Quotes from Tom Rath

Executives must place a priority on wellbeing if they want to attract the right people, keep their best people, and drive their company's financial performance.

I act as if my life depends on each decision. Because it does.

I always thought there were some people who were just destined to be disengaged in their jobs because that was their personality, and no matter how hard managers tried, there wasn't much they could do with some of those people.

Don't worry about breaks every 20 minutes ruining your focus on a task. Contrary to what I might have guessed, taking regular breaks from mental tasks actually improves your creativity and productivity. Skipping breaks, on the other hand, leads to stress and fatigue.

Washington is not a city that takes great pride in being a healthy place, necessarily. Now, I have no data. That's just my own observation.

I think trust is primarily built through relationships, and it's important because it's the foundational currency that a leader has with his team or his followers.

You need a lot of effort and talent to produce greatness.

One's single greatest strength may be uncovering the hidden talents of another person.

The pursuit of meaning, not happiness, is what makes life worthwhile.

Our relationships with people are formed by small moments - and relationships are crucial in business.

When we asked people if they would rather have a best friend at work or a 10% pay raise, having a friend clearly won.

Employees who report receiving recognition and praise within the last seven days show increased productivity, get higher scores from customers, and have better safety records. They're just more engaged at work.

If you want to improve your life and the lives of those around you, you must take action.

Every day, I read about new ideas and research that could help someone I care about live a longer and healthier life.

I've seen the same thing emerge in the research around the interaction of sleeping and moving and eating: if you get a good night's sleep, you are significantly more likely to make the right choices about what you eat the next morning, you're more likely to work out, you're more likely to get a better night's sleep the next night.

People with high levels of wellbeing have been careful to work out early in the morning and not to have heavy meals throughout the day because you kind of fall off a cliff in terms of your energy by 2 or 3:00 if you have a lunch with a lot of heavy foods.

Leaders need to be thinking constantly about what they're doing to create a basic sense of security and stability throughout an organization.

From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to our shortcomings than to our strengths.

At a very basic level, people need to know that there is constancy in their jobs and, more broadly, in where the organization is headed.

I would absolutely recommend against excessive positivity and optimism. Any positive emotion that you're infusing into a workplace needs to be grounded in reality. If it's not realistic, sincere, meaningful, and individualized, it won't do much good.

Clearly, there aren't enough positive moments or interactions happening in the workplace. As a result, our economy suffers, companies suffer, and individual relationships suffer.

Even if people just change two or three things that they are able to sustain over time, it makes quite a difference eventually.

The quickest way to be a little bit happier and more engaged in your job is to spend some time thinking about developing closer friendships.

Regardless of your age, you can make better choices in the moment. Small decisions - about how you eat, move, and sleep each day - count more than you think. As I have learned from personal experience, these choices shape your life.