Make your holiday more meaningful, memorable and filled with love for others by co-creating your own, distinctive tradition that enables you to deepen friendships and demonstrate a willingness to bear witness to the pains and the joys you have experienced over the past year.

Use your feelings of outrage and sadness about the Sandy Hook shooting as fuel to hone your capacity turn more situations into opportunities to bring out others happier and higher-performing side. All of us can reduce violence by using connective cues to boost convivial behavior before hurt feelings turn into violent action. Here are eight ways to act and speak to others’ positive intent, especially when they appear to have none.

Upside to the current barrage of political mudslinging: Ironically one of the best times to start or deepen friendships is when insults are flying because the contrast between your calm, thoughtful ways of engaging will stand in sharp contrast to the surrounding hostile atmosphere. Practice these six ways of communicating to connect.

The results, announced today, of a massive social experiment involving 61 million Facebookers, led to the creation of an algorithm that, if used by either political party, might tip the scales of this presidential election. Yes, that’s a staggering conclusion. The discovery may also alter target marketing, and word of mouth and cause campaigns.
It may even boost Facebook’s stock price. It will certainly affirm the inordinate value of our close friends, especially those we know online and in the real world. Consequently our collective and individual behavior in all these spheres, on line and in real life, may morph more swiftly as people tinker with the results of this study.

If you’re new to MovingFromMeToWe.com, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!How well do you understand how gut instincts influence your likes, dislikes, and even your attention span? Want to find out? Here are nine questions. Some of the answers may surprise you. 1. Do people get along better when talking [...]

While happiness books are all the rage, none begin by showing us the inescapable first step to connecting with others.   Yet having social ties is the single best predictor of a longer, healthier, more satisfying life.  That seemingly mundane step? Attention. When hired by Disney to observe what infants and toddlers paid the most attention [...]

Recently two friends broke trust with me. One offered to do something that was vital to me, didn’t and didn’t tell me. Another shared private information about me with a stranger who then told several people who work with me. I don’t know which betrayal felt worse. I do know they can be seen as [...]

Brisk early morning walks along the Sausalito waterfront as the sun comes up over Angel Island are somehow sweeter, when shared with a friend or three. Walking in step in the fresh air, pointing, turning – all that motion makes unexpected memories come to mind. Talk is unexpected, sometimes more candid yet one comes home [...]

Even when blindfolded, when touched just fleetingly we often recognize the emotion behind it. Even when touched by a stranger. Those touched in the study could identify the emotion (from eight, ranging from disgust to sympathy) more often than could happen by chance. Yet they were touched just five seconds. More surprising to me, is that we are [...]

… do you have relatives or friends you can count on to help you whenever you need them?”  That’s one question in Gallup’s recent poll of 140 countries. It turns out that the wealthier and more stable your country the more likely it is that you have friends to whom you can turn.  (Guess which country tops the [...]