Today’s ‘wordless’ articles offers a basis for thinking about the underlying attitudinal and leadership causes for today’s crisis in the global economy; and the only truly long-term cures that will prevent anything like this from happening again.

Is the pursuit of happiness the main cause of your problems and misery? We have no right to be happy, any more than we have a right to be rich, good looking, healthy or popular. If you are any of these, be grateful. If you aren’t, do what you can and accept the rest. Don’t add to your unhappiness by obsessing about it.

A ‘wordless’, visually-based posting this Monday. Here’s a diagram to show what matters when it comes to understanding and improving performance in the workplace—yours or that of someone who works for you. Use it to help focus your thoughts and reflections.

King Midas was a dream CEO. Thanks to the gift he requested from the god Dionysus, everything he touched turned to gold. That’s why ‘having the Midas touch’ has become a shorthand for anyone with exceptional money-making ability. Yet getting what you think you want often comes with a heavy—and unexpected—price.

With the global economy still working its way through a seemingly interminable series of financial crises and yo-yoing oil prices, companies are struggling to manage all the repercussions. Nina Simosko looks at the underlying causes of our on-going management malaise.

This Monday’s haiku-based thoughts are about whether working flat-out to get what you think you want are worth what it will cost you in other parts of your life.

Peter Vajda reminds us all that dreaming is not a strategy for success—nor is hope or willpower. If dreaming and visioning alone were sufficient, everyone who ‘dreams big’ would realize their dreams. Few ever do. Try looking instead at your life choices and how being unconscious has brought you to a ‘do-nothing’ place—then take the requisite actions and choices that alone will create positive change.

If, like many people, you focus mostly on what you haven’t got, what you haven’t done, and how your life doesn’t match your hopes and dreams, those negatives can easily come to dominate your thinking. Not only will this depress you, it will block your way towards all the things you do want to achieve. Don’t waste energy looking for gaps and deficiencies. Sure, you have some. Everyone does. Try using that energy to celebrate and build on what you do well. It’ll give you a far better payback.

How many times have you regretted an impulsive action — but realized the error too late? How often have you found that, after jumping in like that, you maybe didn’t get the whole story or see the complete picture? Are you obsessed with the feeling that you need to do something, so you shut down collecting information in favor of acting on the little you already know — or think you do. Peter Vajda has some important questions to ask anyone with a knee-jerk, reactive response to engage in some way, rather than take enough time to listen first.

Why do some people constantly put things off? Most often, something is operating “underneath” their procrastination — some conflicting commitment or fear that explains why they are resisting what they know needs to be done. Peter Vajda takes you through questions that can help you probe beneath the symptom of procrastination to get at the root causes. By staying with your responses and inquiring deeply into them, you can raise your level of awareness about the true nature of your resistance.