Study after study across an astonishing range of socioeconomic, demographic, and life circumstances has reached the same conclusion: Happiness climbs high early in adulthood but begins to slide downward in the late thirties and early forties, dipping to a low in the fifties.

Tuckman believed that all teams proceeded through four stages: forming, storming, norming, and performing. We

I’ve gone from nap detractor to nap devotee, from someone ashamed to nap to someone who relishes the coffee-then-nap combination known as the “nappuccino.”*

2. Mind Meld. This exercise promotes a more conceptual type of synchronization. Find a partner. You count to three together, then each one of you says a word—any word you want—at the same time. Suppose you say “banana” and your partner says “bicycle.” Now you both count to three and utter a word that somehow connects the two previous words.

it turns out that caffeine interferes with the production of cortisol—so starting the day immediately with a cup of coffee barely boosts our wakefulness. Worse, early-morning coffee increases our tolerance for caffeine, which means we must gulp ever more to obtain its benefits. The better approach is to drink that first cup an hour or ninety minute

In any dynamic system, the initial conditions have a huge influence over what happens to the inhabitants of that system.28

Those who entered the job market in weak economies earned less at the beginning of their careers than those who started in strong economies— no big surprise. But this early disadvantage didn’t fade. It persisted for as long as twenty years.

Adhav is a dabbawala. (Dabba is the Hindi word for those metal tiffin boxes, wala is an amalgam of “doer” and “merchant.”)

Try a jigsaw classroom. In the early 1970s, social psychologist Elliot Aronson and his graduate students at the University of Texas designed a cooperative learning technique to address racial divisions in the recently integrated Austin public schools. They called it a “jigsaw classroom.” And as it slowly took hold in schools, educators realized the