What is bLife ?

“Self control is like any other muscle in your body. It gets tired when you use it too much, but it also builds when you exercise it regularly”

Heidi Grant Halvorson is a social psychologist, author of the book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals, and serves on the Board of Advisors for the Motivation Science Center at the Columbia University Business School. She received her PhD from Columbia University and her BA in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Choosing what goals to pursue and staying motivated and proactive can be very challenging. Heidi’s research attempts to conquer these challenges by uncovering the links between goal-pursuit and psychological benefits like self-regulation, achievement, and wellbeing.

Heidi is a popular expert blogger for Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Psychology Today, SmartBrief’s SmartBlog on Leadership, Forbes, and Huffington Post, as well as a regular contributor to the BBC World Service’s Business Daily. Her scientific publications appear in prestigious journals like the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, European Journal of Social Psychology, and Judgment and Decision Making.

She is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and was elected to the highly-selective Society for Experimental Social Psychology.

“The good news: it *is* possible to be happier!”

Originally from Russia, Sonja received her A.B., summa cum laude, from Harvard University and her Ph.D in Social/Personality Psychology from Stanford University. She currently teaches courses in social psychology and positive psychology and serves as the Department of Psychology's graduate advisor.

One of Sonja’s major findings is that people have control over their happiness and it is possible for everyone to become happier. It turns out that on average about 50% of our happiness is determined by heredity, only 10% is determined by circumstances, and the remaining 40% lies directly in our own hands, dependent only on actions and behavior. That 50/40/10 split is actually good news, as we have significant control over our own happiness.

Sonja’s teaching and mentoring of students have been recognized with the Faculty of the Year and Faculty Mentor of the Year Awards. Lyubomirsky has been awarded a Templeton Positive Psychology Prize, as well as grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, Notre Dame University’s Science of Generosity Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Her book, The How of Happiness, which has been translated into 18 languages, describes her work on the possibility of permanently increasing happiness.

“Positive emotions awaken our deepest motivation, our life force, powering us to rise above life's challenges”

Margaret Moore/Coach Meg is a 17-year veteran of the biotechnology industry in the UK, Canada, US, and France. In 2000, she shifted to prevention and well-being and founded Wellcoaches Corporation - strategic partner of the American College of Sports Medicine, now a standard-bearer for professional coaches in healthcare and wellness having trained more than 6,000 health professionals as health and wellness coaches in 32 countries.

Margaret is co-founder and co-director of the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and co-director of the annual Coaching in Leadership & Healthcare conference offered by Harvard Medical School. She co-leads the National Consortium for Credentialing of Health & Wellness Coaches, a consortium of 73 organizations which is developing a national certification, training and education standards, and a collaborative coaching research agenda.

She is the lead author of the first coaching textbook in healthcare, the Coaching Psychology Manual and co-authored “Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life,” translating the neuroscience of brain organization into self-coaching tools. She publishes blogs at Psychology Today and Huffington Post and tweets @coachmeg.

“As humans we are social beings, so we are very interested in other people as we are interested in ourselves”.

Jason Rentfrow is professor of psychology at Cambridge University and a fellow and director of Studies at Fitzwilliam College. He received his BA in in psychology and Ph.D in personality and social psychology from the University of Texas at Austin.

One of Jason’s most fascinating findings has to do with the mapping of personality traits and wellbeing into geographical regions in the country and worldwide. His work uncovered the different composite personalities and wellbeing profiles of different towns, suggesting that where you live not only affects how you are doing, but also who you are.

Jason's research has been published in international peer-reviewed journals, presented at international scientific conferences, and featured in radio, television and print media, including the BBC, NPR, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Sunday Times, Washington Post and Science. He has also served as a consultant to the BBC, Harris Interactive, GD Worldwide, The Soundlounge, True.com and the Science Centre NEMO in Amsterdam.

“…people are surprised to discover how optimistic they really are”

Tali Sharot has a Ph.D. in psychology and neuroscience from New York University and is currently a research fellow at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London. She is the author of “The Optimism Bias – A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain”. Her research on optimism, memory, and emotion has been published in leading scientific journals including Science, Nature and Nature Neuroscience, and the subject of features in Newsweek, The Boston Globe, Time, The Wall Street Journal, New Scientist, The Washington Post, the BBC and more. She lives in London.

“The key to creating effective health technology is engagement. For health technology to work, people have to like using it”.

Joshua Smyth is Professor of Biobehavioral Health and Medicine at the Pennsylvania State University. His research takes an interdisciplinary approach using psychological, behavioral, social, and biological factors to understand and improve human health and functioning.

Josh’s research is focused on the following questions:

1. What are the effects of experiencing stress on psychological and physical wellbeing?
2. Can we assess stress, emotion, and health in an ecologically relevant manner that facilitates our understanding of bio-psychosocial processes as they unfold in time and in natural context?
3. Can psychological and behavioral interventions improve health and wellbeing?

He has published in excess of 100 articles and chapters in a variety of medical and psychological journals or books, and has received continuous grant support over the last decade from the National Institutes of Health to study stress, coping, and health processes.

Josh is regularly interviewed in national media including ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, PBS, Newsweek, Time and the New York Times, all of which have featured coverage of his research. Finally, he is an active and engaged teacher, and has received numerous accolades and awards for teaching and mentoring of students and trainees.