Emilia Lahti

Can you run 50 Marathons in 50 Days? The Queen of Sisu Can!

It sounds impossible – but of course it´s not. Some 75% of the 1.500 miles in total have been conquered already. By whom?

By Emilia Lahti. Emilia is a fellow Penn Mappster and has embarked on a truly remarkable journey at the beginning of this year: On January 18th, she started a 1,500-mile / 50-day running journey across the length of New Zealand. Her goal: to raise awarenss for nonviolence and peace. Ph.D. student Emilia is survivor of domestic violence and has initiated this project (“Sisu not Silence” to raise awareness around this neglected issue. In her words:

Much like running a thousand miles, healing from past trauma and impacting social change are also trials of endurance that begin by taking one step at a time. The key to overcoming goals that may seem impossible is to aim for relentless forward movement – no matter how slow the pace may feel at times.

You can follow her progress (and support her) via her homepage, Facebook, and Instagram. Go, Emilia!

Emilia Lahti | Sisu not Silence

Hardiness: How to run 50 Marathons in 50 Days

lahti_sisuIf you’ve visited Mappalicious in the past, you might have encountered Emilia Lahti, a fellow Penn Mappster from Finland. Currently, she’s in the process of writing her Ph.D. on Sisu, which is a Finnish word for the concept of strong determination and hardiness in the face of severe adversity. It´s an integral part of the Finnish culture and belongs to a set of untranslatable words that researcher Tim Lomas has written about.

Now, ever so often research is actually me-search. Emilia is a victim of domestic abuse and has started a project to raise awareness around this crucial issue. In 2017, she’s going to run 1,500 miles across New Zealand in 50 days – that’s roughly a marathon per day. She will perform this outstanding feat to support her initiative “Sisu not Silence”. If you´d like to find out more about this and maybe even donate, you can learn more here.

Today, Emilia was featured in an awesome video on NowThis. Go have a look…

 

Positive Psychology News Digest on Mappalicious | No. 26/2016

My favorite pieces covering Positive Psychology and adjacent from (roughly) the last seven days.

Wall Street Journal: Why Doing Nothing Is So Scary–and So Important by Samantha Boardman

BPS Research Digest: What makes our work meaningful? Do bosses really make it meaningless? by Alex Fradera

Harvard Business Review: Stop Making Gratitude All About You by Heidi Grant Halvorson

London Entrepreneurship Review: Sisu – The Hidden Driver of An Entrepreneur by Terence Mauri

Guardian: Referendums are supposed to make people happy. Why are even leave voters upset? by Anna Petherick

Psychology Today: What Would Democratic Socialism Mean for America? by Benjamin Radcliff

Atlantic: Why Managers Are So Bad at Recognizing Good Ideas by Rebecca Rosen

NPR: Personality Can Change Over A Lifetime, And Usually For The Better by Christopher Soto

Greater Good Science Center: How Music Bonds Us Together by Jill Suttie

Psychology Today: The Making of a Mindful Leader by Ray Williams

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Positive Psychology News Digest on Mappalicious | No. 15/2016

My favorite pieces covering Positive Psychology and adjacent from (roughly) the last seven days:

Bakadesuyo: How To Be More Confident: 3 Secrets Backed By Research by Scott Barker

Fast Company: The Secret To Making Anxiety Work In Your Favor by Amy Cuddy

Sisu Lab: What’s Your 4-Minute Mile? by Emilia Lahti

Washington Post: Why this Wharton wunderkind wants leaders to replace their intuition with evidence by Jena McGregor

Fast Company: How to identify and get rid of the hidden beliefs that could be holding you back by Gwen Moran

Washington Post: The surprisingly easy way to reduce your anxiety by Amy Ellis Nutt

Guardian: Forget mindfulness, stop trying to find yourself and start faking it by Michael Puett & Christine Gross-Loh

New York Times: Angela Duckworth on Passion, Grit and Success by Julie Scelfo

Harvard Business Review: Good Bosses create more Wellness than Wellness plans do by Emma Seppälä

Forbes: Becoming The Kind Of Leader You Would Want To Follow by Brett Steenbarger

Science Daily: Can money buy happiness? maybe, if you spend it according to your personality type, no author

Mappalicious News Digest

The Anatomy of Mappalicious – 2015

I’ve already posted an article listing the 10 most-read pieces on Mappalicious for 2015. On that note, I’m happy to announce that I did reach my goal of getting +100,000 pages views for the year. 2016, I want to see at least 200,000. That’s a stretch goal, but who knows what will happen. 🙂

So, here are some further stats for 2015.

How did people land on my blog?

Who brought traffic to Mappalicious
Clearly, Facebook brought the most traffic, and I’m pretty sure that a big chunk of that came from the Positive Psychology group. I also would like to thank Seph Fontane Pennock of PositivePsychologyProgram.com for being the only referrer to make the top 10 that’s not a social media site or search engine.

Where do my readers live?

Geography of Mappalicious readers
Most of my readers are from the USA, and additionally, some Commonwealth members make up big chunk (UK, Canada, Australia, India). Happy to see that my home country Germany made No. 2 even though the blog is written in a foreign language.

What keywords were my readers searching for?

Mappalicious search terms
Unfortunately, most search keywords are not disclosed. Other than that, one can see that a lot of people were looking for information on psychological constructs (hopefully, leading them to this page). Really happy to see Emilia Lahti, the Queen of Sisu, making this list.

What did people do after visiting Mappalicious?

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Most people went to Twitter, probably because they had been reading this list of some 100 Positive Psychology profiles to follow. Robert Biswas-Diener, co-author of The Upside of Your Dark Side, got the most clicks. Additionally, a lot of people went straight to Amazon,* hopefully buying tons of books. These three books received the most clicks:

*Note to myself: sign up with Amazon´s affiliate system…

March 20 is International Happiness Day! Join our virtual Conference feat. +30 Positive Psychology Experts

International_Happiness_Day_2015Ever since 2012, March 20 is UN´s International Happiness Day. All around the world, people will celebrate and host events to educate their fellow human beings on all things happiness, well-being, and flourishing.

And I´m in as well – as part of a Virtual Happiness Conference. 32 fellow Penn Mappsters were interviewed on their favorite Positive Psychology subject, among them a lot of people you might already know because they were featured on Mappalicious in one way or the other, e.g. Emilia “Queen of Sisu” Lahti. All in all, there´s more than 24 hours of video material available.

All content will be online for free until March 26. After that, you can purchase the videos. Every cent will go to the Christopher Peterson Memorial Fellowship which helps future students to afford attending Penn´s MAPP program.

As for my part: I was interviewed by the fabulous Lisa Sansom on the role of Positive Psychology in coaching, the subject of Self-Permission, and the “German way” of Positive Psychology. This is the link to the conference site.

Enjoy – and please share to good news!

International Happiness Day Experts

There´s a Negativity Bias in your News. But not, if you follow these People on Twitter

A couple of weeks ago, I pusblished a list of 77 Positive Psychology People and Institutions to follow on Twitter which has grown by now to more than 90 accounts and was also picked by the friendly folks at Fulfillment Daily.

Today, I thought it would be a good idea to check my blog stats to see who profited the most from this. All in all, the post resulted in +4,500 klicks on people´s Twitter accounts. Here´s the Top-10 (excluding the Twitter list I created to follow all of those people):

Positive Psychologists on Twitter

So congratulations to Robert Biswas-Diener, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Paul Bloom, Dan Gilbert, Amy Cuddy, Robert Emmons, David Cooperrider, Jane Dutton, Emilia “Queen of Sisu” Lahti, and Jon Haidt. I hope those clicks converted to a lot of new followers for you!

77 Positive Psychology People and Institutions to follow on Twitter

Positive Twitter Update 2: If you´d like to follow all of the accounts mentioned below, you can do so by following this Twitter list I´ve created this morning.

Update 1: Thanks a lot for all the positive feedback to this post. Within just 12 hours, it has become one of the most-read on Mappalicious. Via your suggestions, the list is now at 90 Twitter accounts. Therefore, I´ve decided to copy/paste this post to the (permanent) Positive Psychology Resources section. Further suggestions to the list will be added there, not here.

Over the last four years, Twitter tweets could not be found via Google. Now, both companies announced a new partnership which makes sure tweets will be part of the search results again. This means Twitter will become (even) more important in the future. So I guess that’s a good reason to see what Twitter has to offer with regard to Positive Psychology. Below, you’ll find 77 Twitter accounts of researchers, consultants, coaches, writers, bloggers, instititions, associations, news outlets, and software tools. As always, this is meant to be work in progress. So if you feel you know somebody (or an institution etc.) that belongs on this list, please leave a comment below this article. If you want to make a suggestion, please stick to people that either are in research, or otherwise display an in-depth knowledge of Positive Psychology (visible through e.g., a corresponding university degree).

Researchers/Authors

Consultants/Coaches/Speakers/Writers/Bloggers etc.

Research Groups/Institutions/Association/Movements

Apps/Tech/Media

Top 10 Articles for 2014 on Mappalicious – Positive Psychology

Top 10I´ve written 157 posts on Mappalicious in 2014. My learning: Content curation (when it´s well done…) really draws large audiences. Posts No. 1, 2, 4, 6, and, to a lesser degree, 10 are lists of Positive Psychology articles, books, and videos.

Then, video content obviously works: No. 7 & 9 are beautiful video clips on Positive Psychology topics.

Additionally, there´s a lot of “Finn-Power” in this list. No. 5 is my first Mappsterview featuring the “Queen of Sisu”, Emilia Lahti, who´s recently given her first TEDx talk (must-watch). No. 8 is a fun article based on the marvelous work of Finnish super-hero philosopher Esa Saarinen.

Last not least, I´m happy to see that a very personal, slightly off-topic, post has made No. 3.

  1. Positive Psychology Articles
  2. Positive Psychology Constructs
  3. SCHLAAAAAND! How the Soccer World-Cup helps to Build a Likeable Version of the “German Nation”
  4. Positive Psychology at Work: A Book List for the Layman
  5. Mappsterview No. 1: Emilia Lahti, the Queen of Sisu
  6. My Top 20 TED(x) Talks on Happiness, Well-Being, Meaning & Co.
  7. Positive Psychology in a Nutshell: Watch this beautiful 5-minute Instructional Video
  8. The James Bond Philosophy of Life – in 007 Chapters
  9. A little Kindness goes a long Way: heart-warming Short Film about the Power of being a Giver
  10. My Mind´s MAP(P): The 4-minute Ivy League Diploma in Positive Psychology

 

Thanks a lot to all friends, frequent as well as less frequent visitors, and all those who “stumbled upon” Mappalicious by chance. See you in 2015!

 

Source for Top 10 graphic

Sisu – Transforming Barriers into Frontiers [TEDx]

Emilia Lahti, a fellow Penn MAPPster, and Queen of Sisu (as I like to call her) has finally given a TEDx talk. Sisu can be defined as fortitude, perseverance and indomitable determination in the face of extreme adversity. It´s part of the Finnish culture but obviously is not limited to Finns – everybody can display (and profit from) Sisu at times. Here you go…