Tom Rath quotes:

Employees who report receiving recognition and praise within the last seven days show increased productivity, get higher scores from customers, and have better safety records. They're just more engaged at work.

When I speak with people who love their jobs and have vital friendships at work, they always talk about how their workgroup is like a family.

We engineered activity out of our lives in the name of convenience. We created foods that put fried, fatty, sweet, and salty ahead of fresh, natural, and healthy. We quickly sacrifice sleep to work longer hours in pursuit of the American Dream. Even when we do these things with good intentions, they have life-threatening consequences.

Half an hour of exercise in the morning makes for better interactions all day. Then a sound night of sleep gives me energy to tackle the next day. I am a more active parent, a better spouse, and more engaged in my work when I eat, move, and sleep well.

Ignoring negative things that need to be changed is destructive and does nothing to alleviate negativity. Instead, we should focus on the way we're treating other people in our brief interactions with them.

When we look at what has the strongest statistical relationship to overall evaluation of your life, the first one is your career well-being, or the mission, purpose and meaning of what you're doing when you wake up each day.

I think trust is primarily built through relationships, and it's important because it's the foundational currency that a leader has with his team or his followers.

Don't worry about breaks every 20 minutes ruining your focus on a task. Contrary to what I might have guessed, taking regular breaks from mental tasks actually improves your creativity and productivity. Skipping breaks, on the other hand, leads to stress and fatigue.

If a school makes an effort to provide kids the right foods and help them to be more active, this benefits the student and the family's health. If you embark on a program to improve your health with a church or community group, you are more likely to stick with it over time.

Regardless of your age, you can make better choices in the moment. Small decisions - about how you eat, move, and sleep each day - count more than you think. As I have learned from personal experience, these choices shape your life.

Wanting a more positive environment isn't enough. You need to do something, and it doesn't require a great deal of effort or some huge change in the way you approach things at work.

I've seen people be effective, even among local teams, by offering something that improves wellbeing in a small way - people who get passionate about smart investment strategies and managing finances for retirement, for example.

For wellbeing to take hold, it's got to be something that individual team members are getting excited about in their own lives. It can't be something that a company is forcing top-down through hierarchical structures.

Positive defaults protect you from yourself - and that helps you to make decisions in the moment that are better for your long-term interests.

I would absolutely recommend against excessive positivity and optimism. Any positive emotion that you're infusing into a workplace needs to be grounded in reality. If it's not realistic, sincere, meaningful, and individualized, it won't do much good.

When your boss and colleagues care enough to invest in your health, it is good for you and the business.

Executives must place a priority on wellbeing if they want to attract the right people, keep their best people, and drive their company's financial performance.

People with high levels of wellbeing have been careful to work out early in the morning and not to have heavy meals throughout the day because you kind of fall off a cliff in terms of your energy by 2 or 3:00 if you have a lunch with a lot of heavy foods.

Washington is not a city that takes great pride in being a healthy place, necessarily. Now, I have no data. That's just my own observation.

I first found out I had cancer on my eye and lost an eye to this disease when I was 16, and I've since had cancer in my kidneys and pancreas and a host of other areas.

When top scientists and psychologists talk about what's important to our overall wellbeing and how satisfied we are with our lives, the only thing that they all agree on is that social relationships are probably the single best predictor of our overall happiness.

There's a conventional wisdom that says that strategic thinking is much more important than relationship building, which doesn't seem to be nearly as highly valued as it should be, based on what some of the leaders that I've spoken with have said to me.

It's unrealistic to expect the person you go to for sage advice also to be the person you go out and have a good time with. And it's unlikely that he or she will be the same person who's pushing you and motivating you to do more every day, like a coach or manager does.

I've seen the same thing emerge in the research around the interaction of sleeping and moving and eating: if you get a good night's sleep, you are significantly more likely to make the right choices about what you eat the next morning, you're more likely to work out, you're more likely to get a better night's sleep the next night.

Our relationships with people are formed by small moments - and relationships are crucial in business.

Clearly, there aren't enough positive moments or interactions happening in the workplace. As a result, our economy suffers, companies suffer, and individual relationships suffer.

Team members care about one another, listen, share secrets, talk about the latest news, have heated arguments, are sometimes jealous of each other, and even cry together.

There is certainly some predisposition to wellbeing, based on the research I've looked at. There are people who have a lot more natural discipline. But for most of us, it takes a lot more in terms of social expectations, where, say, we tell people we're going to run a 5K.

StrengthsFinder 2.0' is an effort to get the core message and language out to a much broader audience. We had no idea how well received the first strengths book would be by general readers - it was oriented more toward managers - or that the energy and excitement would continue to grow.

Positive defaults align our short-term decisions with our long-term interests. And we don't always do that.

Figure out what you really love doing and use your strengths on a daily basis.

I think the term 'friend' itself has lost almost all of its exclusivity. Even the term 'good friend' is overused. Adding the word 'vital' provides a clear definition of what we mean.

The vast knowledge we have to prevent cancer, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses is staggering.

Making better choices takes work. There is a daily give and take, but it is worth the effort.

The right choices over time greatly improve your odds of a long and healthy life.

The quickest way to be a little bit happier and more engaged in your job is to spend some time thinking about developing closer friendships.

Even if people just change two or three things that they are able to sustain over time, it makes quite a difference eventually.

Even though people spend more of their waking hours at work than anywhere else, people underestimate how work influences their overall wellbeing and daily experience.

I've seen so many people - loved ones and colleagues - who jump from one diet to the next, one exercise regimen to the next . I was trying to figure out what were some of the basic things that each of us can build into a lifestyle for good, instead of bouncing from one thing to the next.

You need a lot of effort and talent to produce greatness.

I've spoken with a few employers who have moved away from what has to be some of the least attractive language you could use about health risk to start talking about wellbeing.

I act as if my life depends on each decision. Because it does.

We don't have any measures in most cases of the health of our social relationships, of what we're giving to the community.

Make it easier to do things that increase your wellbeing before you have to make a choice because a lot of our choices, though they seem small in the moment, have a big effect.

People who say they have a best friend at work are seven times as likely to be engaged in what they're doing. And if they don't have a best friend at work, the odds of being engaged are just 1 in 12.

I'm a researcher, so I'm realistic that there's nothing I'm doing that's going to prevent me from getting cancer in the future. But I can slow it down.

On average, spending time with your boss is consistently rated as the least pleasurable activity in a given day.

Followers need to see how things will get better and what that future might look like. Leaders need to build that foundation of stability, and hope sits on top of that.

No matter how healthy you are today, you can take specific actions to have more energy and live longer.

It's tempting to work more than 60 hours a week and sacrifice sleep, not move, and eat bad foods as they are convenient. But this comes with a cost.

The real energy occurs in each connection between two people, which can bring about exponential returns.

Exercise is not enough. Working out three times a week is not enough. Being active throughout the day is what keeps you healthy.

At a very basic level, people need to know that there is constancy in their jobs and, more broadly, in where the organization is headed.

Leaders need to be thinking constantly about what they're doing to create a basic sense of security and stability throughout an organization.

The most important thing executives can do is send a very clear message to their employees that they care about each person's overall wellbeing and that they want to be a part of helping it improve over time.

What works for one person's needs is almost always very different from the next.

When you ask people what affects their wellbeing most, they think of health and wealth.

Instead of celebrating what makes each child unique, most parents push their children to fit in so that they don't stick out. This unwittingly stomps out individuality and encourages conformity, despite these parents' good intentions

Today, researchers have identified a strong link between children's sleep patterns and their performance in the classroom. They found simply having a specific bedtime rule makes a profound difference. Children with higher sleep quality are more active and eat healthier foods. All of this research suggests we need to rethink sleep as a core family value."

People who have at least three or four very close friendships are healthier, have higher wellbeing, and are more engaged in their jobs. But the absence of any close friendships can lead to boredom, loneliness, and depression.

Far too many people spend a lifetime headed in the wrong direction. They go not only from the cradle to the cubicle, but then to the casket, without uncovering their greatest talents and potential.

Every day, I read about new ideas and research that could help someone I care about live a longer and healthier life.

If you want to improve your life and the lives of those around you, you must take action.

I first found out I had cancer on my eye and lost an eye to this disease when I was 16, and I've since had cancer in my kidneys and pancreas and a host of other areas,

The reality is that a person who has always struggled with numbers is unlikely to be a great accountant or statistician.

If we can find short-term incentives that are consistent with our long-term objectives, it is much easier to make the right decisions in the moment.

Perhaps the ultimate test of a leader is not what you are able to do in the here and now - but instead what continues to grow long after you're gone

The lesson here is clear: If you want people to understand that you value their contributions and that they are important, the recognition and praise you provide must have meaning that is specific to each individual.

the key to human development is building on who you already are

What great leaders have in common is that each truly knows his or her strengths - and can call on the right strength at the right time.

followers have a very clear picture of what they want and need from the most influential leaders in their lives: trust, compassion, stability, and hope

Spending on oneself does not boost wellbeing. However, spending money on others does -- and it appears to be as important to people's happiness as the total amount of money they make.

When we get at least six hours of daily social time, it increases our wellbeing and minimizes stress and worry. The six hours includes time at work, at home, on the telephone, talking to friends, sending e-mail, and other communication.

One's single greatest strength may be uncovering the hidden talents of another person.

When we asked people if they would rather have a best friend at work or a 10% pay raise, having a friend clearly won.

Most people perceive their occupation as being a detriment to their overall wellbeing.

Buying experience such as going out to dinner or taking a vacation increases our own wellbeing and the wellbeing of others. Experiences last while material purchases fade.

'StrengthsFinder 2.0' is an effort to get the core message and language out to a much broader audience. We had no idea how well received the first strengths book would be by general readers - it was oriented more toward managers - or that the energy and excitement would continue to grow.

What we've learned is that if you can make the right decision in the supermarket aisle, it's a heck of a lot easier to make a good decision when you reach in your cupboard when you're craving a snack at eight o'clock at night.

Friendships are among the most fundamental of human needs.

I always thought there were some people who were just destined to be disengaged in their jobs because that was their personality, and no matter how hard managers tried, there wasn't much they could do with some of those people.

If my colleagues stop eating donuts and are more active, it saves me money on next year's insurance premium, and I get to work with people who have more energy and creativity each day. Yet most organizations fail to make health a cultural priority. Instead, they treat healthcare like any other expense.

You would think that when someone accepts a position with a company, they would assume that their life will be better off because they have that job rather than a different one.

Although individuals need not be well-rounded, teams should be.

At its fundamentally flawed core, the aim of almost any learning program is to help us become who we are not.

Doing for others may be the only way to create lasting well-being.

Every hour you spend on your rear end ... saps your energy and ruins your health.

Every human being has talents that are just waiting to be uncovered.

Followers have a very clear picture of what they want and need from the most influential leaders in their lives: trust, compassion, stability, and hope.

From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to our shortcomings than to our strengths.

If you spend your life trying to be good at everything, you will never be great at anything.

If you want people to understand that you value their contributions and that they are important, the recognition and praise you provide must have meaning that is specific to each individual.

Instead of celebrating what makes each child unique, most parents push their children to "fit in" so that they don't "stick out." This unwittingly stomps out individuality and encourages conformity, despite these parents' good intentions

Its tempting to work more than 60 hours a week and sacrifice sleep, not move, and eat bad foods as they are convenient. But this comes with a cost.

Make work a purpose, not just a place.

People have several times more potential for growth when they invest energy in developing their strengths instead of correcting their deficiencies.

Positive words are the glue that holds relationships together.

Talent (a natural way of thinking, feeling, or behaving) Ã? Investment (time spent practicing, developing your skills, and building your knowledge base) = Strength (the ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance)

The absence of high-quality friendships is bad for your health, spirits, productivity, and longevity.

The pursuit of meaning, not happiness, is what makes life worthwhile.

The things that change people's lives are usually an accumulation of small acts.

There will be plenty of blame to go around but if you take credit for the sunshine, you also get blamed for the rain.

Wellbeing is about the combination of our love for what we do each day, the quality of our relationships, the security of our finances, the vibrancy of our physical health, and the pride we take in what we have contributed to our communities. Most importantly, it's about how these five elements interact.

What works for one persons needs is almost always very different from the next.

When I was in kindergarten, I entered a competition and read 52 books in a week.

When we can see an immediate payoff, we are more likely to change our behavior in the moment. This aligns our daily actions with our long-term interests.

When we're able to put most of our energy into developing our natural talents, extraordinary room for growth exists

You cannot be anything you want to be - but you can be a whole lot more of who you already are.