Half an hour of exercise in the morning makes for better interactions all day. Then a sound night of sleep gives me energy to tackle the next day. I am a more active parent, a better spouse, and more engaged in my work when I eat, move, and sleep well.

Tom Rath

When your boss and colleagues care enough to invest in your health, it is good for you and the business.

Tom Rath

If my colleagues stop eating donuts and are more active, it saves me money on next year's insurance premium, and I get to work with people who have more energy and creativity each day. Yet most organizations fail to make health a cultural priority. Instead, they treat healthcare like any other expense.

Tom Rath

Making better choices takes work. There is a daily give and take, but it is worth the effort.

Tom Rath

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.

Tom Rath

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.

Tom Rath

The real energy occurs in each connection between two people, which can bring about exponential returns.

Tom Rath

What we've learned is that if you can make the right decision in the supermarket aisle, it's a heck of a lot easier to make a good decision when you reach in your cupboard when you're craving a snack at eight o'clock at night.

Tom Rath

Positive defaults protect you from yourself - and that helps you to make decisions in the moment that are better for your long-term interests.

Tom Rath

When you ask people what affects their wellbeing most, they think of health and wealth.

Tom Rath

The most important thing executives can do is send a very clear message to their employees that they care about each person's overall wellbeing and that they want to be a part of helping it improve over time.

Tom Rath

Positive defaults align our short-term decisions with our long-term interests. And we don't always do that.

Tom Rath

When top scientists and psychologists talk about what's important to our overall wellbeing and how satisfied we are with our lives, the only thing that they all agree on is that social relationships are probably the single best predictor of our overall happiness.

Tom Rath

There's a conventional wisdom that says that strategic thinking is much more important than relationship building, which doesn't seem to be nearly as highly valued as it should be, based on what some of the leaders that I've spoken with have said to me.

Tom Rath

There is certainly some predisposition to wellbeing, based on the research I've looked at. There are people who have a lot more natural discipline. But for most of us, it takes a lot more in terms of social expectations, where, say, we tell people we're going to run a 5K.

Tom Rath

When I speak with people who love their jobs and have vital friendships at work, they always talk about how their workgroup is like a family.

Tom Rath

Most people perceive their occupation as being a detriment to their overall wellbeing.

Tom Rath

What works for one person's needs is almost always very different from the next.

Tom Rath

While the things that motivate us differ greatly from one person to the next, the outcomes do not.

Tom Rath

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.

Tom Rath

Exercise is not enough. Working out three times a week is not enough. Being active throughout the day is what keeps you healthy.

Tom Rath