback sandwich—You know this one. You open with good news, slip in some bad news, and then close with good news. That way, the person in front of you is opened up for the bad news by hearing the good news and still likes you in the end because you’ve closed with something good.6 And we’re supposed to give more positive feedback than negative feedback (the best ratio is at least 3:17), so this puts us well on our way to that. • Socratic questioning—Here, you leave people to draw their own conclusions by simply asking a set of helpful questions to take them to the realization that there’s an issue (and the hope is that they’ll then ask you for a solution or even stumble on your solution and offer it up as if it were their own). This, we’re told, increases ownership of the issue because the other person—the person needing to change—came up with the idea himself.
”
”
Jennifer Garvey Berger (Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders)
“
To summarize the VWAP Reversal Strategy: After I build my watchlist in the morning, I closely monitor the shortlisted stocks in the first five minutes after the Open. I identify their opening range and their price action. The stocks will either move higher or below the VWAP. Depending on the price action, I may be able to take an Opening Range Breakout to the long or short side. I monitor the price when it moves away from the VWAP and look for a sign of weakness. If it is above the VWAP, failing to make a new high of the day may be a sign that the buyers are exhausted. If it is below the VWAP, failing to make a new low of the day or a new 5-minute low can be a sign that the sellers are gone, and the stock can be ready for a squeeze back to the VWAP. I take the trade only if I can get a good entry and a good risk/reward ratio. Remember, most of the time stocks move really fast without offering a good entry and a good risk/reward ratio. If I am short above the VWAP, I cover my short at the VWAP and bring my stop loss to break-even. If I am long below the VWAP, I sell part of my position at the VWAP, and keep the rest for a squeeze above the VWAP (or as some traders would call it, a VWAP Pop). Do ensure you bring your stop loss to break-even, because sometimes the stock can bounce back from the VWAP as well.
”
”
Andrew Aziz (Day Trading for a Living (Stock Market Trading and Investing))
“
Lastly, he hit on the idea of transferring the observer's position into the centre of the world, and to examine the variations in angular velocity, regardless of distance, as seen from the sun. And lo! it worked.
The results were even more gratifying than he had expected. Saturn, for instance, when farthest away from the sun, in its aphelion, moves at the rate of 106 seconds arc per day; when closest to the sun, and its speed is at maximum, at 135 seconds arc per day. The ratio between the two extreme velocities is 106 to 135, which only differs by two seconds from 4:5. - the major third. With similar, very small deviations (which were all perfectly explained away at the end), the ratio of Jupiter's slowest to its fastest motion is a minor third, Mars' the quint, and so forth. So much for each planet considered by itself. But when he compared the extreme angular velocities of pairs of different planets, the results were even marvellous:
"At the first glance the Sun of Harmony broke in all its clarity through the clouds."
The extreme values yield in fact the intervals of the complete scale. But not enough: if we start with the outermost planet, Saturn, in the aphelion, the scale will be in the major key; if we start with Saturn in the perihelion, it will be in the minor key. Lastly, if several planets are simultaneously at the extreme points of their respective orbits, the result is a motet where Saturn and Jupiter represent the bass, Mars the tenor, Earth and Venus the contralto, Mercury the soprano. On some occasions all six can be heard together:
”
”
Arthur Koestler (The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe)
“
Interactions with the world program our physiological and psychological development. Emotional contact is as important as physical contact. The two are quite analogous, as we recognize when we speak of the emotional experience of feeling touched. Our sensory organs and brains provide the interface through which relationships shape our evolution from infancy to adulthood. Social-emotional interactions decisively influence the development of the
human brain. From the moment of birth, they regulate the tone, activity and development of the psychoneuroimmunoendocrine (PNI) super-system. Our characteristic modes of handling psychic and physical stress are set in our earliest years.
Neuroscientists at Harvard University studied the cortisol levels of orphans who were raised in the dreadfully neglected child-care institutions established in Romania during the Ceausescu regime. In these facilities the caregiver/child ratio was one to twenty. Except for the rudiments of care, the children were seldom physically picked up or touched. They displayed the self-hugging motions and depressed demeanour typical of abandoned young, human or primate. On saliva tests, their cortisol levels were abnormal, indicating that their hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axes were already impaired.
As we have seen, disruptions of the HPA axis have been noted in autoimmune disease, cancer and other conditions. It is intuitively easy to understand why abuse, trauma or extreme neglect in childhood would have negative consequences. But why do many people develop stress-related illness without having been abused or traumatized? These persons suffer not because something negative was inflicted on them but because something positive was withheld.
”
”
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
“
The biology of potential illness arises early in life. The brain’s stress-response mechanisms are programmed by experiences beginning in infancy, and so are the implicit, unconscious memories that govern our attitudes and behaviours toward ourselves, others and the world. Cancer, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and the other conditions we examined are not abrupt new developments in adult life, but culminations of lifelong processes. The human interactions and biological imprinting that shaped these processes took place in periods of our life for which we may have no conscious recall.
Emotionally unsatisfying child-parent interaction is a theme running through the one hundred or so detailed interviews I conducted for this book. These patients suffer from a broadly disparate range of illnesses, but the common threads in their stories are early loss or early relationships that were profoundly unfulfilling emotionally. Early childhood emotional deprivation in the histories of adults with serious illness is also verified by an impressive number of investigations reported in the medical and psychological literature. In an Italian study, women with genital cancers were reported to have felt less close to their parents than healthy controls. They were also less demonstrative emotionally. A large European study compared 357 cancer patients with 330 controls. The women with cancer were much less likely than controls to recall their childhood homes with positive feelings. As many as 40 per cent of cancer patients had suffered the death of a parent before the age of seventeen—a ratio of parental loss two and a half times as great as had been suffered by the controls.
The thirty-year follow-up of Johns Hopkins medical students was previously quoted. Those graduates whose initial interviews in medical school had revealed lower than normal childhood closeness with their parents were particularly at risk. By midlife they were more likely to commit suicide or develop mental illness, or to suffer from high blood pressure, coronary heart disease or cancer. In a similar study, Harvard undergraduates were interviewed about their perception of parental caring. Thirty-five years later these subjects’ health status was reviewed. By midlife only a quarter of the students who had reported highly positive perceptions of parental caring were sick. By comparison, almost 90 per cent of those who regarded their parental emotional nurturing negatively were ill. “Simple and straightforward ratings of feelings of being loved are significantly related to health status,” the researchers concluded.
”
”
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
“
Damn it, I'm angry now. I do believe life is loss, I do, but my suffering-to-words-ratio was out of control: lying around composing nothing but these - righteous arias, month after month, these tawdry special pleas.
”
”
Gwendoline Riley (Opposed Positions)
“
This has become known as the Losada line: a line that marks a tipping point at which the ratio of positive to negative feedback triggers higher performance on a team.
”
”
Ronald Warren (Personality at Work: The Drivers and Derailers of Leadership)
“
4. Give recognition and show appreciation. “The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated,” wrote William James, the father of American psychology. It is impossible to be motivated and do great work if you don’t feel that somebody cares and appreciates what you do. Studies have shown that for people to be happy and productive at work, they need to experience positive interactions (appreciation, praise) vs. negative (reprimands, criticism) with their manager in a ratio of at least 3:1. (Watch out: For a marriage to work, you actually need a 5:1 ratio!!) So make it a simple habit to thank people each and every day — and that includes using the word generously in emails to your team. The way people want to receive recognition varies greatly: public vs. private, material vs. immaterial, from peers vs. from superiors, etc. Great managers test different approaches and observe reactions until they find the triggers that work best with each of their people. At MOM’s Organic Market, managers will sometimes publicly recognize employees who have performed well, but CEO Scott Nash has often found that one-on-one comments are most effective.
”
”
Verne Harnish (Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't (Rockefeller Habits 2.0))
“
It has been proven time and again that a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative comments provides children with the best education and motivation to be successful. The coach that is constantly pointing out the negative, and never providing praise when it has been earned, is dangerous for your child and will lead to their emotional breakdown.
”
”
John O'Sullivan (Changing the Game: The Parent's Guide to Raising Happy, High-Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids)
“
Monitoring and Supporting Hashimoto’s
• After Hashimoto’s is assessed with a positive TPO and/or TGB serum antibody test, establish TH-1 or TH-2 dominance with an immunological serum test. Look at the percentage values, not the total. • A TH-1 serum profile includes interferon, IL-2, IL-12, interferon-gamma, and TNF alpha. • A TH-2 serum profile includes IL-4, IL-13 and IL-10. • If the TH-1 cytokines are high, then modulate the autoimmune condition by supporting the TH-2 pathway with TH-2 stimulators. • If the TH-2 cytokines are high, then support the TH-1 pathway with TH-1 stimulators. • A CD4/CD8 (T-suppressor cell/T-helper cell) ratio of 2 or higher is an indication that an active antigen is driving the autoimmune response. This test is also a baseline from which to monitor overall progress. • If an active antigen or hapten is at work, then stimulate the dominant TH pathway to eradicate the antigen or drive it into remission. • If both TH-1 and TH-2 stimulators make you feel worse, a hapten may be driving the autoimmune condition. In that case, restore the immune barriers. • In all instances, modulate immune T-helper cell response with therapeutic doses of emulsified vitamin D plus cofactors, fish oil, and liposomal glutathione and superoxide dismutase cream. Have a licensed healthcare practitioner qualified to work with vitamin D therapy prescribe the appropriate dose. • Add in nutritional compounds individually every three days to monitor response. • Remove gluten and possibly dairy from the diet and support other systems, organs, and functions in the body. (Managing blood sugar, digestive function, and adrenal health using functional medicine principles is explained in later chapters.) • Monitor whether support is effective with follow-up TSH, CD4/CD8, and TH-1 and TH-2 cytokine tests.
”
”
Datis Kharrazian (Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms? When My Lab Tests Are Normal: A revolutionary breakthrough in understanding Hashimoto’s disease and hypothyroidism)
“
Why did Connex for QuickBooks Online succeed? Here are the reasons: I received free app store listings on Intuit’s website. My app was even on the first page of their store briefly. This drove large amounts of traffic to my site. I received free listings on many other sites before they started asking for a commission. I later pulled those listings, since the cost to advertise exceeded the revenue they brought to the company. These stores failed to show how many installs and conversions they generated. I had many positive and real reviews on my app store listings. I noticed competitors had hundreds of five-star reviews that mostly looked fake. QuickBooks Online had few integrations at the time. I was one of the first companies to get listed. For QuickBooks Canada and QuickBooks U.K., my app was one of the first system integrators. I had almost no competitors who serviced QuickBooks outside of the U.S. Shopify, BigCommerce, ShipStation and other companies had no native integration. Mine was one of the first. I recorded videos and added landing pages that ranked high on Google with minimal effort. Since I had a shoestring marketing budget, this was very important. The issue I had with other products was that they didn’t offer free promotion. Since my company was one of the first, we had ample time to add features and fix problems. We have a solution that is light years ahead of competitors. Why would someone want to compete with us? In the words of one of my partner companies, “We could build one, but yours would be a lot better.” My app required no desktop apps or website plugins to install. Since my audience was small business owners, the easier the install the better. Most business users have a limited understanding of websites. Asking them to change a bunch of settings or configure something on their own is daunting. We set up Connex for qualified users. Many competitors just let users go through a self-guided trial. We received feedback from many customers that they would purchase if they could make Connex work. I added a talk-to-sales component, and our conversion ratio increased. Connex was successful because I added a personal touch in a world where SaaS owners expect users to just “figure it out” on their own. Software that requires no support and maintenance is a pipe dream.
”
”
Joseph Anderson (The $20 SaaS Company: from Zero to Seven Figures without Venture Capital)
“
Other research has shown that when the number of genuinely positive statements on a team outweigh the number of negative statements by three to one, those teams outperform otherwise comparable groups on measures of profitability, customer satisfaction, and 360-degree reviews.3 This research is consistent with John Gottman’s popular research on marriage, in which he has learned to predict divorce with 94 percent accuracy based largely on the ratio of positive to negative interactions.4
”
”
Amanda Blake (Your Body is Your Brain: Leverage Your Somatic Intelligence to Find Purpose, Build Resilience, Deepen Relationships and Lead More Powerfully)
“
Harvard Business Review wrote an article[2] stating that the ideal praise to criticism ratio in relationships is 5 to 1—five positive comments for every negative one. John Gottman, the famous researcher from the Gottman Institute who started studying couples in the 1970s in his research lab, found that for people who end up in divorce, the ratio is 0.77 to 1. This means three positive comments for every four negative ones.[3]
”
”
Brian Keephimattracted (F*CK Him! - Nice Girls Always Finish Single)
“
the data was plotted on mathematical diagrams that I invented. These revealed favorable situations and let me quickly specify the appropriate trades. Each day’s closing prices for a convertible and its stock were plotted as a color-coded dot on that particular convertible’s diagram. The diagrams were prepared with curves that were drawn by a computer from my formula and showed the “fair price” of the convertible. The beauty of this was that I could immediately see from the picture whether we had a profitable trading opportunity. If the dot representing the data was above the curve it meant the convertible was overpriced, leading to a possible hedge: Short the convertible, buy the stock. A data point close to or on the curve indicated the price was fair, which meant liquidate an existing position, do not enter a new one. Below the curve meant buy the convertible, short the stock. The distance of the dot from the curve showed me how much profit was available. If we thought it met our target, we tried to put on the trade the next day. The slope of the curve near the data point on my diagram gave me the hedge ratio, which is the number of shares of common stock to use versus each convertible bond, share of preferred, warrant, or option.
”
”
Edward O. Thorp (A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market)
“
scientists have discovered that the first thing we notice about another person is their race.[26] We notice a person’s race within about 100 milliseconds. By comparison, we notice their sex within about 150 milliseconds.
”
”
Barbara L. Fredrickson (Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life)
“
The pace of cell renewal varies by body part. Your taste buds live only a few hours. Your white blood cells live about ten days. Your muscle cells live about three months. Even your bones are made anew time and again. Considering these differences, scientists have suggested that you replace about 1 percent of your cells each day.[1] That’s 1 percent today, another 1 percent tomorrow, amounting to roughly 30 percent by next month, and 100 percent by next season. Seeing yourself and your cells in this way, every three months you get a whole new you. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that it takes around three months to learn a new habit or make a lifestyle change.[2] Perhaps we can’t teach an old cell new tricks. Perhaps our best hope lies in teaching our new cells.
”
”
Barbara L. Fredrickson (Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life)
“
A key signal that tells your cells whether to decay or grow, for instance, is movement. A sedentary lifestyle hastens cell decay. An active lifestyle hastens cell renewal. This is true for both your body and your brain.
”
”
Barbara L. Fredrickson (Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life)
“
Lasting, good relationships typically need at least a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions (Gottman 1995).
”
”
Rick Hanson (Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time)
“
Psychologist John Gottman first studied positive-to-negative ratios in marriages. Using a 5:1 ratio, which Gottman called “The Magic Ratio,” he and his colleagues predicted whether 700 newlywed couples would stay together or divorce by scoring their positive and negative interactions in one fifteen-minute conversation. Ten years later, the follow-up revealed that they had predicted divorce with 87 percent accuracy3,4.
”
”
Lisa B. Marshall (Smart Talk: The Public Speaker’s Guide to Success in Every Situation (Quick & Dirty Tips))
“
Once positive emotions outnumbered negative emotions by 3 to 1—that is, for every three instances of feeling gratitude, interest, or contentment, they experienced only one instance of anger, guilt, or embarrassment—people generally flourished. Those below that ratio usually did not.13 But Fredrickson and Losada also found that positivity had an upper limit. Too much can be as unproductive as too little. Once the ratio hit about 11 to 1, positive emotions began doing more harm than good.
”
”
Daniel H. Pink (To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others)
“
The popular press skews male as well. According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center, only 3 percent of the top positions in mainstream media are held by women. And bylines in the nation’s top intellectual and political magazines are heavily male. Meanwhile, according to the Columbia Journalism Review, in an analysis of eleven magazines published between October 2003 and May 2005, male-to-female byline ratios ranged from thirteen to one at the National Review to seven to one at Harper’s. When we become aware of just how many of the media stories we ingest are from a man’s point of view, it becomes much easier to understand why we struggle to believe that we as women can dream—and therefore dreaming does require that we dare.
”
”
Whitney Johnson (Dare, Dream, Do: Remarkable Things Happen When You Dare to Dream)
“
In the late 1990s, Parachute was the market leader with more than 50 per cent market share. Fresh from its success in taking market share in toothpaste away from Colgate using Pepsodent, HUL entered the coconut oil category to take on Marico. Dadiseth, the then chairman of HUL, had warned Mariwala to sell Marico to HUL or face dire consequences. Mariwala decided to take on the challenge. Even the capital markets believed that Marico stood no chance against the might of HUL which resulted in Marico’s price-to-earnings ratio dipping to as low as 7x, as against 13x during its listing in 1996. As part of its plans to take on Marico, HUL relaunched Nihar in 1998, acquired Cococare from Redcon and positioned both brands as price challengers to Parachute. In addition, HUL also increased advertising and promotion spends for its brands. In one quarter in FY2000, HUL’s advertising and promotional (A&P) spend on coconut oil alone was an amount which was almost equivalent to Marico’s full year A&P budget (around Rs 30 crore). As Milind Sarwate, former CFO of Marico, recalls, ‘Marico’s response was typically entrepreneurial and desi. We quickly realized that we have our key resource engine under threat. So, we re-prioritized and focused entirely on Parachute. We gave the project a war flavour. For example, the business conference on this issue saw Mariconians dressed as soldiers. The project was called operation Parachute ki Kasam. The leadership galvanized the whole team. It was exhilarating as the team realized the gravity of the situation and sprang into action. We were able to recover lost ground and turn the tables, so much so that eventually Marico acquired the aggressor brand, Nihar.’ Marico retaliated by relaunching Parachute: (a) with a new packaging; (b) with a new tag line highlighting its purity (Shuddhata ki Seal—or the seal of purity); (c) by widening its distribution; and (d) by launching an internal sales force initiative. Within twelve months, Parachute regained its lost share, thus limiting HUL’s growth. Despite several relaunches, Nihar failed against Parachute. Eventually, HUL dropped the brand Nihar off its power brand list before selling it off to Marico in 2006. Since then, Parachute has been the undisputed leader in the coconut oil category. This leadership has ensured that when one visits the hair oil section in a retail store, about 80 per cent of the shelves are occupied by Marico-branded hair oil.
”
”
Saurabh Mukherjea (The Unusual Billionaires)
“
Early in my sales career, various sales trainers taught our teams how to use matching and mirroring to build rapport and earn trust with our clients. When done well, it would inevitably help us improve customer service and closing ratios. It was not encouraged as a deceptive sales practice to manipulate, but rather a subtle way to make a great first impression and connect on a meaningful level.
”
”
Susan C. Young (The Art of Body Language: 8 Ways to Optimize Non-Verbal Communication for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #3))
“
if we really want to prosper, we shouldn’t try to eliminate negative emotions, rather, we should work on keeping the ratio at three positive for every one negative.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Pray over your food before eating it and if possible get some kind of positive energy plate to place your food on for 5 minutes before eating it. I recommend the purple energy plates that many of you are familiar with. This will clear all the energetic toxins from your food. Eat as many vegetables as you can in your diet, as well as the proper ratio of other foods that works best for you. If you have any skill working with the pendulum, test the foods that are really the best for your body elemental and not just the one’s that are the best for your taste buds.
”
”
Joshua D. Stone (The Golden Book of Melchizedek: How to Become an Integrated Christ/Buddha in This Lifetime Volume 1)
“
But listen to me, Oscar, I’m doing you a massive favour by telling you what I know: it’s much, much more important to study The Ratio. That’s what you really need to understand. It’s where the power lies” it’s all about who you can afford to annoy, and you can’t. Where you are, and how likely you are to move. How stable your position is.
”
”
Sarah Moore Fitzgerald (The Apple Tart of Hope)
“
studies have been done to confirm this. Harvard Business Review wrote an article[2] stating that the ideal praise to criticism ratio in relationships is 5 to 1—five positive comments for every negative one.
”
”
Brian Keephimattracted (F*CK Him! - Nice Girls Always Finish Single)
“
Studies have shown that for people to be happy and productive at work, they need to experience positive interactions (appreciation, praise) vs. negative (reprimands, criticism) with their manager in a ratio of at least 3:1. (Watch out: For a marriage to work, you actually need a 5:1 ratio!!) So make it a simple habit to thank people each and every day — and that includes using the word generously in emails to your team.
”
”
Verne Harnish (Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't (Rockefeller Habits 2.0))
“
achieve, the compelling (emotional and logical) reasons the achievements will be important to you, and the consistent methods you employ to get there. This intelligence encompasses what, why, for whom, with whom, when, where, and how you use your apps (skills) and other resources. It is wise to craft and execute a strategy for any given type of vision or outcome you want to achieve. Your execution is equivalent to your entire “system” actively working to purposefully, resourcefully, and effectively get things done, preferably with high signal-to-noise ratio. If your execution is poor, nothing matters. A combination of strong, positive, and
”
”
Jason L. Ma (Young Leaders 3.0: Stories, Insights, and Tips for Next-Generation Achievers)
“
General Westmoreland’s strategy of attrition also had an important effect on our behavior. Our mission was not to win terrain or seize positions, but simply to kill: to kill Communists and to kill as many of them as possible. Stack ’em like cordwood. Victory was a high body-count, defeat a low kill-ratio, war a matter of arithmetic.
”
”
Philip Caputo (A Rumor Of War)
“
In his opinion (Jean-Jacques Rousseau) the most equitable system of taxation, and consequently the one best suited to a society of free men, would be a capitation tax in proportion to the amount of property which a man possesses over and above the necessities of life. Those who possess only the latter should pay nothing at all. As for the other citizens, the tax should be levied, not in simple ratio to the property of the taxed, but in compound ratio to the difference of their conditions and the superfluity of their possessions. It is perfectly just that the more wealthy a man is, the more he should pay in taxation. For one thing, the rich derive great advantages from the social contract. Society protects their possessions and opens to them easy access to lucrative positions of eminence and power. They enjoy many advantages which the poor fail to enjoy. Hence, as the richer a man is, the more he gets out of the State, so to speak, he should be taxed in proportion to his wealth. There should also be heavy taxes on all luxuries. For then either the rich will substitute socially useful for socially useless expenses or the State will receive high taxes. In either case the State will gain......and it is significant that he speaks of these proposals as tending insensibly 'to bring all fortunes nearer to that middle condition which constitutes the genuine strength of the State.
”
”
Frederick Charles Copleston
“
one of Gottman’s findings is that for a marriage to survive, the ratio of positive to negative emotion in a given encounter has to be at least five to one.
”
”
Malcolm Gladwell (Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking)
“
When low skilled immigrants flood a labor market, it makes high-skilled workers rarer as a share of the total workforce, increasing the ratio of low skill to high skill workers. This benefits high-skilled workers by improving their relative position in the marketplace, increasing their bargaining position and raising their incomes.
”
”
Jean-Michel Paul (The Economics of Discontent: From Failing Elites to The Rise of Populism)
“
it appears the company has a strong competitive position with a favorable long-term outlook, you would next run several dividend discount models that include different growth rates of the company’s owner earnings over different time periods to get a sense of approximate valuation. Then you would study and understand management’s long-term capital allocation strategy. Last, you might call a few friends, colleagues, or financial advisers to see if they have an opinion about your company or, better yet, your company’s competitors. Take note: None of this requires a high IQ, but it is more laborious and requires more mental effort and concentration than simply figuring out the company’s current price-to-earnings ratio.
”
”
Robert G. Hagstrom (The Warren Buffett Way)
“
The positive lens keeps the joy in practice and learning - the reason even the most seasoned athletes and performers still enjoy rehearsing their moves.
You need the negative focus to survive, but a positive one to thrive. You need both, but in the right ratio.
”
”
Daniel Goleman (Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence)
“
In some places, you can see ratios of 10:1 to 12:1 (one nurse for every ten or twelve residents). In other spaces, you’ll see numbers as high as 30:1. Numbers like that are distressing for a few reasons. First, the burnout rate for nurses with ratios that high are astonishing. No nurse is going to survive mentally and emotionally if they are responsible for caring for 30 people every day. With a high burnout rate, facilities risk their ability to create a positive culture in their community. When ratios are that high, it also means, if you need special attention you might not get it.
”
”
Gregory Cini (Things to Remember about Memory Care: The top mistakes made when selecting a dementia care)
“
Remember the magic ratio for conflict resilience. People need to have five positive interactions for every negative one in a marriage, as we’ve seen. Outside of marriage, the same principle applies. The positives must outweigh the negatives.
”
”
Amanda Ripley (High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out)
“
So what made the difference? For one thing, it helped if the number of positive interactions was greater than the number of negative interactions. That’s the magic ratio we learned about earlier.
”
”
Amanda Ripley (High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out)
“
As men mature into their thirties and forties, the ratio between the sexes typically tilts in their favor, if they have survived the risks and attained positions of reasonable status. They have a wider pool of potential women to choose from, and they enjoy a higher value on the mating market than they did in their youth. They are better able to attract multiple mates, whether through casual sex, extramarital sex, serial marriage, or polygyny.
”
”
David M. Buss (The Evolution Of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating)
“
The principle: A positive innovation is one that has more strengths than weaknesses, or at least a 7:3 ratio.
”
”
Shakenal Dimension (The Art of iPhone Review: A Step-by-Step Buyer's Guide for Apple Lovers)
“
your positivity ratio is your frequency of positivity over any given time span, divided by your frequency of negativity over that same time span. In mathematical terms, the ratio is captured by the simple expression P/N.
”
”
Barbara L. Fredrickson (Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life)
“
With positivity, you see new possibilities, bounce back from setbacks, connect with others, and become the best version of yourself.
”
”
Barbara L. Fredrickson (Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life)
“
Positivity opens us. The first core truth about positive emotions is that they open our hearts and our minds, making us more receptive and more creative.
”
”
Barbara L. Fredrickson (Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life)
“
Positivity transforms us for the better. This is the second core truth about positive emotions. By opening our hearts and minds, positive emotions allow us to discover and build new skills, new ties, new knowledge, and new ways of being.
”
”
Barbara L. Fredrickson (Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life)
“
Fact 2. Positivity changes how your mind works. Positivity doesn’t just change the contents of your mind, trading bad thoughts for good ones; it also changes the scope or boundaries of your mind. It widens the span of possibilities that you see.
”
”
Barbara L. Fredrickson (Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3 to 1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life)
“
Brain opioids are so powerful that if you exercise, you can lower your “mental health burden” by nearly 25 percent and enjoy a much higher ratio of positive mental health days – a whopping 43 percent – than non-exercisers experience. Let that sink in for a second: just by goofing around a little on your bike, you can nearly double your happiness. For free. If you put results like that in a pill, it would outsell ice cream. Pg 178
”
”
Christopher McDougall (Running with Sherman)
“
.........Frederickson discovered a more reasonable goal. "Aim for a positivity ratio of at least 3 to 1. This means that for every heart-wrenching negative emotional experience you endure, you experience at least three heartfelt positive emotional experiences that uplift you.
”
”
Jon Acuff (Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking (Overcome Toxic Thought Patterns and Take Control of Your Mindset))
“
But now I understand that it’s the journey that counts, not the destination. That heroic journey back to Focus, even when it has to be repeated countless times, is what tilts the scale toward bliss. St. Francis de Sales (1567–1622) wrote, “If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently . . . and even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back . . . though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well-employed.” It’s like flipping a switch that’s programmed to be in the “off” position. You notice you’re in the dark, and you flip the switch to “on.” You’re in the light (Focus). But then the switch flips back again, because that’s its default position (Mind Wandering). You again notice you’re in the dark (Awareness). So you flip the switch again (Shift). You’re in the light again (Focus). Discover you’re in the dark, and you regard it as a signal to flip the switch back on again. Do this often enough, and the ratio of dark versus light changes.
”
”
Dawson Church (Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy)
“
But now I understand that it’s the journey that counts, not the destination. That heroic journey back to Focus, even when it has to be repeated countless times, is what tilts the scale toward bliss. St. Francis de Sales (1567–1622) wrote, “If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently . . . and even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back . . . though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well-employed.” It’s like flipping a switch that’s programmed to be in the “off” position. You notice you’re in the dark, and you flip the switch to “on.” You’re in the light (Focus). But then the switch flips back again, because that’s its default position (Mind Wandering). You again notice you’re in the dark (Awareness). So you flip the switch again (Shift). You’re in the light again (Focus). Discover you’re in the dark, and you regard it as a signal to flip the switch back on again. Do this often enough, and the ratio of dark versus light changes. In each meditation, you’re gradually in Bliss Brain more than you’re out. Each deliberate flip of the switch is a declaration to the universe that you’re committed to being in the light. It isn’t the length of time you’re in the light that counts; it’s the moments you’re in the dark and flip the switch yet again.
”
”
Dawson Church (Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy)
“
2.9013 is the ratio of positive to negative interactions necessary to make a corporate team successful.
”
”
Shawn Achor (The Happiness Advantage: How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life)
“
Based on Losada’s extensive mathematical modeling, 2.9013 is the ratio of positive to negative interactions necessary to make a corporate team successful.
”
”
Shawn Achor (The Happiness Advantage: How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life)
“
In Tsai's go‐go years, high‐flying stocks with positive momentum were all the rage. Polaroid, Xerox, IBM all traded at price‐to‐earnings ratios of more than 50. These expensive stocks were supported by explosively high growth rates. From 1964 to 1968, IBM, Polaroid, and Xerox grew their earnings per share at 88%, 22%, and 171%, respectively. Others like University Computing, Mohawk Data, and Fairchild Camera traded at several‐hundred times their trailing 12‐month earnings. The latter three and many others like them would go on to lose more than 80% in the 1969–1970 bear market. The Manhattan Fund was up almost 40% in 1967, more than double the Dow. But in 1968, he was down 7% and was ranked 299th out of 305 funds tracked by Arthur Lipper.16 When the market crash came, the people responsible were entirely unprepared. By 1969, half of the salesmen on Wall Street had only come into the business since 196217 and had seen nothing but a rising market. And when stocks turned, the highfliers that went up the fastest also came down the fastest. For example, National Student Marketing, which Tsai bought 122,000 shares for $5 million, crashed from $143 in December 1969 to $3.50 in July 1970.18 Between September and November 1929, $30 billion worth of stock value vanished; in the1969‐1970 crash, the loss was $300 billion!19 The gunslingers of the 1960s were thinking only about return and paid little attention to risk. This carefree attitude was a result of the market they were playing in. From 1950 through the end of 1965, the Dow was within 5% of its highs 66% of the time, and within 10% of its highs 87% of the time. There was virtually no turbulence at all. From 1950 to 1965, the only bear market was “The Kennedy Slide,” which chopped 27% off the S&P 500, and recovered in just over a year.
”
”
Michael Batnick (Big Mistakes: The Best Investors and Their Worst Investments (Bloomberg))
“
It is no exaggeration to say that all phenomena are considered by con-
temporary science to be examples of amplitude positions within a radi-
ation continuum.
One of the most interesting aspects of late twentieth-
century science was the reappearance of the Pythagorean doctrine of the
vibratory harmony of matter, that all things are the result of harmonic ratios. “Superstring” theory proposes that all fun-damental particles (elec-
trons, quarks, leptons, muons, etc.) are but differing vibratory frequencies
of a single filamentous string. According to this latest development in
theoretical physics the entities that are the ultimate constituents of atoms
are but differing vibratory levels of a single substratum imagined as a
string or line. Matter, then, actualizes the form of an image observed in an
oscilloscope: a single line forms on the screen (its lowest vibratory state),
which, when “energized,” begins to change shape into a wave (an electron
perhaps) that eventually becomes a chaotic, spaghetti-like image observed
at its highest vibratory level. In superstring theory each level of vibration,
from undisturbed filament to violent spaghetti-chaos (and all states in be-
tween), represents some fundamental particle.
”
”
Leon Marvell (The Physics of Transfigured Light: The Imaginal Realm and the Hermetic Foundations of Science)
“
The grid derives from the golden ratio and the simpler rule of thirds: it divides your photograph into three segments both horizontally and vertically. The idea of the grid is that you should position your main motif (for example, the person you are photographing) on one of the points where the lines intersect rather than in the middle of the grid, which will improve the composition of the photograph.
”
”
Frida Ramstedt (The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space)
“
When developing an action plan, it is important to remember to ensure you win points. If this is forgotten and the attempts to find a decisive victory come to naught, the ratio of points may be beneficial to the opponent.
”
”
Michael Wenz (BOXING: COMBAT SPORT: RULES, TECHNIQUES, POSITIONS, DISTANCE, MOVEMENT. BECOME A SPORT LEGEND. (TRAINING))
“
Like all traders and investors, I periodically review the performance of my portfolios and check in on whether they are getting the job done. I say periodically, because the temptation – a dangerous one for many – is to be constantly watching and let’s face it, this is a long term game, not a get rich quick punt, right? As such, over the past few months, one of my personal favourites – the covered call, has continued to deliver the cash flow I seek from that particular portfolio. For example, this calendar year, in the Australian market, FMG being the one blot on the ledger, we have had only one loser from 13 closed positions. For those that obsess about win/loss ratios – a flawed measure in my book – that is a 92% win rate for the calendar year. Of course, this is a reflection of the underlying market conditions, which have been supportive of the strategy.
”
”
Andrew Baxter
“
OkCupid tracks the ratio of straight women to straight men, and platform managers work hard to adjust that ratio when it diverges from the level they deem optimal. They manage these adjustments by asking users to rate the attractiveness of those on the opposite side of the platform.7 The website then introduces a filter to reduce the number of men who can participate in the platform by seeing women’s profiles—especially women who are rated as particularly attractive.8 In this way, the OkCupid platform is helping to maintain positive network effects and fostering market liquidity by avoiding an imbalance that might otherwise alienate a segment of its female users.
”
”
Geoffrey G. Parker (Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy―and How to Make Them Work for You)
“
Creating a Back Pocket Pads, keys, aka support instruments Send all the instruments you want positioned in the Back Space of your mix to this bus/group. Put your desired compressor on the group. (SSL Compressor emulations are an excellent choice). Set Attack .1 - 3ms. Set Release .3 - .6sec. Set Ratio: 2:1. Bring the Threshold down until you have 1 - 2db of gain reduction. Adjust the makeup gain if you feel it’s necessary to restore any lost volume (I often don’t feel the need to if all I’m getting is .5 to 1db of gain reduction).
”
”
Nathan Nyquist (The Bus Compression Framework: The set and forget way to get an INSTANTLY professional sounding mix (The Audio Engineer's Framework Book 3))
“
There is a remarkable man named Matthieu Ricard, he’s written some books on happiness, he’s French, he has a doctorate in cell biology from Pasteur Institute, his mentor there actually won a Nobel prize for the research they are doing, but after graduate school he made a startling decision, he decided he’d give up science and go to the Himalayas, become a monk and meditate for the rest of his life. He’s been called I think by his publisher’s publicists the happiest man in the world, because he’s been studied by scientists and on this right-to-left ratio, he’s very far to the left. There’s a scientist named Paul Ekman, who’s the world’s expert on the facial expression of emotion, Paul is the keenest observer of the face, as a revealer of what you’re feeling, he’s a very dangerous man. Once I was walking down the street with Paul on the way to a meeting that I was conducting and Paul was telling me about a system for training people to get good at this, that he had just developed and as he’s telling it, we’re getting to the meeting hall and I thought this is really interesting, but I hope he wraps it up, I’ve got to think about what I am gonna do at the meeting, at that moment he says to me: and if someone had studied the system they’d know you’re getting a little angry with me right now. This is why Paul is so dangerous. Paul was interested in emotional contagion. He wanted to know what would the effect be of someone like Matthieu who is very upbeat on someone who is quite the opposite. So Paul did a quite phone survey of faculty at the University where he teaches asking who is the most abrasive, difficult, confrontational member of our faculty, oddly enough everyone agreed who that was, so he calls professor X and says “in the interest of science would you take part in a scientific experiment” and the professor is delighted says “sure, I’d be happy to”. As the day drew near and near, he started making demands which became increasingly outrageous and so they had to dump him and go with the second most difficult professor and the experiment was both Matthieu and the professor have their physiology measured and they’re gonna have a debate, the debate is on the premise that the professor should do what Matthieu did, the professor had a very influential secured well-paid tenured position, but the premise of the debate is that he would give it up and become a monk and go to a Hermitage for the rest of his life. At the beginning of this debate, physiology showed that he was really agitated at the thought of that, Matthieu was totally calm, so as the discussion starts Matthieu stays absolutely calm and the professor gets calmer and calmer and calmer, by the end of 15 minutes he’s having such a good time he doesn’t want to stop the discussion. So our emotions are contagious for better or for worse. Particularly when we pay full attention to each other.
”
”
Daniel Goleman
“
Richard Davidson who is a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin has expertise in the brain and emotion, and he’s found in his research that when we’re agitated, when we are upset and angry and anxious, there’s a lot of activity in the right prefrontal area, just behind the forehead, also the amygdala, the brain’s trigger point for the fight-flight-freeze response, when we’re on the other hand in a really positive state, I feel great, enthusiastic, what a wonderful day, there’s a lot of activity on the left side and no activity on the right side, each of us have a ratio at rest of right-to-left activity that predicts our mood range day to day. He finds there’s a bell curve for this like for IQ, most of us are in the middle, we have bad days, we have good days, if you’re very far to the right you may be clinically depressed or clinically anxious, if you’re very far to the left, you’re very resilient, you bounce right back from setbacks. So Davidson paired up with a fella named Jon Kabat-Zinn who has made mindfulness, as he calls it, very popular, for example, in the medical sector, as a way to manage chronic conditions, and also in the states of business recently, a lot of businesses are bringing it in, and it’s more or less what we just did. Davidson and Kabat-Zinn went to a biotech start-up, a 24/7 you know high pressure environment and they taught people how to do mindfulness which is more or less the exercise of watching the breath, but they did it 30 minutes a day, for 8 weeks. What he found was that before that people’s brains were tilted to the right, they’re pretty hassled and stressed, after eight weeks, 30 minutes a day, they were tilting back towards the left and what’s very interesting is people spontaneously started saying: “Hey, you know, I’m starting to enjoy my work again, I remember what I love about this job”. In other words the positive mood was really making a difference.
”
”
Daniel Goleman
“
In the calculus of the heart it is the ratio of positive to negative emotions that determines the sense of well- being.
”
”
Daniel Coleman (Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ)
“
individuals who experience positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio with negative ones “become much more resilient to adversity and effortlessly achieve what they once could only imagine.
”
”
Kani Ilangovan (Mindful Gratitude)
“
People with higher ratios of positive to negative emotions are more likely to flourish in life.
”
”
Ziad K. Abdelnour (Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics)