Parker Houston

Master Your Inner Saboteurs

by Parker Houston | Sep 22, 2022 | How People Change, The Science of Mindset

In working with my own coach, today’s topic has helped me personally more than almost any other mechanism—exposing the inner saboteur. Furthermore, the people I have coached...

10 Best Practices for Hiring (and Keeping) a Top Team

by Parker Houston | Sep 15, 2022 | Killer Teams Made Simple

Ever since I became a manager 12 years ago, I’ve been curious about best practices for hiring. I’ve been part of organizations that struggled to keep vacancy rates of over...

Leadership Lessons From Winston Churchill—The Roaring Lion

by Parker Houston | Sep 8, 2022 | The Practices of Personal Leadership

It’s hard to imagine a more difficult leadership assignment in the history of the world than what Winston Churchill faced. There is a reason his most iconic portrait by...

Right Speech: A Leaders Words Matter

by Parker Houston | Sep 1, 2022 | The Practices of Personal Leadership

Few things are more important that a leader’s words. A careless word can wound for a lifetime. An encouraging word might energize someone for a year. A badly timed reaction...

What is Good or Bad? A Tao Parable

by Parker Houston | Aug 25, 2022 | Self Leadership

A farmer and his son lived on a farm in the countryside. They owned a beautiful horse they cherished deeply. The farmer entered the horse into a village contest and won...

Live Your Life That the Fear of Death Can Never Enter Your Heart

by Parker Houston | Aug 18, 2022 | The Practices of Personal Leadership

Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion. Respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love...

The Top 5 Regrets People Have at the End of Life

by Parker Houston | Aug 11, 2022 | The Science of Happiness

“Regrets are illuminations come too late.” –Joseph Campbell The BIG IDEA: What if you could know what most people regret at the end of life and use that information to...

Perfectionism—The Number One Joy Killer

by Parker Houston | Aug 4, 2022 | The Science of Happiness

In a prior post, I summarized the main findings from the 75-year study at Harvard on happiness. While reading the study, one sentence absolutely jumped off the page at...

The Relationship Between Happiness and Success

by Parker Houston | Jul 21, 2022 | The Science of Happiness

The modern formula for success is broken. In today’s world, most people act as if they believe that happiness will be a guaranteed result of success. But if that were true,...

The 5 Most Common Happiness Traps at Work

by Parker Houston | Jul 14, 2022 | The Science of Happiness

“Most people climb the ladder of success only to realize it was leaning against the wrong building.” –Stephen Covey Several years ago I had a shot at what I thought was my...

Lessons in Happiness from 75 Years of Harvard Research

by Parker Houston | Jul 7, 2022 | The Science of Happiness

“I wish everyone could experience being rich and famous, so they could know it wasn’t the answer to anything.” –Jim Carey In the last 100 years, science has come a very long...

Using the Science of Decision Fatigue to Improve Your Leadership Decisions

by Parker Houston | Jun 30, 2022 | Self Leadership

It used to be that my wife would save her most complex and difficult questions for me until after 8pm when our kids are in bed and we finally have 2 minutes to talk. As an...

Have you contracted Device Disease? What research tells us.

by Parker Houston | Jun 23, 2022 | The Practices of Personal Leadership

“Technological progress has merely provided us with a more efficient means for going backwards.” –Aldous Huxley The Big Idea: According to research, constantly checking our...

What is the good life?—Research on the 7 Habits of Happy People

by Parker Houston | Jun 16, 2022 | Leading During COVID19, The Science of Happiness

“Our greatest fear in life should not be of failure, but of succeeding in life at things that don’t really matter.” –Francis Chan The Big Idea: Whether you lead a business,...

When Helping Hurts

by Parker Houston | Jun 9, 2022 | The Pillars of Family Leadership, The Practices of Personal Leadership

“Give a person a fish and they eat for a day. Teach a person to fish and they eat for a lifetime.” –Lao Tzu A few months ago, I was getting my three-year-old daughter ready...

Jose Alvarenga—Surviving More Than A Year Lost At Sea

by Parker Houston | Jun 2, 2022 | The Practices of Personal Leadership, The Science of Mindset

If you have never heard of Jose Alvarenga, you will want to hear his incredible story of survival at sea. I first heard this story last year while reading 438 Days—by...

Vacations are not enough, daily and weekly recovery is essential

by Parker Houston | May 26, 2022 | Optimal Performance Series

“A field that has rested produces a bountiful crop.” –Ovid I’ve shared a lot of research about how vacations are essential to keep you functioning optimally at work...

Mudita: The Antidote To Envy

by Parker Houston | May 19, 2022 | The Practices of Personal Leadership

“It is in the character of very few, to honor without envy, a friend who has prospered.” –Aeschylus There is a famous story about the Buddha which teaches an essential life...

Feel the Fear, Then Do It Anyway

by Parker Houston | May 12, 2022 | The Science of Mindset

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.” –Henry Ford In 1987 psychologist Susan Jeffers wrote her bestselling book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway,...

The Trial is My Teacher

by Parker Houston | May 5, 2022 | The Practices of Personal Leadership

“Accept whatever comes to you, woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?” –Marcus Aurelius Theodore Roosevelt was born with crippling...

All Great Thinking Begins With a Growth Mindset

by Parker Houston | Apr 28, 2022 | The Practices of Personal Leadership, The Science of Mindset

“Failure is the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely.” –Henry Ford Regarding core principles of personal leadership, few things are more important than...

Resist Nothing

by Parker Houston | Apr 21, 2022 | The Practices of Personal Leadership

Until he was 29 years old, Eckhart lived in a near-permanent state of severe anxiety and suicidal depression. He was quite miserable in his life, living in a constant state...

Could Taking More Vacation Days Help You Get a Raise?

by Parker Houston | Apr 14, 2022 | Optimal Performance Series

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it…including you.” –Anne Lamott According to Greg Mckeown, bestselling author and winner of the Young Global Leader Award...

Fly or Die? The Counterintuitive Truth About Power

by Parker Houston | Apr 7, 2022 | The Practices of Personal Leadership

Herds of buffalo are extremely loyal followers of one leader. They do what the leader does, they go where the leader goes. If the leader isn’t there, they stand around not...

Are You Immune To Changing?

by Parker Houston | Mar 31, 2022 | How People Change

Today’s Big Idea: We all have a kind of emotional immune system that may be hidden from our awareness and preventing us from making changes we want to make in our lives....