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Navi Radjou: Creative problem-solving in the face of extreme limits

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Navi Radjou has spent years studying "jugaad," also known as frugal innovation. Pioneered by entrepreneurs in emerging markets who figured out how to get spectacular value from limited resources, the practice has now caught on globally. Peppering his talk with a wealth of examples of human ingenuity at work, Radjou also shares three principles for how we can all do more with less.

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What do you want your future self to be? 

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What do you want your future self to be? 

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Daniel Goldstein: The battle between your present and future self

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Every day, we make decisions that have good or bad consequences for our future selves. (Can I skip flossing just this one time?) Daniel Goldstein makes tools that help us imagine ourselves over time, so that we make smart choices for Future Us.

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Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend

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Stress. It makes your heart pound, your breathing quicken and your forehead sweat. But while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new research suggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case.

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The Power of Organizing: Betsy Hoover at TEDxDePaulU

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Success, failure and the drive to keep creating

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Elizabeth Gilbert was once an “unpublished diner waitress,” devastated by rejection letters. And yet, in the wake of the success of ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’ she found herself identifying strongly with her former self. With beautiful insight, Gilbert reflects on why success can be as disorienting as failure and offers a simple -- though hard -- way to carry on, regardless of outcomes.

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Now is the time to stay in the moment!

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When is the last time you did absolutely nothing for 10 whole minutes? Not texting, talking or even thinking? Mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe describes the transformative power of doing just that: Refreshing your mind for 10 minutes a day, simply by being mindful and experiencing the present moment. (No need for incense or sitting in uncomfortable positions.)

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Find your spartk!

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Simon Sinek: CHANGE YOUR FUTURE - Life Changing Motivational Speech

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If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend fifty-five minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about the solutions.” ~ Albert Einstein

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”~ Albert Einstein

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” ~ Soren Kierkegaard

“Problem-solving leaders have one thing in common: a faith that there’s always a better way.” – Gerald M. Weinberg

“Running away from a problem only increases the distance from the solution.” – Anonymous

“A problem is a chance for you to do your best.” ~ Duke Ellington

“Every problem is a gift. Without them we wouldn’t grow.” ~ Tony Robbins

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Freeman Hrabowski: 4 pillars of college success in science

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At age 12, Freeman Hrabowski marched with Martin Luther King. Now he's president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), where he works to create an environment that helps under-represented students -- specifically African-American, Latino and low-income learners -- get degrees in math and science. He shares the four pillars of UMBC's approach.

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The Difference Between Winning and Succeeding.

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The Difference Between Winning and Succeeding.

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John Wooden: The difference between winning and succeeding

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With profound simplicity, Coach John Wooden redefines success and urges us all to pursue the best in ourselves. In this inspiring talk he shares the advice he gave his players at UCLA, quotes poetry and remembers his father's wisdom.

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True Colors inventory assessment with information about each color

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What color is your true personality? If you want to move up in the working world, you need to know your strengths and weaknesses. That will make it easier to ace an interview or a job assessment. This Color Personality test will provide you with insight that you can use, whether you already have a job or if you're looking for one right now. Small businesses and Fortune 500 companies alike use this test to assess their employees, and now you can take it from the comfort of your own home.

This test will give you a brief but effective personality profile. The result is that you'll know what you're best at, and where you can improve. This test is based on the popular theories of color psychology. Based on the work of people such as Carl Jung, this test will give you your personality color, which is determined by the answers you give to the questions. This test will give you valuable insight into how you interact with others at work and in your personal life. This personality color test will also help you to better understand your strengths and weaknesses. You'll get a quick read on what your personality color is and what colors you work best with. This personality color test will also help you to understand your best career path. So, what color is your personality? Take this test to find out!

What are the 4 personality colors?

The 4 personality colors are red, blue, yellow and green.

1. Blue - Conservative and structured

2. Orange - Progressive and innovative

3. Yellow - Optimistic and enthusiastic

4. Green - Balanced and practical

Can colors really tell your personality?

Colors are not completely perfect in describing your personality. However, it is a good way to know more about yourself. People often use colors to express their feelings - for example, you can easily understand people by looking at their clothes. Colors are also used for decorating your room. You can decorate your room with colors that reflect your personality.

What is True Colors personality test?

The test is based on a theory of personality, which was created by two researchers, Paul Costa and Robert McCrae. They believe that personality is a combination of five main factors:

1. Openness to experience

2. Conscientiousness

3. Extraversion

4. Agreeableness

5. Neuroticism

This theory is called "Five Factor Model" or "Big Five". The results are very accurate if you were honest and answered the questions of the test honestly.

Taking the Color Personality Type Test

As you move through the quiz, you will answer a series of questions that will provide insight into your personality. The questions won't have anything to do with colors. Instead, you'll answer questions related to the type of car you would choose and what you do when you're given a briefing paper. Move through the personality quiz, answering each question honestly. It's important that you look at each question critically and give the correct answer so you will receive an accurate score.

Personality Color = Personality Type

After you take this Hartman-style color quiz, you'll receive one of four colors as your score. The colors are red, blue, white, and yellow. Each color is associated with a set of your true personality traits.

Red is a power color. If you score a red, you are logical and determined. You are able to look at tasks without emotion. This makes you a great leader. You're able to go in and make the difficult decisions that others can't make.

Blue is the color associated with perfectionists. People who score a blue are loyal, committed, and creative employees who can get the job done, even in stressful situations.

White is the color of peace. People associated with this color avoid confrontation and are incredibly patient. These employees work great in groups. They get along with everyone, even people who are known to be difficult.

Yellow is associated with enthusiasm and fun. These people are also very persuasive. They are natural-born salespeople and are excellent at getting people on board with projects.

Use Your Skills to Your Advantage

Once you know what color is your true personality, use that knowledge to your advantage. Highlight your skills in your next interview or job assessment. Your hiring manager or boss will be impressed that you have taken the assessment and will be excited to see how you use your skills to help the company thrive.

What's Your Personality Type?

According to psychologists, there are four different personality types. You can be a Performer, Intellectual, Guardian, or Idealist. Your personality type says a lot about you. It explains your strengths and weaknesses, and it even provides you with insight into your vices. Unfortunately, you probably don't know what personality type you are, so you don't understand yourself very well. You can change that today. Take this test to find out more about your personality type. Then, you can use your personality type to your advantage.The Personality Types While you can change certain things about yourself, your personality type is set in stone. It is the reason that you are who you are. If you are a Performer, you are warm, funny, and skilled. You can take center stage or create paintings or crafts to share with the world. Your personality makes you a great entertainer, and you excel around people. Intellectuals are rational people. They are drawn to problems and love finding solutions. If you are an Intellectual, you might be into research. You could even be a professor at a university. If you are a Guardian, you are a law abiding citizen. You believe in duties and responsibilities, and you follow the rules. As a Guardian, you like to take care of others. You might be a doctor or a nurse or simply take care of your partner. You have to find some sort of outlet to take care of people. Idealists are dreamers. If you have this personality type, you are constantly imagining the possibilities. You go after your goals, but you make sure they don't compromise your ideals. Your conscious weighs heavily on you if you do compromise your ideals.Use Your Personality to Your Advantage After you discover your personality type, use it to your advantage. Go after the right job and live the right dreams. Live an authentic life in every way that you can. When your goals match up with your personality type, it is much easier to reach them. Get started with the test and invite your friends to do the same. When everyone knows who they are, it is much easier to be authentic.

Music Personality Type Quiz

You express your personality in many different ways. You express it in the clothes you wear, the food you eat, and the music you put on at the end of the day. In fact, the music you listen to tells people more about you than almost anything else. This music personality quiz is a great way to find out more about who you are. Take the quiz to take a closer look at your personality. You might be surprised about what your musical style says about you. It's More than Just the Notes Musical personality is more than just the notes that come through the speaker system. It's about the concert's setting, the food that you eat when you're there, and the clothes the performers wear when they're on stage. When you commit to a style of music, you commit to a complete lifestyle and atmosphere. That commitment says a lot about you as a person, which is why a music personality quiz is the perfect way to explain who you are as a human being. Finding the Balance Music is about balance, and so is your personality. When you get the results from your test, you won't just learn who you are. You'll also get some ideas on how you can balance yourself to round out your musical personality. Do you have a rock musical personally? Maybe you can learn to embrace the quiet from time to time. Maybe you have a classical musical personality and you need to open up your ears to some other types of music occasionally. This balance will make you a well-rounded person. Dance It Out with Your Friends Music is about dancing, so don't be afraid to share this quiz with your friends. Have your dance partners take it to find out what their personalities are, as well. Maybe you are dancing to rock and they're dancing to techno. That might be why you're always stepping on each other's toes. Find a rhythm you can dance to together, and you'll glide through life. You don't have to be a mystery any longer. Take the quiz today and learn more about yourself.

Your Appearance: Are You Overly Concerned?

Most people are concerned with their appearances to a degree, but some people cross the line. They flip out if they get a gray hair and they can't walk past a mirror without giving themselves a look. These people go beyond normal concern. They are obsessed. If you're obsessed with your appearance, you can end up spending all of your time worrying about how you look. You might stay in if your stylist cancels an appointment, and you probably spend half the day trying to get the perfect selfie. It's a stressful way to live. Of course, if you're obsessed with your appearance, there is a good chance that you don't even realize it. You're just being you, and you don't see that your concern has turned into an obsession. It's time to take a closer look at how you think about your appearance to find out if you are overly concerned or care the appropriate amount. Take this quiz to find out how concerned you are with your appearance.Where Do You Fall? When you get your results, you will find out if you're low maintenance, high maintenance, or somewhere in the middle. As with most things in life, it's best to not be too extreme when it comes to your appearance. You want to care, but you shouldn't care so much that it is the only thing that you think about all day long. Look at your results and see if there are changes that you need to make to live a more balanced life. If there are, get to work and retake the test to see if the changes worked.Invite Your Friends to Take the Test This test is even more fun when your friends get involved. Share your results and ask your friends to take the test and share their results, as well. Then, you can find out which members of your group are high maintenance and which people are balanced. It's easy to stress out about your looks, but life is easier when you're balanced. Find out where you are on the scale and then make some adjustments so you can be happier.

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? Color Personality Test: What Color Are You?

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The color personality test is used by large companies to assess current and potential employees. Click here to take it now (no registration required)!

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I know you are, but what am I?

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Personality types

Understand others

In our free type descriptions you'll learn what really drives, inspires, and worries different personality types, helping you build more meaningful relationships.

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Free personality test, type descriptions, relationship and career advice | 16Personalities

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Personality types In our free type descriptions you'll learn what really drives, inspires, and worries different personality types, helping you build more meaningful relationships.

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These two Enneagram tests help you determine which personality type you are.
Yourwing will also be indicated.
Some suggestions on getting the most accurate results are below.

Classical enneagram test

This test has pages with 9 questions or less (1 for each Enneagram type). You'll get less questions per page after having answered enough questions to establish which types you are not.

Enneagram test with instinctual variant

With this test you get pairs of character traits to rate. It is quicker than the other test, and indicates your instinctual subtype as well.

Getting accurate results from these Enneagram tests

It's important to answer the questions honestly. Try not to answer them in terms of how you would like to see yourself, but in terms of how you actually are, or have tended to be in the past.

Actually it is not so easy to answer the questions honestly, as we all want to see ourselves as better than we are, and we often have preconceived ideas about ourselves that are not really true.

For instance, if you resent being fearful, you might have worked to develop courage to compensate, but the fear is still there beneath the surface.
Sometimes a trait might be so inconsistent with our self-image, that we actually deny having it ourselves, but become annoyed by it when we see it in others. Also, we might falsely think that we possess some desirable quality that we admire in others.

To derive accurate results from any Enneagram test, it is important to be aware of these very natural tendencies, and to answer the questions honestly.

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These two Enneagram tests help you determine which personality type you are. Yourwing will also be indicated. Some suggestions on getting the most accurate results are below. This test has pages with 9 questions or less (1 for each Enneagram type). You'll get less questions per page after having answered enough questions to establish which types you are not.

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Inside the mind of a master procrastinator

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Inside the mind of a master procrastinator

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Inside the mind of a master procrastinator

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Tim Urban knows that procrastination doesn’t make sense, but he’s never been able to shake his habit of waiting until the last minute to get things done. In this hilarious and insightful talk, Urban takes us on a journey through YouTube binges, Wikipedia rabbit holes and bouts of staring out the window -- and encourages us to think harder about what we’re really procrastinating on, before we run out of time.

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Great leaders start with the WHY!

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Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action | TED Talk

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Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership -- starting with a golden circle and the question: “Why?” His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Wright brothers…

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The difference between success and failure is a great team. Here's how to inspire yours

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Define what separates good leaders from great ones. Share these leadership quotes with your team members when they need a bit of motivation.

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10 Powerful Quotes on Leadership for Your Organization

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We gathered a few quotes about leadership from noteworthy leaders, helping us define what separates good leaders from great ones. Read the Top 10 today!

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Jorg Greuel/Getty Images

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The coronavirus pandemic is expected to fundamentally change the way many organizations operate for the foreseeable future. As governments and businesses around the world tell those with symptoms to self-quarantine and everyone else to practice social distancing, remote work is our new reality. How do corporate leaders, managers, and individual workers make this sudden shift? Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School, has spent two decades helping companies learn how to manage dispersed teams. In this edited Q&A, drawn from a recent HBR subscriber video call in which listeners were able to ask questions, she offers guidance on how to work productively at home, manage virtual meetings, and lead teams through this time of crisis.
Are organizations prepared for this sudden transition?
The scale and scope of what we're seeing, with organizations of 5,000 or 10,000 employees asking people to work from home very quickly, is unprecedented. So, no, organizations are not set up for this.
What's the first thing that leaders and individual managers can do to help their employees get ready?
Get the infrastructure right. Do people have the requisite technology or access to it? Who has a laptop? Will those who do [have laptops] be able to dial into their organizations easily? Will they have the software they need to be able to do work, have conference calls, etc? What about the employees who don't have laptops or mobile devices? How do you make sure that they have access to the resources they need to do work? Direct managers have to very quickly ensure that every employee has full access, so no one feels left behind.
What should people who aren't accustomed to remote work do to get psychologically ready for it?
Develop rituals and have a disciplined way of managing the day. Schedule a start and an end time. Have a rhythm. Take a shower, get dressed, even if it's not what you'd usually wear to work, then get started on the day's activities. If you're used to moving physically, make sure you build that into your day. If you're an extrovert and accustomed to a lot of contact and collaboration with others, make sure that still happens. Ask yourself: How will I protect myself from feeling lonely or isolated and stay healthy, productive, and vibrant? Create that for yourself.

Remember that you might actually enjoy working from home. You can play the music you like. You can think flexibly about your time. It can be fun. As for managers, they need to check in on people. Make sure not only that they're set up but also that they have a rhythm to their day and contact with others. Ask: "What can I do to make sure that this sudden and quick transition is working for you?"
How should those check-ins happen? As a group? In one-on-ones? Via phone calls? Or video chats?
First, you should have a group conversation about the new state of affairs. Say, "Hey, folks, it's a different world. We don't know how long this is going to last. But I want to make sure you all feel that you have what you need." This should be followed by a team launch to jump-start this new way of working. Figure out: How often should we communicate? Should it be video, phone, or Slack/Jive/Yammer. If you're not using one of those social media systems, should you? What's the best way for us to work together? You've got to help people understand how to do remote work and give them confidence that it will work.

Once those things are sorted out, meet with your group at least once a week. In a remote environment, frequency of contact cannot go down. If you're used to having meetings, continue to do so. In fact, contact should probably go up for the whole team and its members. Newer employees, those working on critical projects, and people who need more contact will require extra one-on-ones. Remember, too, that you can do fun things virtually: happy hour, coffee breaks, lunch together. All these things can help maintain the connections you had at the office. There's ample research showing that virtual teams can be completely equal to co-located ones in terms of trust and collaboration. It just requires discipline.
How does working from home affect psychological health? What can employers do to make sure that people are staying focused, committed, and happy?
People lose the unplanned watercooler or cappuccino conversations with colleagues in remote work. These are actually big and important parts of the workday that have a direct impact on performance. How do we create those virtually? For some groups and individuals, it will be constant instant messaging. For others, it will be live phone conversations or video conferences. Some people might want to use WhatsApp, WeChat, or Viber. A manager can encourage those types of contact points for psychological health. People are not going to be able to figure these things out organically. You've got to coach them. One more piece of advice: Exercise. It's critical for mental well-being.
What are the top three things that leaders can do to create a good remote culture?
There are more than 10,000 books in the English language on Amazon on virtuality and how to lead remotely or at a distance. Why is that? Because this is very difficult to do, and managers have to actively work on it. Number one, make sure that team members constantly feel like they know what's going on. You need to communicate what's happening at the organizational level because, when they're at home, they feel like they've been extracted from the mothership. They wonder what's happening at the company, with clients, and with common objectives. The communication around those are extremely important. So you're emailing more, sharing more.

During this period, people will also start to get nervous about revenue goals and other deliverables. You'll have to make sure they feel like they're going to be OK. Another thing is to ensure that no members feel like they have less access to you than others. At home, people's imaginations begin to go wild. So you have to be available to everyone equally. Finally, when you run your group meetings, aim for inclusion and balance the airtime, so everyone feels seen and heard.
How will these changes affect productivity?
Productivity does not have to go down at all. It can be maintained, even enhanced, because commutes and office distractions are gone. Of course, you might be at home with your partner or kids, and those issues will need to be worked out. Another problem might be your ability to resolve problems quickly when you can't meet in person, in real time. That might create delays. But other than that, I don't see productivity going down. There's robust evidence showing that it shouldn't change.
If the social distancing policies go on for a while, how do you measure your employees' productivity and eventually review them on that work?
I'll say this to every manager out there: you have to trust your employees. This is an era and a time in which we have to heed Ernest Hemingway's advice: "The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." You can't see what people are doing. But equip them in the right ways, give them the tasks, check on them like you've always done, and hope they produce in the ways you want them to. You can't monitor the process, so your review will have to be outcome-based. But there's no reason to believe that, in this new environment, people won't do the work that they've been assigned. Remote work has been around for a very long time. And today we have all of the technologies we need to not only do work but also collaborate. We have enterprise-wide social media tools that allow us to store and capture data, to have one-to-many conversations, to share best practices, and to learn.
Let's talk about virtual meetings. What are some best practices, beyond the general advice to clarify your purpose, circulate an agenda, prepare people to be called on, and so forth?
First, you have to have some explicit ground rules. Say, "Folks, when we have these meetings, we do it in a nice way, we turn off of phones, we don't check emails or multitask." I highly recommend video conferencing if you have the ability to do that. When people are able to see one another, it really makes a difference. And then you trust people to follow the ground rules.

Number two, because you no longer have watercooler conversations, and people might be just learning how to work from home, spend the first six to seven minutes of a meeting checking in. Don't go straight to your agenda items. Instead, go around and ask everyone, "How are you guys doing?" Start with whomever is the newest or lowest status person or the one who usually speaks the least. You should share as well, so that you're modeling the behavior. After that, you introduce the key things you want to talk about and again model what you want to see, whether it's connecting, asking questions, or even just using your preferred technology, like Zoom or Skype for Business.

The last thing is you have to follow up these virtual meetings with redundant communication to ensure that people have heard you and that they're OK with the outcome. Say you have a video conference about a topic. You follow it up with an email or a Slack message. You should have multiple touchpoints through various media to continue the trail of conversation.
And how do you facilitate highly complex or emotionally charged conversations when people aren't face to face?
You can only raise one or two of these topics because you don't have the time or opportunity to work things through after the meeting. You can't just walk to people's offices to follow up. So, be very thoughtful about what you bring up and when and how you do it. But you can still have these conversations. Allowing people to disagree in order to sharpen the team's thinking is a very positive thing. Sometimes, in virtual environments, people don't feel psychologically safe, so they might not speak up when they should. And so you might even want to generate or model a little of disagreement - always over work, tasks or processes, of course, never anything personal.
In light of various daycare and school closings, how do you discuss children and childcare?
Leaders should be prepared for that conversation and to help people think those issues through. The blurring of boundaries between work and home has suddenly come upon us, so managers have got to develop the skills and policies to support their teams. This might involve being more flexible about the hours in which employees work. You don't have to eat lunch at 12pm. You might walk your dog at 2pm. Things are much more fluid, and managers just have to trust that employees will do their best to get their work done.
We've talked about internal communication, but what advice do you have for people in client-facing functions?
We've been seeing virtual sales calls and client engagements. You do the exact same things. Here, it's even more important to use visual media. Take whatever you would be doing face-to-face and keep doing it. Maybe you can't wine and dine. But you can do a lot. Be creative.
What do you do in an organization where you have a mix of both blue- and white-collar workers? Or for those colleagues who aren't properly equipped?
The organizations have to figure out a way to support those workers: some kind of collective action to help them because otherwise you're completely isolating people who are critically important to your operation. I would put together a task force, and I would find solutions to keep them connected and ensure that they still feel valued. And include them in the planning.
If you sense that, despite your best efforts, an employee is struggling - not focused, lonely - what can you do?
When you see the signs - like fewer emails or more inhibition in group conversations - talk to them. Increase contact and encourage others to, as well. Understand where they are. And get them what they need. Organizations should also make sure to have employee assistance services at this time. When you're suddenly taking away people's regular routines and connection with others, and it's open-ended, some will struggle and need extra help. I would add that every CEO of every organization needs to be much more visible right now - through video conferencing or taped recordings - to give people confidence, calm them down, and be healers- or hope-givers-in-chief.
Do you see this crisis changing the way all teams and organizations operate going forward?
I think it's going to broaden their repertoires. Organizations, teams, and people will experiment more with virtual work. Many of them have always wanted to test it as way of expanding their reach or labor force. It's not that people are going to permanently adopt this new format of work, but this experience will expand everyone's capacity. If there's a tiny positive aspect to this mess we're finding ourselves in, it's that we're developing certain skills that could helpful in the future. That's my deepest hope.

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15 Questions About Remote Work, Answered

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We've made our coronavirus coverage free for all readers. To get all of HBR's content delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Daily Alert newsletter. The coronavirus pandemic is expected to fundamentally change the way many organizations operate for the foreseeable future.

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Tips to work remotely! Applicable as a professional or student.

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Tips to work remotely! Applicable as a professional or student.

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Gajus/Getty Images

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As my class began on Thursday (March 10 th), I looked around at my undergraduate and graduate students. Their faces were somber. I asked how they were doing, but I already knew. Harvard and Princeton had, days earlier, announced that they were closing in response and as a precaution to the COVID-19 pandemic. My wife, a professor at Holy Cross, told me the night before that her students were informed they would have a week to pack up and leave their dorms.

My students were waiting to get an email from Christina Paxon, the president of Brown University. It was rumored that Brown may be closing for the rest of the semester and the announcement was scheduled to go out early that morning. But here we were, at 9am, sitting in a technology-free seminar without access to our phones or computers.

Even though their devices were off, my students' phones were burning holes in their pockets. My tech-free policy was blocking them from receiving vital information. Did the email go out yet? What was it going to say? Their slumped shoulders told me that they were in no mood for debate. They needed to know what was going to happen to them today. This email was going to affect their lives in significant ways - particularly my seniors', some of who were holding back tears. Their "senior spring" was destined to go down in the record books as the most memorable, and not in a good way.

Perhaps the most difficult part of this pandemic is the uncertainty we are all facing. Uncertainty about how contagious and deadly Coronavirus is. Uncertainty about the travel that we have planned. Uncertainty about the economy. Uncertainty about our jobs.

Yet, uncertainty can be compared to a virus itself, one that is only adding fuel to the anxious fires burning in many of us. This is because uncertainty triggers the fear centers in our brains. Knowing how this process works, however, can help us take proper countermeasures and develop better mental hygiene.

First, it's important to understand that fear is a basic human mechanism. It helps us survive. When something scares us, we are triggered, and through fear, we learn to practice behaviors that will help us avoid that danger in the future. When we successfully avoid that danger, we then feel rewarded. We inherited this three-step mental process from our ancient ancestors: see saber-toothed tiger (trigger), run away (behavior), live to tell our kids to avoid that part of the savanna (reward).

While fear helps us survive, when mixed with uncertainty, it can lead to something quite bad for our mental health: anxiety. And when anxiety is spread by social contagion - defined as the spread of affect from one person to another - it can lead to something even more problematic: panic. Just like walking into a party and suddenly feeling like you're in a "social mood" when you hadn't been moments before, fear and anxiety are two emotions that spread easily from one person to another.

Worse, thanks to social media, you don't need to be in physical contact with people to catch an "emotional infection." While many people on social media have good intentions and intend to share useful information about Coronavirus with the masses, as they report supply shortages and speculate on how bad things might get, they may be inadvertently doing the opposite. Constantly scrolling through the latest news on your phone or desktop is like walking by people who are sneezing fear. The more you read, the more you are likely to take on their worry, and spread it. The problem is that these emotions keep us from being able to think straight, and when overdone, they no longer protect us from dangers. Rather, they become the danger.

There are ways to combat this. Perhaps one that may be really effective, according to my research and that of others, is mindfulness.

The class I was teaching at Brown on Thursday morning serves as a case in point. In that particular seminar, my students are taught about the various scientific methods that are used to study the process and outcomes of mindfulness training. That day, we were scheduled to explore the relative benefits and detriments of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as a tool for measuring the neural correlates of mindfulness. Put plainly, we were examining whether peering into someone's brain as they meditate is an effective way to gather accurate information and move the scientific field of mindfulness, which is still very novel, forward. The students had been assigned to read some early studies that my lab published on the effects of mindfulness back in 2011. I was particularly interested in hearing how they digested the research. But I needed to help them calm their anxieties before we could move forward.

We spent the first fifteen minutes of class meditating, the same way we had begun each class this semester. (It is hard to measure how mindfulness works if you don't first have a sense of what it is.) I led them in a type of meditation called "loving kindness." This practice is aimed at awakening and fostering our inherent capacity for kindness and connection. It is a type of mindfulness that my lab has studied for years. We've found that loving kindness decreases activity in the very same brain regions that get fired up when people are anxious.

More recently, we've found that even simple, app-based mindfulness training, which teaches people how to use a number of in-the-moment exercises, significantly reduces anxiety in healthcare workers. We found a 57% reduction in clinically-validated measures of anxiety in stressed physicians. This kind of training also reduces anxiety in people with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. We found a 63% reduction in anxiety in our NIH-funded randomized controlled trial.

With this context, loving kindness meditation seemed like the perfect Purell for my students' minds that morning.

I asked my students to close their eyes and take a deep breath. I told them to bring to mind dear friends or family pets, and ground themselves in feelings of love that arise when they picture those images. I told them to repeat silently to themselves simple heartfelt phrases of kindness (e.g. "May you be happy.") as anchors to keep them in the present moment. The practice is as simple as this: bring to mind a family member, a pet, a loved one, and silently offer them a phrase of well-wishing that feels authentic to you. Use the image and repeat the phrases at your own pace to help you stay anchored in the present moment. If your mind wanders, simply bring back to mind the image and begin repeating the phrase again.

After we finished the meditation, they were visibly more relaxed, but still not ready to engage with the day's discussion. With the hope that they were more armed with some calm and present-centered awareness, I broke my technology-free classroom rule, and let my students check their phones for the anticipated email from President Paxon. I could tell by their eyes that it had arrived. They were glued to their screens.

I asked one student to read the email aloud to the class. Brown was moving to online learning for the rest of the semester. Classes were cancelled for the following week, and students were expected to vacate their dorms as soon as possible. They were also expected not to return to campus after spring break the following week. Though President Paxon tried to convey a hopeful note, writing that Brown was working to ensure that seniors and alumni could return to campus for graduation and reunions, I could see many of my students were defeated.

We spent the next fifteen minutes discussing how to utilize the very mindfulness training practices that we were dissecting in the course (breath awareness, loving kindness, etc.) to help them prevent the spread of social contagion, and maintain healthy mental hygiene. I encouraged them to begin as soon as they walked out of class. Beyond loving kindness, here is what we discussed. If you find yourself experiencing similar anxieties, I recommend you try them too:

1) Run a code. In medical school, when I learned how to "run a code" - our code for resuscitating someone who's heart had just stopped - I was taught to first stop and take my own pulse. This reminded me to pause and take a deep breath (or three) before proceeding. Taking a mindful pause works by keeping the thinking parts of our brains "online" so we can help rather than hinder. Taking a moment to pause in stressful situations, whether that means you take three deep breaths or simply pay attention to the feeling in not-anxious parts of your body (like your feet or your hands), helps ground you in calmer emotions. Especially for people who haven't practiced mindfulness before, focusing on the parts of your body where you typically feel anxiety, such as your chest or stomach, only heightens your awareness of the negative feeling, and often makes it worse. That's why grounding yourself in more neutral areas can help you stay connected to yourself in the present moment without triggering more anxiety. Another way to do this is to anchor your awareness in an external object (e.g. look out a window at trees or nature, or listen to the sounds around you). These are simple, ten second practices that anyone can do. Practice them when you feel your heart beginning to race as a sign of a social sniffle, so that you don't sneeze and spread social contagion.

2) Get in touch with your "calm." On top of simple mindfulness practices, you can also take a moment to pause and notice what it feels like when you are calm among the storm of people unknowingly spreading social contagion. When you do, you will notice that calm feels a lot better than anxiety. Use this to hack your brains' reward centers. When given a choice, our brains will learn to perform the action that is most rewarding. Calm is the obvious, more rewarding choice when compared to anxiety. The more you practice it, the more it will become your norm rather than your exception. You can also look around to see if your calm catches. It might not be as contagious as fear, but done over and over, it can go a surprisingly long way to not only disinfect your brain, but spread that natural immunity that comes when you step back and see that we are all in this together.

3) Take it one day at a time. Our brains are hardwired to plan for the future. We don't have enough information right now about how this pandemic is going to play out to plan 6 months down the road. If/when you notice that your brain is starting to spin out into future thinking and worry, take a mindful pause and remind yourself to take it one day at a time. Do what needs to get done today, and then take care of tomorrow, when it comes: tomorrow. When it comes to information, the closer to now you stay, the more clearly you will be able to think. For example, you can check in with yourself right now to see if you are hungry or thirsty. Based on that information, you can decide whether you need to eat or drink something. You cannot only remind yourself to take it one day at a time, but if needed, to help you stay calm, use an even smaller timescale. Ask: What do I need to do this hour? Take on the day hour by hour, minute by minute, and even moment by moment if thats what it takes to stay grounded in the present moment.

Knowing that uncertainty can spread social contagion through the viral vector of anxiety and coupling this with some simple mindfulness practices can help us all stay mentally connected and spread calm instead of germs. In moments of doubt, use the above practices to calm your mind, to stay present, and move forward.

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Anxiety Is Contagious. Here's How to Contain It.

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We've made our coronavirus coverage free for all readers. To get all of HBR's content delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Daily Alert newsletter. As my class began on Thursday (March 10 th), I looked around at my undergraduate and graduate students. Their faces were somber.

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by Branden Stewart

I'm one of the most "Type A"people I know. Throughout my adult life, I've been the man with the plan and someone who can be trusted to get things done. I thrive in the black and white of it all, and I recognize my shortcomings when it comes to navigating through shades of gray. How I wish I could be the guy who can sit back and just go with the flow sometimes!

I can trace so many of my organization and execution skills back to my time as a student leader in my fraternity in college. Looking back, the biggest hurdles I had to worry about were related to things that seem so silly in retrospect: making sure we had a large enough room reservation, micromanaging our campus award applications, navigating a new council-implemented recruitment rule, or scheduling retreats around everyone's busy calendars. All of those things pale so drastically with what's facing chapter leaders, advisors, and campus professionals today.

As the man with a plan, these last few weeks have been... rough.

And if they're rough for me, with a decade of professional experience navigating all the hurdles that life and work throws at all of my carefully laid plans, I can only imagine how rough they might be for you right now. I'm especially thinking about all my "Type A" get-it-done planners and executors.

...I'm thinking about all of the sage New Member Educators and Intake Chairs who were working hard to cultivate a welcoming member experience for their newest brothers and sisters.

...I'm thinking about all of the chapter presidents who were working with their executive boards to execute carefully curated calendars and strategic plans.

...I'm thinking about the talented recruitment leaders who were getting a jump-start in Fall Recruitment by building their names list, training their members, and collaborating with council leaders and headquarters teams.

...I'm thinking about all of the seniors graduating this semester who have suddenly had their final months on campus thrown into uncertainty, perhaps not being able to participate in traditions and rituals they've waited years to experience.

...And I'm thinking about all of the plans I've had over the years that didn't go exactly how I'd hoped. Like I said, I'm most comfortable when things are a clear-cut black and white. But what I've learned over the years is that so many things rarely go according to plan. Sometimes, all you can see in front of you is that gray area. What we are experiencing today is on a whole new level. Right now, no matter which way any of us turn, everything is gray and unknown.

So what can you do as a "planner"? As someone who "gets things done"? As someone who hates to be sitting around, waiting for direction? I've got a few ideas.

1) Take a moment and call your fraternity brothers or sorority sisters. I'm so often caught up in "the plan" that I forget the people who help make the plan happen. I bet some of you are the same way. You can't have a thriving chapter without members who are committed to it. And leaders sometimes unintentionally distance themselves from their people. Chapter leaders like you can make a big difference for some of your members by simply picking up the phone, making a call, and connecting. Connection is comforting, and desperately needed, especially in times like these.

2) Reflect on your performance so far. Rarely do we get a moment to step back, analyze, and be introspective about how we're performing as leaders. It's even more rare to find a chance to do that mid-semester! You've been given a special opportunity to slow down. What are some of the things you're proud of so far in how 2020 has been going? Double down on those things going forward (to the best degree that you're able)! Are there areas where you could improve your performance or planning? Now is a great time to hit the reset button on yourself, and recalibrate to get things back on track.

3) Make a plan to make the plan. We don't know everything about how today's pandemic will affect tomorrow's reality, but we have some ideas of how things might go. Do you have a strategic plan for the semester, philanthropy goals, recruitment benchmarks, or other measurable standards you were hoping to reach this year? Now is a good time to assess the current reality of where you are, what's coming next, and what may truly be attainable. Perhaps you can schedule some mini-meetings virtually with your fellow leaders within your chapter, or even peers from your council, to talk through what needs to happen next to achieve and modify your goals.

You don't have to wait for the storm to pass, feeling crippled by the lack of certainty of what's to come. You can take time to reconnect with your chapter brothers and sisters. You can reflect and take stock of your year so far. And you can make a plan to make the plan.

Here's what we do know: This is an unprecedented time for all of us. We are all doing the best we can with the information we have. No one is quite sure what's next, but we can count on each other moving forward as we begin making plans for the future of fraternity and sorority in the wake of this watershed moment in our global society.

You have been given an exceptionally difficult task: to remain a leader in this time of great uncertainty. And I'm confident that you can navigate through the gray areas ahead of you to make a plan which will get things in your chapter and on your campus back on track when the time comes.

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What Do You Do When Things Don't Go According to Plan?

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by Branden Stewart I'm one of the most "Type A"people I know. Throughout my adult life, I've been the man with the plan and someone who can be trusted to get things done. I thrive in the black and white of it all, and I recognize my shortcomings when it comes to navigating through shades of gray.