Positive Psychology Conference and Twitter

From June 18-21, the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) hosted The First World Congress on Positive Psychology in Philadelphia . I attended and used Twitter to capture the experience. (Conference hashtag: "#IPPA"; my Twitter ID: "ggci".)

Here's some of my Tweets (plus some additional reflections added while posting this to my blog):

1. Heading out to Philly for International Positive Psychology Association conference. #ippa
   [9:30 AM Jun 18th]


2. If you see me at #ippa - Barry Zweibel, GottaGettaCoach!, Chicago, @ggci - please stop and say hello to a fellow Twitterer. (And many did.)
   [10:17 AM Jun 18th]


3. Three flight delays and 1, 2, 3, now 4 gate changes and I'm STILL at O'Hare. I'm soooo ready for some #IPPA positivity!
   [12:17 PM Jun 18th]


4. Day One of #IPPA getting ready to start. Last night's pre-conference lecture last was jam-packed! Already meeting some Tweeps!
   [6:05 AM Jun 19th]


5. #IPPA - 1500-plus attendees from 52 countries. Wow! (Fasinatingly, Positive Psychology seems more popular in Australia and Canada than in the U.S.)
   [7:17 AM Jun 19th]


6. #IPPA - Distinction: Happiness as getting what you want vs. wanting what you already have. (Research shows that getting what you want isn't the key to happiness ... it comes more from truly appreciating all that you already DO have.)
   [8:43 AM Jun 19th]


7. #IPPA - Happiness is a function of BOTH mindset AND circumstance. Individual results can and DO vary greatly. (Two schools of thought have developed in Positive Psychology: Martin Seligman represents the former; Philip Zambardo, the latter. Both, and their constitients are coming to realize that they're two sides of the same coin.)
   [9:02 AM Jun 19th]


8. #IPPA - Accurately measuring happiness and meaningfulness is not as easy as you might think! (Think about it. How DO you measure happiness and meaningfulness - especially when so many people define the terms in such different ways?)
   [10:13 AM Jun 19th]


9. #IPPA - lunchtime: Logan Square, museums, cars, people, a lovely fountain, and several street-side hot dog vendors - Mmmmm Good! (Having grown up near NYC, hot dogs, knishes, pretzels, and chestnuts, etc. bought at ridiculously low prices from pushcarts and trailers is real comfort food for me.)
   [12:14 PM Jun 19th]


10. #IPPA - Coach's Creed - Get to know your strengths as well as possible and how you might better apply them to your challenges. (The operative question is always: "Knowing what my strengths are, how can I apply them to the challenges I'm currently facing?")
    [2:51 PM Jun 19th]


11. #IPPA - To increase courage, focus on: 1) plan to reach goal; 2) value of outcome; 3) mitigating risk; and 4) controlling fear. (More on different types of courage in an upcoming blog post.)
    [4:29 PM Jun 19th]


12. #IPPA - Now for dinner with a client who works in Philly. Good fun! – bz (Thanks, BD. Great seeing you again.)
    [4:59 PM Jun 19th]


13. #IPPA - Good Morning! Starting the day by meeting another client for breakfast. Then back to the conference. Good stuff. (Thanks, DW. Great to have finally met in person!)
    [6:16 AM Jun 20th]


14. #IPPA Got good and soaked walking back from breakfast this morning. Quick change of clothes and then rejoining conference. (It was a 'positive' rain!)
    [12:30 PM Jun 20th]


15. #IPPA Research shows more self-reflection does NOT aid goal-attainment; having more insights does. Per study, coaching creates insights. (Implication: We often default to self-reflection when we lose focus on our goals; but insights are what natrually occur when we stay fully-connected to the process of achieving our goals.)
    [12:33 PM Jun 20th]


16. #IPPA - per Csikszentmihalyi: "We are shapers of our future - where shall evolution be heading?" (Talk about long-term planning! It's not "What do you feel like for dinner?", it's "What can we do today to affect how the human species evolves over the next 50-75,000 years!" Fascinating notion that we can affect evolution, isn't it?!)
    [2:44 PM Jun 20th]


17. #IPPA - per hotel maintenance guy: "I ain't got time for all this 'glad' shit." (My absolute favorite line from the whole conference!)
    [2:45 PM Jun 20th]


18. #IPPA Much research happening in the Positive Psychology world. Coaching profession waaaay behind curve on this. Good wakeup call. (Coaches tend to assume, or assert something as fact, and proceed accordingly. Researchers actually prove it using scientific method, statistical analysis, and rigourous peer-review. It's quite impressive, actually.)
    [3:05 PM Jun 20th]


19. #IPPA - I do believe I've met more people from *outside* of the US than within at this conference. Amazing! (Brazil, Turkey, Hungary, England, Australia, Canada, South Africa, France, Korea, Japan, Scotland, Jamaica, Greece, Russia, Switzerland, and Italy, to name just a few of their homelands.)
    [8:41 PM Jun 21st]


20. #IPPA - Burns lecture on metaphors was like, um ... a neat new story with both relevance and insight into the power of metaphors! (Get it?! I used a metaphor to describe a lecture on metaphors!)
    [12:43 PM Jun 12st]


21. Tweeting turned out to be a fun way to consolidate learning at #IPPA. Of course, much more to it than just tweets. (Hence these 'green' addendums and sure-to-follow other writings about the conference.)
    [12:46 PM Jun 21st]


22. Time for me to now say my #IPPA goodbyes (including to that maintenance guy!) and head back to Chicago. Safe travels, all. [12:54 PM Jun 21st]


23. P.S. #IPPA - Delayed flights 'bookend' my conference experience. What's the Positive Psychology p-value* of that, I wonder?! [2:13 pM Jun 21st] (As a guess -- because I'm a coach and not a researcher -- I'd say there's quite a positive correlation between flying in and out of ORD and being delayed!)

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(*Note: P-value is a statistical tool used to measure the probability that the particular participants used in a study were suitably representative (or not unrepresentative, as it were) of people as a whole and is a very big deal when reporting on ones research findings.)